OK, I get the feeling that the Dear Leader, President Obama, does not really think we are in a long term struggle to defeat radical Islamics and or their allies.
The National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, pretty much said so this past Friday in a speech regarding long-term national security goals of the United States.
But it was the Dear Leader, President Obama, speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast this past Thursday that rankles me and many who disagree about the most pressing long-term national security struggles of the United States.
In the speech, as he is wont to do, the Dear Leader, President Obama, found the need to remind the Christians assembled that hey, we did some pretty gnarly things in the name of Christ many a moon ago. And even in that portion of his remarks, the Dear Leader, President Obama, conveniently left out some pertinent facts to make the case that really, Christians are no better than the radical Islamic conflagration gripping the Middle East especially, but many other nations as well.
Here is the exact part of the speech that has many of us scratching our collective heads:
Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And 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.
Where, oh where to begin?!
Of course he started where all moral equivalency advocates start and that is The Crusades.
The Crusades as bandied about these days never, ever, tells the whole story and reasons of The Crusades in the first place.
One of the most suppressed, yet important, reasons of The Crusades was to restore safety for European Christian pilgrims making their way to the Holy Land. The reason that pilgrims' safety was at risk is because of the Muslim conquest of the Holy Land and Jerusalem. By 1076, when the Muslims conquered Jerusalem, travel to and from was extremely dangerous.
Thus in 1096, Pope Urban ordered what is now referred to as the First Crusade. By 1100, Jerusalem was in the hands of the Crusaders.
But of course it did not occur without bloodshed.
As this link notes, the monk, Fulcher, is the one that chronicled the bloodshed that occurred. Basically the Christian Crusaders killed anyone and everything that they could. The fact is that the Muslims are the ones that claimed upwards of 70,000 people were killed. Those that survived got the pleasure of taking the dead, rotting bodies out of the walls and gates of Jerusalem. As far as the Jews were concerned, they through their lot with the Muslims and fought along side of them to defend Jerusalem. Needless to say, when the Crusaders went on their blood lust, there was no difference to them regarding Jews and Muslims and anyone else.
Yes, there was a conquest and irrational bloodshed. This was a time where might was right. And once the Crusaders defeated the Jews and Muslims, they made the most of their might.
Again, most observant Christians know about this history. And yes, we are talking about 800 years ago.
Another aspect was the Inquisition that the Dear Leader, President Obama, made a very similar passing reference to.
Since he said inquisition with a broad brush, most people, Protestant and Roman Catholic, knew the reference is to the Spanish Inquisition.
No question that the Spanish Inquisition is the one of the numerous inquisitions that the Roman Catholic church had over the years. Looking at this link, it is clear that there were many others. But it is the Spanish Inquisition that was the most brutal and longest lasting.
If you note the timeline, the Spanish Inquisition began under the reign of Kind Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. It was shortly after the Christian unification of the Spanish peninsula. Before that, Spain was an Islamic foothold in Western Europe. Not unlike the Crusades, this was a case of the might makes right gone off the rails. One difference between the Spanish and numerous other inquisitions of the day is that Spain and the monarchy totally controlled it. It was as much a political as well as spiritual set of actions.
One of the reasons for the eventual decline of the inquisitions is the rise of Protestant Christianity. Not to say that Prostestants did not have problems as well, but no where near the extent of the inquisitions.
So, in the short and very sorry attempt for the president to lecture us on the eeeeevvvvviiiiilllllsssss of historical Christianity but made it to Christianity in the United States.
Of course we were lectured as to the fact that many Christians supported and defended slavery and the Jim Crow laws.
Major face palm and headshaking.
What the Dear Leader, President Obama does not mention that in the two subjects he brought up, the church was at worst divided. What the president does not point out is those who would be referred to today as Evangelical Christians, were some of the most ardent abolitionists. The leader agaisnt the Jim Crow laws and the horrible indignities that black Americans suffered was a Christian minister by the name of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Christians have evolved from the Crusades. The Inquisitions. Slavery. Jim Crow. Really, we have. We are not perfect and can always do more.
So lets come to today, Monday, February 9, 2015.
The most brutal religious force in the world today is Radical Islam. It is the Wahhabi's of Saudi Arabia. Al-Qaeda. And the most awful of all, the Islamic State.
There nothing, not one thing in modern Christendom and or Judaism. In fact, one of the great debates in modern Christendom is the death penalty in general. Do we see that in any form of Islam?
What is happening in the Middle East especially has far reaching implications. No matter what our Lecturer In Chief says.
Say all of Iraq and Syria fall to the Islamic State. How long will Jordan last? Lebanon? The Arabian peninsula? And Northern Africa?
Even though we are told that the Islamic State and all Islamic terrorists are not all that worrisome, it is that attitude that led to 9/11. And yes, it was bipartisan inertia that pervaded.
Today there is not one bit of credible numbers as to the size of and the strength of the Islamic State. It is the most successful of all the groups because they have actual territory. They are setting up the paradisaical Islamic governance right before our eyes. They are scarring several generations of young people with it's meting out of "justice". And while they may be stalled in taking more territory now, they have no problem in throwing hundreds of thousands of fighters as little more than cannon fodder.
The game the Dear Leader, President Obama, is playing is that of moral equivalence.
In other words, look we Christians have not been all that great in our history. We have done some bad things. So now it's Islam's turn one supposes. But you know, the overwhelming number of Muslims just want to live in peace and be left alone. This is but a few at most. Maybe not even a percent of all the Muslims in the world. If we give them credibility, well we make them more than they are.
Actually, in poll after poll in the Muslim world, even among Muslims in the United States, the percentages of those that have at least sympathy with terror groups is much higher than a percent. Anywhere from 10 to 20%. Of course any poll can be skewed especially in the way questions are asked and in context. But it is almost constantly those numbers.
The reason the Dear Leader, President Obama's logic is flawed is because he has to go back really far in religious history to make the case that we should not get on our high horse about this radical Islam. Islamic radicals are running roughshod all over Northern Africa and especially Nigeria. It is so bad that the government recently announced that is has to postpone elections scheduled for this Saturday until next month. And yes, Christians in the Central African Republic have been committing atrocities. In reaction to Muslim atrocities. When there is a civil war and religion is one of the main reasons, there are going to be bad things that happen to the innocent people in the middle. The CAR violence is used by some modernist Christians as a moral equivalency. But there is not one here. It is simply a breakdown of law and order and religious groups have taken advantage of the situation.
What I would like to see our president, no my president, do is not lecture us about some events that happened eons ago. Most Americans know of the Christian atrocities. Most Christians today do not look to all Muslims as evil. We can really tell the difference between the radical extremists and the people just wanting to live in peace and practice their religion.
What I want to see the president have is a basic blueprint as to how we are going to defeat the radical Islamics. And I want him to say the fateful words. Radical Islam. By not saying that and trying the lecture about historical Christian evils, it makes many Americans wonder more about whether or not all of Islam is some bad deal. And is that not what we want to avoid?
To be blunt Mr. President, you need to stop lecturing and start planning to defeat radical Islam. Period.
No comments:
Post a Comment