One Hand Clapping

Some short subjects

"Islam is what Muslims do" . . .
. . . was the name of an August posting of mine. Now that theme is echoed by Professor Bala Ambati, writing in Duke University's "Chronicle" newspaper.

Religions are defined not only by ideals but by realities, not just by their deepest and most beautiful insights, but by their adherents' behavior. . . . When moderate Muslims state terrorist attacks are disconnected from Islam, they ignore the reality that Islamic fundamentalist imperialists act in the name of Islam and Muslims, claiming "true Islam's" mantle from conspicuously absent moderates. . . . Until the realization that theocracies cannot be democracies dawns throughout the Islamic world, saying terrorism is disconnected from Islam is a smokescreen employed to abdicate responsibility to face reality.

I quote myself: "If what we are experiencing is not the real Islam, then the rest of the Muslims need to get the Islamic house in order. They need to understand that the present crisis is not just that of Islamists against the West, it is the Islamists against everybody who does not tow their line.

Hey you -- you "moderate" or "non-radical" Muslims! You're next. Better choose sides, because either side that wins will remember.

Concludes Dr. Ambati,

Moderate Muslims must choose whether to let megalomaniacs, liars, misogynists and murderers hijack societies and religion and pilot them into destruction's abyss. Sidelines are not moral high ground. Unequivocally repudiating and forswearing terrorist methods and imperialist aims of Islamic fundamentalism by moderate Muslims is overdue. This requires calling the present jihad by mujahadeen and martyrs awaiting paradise its name, hirabah (unholy war) by mufsidoon (evildoers) bound for jahannam (hell).

(via TR Fogey)

Nashville is first for US Marine recruiting
Best of the Web Today quotes the San Francsico Chronicle that much to the surprise of military recruiters, northern Califonia has proved fertile ground for new recruits. "In fact, Northern California ranked second to Nashville in the Marine Corps' national recruiting last year, according to Maj. Mark Johnson, commanding officer of Marine Recruiting Station San Francisco."

Just in case you missed it, that means that the single city of Nashville, population 1,187,521 in 2000, sends more men and women to the Marine Corps than half the entire state of California, population 34,501,130 (for the whole state; how many live in the northern half I don't know). And the Chronicle is apparently worried that the place is becoming too pro-military. Yeah, right.

Environmentalism is "the American Left at worship."
Thus sprach Christopher C. Horner in NRO Online, cited by Craig Alan Myers, who adds, "and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles" (Romans 3:23).

by Donald Sensing, 1/18/2003 10:09:40 AM. Permalink |

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