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Islam needs a civil war
Dec. 17th, 2009 04:07 amFinally. Someone's saying something without equivocation that I've been grumbling about since 9/11.
From Newser.com: "Islam has become corrupted by the ideology of a "violent minority," and it's long past time that the majority of Muslims take back their religion, writes Thomas Friedman. How? It needs a "civil war," just as America needed one to overcome the ideology of slavery. "We defeated those ideas and the individuals, leaders and institutions that propagated them, and we did it with such ferocity that five generations later some of their offspring still have not forgiven the North," he writes in the New York Times.
Islam must do the same. And to win this war, it must devote resources not only to the fight on the ground but the fight in "Virtual Afghanistan"—that "network of hundreds of jihadist websites that inspire, train, educate, and recruit young Muslims to engage in jihad." No military surge will succeed unless "there is a parallel surge—by Arab and Muslim political and religious leaders—against those who promote violent jihadism on the ground in Muslim lands and online in the Virtual Afghanistan."
Huzzah, says I. If Islam is to take a place in the global community as a viable ideology for its billion adherents, it has to cleanse the inner vessel - and that can only be done from inside.
From Newser.com: "Islam has become corrupted by the ideology of a "violent minority," and it's long past time that the majority of Muslims take back their religion, writes Thomas Friedman. How? It needs a "civil war," just as America needed one to overcome the ideology of slavery. "We defeated those ideas and the individuals, leaders and institutions that propagated them, and we did it with such ferocity that five generations later some of their offspring still have not forgiven the North," he writes in the New York Times.
Islam must do the same. And to win this war, it must devote resources not only to the fight on the ground but the fight in "Virtual Afghanistan"—that "network of hundreds of jihadist websites that inspire, train, educate, and recruit young Muslims to engage in jihad." No military surge will succeed unless "there is a parallel surge—by Arab and Muslim political and religious leaders—against those who promote violent jihadism on the ground in Muslim lands and online in the Virtual Afghanistan."
Huzzah, says I. If Islam is to take a place in the global community as a viable ideology for its billion adherents, it has to cleanse the inner vessel - and that can only be done from inside.
