Peters’s pathetic incoherence on Islam

Asked by Jamie Glazov in a FrontPage Magazine interview how we should proceed in the war on “Islamism,” military expert and columnist Ralph Peters replied:

Fight hard abroad, remain tolerant [to Muslims] at home—and win.

While people in the pro-war-on-terror, neoconservative camp are sometimes described as Cold War liberals, we can’t call Peters one, for the simple reason that Cold War liberals didn’t urge “tolerance” for Communists. Cold War liberals thought Communism was bad—a remorseless threat to our freedoms, our way of life, our very civilization that had to be stopped at all costs. But Peters—along with most other Bush supporters—doesn’t think Islam is a threat. He tells Glazov:

Certainly, Islam is as various as Christianity—and I’m encouraged by the humanity of Islam in places as diverse as Senegal, Indonesia and Michigan, despite the nuts who always get the headlines. But Islam in the Middle East is sick and degenerate—even at its best, it’s bad. [Emphases added.]

For Peters, Islam is as various as Christianity, meaning that it has the same presumed mix of truth and falsity, good and bad, desirable and undesirable as Christianity. Which further implies that there must be a Christianity somewhere that is as “sick and degenerate” as Islam in the Middle East, though Peters doesn’t name it. In any case he’s in the same camp as Hirsi Ali and her fellow European Muslims and leftists who see Christianity and Islam as equally problematical. As for the terrorist Muslims who keep cropping up in every non-Muslim country in which Muslims reside—they’re just individual nuts, they don’t tell us anything about Islam itself. Indeed, Muslims in the West—the ones in Michigan are his example—are marked by admirable “humanity.” Apparently Peters has not been reading Debbie Schlussel’s articles about the vast population of fanatical Hezbollah supporters in Dearborn, Michigan.

If Peters had been a columnist during the Cold War, here’s what he would have said:

The Communist world is as various as the Free World. Communism in Russia is sick and degenerate—even at its best, it’s bad. But I’m encouraged by the humanity of Communists in places as diverse as Albania, Cuba, and New York City, despite the nuts who always get the headlines.

Could our side have prevailed in the Cold War if we had thought this way? Do we have any hope of prevailing in the war against Muslim jihadists—whom we continue to receive en masse and tolerate in the West—as long as we think this way?

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Karen writes:

I like your latest post. In short if we treat Moslems as Peters advises, we are finished. Having dealt with Moslems and Arabic countries, I can say that they are by and large, primitive and treacherous people who cannot be fundamentally changed or Westernised. They are inveterate liars who cannot be relied upon to stick to agreements, as the history of Israel demonstrates. A peace treaty with Moslems or any kind of contract is virtually worthless as they function by caprice and emotion and not by rationality. They cannot be expected to stick to any agreement unless they are forced to stick to it and that in reality means keeping them either isolated or in a permanent state of oppression and powerlessness and preferably both. Moslems always respect those who force them to do things and deal with them ruthlessly. Being nice to them is interpreted as a sign of weakness and a green light to push the boundaries even further. That is why Israel’s tolerance of them and benevolence towards them in the past has lead to today’s disaster. Being liked by Moslems is not important. What is important is to be respected by Moslems and Moslems do admire those whom they respect.

Israel must defeat Hezbollah and finish them off and then move on to polish off Hamas. And the rest of the world must take heed and drive them out to their Moslem lands. Being nice to them and hoping they will change is a fantasy which will cause the destruction of the West. Moslems should be stopped living in the West and coming to the West for education and holidays. (The high streets in London now are full of them draped up like bats and walking around as if they are in Saudi Arabia). I suppose Peters et al. do not actually perceive Moslems as a threat because of their Third World backwardness whereas the Russians were a real threat as a white European intelligent people. It comes down to the peculiar attitude prevalent among liberals of regarding Third Worlders as mischievous children or badly trained dogs who have become that way as a consequence of their environment rather than their genetic and unchangeable differences.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 02, 2006 08:21 AM | Send