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Americans are Not to Blame for Savagery in the Muslim World

Last update February 3, 20141 Comment

With a new display of barbarism in the Muslim world occupying the headlines, Americans are being held responsible by one of our own. The suggestion that the U.S. is to blame for Islamic violence because we have not intervened in Syria is contemptible. What should we make of Senator John McCain trying to shame us into action by accusing America of complicity?

In April, McCain joined Senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham in calling for the U.S. to show leadership in Syria, charging that we were “failing the people of Syria.”¹ and that the “international community is only enabling Assad to continue killing.”² Now McCain has stooped to blaming Americans for the ongoing violence:

… until we get serious about helping the Syrian people defend themselves, find safe haven, and fight back against Assad, the killing will continue, and we will be shamefully complicit, as we are now, in allowing this mass atrocity in Syria to go on and on.³

The biggest mistake we could make in Syria is believing that more Middle Eastern nation-building is in America’s best interest (see: Kerry, McCain, Lieberman Support Nation-Building. Lugar Gets It Right.). Dabbling in the politics of the Muslim world in the hope of achieving strategic advantage or cultivating American values is foolish and reckless, just like the Muslim plan to build a mosque at Ground Zero, a project opposed by McCain. How many times do we need to be taught this lesson? Democratic government is not even a remote possibility until a culture and its people are ready, and from what we are seeing, large parts of the Muslim world are still engaged in Stone Age barbarism.

If America labors under the gross miscalculation that ridding the international community of the Assads and Gaddafis will cause the Muslim world to welcome the U.S. with open arms, we deserve what we get for our efforts. Our expensive, two-faced ally Pakistan taught us a valuable lesson about the contempt with which we are held. The U.S. is a sucker good for foreign aid and whatever else we are willing to hand over. In exchange we get complicity with Osama bin Laden and jail for the man who helped turn him in.

The killings in Syria are tragic. So were the killings in Libya, the violence in Sudan, and all the other examples of how things work in the Muslim world. Islamic violence should not shock us, given that Afghanistan, our friend Pakistan, and other Muslim countries still allow stoning for moral offenses like infidelity. If we think that Islamic violence, religion, and politics are separable, we are far too naïve to be making our own contribution to the turmoil.

We keep hearing from Muslims that Islamic violence is not what their religion and culture is about. Our experience is quite different and includes random violence and terror again Muslim civilians, terror attacks plotted against citizens of non-Islamic nations, threats of extinction directed against our ally Israel, and implicit threats against the West from Iran’s nuclear program.

Given the ongoing violence in Syria, how do we deal with a culture and religion that promises one thing and delivers something entirely different? We keep our hands off, we eliminate foreign aid, and if Islamic violence journeys to U.S. soil like it did on 9/11 we make sure that it never, ever happens again.

References

Filed Under: National Security and Foreign Affairs Tagged With: Syria

Comments

  1. Frederick says

    June 2, 2012 at 3:19 pm

    First of all Senator John McCain should keep his two cents out of these matters for he has no idea of what is really going on in Syria. The middle East issues are works of the Muslim Brotherhood aided by Iran and others to completely take over this area and setup their strict “Shariah Law”. If we involve ourselves in these issues we will be aiding and abetting the Islamic Religion, which is totally against the Judaic – Christian beliefs this country was founded on.
    The area has been lead by dictators, who have allowed other religious beliefs to exist with their Islamic beliefs and we have been supportive of them due to that allowance. Now however the Muslims want it ALL for themselves and they also want to crush Israel and all non-Islamic countries. This is their teachings and understandings of their Quaran.
    The only thing we should and can do is to be supportive of Israel and not turn our backs on them by getting involved with the Brotherhood as Obama has done. The Middle East is a time bomb just waiting to explode.

    Reply

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