The totalitarian mass murderers of Islamic State are hellbent on acquiring nuclear weapons and using them against their enemies in the West, a reporter who was embedded with the Salafi jihadist fighters in occupied Syria is warning.
German journalist Jürgen Todenhöfer, who spent 10 anxious days living in Islamic State-held Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor in Syria with the jihadists, wants the world to know that the terrorist group is deadly serious about unleashing a “nuclear tsunami” on those who oppose its efforts to create an Islamic caliphate.
“This is the largest religious cleansing strategy that has ever been planned in human history,” he said.
The West has “no concept of the threat it faces” from Islamic State and “dramatically” underestimates the threat posed by the group, said the former German politician who was allowed to embed with the group because of his high-profile criticism of U.S. involvement in the Middle East.
“They are extremely brutal,” according to Todenhöfer. “Not just head-cutting. I’m talking about the strategy of religious cleansing. That’s their official philosophy. They are talking about 500 million people who have to die.” [Matthew Vadum, award-winning investigative reporter and the author of the book, “Subversion Inc.” quoted at frontpagemag.com 9/30/15]
History will record that during the Obama years, a majority of Americans yawned and looked for their next government benefit.
History will also record that while the Middle East burned and Islam gradually overtook Europe, Americans spent their time fighting over unborn fetuses, Donald Trump’s foul language and the genital make-up of people choosing to get married and form private, consensual relationships.
The story goes on:
Todenhöfer covered some of the same ground in January when he spoke to Al Jazeera about what he experienced while living with the jihadists.
“I always asked them about the value of mercy in Islam,” but “I didn’t see any mercy in their behavior,” he said.
“Something that I don’t understand at all is the enthusiasm in their plan of religious cleansing, planning to kill the non-believers… They also will kill Muslim democrats because they believe that non-ISIL-Muslims put the laws of human beings above the commandments of God.”
At the United Nations two days ago, Obama said waging war against such terrorist groups won’t accomplish anything.
“Ideologies are not defeated with guns,” Obama told UN delegates. “They are defeated by better ideas — a more attractive and compelling vision.”
What happens if the ideology is openly and consistently committed to violent actions against others who do not agree?
It does not matter if the problem is caused by Islamic radicals, Russia’s Putin or any other gang or dictatorship endorsing and practicing authoritarian power at the expense of individual rights.
Are we supposed to wait and utilize persuasion, and “better ideas,” even as proponents of that ideology blow up airplanes, topple over skyscrapers and do whatever they plan to do next?
Reason and thinking are man’s basic tool of survival. There’s no question that rational persuasion is the best — and ultimately only way — to win over another’s mind.
However, not all people are willing to reason. Religion is the subject where people are typically least open to ratoinal persuasion. People such as the radical Muslims who believe that their way is right, and that those who disagree must be destroyed, cannot be ignored; at least, not if your goal is to go on living.
It’s true that advocates of militant Islam will never change until they start to accept ideas like separation of church and state, reason (not faith) as the primarily (actually, exclusive) form of knowledge, and other things they deem as violations of their beliefs.
But in the meantime, those of us who are not comfortable living under Islamic Sharia Law have to protect and defend ourselves. While it’s true that acting as the world’s policeman and sending eighteen-year-olds into conventional wars is probably not the answer, we still have to do something. What to do is worth debating.
But Obama is bypassing the whole issue. He’s saying we cannot do anything about Islam until we first persuade them with new and better ideas. And we know he means what he says, because throughout his seven years in office he has done nothing.
The real question here is what happens when violent aggressors do not wish to be persuaded? What happens when they feel entitled to detonate a nuclear bomb, if that’s what’s required to punish you for not living by their creed and beliefs? Because that’s what we’re up against.
Obama’s answer is simply no answer. Just keep reasoning and negotiating, until the hoped for day that reason triumphs.
And what if we’re all dead in the meantime? Obama has no answer to this question, other than the sneer of superiority so common with people who hold his pacifistic point-of-view.
But no answer is still an answer. And violent terrorists (like militant Muslims) and glorified thugs (like Russia’s Putin) read it as: weakness.
The best and only alternative to war is peace through strength. Violent people who seek to initiate force will fear doing so, because they know you have the means and the willingness to fight back, if pushed.
Obama is systematically destroying the means by hollowing out our military. And he displays no willingness whatsoever to do anything about militant Islam, other than by trying to appease it with pleas and calls for love, combined with financial bribes.
Some consider Obama’s approach the morally superior one; but violent, criminal mindsets see it as weakness. They see it as a green light to do more. Think about all this when — not if — the next time there’s a beheading, a blown up building or even something worse.
As Adam Smith reportedly said: Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
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