To Tell The Truth Means To Be Attacked

Otero county is a sparsely populated area in south-central New Mexico best known as the home of the White Sands and (for those who are fans of nuclear history) Trinity Site. Other than that it is a place of nothing but miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. Actually a goodly portion of the county reminds the Geek of the Arabian Peninsula and the vast emptiness of western Iraq.

Otero county is the sort of place where nothing much happens. Its major town, Alamagordo, is not noted as a culture medium for controversy.

Because of these factors the Geek was shocked when Otero county became the dateline for a series of stories relating to the presidential campaign.

It seems that Marcia Stirman, the head of the county Republican Women's Federation wrote a letter to the Alamagordo newspaper laying out nearly twenty reasons why she is a Republican. Most of them were standard conservative boilerplate regarding guns, lower taxes and personal responsibility. Totally unexceptional ya-dah, ya-dah.

She did make two statements which some have found both exceptional and objectionable. One of these was, "I believe Muslims are our enemies." The other denied that Senator Obama is "a messiah or a democrat."

Ms Stirman concluded by averring that in her view the junior Senator from Illinois is "a Muslim and a socialist."

The Geek takes the Senator at his word and accepts that he is not and never has been (at least in post-pubescence) a Muslim. The statement that the Senator is a socialist is accurate and should not disturb anyone, particularly the supporters of Mr Obama.

The Geek is unconcerned over the concluding statement in Ms Stirman's profession of faith. His interest is in her animadversion, "I believe Muslims are our enemies."

Ms Stirman's view brought a heated response from Nihad Awad, the Executive Director of the Council on American-islamic Relations (CAIR). He characterised the Stirman statement of opinon as "hate-filled remarks," and demanded that state and national Republican party officials "repudiate her divisive and intolerant views."

Stirman did not hang her head in shame and scuff the dust of the Otero county corral with the toe of her boot in proper aw-shucks, I've been a bad, bad girl manner. Not on your bippy. The interior decorator told the Las Cruces Sun, "...if the Islamic group doesn't like it, well, I don't like what's going on in their camp either."

OpEd News and the Huffington Post have ridden into the New Mexico desert on a search and distroy mission aimed at Ms Stirman. The posse would be joined by other stalwarts of the Left if there was time enough before the election.

Why all this concern over one woman's opinion? Why all the burrs under all sorts of saddles considering the words were in a letter to the editor in a very minor newspaper in the wide marches of a very large state?

The Geek cannot help but see this dust-up as one more sign of a very alarming and very large exercise in intellectual bankruptcy which has affected not only the US but Western Europe and other countries as well. Individually and collectively we have been and continue to be unwilling or unable to recognise that Ms Stirman's characterization of Islam is correct.

Notice. The Geek made one small but critical change in Ms Stirman's indictment. He wrote "Islam" in place of her word, "Muslims." Muslims, like members of other religions come in assorted sizes.

Some are nominal, cultural, occasional. They like their religion lite.

Other take their religion full strength. Full bore. Pedal to the metal.

The core of Islam, the Quran, the Hidith, the Sira demand that the the Message of the Prophet be taken without any dilution. The core of the belief system demands full and complete acceptance of and submission to the word of Allah as transmitted to the Prophet by the angel Gabriel. Anything less than that, anything less than the whole-hearted attempt to emulate the life of the "perfect man," Mohammad, is apostasy.

Islam admits of no compromise. It allows no adulteration. Islam is not open to attenuating interpretation. It is as harsh, stark and forbidding as the land of the desert that gave it birth.

Islam demands unending struggle against the infidels living in what the religion terms the "House of War." It demands as well an unending struggle against the apostates living in the House of Islam.

When our government searches for the "moderate" Muslim it is actually looking for the apostate. The Good, True Muslim cannot be moderate and adhere to the severe requirements of his religion.

Islam is not and cannot be as George W. Bush and other well-intentioned but totally gripless people have asserted, "the religion of peace." Peace can only come when and if the entire human race submits to the requirements of Islam. Period.

Islam, the Islam of the Quran, the Hidith, the Sira, the Islam of al-Qaeda, Taliban and the Islamists generally as well as those who quietly, tacitly offer support demands war in the name of Allah against the unbelievers, be they Christians, Jews, idolaters or whatever. Good and True Muslims accept the requirement for unending jihad against the House of War.

Islam is the unending enemy of every belief which underpins not only the West in general but the United States in particular. Islam is against all that is at the center of what makes us us. It is an enemy without rest, without mercy and without any chance of negotiated compromise.

With this as context, another question comes to mind. Why the extreme unwillingness to acknowledge the inherent hostility between Islam and us?

The short, misleading answer is political correctness. The use of this term is misleading because it ignores the historical background which resulted in the creation of the concept by those of us who came of age during the Cold War and its hot expression in Southeast Asia.

Those of us born during the Forties and Fifties spent our childhoods in the most chilling winds of the Cold War. We were indoctrinated to fear and loath the "commies." We were assured that these "commies" were the worst lying, god-hating, rape loving, freedom killing spawn of hell ever to have crept from the abysmal depths of human depravity.

It was the worst sort of rhetorical overkill. The Great Anti-Communist Crusade of the post-World War II era was overblown, overdrawn and overdone. It is small wonder that the generation which was the focus of these 'protective" actions by government, church and school reacted against the America-Is-Supremely-Good, Commies-Are-All-Evil message of our early years.

More than a few members of this generation hoped, vowed to be different from and better than their parents. This generation would not be so quick to judge. So eager to brand as evil and wrong beliefs that differed from ours. This generation would be tolerant.

No. It would be more than merely tolerant. It would be accepting. It would seek to embrace those who were different. It would welcome all views, all beliefs--even those antipodal to our own.

Can we say, "multi-culturalism?" Can we say, "cultural relativism?" Can we say, "moral relativism?"

Some of this generation, in the main those who have become members of the self-ascribed elite of politicians, journalists, academics and chattering class adherents in general went further than this. Their view became increasingly distorted as the decade of the Sixties wore on along with that long-ago, endless war in Asia and the seemingly futile struggle for economic, social, political and racial "justice" here at home.

This Amphyctony of the Disenchanted came to view America and the ideas or ideals which gave rise to the country as being inherently evil. In their eyes the US must withdraw from the world less the world suffer more from us. From their perspective the US must pay penance to the world as well as the wretched in our midst.

In sum, this Amphyctony of the Disenchanted agreed and agree with the Iranian mullahocracy: The US is the Great Satan.

This world view admits of no alternative to acceptance of the Muslim critique. It forces the conclusion that Islam is "the religion of peace," regardless of the words of the Quran, the Hidith or the life of the sociopath who elevated himself to the role of Final Prophet.

The world view of the Disenchanted provides the rich and fertile soil for the Muslim Brotherhood and its spin-offs such as CAIR to engage in the Islam-validated concept of war by "every stratagem" including lying. It demands ignoring the nature of Islam.

The Soviet Union may have lost the Cold War. The Soviet Union may exist no longer.

But, get a grip on this, the most horrible legacy of the fifty years of that "victorious" fight against the Kremlin soldiers on. The fanaticism of the counter-subversive anti-Communist Crusaders has bred another fanaticism. The convictions of the Disenchanted which open the US to a long term defeat by the Good and True Muslims marching under the sword emblazoned green banner of Islamism.

Ms Stirman's sin was recognising that--and writing it.

Poorly worded as her charge may have been, she was correct. To deny that is to claim that ignorance is bliss.

While ignorance may be blissful, it is also the door marked, "Defeat."