Saturday, July 16, 2005

Terminal Tolerance

Are you a fan of multiculturalism? Then don't read this article as you will have to face some hard facts about reality. And we wouldn't want that to happen, would we?

Nevertheless, here's an excerpt:

Only one faith on earth may be more messianic than Islam: multiculturalism. Without it — without its fanatics who believe all civilizations are the same — the engine that projects Islam into the unprotected heart of Western civilization would stall and fail. It's as simple as that. To live among the believers — the multiculturalists — is to watch the assault, the jihad, take place, unrepulsed by our suicidal societies. These societies are not doomed to submit; rather, they are eager to do so in the name of a masochistic brand of tolerance that, short of drastic measures, is surely terminal.
I'm not talking about our soldiers, policemen, rescue workers and, now, even train conductors who bravely and steadfastly risk their lives for civilization abroad and at home. I'm instead thinking about who we are as a society at this somewhat advanced stage of war. It is a strange, tentative civilization we have become, with leaders who strut their promises of "no surrender" even as they flinch at identifying the foe. Four years past September 11, we continue to shadow-box "terror," even as we go on about "an ideology of hate." It's a script that smacks of sci-fi fantasy more than realpolitik. But our grim reality is no summer blockbuster, and there's no special-effects-enhanced plot twist that is going to thwart "terror" or "hate" in the London Underground, any more than it did on the roof of the World Trade Center. Or in the Bali nightclub. Or on the first day of school in Beslan. Or in any disco, city bus or shopping mall in Israel.
It has been said repeatedly by those who know, that the United States cannot be defeated militarily in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and anywhere we go to fight the "War on Terror". I am not a military expert, but their assessment of the battlefield situation concurs with my own limited knowledge and seems straightforward and a true appraisal to me.

What concerns me as a psychiatrist is the fact that America’s (and civilization’s) victory over this terror seems to hang on a tenuous psychological thread. The question of the hour is: Will American’s resolve to win this war continue to erode as time goes on – as the enemy hopes and believes? Will the voices of those who relentlessly criticize, impede, and otherwise undermine efforts to achieve victory prevent us defeating an enemy that intends to muffle the voices of everyone?

Or, will America stand fast and unite for victory against ....whom?

The enemies of civilization must be named. How can people remain psychologically involved in the struggle when there is a overt attempt on the part of our leaders; our press and a good portion of the population to disguise who and what we are fighting?

Under the umbrella of "Political Correctness" and the multiculturalist's code of conduct; and out of fear of offending those who would kill us with a backward glance, we have failed to explicitly name who we are fighting against.

This omission on our part has a significant psychological impact. By merely referring to the enemy as “terrorists” we invite the substitution of numerous, less pejorative nouns (e.g. militants, insurgents, freedom-fighters, bombers, etc.) which, in fact, precisely is what has happened in the mainstream media—who we can safely list for the most part in the camp of enemy enablers. Slogans like, "one man's 'terrorist' is another man's 'freedom fighter'" are just another way to obscure the issue.

Since the early days of of human speech, the act of naming of a thing has always given one tremendous psychological power over that thing.

By our reluctance to name the enemy we face – whether we call them Islamic Jihadists, Islamofascists, or Islamic Fundamentalists, (are all good, descriptive and comprehensive names that could be used)— we have ceded considerable psychological advantage and power. The Jihadists are perfectly clear about who they are fighting. I refer you to Bin Laden’s 1998 Declaration of War:

First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

If some people have formerly debated the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it.

The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, still they are helpless. Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, in excess of 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.

So now they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.

Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there.
[....]
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God." (emphasis mine)

Let us stop pussyfooting around the truth and take the cure for terminal tolerance by calling the "terrorists" by their real name. One immediate result would be that a line will be drawn in the sand and everyone will have to step onto one side or the other.

Then perhaps we can begin to focus on victory in this war.

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