ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—At least 72 people—including 17 children—were killed and hundreds more injured in an apparent suicide bombing at a Pakistani park that an Islamic militant group said was aimed at Christians celebrating Easter.
A Pakistani Taliban faction claimed responsibility for the attack in Lahore, a city in the eastern part of the country with a sizable Christian minority. – The Wall Street Journal
Go ahead, Mr. President—tell us about “The Crusades” again.
Isn’t that the go-to talking point for progressives in denial over the current state of Islam? Less than a month after the Charlie Hebdo attacks last year, President Obama addressed the National Prayer Breakfast: “Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”
Really, Mr. President? Tell the families of the dead Christians in Lahore—killed by Muslims simply for being Christians—to climb off their “high horse,” that there’s no meaningful difference between Islam and Christianity as it’s practiced today.
Then maybe you can give a lecture about Jim Crow and the KKK to Asad Shah, the Muslim shopkeeper in Glasgow, Scotland, stabbed to death after posting the message “Good Friday and very happy Easter, especially to my beloved Christian nation x!” President Obama will (apparently) be shocked to learn Shah’s killer was not, in fact, a pillowcase-hooded member of the Knights Templar.
The Islamic State Isn’t Islamic?
In the 10 days leading up to the Brussels attacks, there was a major attack by Muslim terrorists—a bombing, a shooting, a kidnapping—every single day, and nearly one a day every day since. Still, President Obama intones “Islamic State is not Islamic.” And our likely next president (thank you, Donald Trump) Hillary Clinton says, “Muslims have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.” Cable news is crammed with commentary from lunatic liberals warning that the biggest danger to western society from Islamist violence is an “anti-Muslim backlash.”
Uh, no. While p.c. progressives await the long-anticipated “backlash,” innocent people continue to die by the dozens from the actual “lash”—bombings, stabbings, shootings, honor killings, rapes, and female mutilations committed in the name of Islam. And, typical Americans note, these are not committed in the name of any other faith at anything close to a similar level.
This is why stupidly pretending that Muslims, Methodists, and Mormons are equally likely to be inspired to violence by their faith is beyond indefensible. It was indefensible in 1993, the first time Islamists tried to bring down the World Trade Center. It was indefensible in the wake of “workplace violence” at Fort Hood. And it’s not getting any better.
Do politicians and media elites have any idea how dumb they look when they rush to the cameras to insist that “Islam is a religion of peace”? Why not rush to the scene of a DUI arrest and declare “Alcohol is the beverage of responsibility!”?
Measure By Actions, Not Words
Americans aren’t going to debate Islam’s theology. The Koran may very well be the most peace-promoting document in history, the hippie-handbook of eighth-century Arabia. We don’t know and we don’t care. All we know is what Muslims actually do. The defense that “only 200 million Muslims support violence” is no defense at all. It’s an indictment.
It’s also a dead-end in the fight against Islamic extremism, because it keeps the West out of the most important macro-political conflict of our time, the “war within Islam…a Third-World-War against humanity.” What hater said that? Donald Trump? Pamela Geller?
King Hussein of Jordan. While westerners who live far from the fight insist there is no fight, a moderate Muslim leader who lives it every day doesn’t mince words: It’s a war. With good guys and bad guys. Progressives who pretend it’s not prevent us from joining that battle on the side of the moderate majority.
But that makes some of the “bad guys” Muslims, and guilt-addled progressives can’t face the reality of a minority group being responsible for unbridled evil. So they must indict Christianity, too. Thus the “Crusader” card, and insulting the faith of the hundreds of innocent Christians killed and injured in Lahore.
Days after President Obama’s “High Horse” moment, I took to the airwaves and Internet and responded with the “Crusader Wager:”
If you honestly believe that Christianity and Islam are equally troubled by violence, then you set aside one dollar for every death committed in the name of radical Islam. I will set aside one hundred dollars for every death committed in the name of fundamental Christianity. If, after one year, I’ve set aside more money than you, I will donate it to the charity of your choice.
If, however, you’ve set aside more cash, you’ll donate it to the Salvation Army.
There’s a reason I’m still waiting for someone to take that bet.
