Civil World Sees Radical Islam's Evil Side - by Donald G.
Mashburn
Nations adopting Islam as their national religion are unstable and dictatorial. Not a
single Islamic nation provides individual freedom for all its citizens or is politically
stable. The extremists manage to gain control by sheer cruelty and armed might.
Civilized people are sickened by the barbaric beheadings of American businessman Nick
Berg, murdered in Iraq by fanatical Islamic extremists, and American engineer, Paul M.
Johnson, Jr. killed in or near Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.
The killers, claiming to be supporters of al-Qaida, videotaped the victims before and
after the beheadings. In Iraq, Berg’s grisly – and cowardly – execution was
carried out by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida’s leader in Iraq. In Saudi Arabia,
Johnson’s executioners claimed to represent the “Fallujah Brigade of al-Qaida in
the Arabian Peninsula.”
Whatever they call themselves, the term “cold-blooded murderers” doesn’t
even begin to describe the evil and merciless stupidity of cowardly killers preying on
innocent civilians in the name of some twisted, misguided and crazy version of something
called “religion” by the murderers.
Whatever the label, the civilized world is appalled at the gruesome beheadings. That such
killings can happen in this age, and be aired on government-sponsored Arabian television,
should tell even the slowest minds that we are seeing but the latest example of the dark
and evil side of radical Islam.
Berg was among the thousands of Americans trying to help the violence-racked Iraq that
Saddam Hussein left in economic ruin. Their efforts are hampered by fanatics whose hatred
and distorted religious thinking are aimed at bringing about the disintegration of a
country that has never known real freedom.
Johnson was a civilian engineer involved with helicopter maintenance, as part of the
effort to bring some semblance of order and decency to the lives of people that have never
known real freedom.
Still, it’s not just the crazies in al-Qaida. Self-rule in Iraqi and anything that
even resembles individual freedoms in the Arab world are also hindered by a mindset of
hatred toward outsiders and “infidels” – anyone not a Muslim – and
twisted religious beliefs that Paradise awaits those crazy enough to blow up themselves
while killing other innocent humans.
Those evil beliefs find fertile seedbeds in twisted minds that believe the savage
decapitation of an innocent civilian is somehow justified by the wrongs – perceived
or real – of infidels, especially Americans, Jews and Europeans.
The Berg and Johnson executions graphically show that if the world is to have any hope of
peace, civilized people must at some point confront and contain radical Islam in the
Middle East – and in any nation where radical Muslims hold power.
Consider the absence of a single Islamic nation that’s politically stable and
provides freedom for its citizens. Not a single one! Nations adopting Islam as their
national religion invariably become unstable and dictatorial.
Iraq, Iran, Egypt and Pakistan are prime exhibits. In Egypt, a sometimes-useful ally of
the United States, religious persecution is officially condoned, even in the Egyptian
press. Not all Muslims are violent radicals, of course, but the extremists manage
to gain control, usually by sheer cruelty and armed might.
It’s also true that those claiming to be “peaceful Muslims” are slow to
condemn atrocities like the Berg and Johnson murders. Their halfhearted disapproval is too
often followed by complaints of past wrongs done to Muslims, somewhere, by someone
that’s not Muslim.
Radical Islam’s roots run deep in its history. Mohammed, Islam’s founder, was
given to violence. The spread of Islam was accompanied by wholesale bloodshed and the
elimination of Islam’s perceived enemies. Scholars report Mohammed ordered
hundreds of victims beheaded. Beheading victims has a long history among Islamic
extremists.
Some secular Muslims claim Islam is a “peaceful religion,” but these often
aren’t familiar with the Quran, and are seldom in positions of power. The radical
Islamic terrorists, however, focus on statements found in the Quran that appear to justify
violence against “infidels.”
Their twisting of their own religion gave birth to the political Islam that murders
innocent humans. And it is now a growing problem for the free world. The extremists do
have their critics in their own religion. These include the likes of Arab women’s
rights advocate, Maryam Namazie, who declared, “The 21st Century must be the century
that rids itself of political Islam.”
During past centuries the world could not rid itself of Islamic terrorists. And with so
many hypocritical foes – both in Washington and in some European countries – the
21st century doesn’t hold much promise either.
Unless, that is, the world wakes up and realizes it must deal with the likes of the
executioners of Nick Berg and Paul Johnson. Which may be easier than dealing with
anti-American critics seeking political gain from our efforts to win the war against
terrorism.
Civil World Sees Radical Islam's Evil Side - by Donald G. Mashburn Web Site http://www.sagecommentary.com |
