Saturday, May 22, 2004
IDENTIFYING THE ENEMY
Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor who took part in the 1995 prosecution against Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, tells it like it is:
Terrorism is not an enemy. It is a method. You cannot, and you do not, make war on a method. War is made on an identified – and identifiable – enemy.
In the here and now, that enemy is militant Islam – a very particular practice and interpretation of a very particular set of religious, political and social principles.
Now that is a very disturbing, very discomfiting thing to say in 21st-century America. It is the very definition of politically incorrect. But it is a fact. And it is important both to say it and to understand it.
We have a rich and worthy tradition of religious tolerance in America. It is an enormous part of what makes America great. It led our government, within hours of the 9-11 attacks, to announce to the world that Islam was not and is not our enemy.
But we have taken the ostrich routine way too far. A commitment in favor of toleration is not the same as a commitment against examination. We have been so paralyzed by the fear of being portrayed as an enemy of Islam that we've lost our voice on a very salient question: What will be the Islam of the 21st century? Will it be the Islam of the militants, or the Islam of the moderates?
Read the whole thing.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 3:54 PM
