Malala Yousafzai, Girl Shot by Taliban for Going to School

     

The terror nightmare is over for many in Boston. With the two young jihadi now off the streets, sleep will come easier for those who witnessed the carnage. For many others who survived the blast the nightmare will never end. Victims of a war for which they were not willing participants. The war in question is not the so called War on Terror but an Islamic civil war.

The Middle East is ground zero for an Islamic movement that has since encircled the globe. One whose aims is to purify Islam and unite Muslims the world over. The west got its first taste of this movement when Iran fell to Islamist in the 1970’s. The Shah’s modernization of Iran and embracing of western culture was nothing less than a betrayal of Islam in the eyes of Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers. The purging of western ideas and the setting up of a Islamic based government in Iran was a shot across the bow of the western world. A warning that their ideas and presence was not welcome, at least by those with a narrow vision of what it means to be a Muslim. The religious movement that brought the Ayatollah to power spread to the Arab world and beyond leaving death and misery in its wake.

Today wars are being waged between various radical Islamist groups and western influences as well as among the factions themselves. A war for the future of Islam. In the middle of it all are those Muslims who wish nothing more than to live their lives and raise a family.

The bloodletting by the radical Islamist and their converts knows no bounds. Decency has no meaning to those given the cover of having orders from God. Of course God has nothing to do with it. It is a struggle against the inevitability of change. A violent nonsensical reaction to global modernization for which there is no turning back. It is also about the eroding power of the religious elite.

Whether it is a bombing near a mosque in Iraq or killing innocents running a race the motivation is the same, to create a Muslim society that fits within a singular religious vision. A fight in some ways reminiscent of the atrocities Christendom went through during the Reformation and Inquisition.

Unfortunately for the west and America in particular, the wars within Islam can’t be ignored nor avoided. Trade in goods and ideas go hand in hand, the influences the radicals rage against can no more be excised from the Muslim world than TV’s and radios. Neither apparently can the west keep radicals from enticing young Muslims living among them into an ideology of hate.

If history is a guide the days of the radical Islamist are numbered. Muslims have been throwing off the chains of Islam’s Medieval trappings for decades. Despite an influx of extremism the clock shows no signs of turning back. This is not to say extremist will not continue to have their successes. In some places they seem to hold the upper hand and will so for some time. Theirs is a darkness that might never be fully extinguished but their influence is likely to whither with time. One day they will be no more influential than Catholic churches that still hold services in Latin.

In the mean time the wars go on, for America it is important that these Islamic civil wars be defined as such. They are not a war between Christians and Muslims nor between the West and Islam. The wars are an intrafaith conflicts, any attempt to define them otherwise is just a use of an outside enemy for purposes of internal manipulation.

While America can’t stop radicals from making converts to their cause it can aid in the radicals inevitable marginalization. Unfortunately the present course of action seems to only be playing into their hands. When Iranians crowded the streets protesting the Ayatollah’s iron grip Obama’s silence spoke loud and clear. As churches burned and women were raped in the streets of Cairo his protest was muted and followed up with gifts to the regime that allowed such crimes. Even his drones kill more innocent bystanders than terrorist. A war cannot be won by killing one foe and recruiting six.

Instead the United States should be seen as bringing water to the thirsty and hot coals to their tormentors. Those Muslim’s under siege should know they have a friend and those who seek to dominate a foe. Although no one can assure another Boston or even 9/11 will not happen again the U.S. should be trying to hasten the day when such things are no longer a worry. A day that can only come when the Muslim world is no longer at war with itself.

“The Conservative Mind”

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(comments are invited from all but ones from Muslim readers are especially desired)