London Slaughter : a reply to apologists like Thomas Friedman

The author of an article published in the aftermath of the London slaughter, Thomas Friedman asks: "When jihadist-style bombings happen in Riyadh, that is a Muslim-Muslim problem. That is a police problem for Saudi Arabia. But when Al-Qaeda-like bombings come to the London Underground, that becomes a civilizational problem. Every Muslim living in a Western society suddenly becomes a suspect, becomes a potential walking bomb. And when that happens, it means Western countries are going to be tempted to crack down even harder on their own Muslim populations."

Thomas Friedman and many others of his ilk also say that all Muslims are not desperadoes who would attack the West and so there are no specific targets for us to strike back at in the War on Terror. Talking about specific targets to retaliate, there are plenty of them from where the desperadoes get financial and logistical support. Support from among the populations who celebrate and distribute candies whenever there is an attack on the West. Is Friedman not familiar with these happenings. The targets lie from Morocco to Indonesia, as the targets in WW2 lay in Germany Italy and Japan. All the people of these countries were not Nazis or Fascists, but then we bombed entire cities in Germany, Italy and Japan, using even nuclear weapons in the last case.

All the people of the USSR, Eastern Europe were not Communists, but then our missiles were aimed at destroying all their major cities in the event of the Third World War with the Communist bloc. So what prevents us from bombing entire cities in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia from where the Muslim desperadoes originate?

Friedman has his answer, but can the statesmen in the White House, White Hall, and other chancelleries answer this poser?

Photo credits: onlineathens

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He calls for Muslim leaders to preach the message of peace to the Muslim desperadoes. But does Friedman at all realize that the Muslim desperadoes are following the message of the Quran? The Quran calls on Muslims to continuously attack non-Muslims, till they either surrender or accept Islam. Are the Western nation not right when they look upon a community that has been fed on the message of hate and deception from birth?

Friedman has issues with that too. Friedman's views are not those of one person, there are many others like him in the West. They need to be told that it is futile to ask the West not to be suspicious of those who are potential criminals. To remain gullible will prove to be suicidal.

He keeps harping that there is no specific target to retaliate, since after all the Muslim nations also suffer from attacks by Muslim desperadoes. But then did the internal fight among the Communists or the Nazis prevent us from targeting all Nazis during WW2 or the Communists during the Cold War? Friedman has his answer in our past policy and actions.

Friedman and many others of his ilk also say that all Muslims are not desperadoes who would attack the West and so there are no specific targets for us to strike back at in the War on Terror. Talking about specific targets to retaliate, there are plenty of them from where the desperadoes get financial and logistical support. Support from among the populations who celebrate and distribute candies whenever there is an attack on the West. Is Friedman not familiar with these happenings. The targets lie from Morocco to Indonesia, as the targets in WW2 lay in Germany Italy and Japan. All the people of these countries were not Nazis or Fascists, but then we bombed entire cities in Germany, Italy and Japan, using even nuclear weapons in the last case.

All the people of the USSR, Eastern Europe were not Communists, but then our missiles were aimed at destroying all their major cities in the event of the Third World War with the Communist bloc. So what prevents us from bombing entire cities in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia from where the Muslim desperadoes originate?

Friedman has his answer, but can the statesmen in the White House, White Hall, and other chancelleries answer this poser?

Excerpts from the original article below:

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If It's a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Published: July 8, 2005 But maybe the most important aspect of the London bombings is this: When jihadist-style bombings happen in Riyadh, that is a Muslim-Muslim problem. That is a police problem for Saudi Arabia. But when Al-Qaeda-like bombings come to the London Underground, that becomes a civilizational problem. Every Muslim living in a Western society suddenly becomes a suspect, becomes a potential walking bomb. And when that happens, it means Western countries are going to be tempted to crack down even harder on their own Muslim populations.

That, too, is deeply troubling. The more Western societies - particularly the big European societies, which have much larger Muslim populations than America - look on their own Muslims with suspicion, the more internal tensions this creates, and the more alienated their already alienated Muslim youth become. This is exactly what Osama bin Laden dreamed of with 9/11: to create a great gulf between the Muslim world and the globalizing West.

So this is a critical moment. We must do all we can to limit the civilizational fallout from this bombing. But this is not going to be easy. Why? Because unlike after 9/11, there is no obvious, easy target to retaliate against for bombings like those in London. There are no obvious terrorist headquarters and training camps in Afghanistan that we can hit with cruise missiles. The Al Qaeda threat has metastasized and become franchised. It is no longer vertical, something that we can punch in the face. It is now horizontal, flat and widely distributed, operating through the Internet and tiny cells.

Because there is no obvious target to retaliate against, and because there are not enough police to police every opening in an open society, either the Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit and denounce its own extremists - if it turns out that they are behind the London bombings - or the West is going to do it for them. And the West will do it in a rough, crude way - by simply shutting them out, denying them visas and making every Muslim in its midst guilty until proven innocent.

And because I think that would be a disaster, it is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst. If it does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim-Western relations everywhere. Only the Muslim world can root out that death cult. It takes a village.

What do I mean? I mean that the greatest restraint on human behavior is never a policeman or a border guard. The greatest restraint on human behavior is what a culture and a religion deem shameful. It is what the village and its religious and political elders say is wrong or not allowed.

The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the madness of jihadist attacks. When Salman Rushdie wrote a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad, he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.

The double-decker buses of London and the subways of Paris, as well as the covered markets of Riyadh, Bali and Cairo, will never be secure as long as the Muslim village and elders do not take on, delegitimize, condemn and isolate the extremists in their midst.

Friendman's Article ends. We have answered all his posers. We hope these answers find their way into policy making at our chancelleries.

Story Credits: Waronjihad team

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