Cairo: Why Terrorism Keeps Happening

By now, you’ve heard about the latest ISIS attack. This time brutal violence was directed by Muslims against Christian Palm Sunday service participants in Egypt.

Nobody rational supports such violence. But it’s interesting to note the different reasons people give for condemning it. Some people flat out call the attacks evil. Others, however, seem to justify the anger behind the attacks, if not the violence itself.

Is it possible to sympathize with Muslim and ISIS attacks on non-Muslims, even as you condemn their violence? According to some, yes. They see Muslims as victims. Victims of what? General discrimination and imperialism, mostly by the United States in particular and the Western world in general. That’s why we keep getting more and more of this violence, with no end in sight. If you view someone as a legitimate victim, even if you dislike their tactics, you have given them some credence. You’re telling them, “Your feelings are valid. Your actions are wrong, but your feelings are justified.” But are their feelings valid? I don’t think so. They are not victims; they are cold-blooded victimizers. Suggesting they’re victims adds fuel to their fire. When you do that with any irrational individual — or movement — then you set yourself up for more of the same.

The reason ISIS and other militant groups keep attacking people is because they see themselves as victims. Their view of themselves as “victims” differs greatly from how their enablers perceive them as “victims”. People like Pope Francis, leftist European/Canadian governments and leftist American politicians don’t love Islam. But, as socialists or Communists, they hate capitalism. They hate Westernism, defined as the emphasis on the value of the individual. They see Muslim attacks as an opportunity to speak out against the things they hate — Western values, individual rights, economic freedom — while sympathizing with the plight of Muslims, even as they condemn their methods.

But Muslim groups like ISIS don’t feel like victims because of American capitalism or the Western traditions of economic freedom. Yes, they may detest these things like the socialists who appease them. But what they really hate is having to live on the same planet with people they consider infidels. They make no mistake about their views, neither in word nor practice. If you are Muslim — their kind of Muslim, in particular — then you are good, and you get to live. If you are not Muslim — if you are Christian, Jewish, atheist, agnostic, or anything else that’s not Muslim — then you’re deservedly toast. Unlike those of us trying to defend ourselves, the bad guys are utterly consistent in theory and practice. That’s the only way bad guys can ever defeat their victims: through consistency. If the Allies had taken this wobbly, feeling-sorry-for-the-victimizer posture in World War II, the Nazis and/or the Japanese would have won.

When our governments and “moral” leaders keep saying we feel Muslim pain and victimization, even while deploring their violent response, we guarantee more and more of the same violent response. It’s not ever going to stop until our moral and military leaders begin to treat such people as the hateful savages they are, i.e., evil anti-human mentalities who are in no remote sense of the term victims.

Get rid of victim-think for terrorists, and we’ll be on our way to eliminating terrorism. Unfortunately, it will not happen a moment sooner. It’s the main reason why it’s getting harder and harder to live on planet earth as anything other than a Muslim.