Peters finally adds a name to his crazed indictment

Ralph Peters wrote an e-mail which was forwarded to me. It reads in part:

Unlike [Andrew] Bostom and his ilk, who exaggerate all negatives and ignore all contrary evidence, I’ve spent a great deal of time in the Muslim world, in multiple countries on multiple continents. And while I don’t think much of most versions of Islam—or have any real hope for the Middle East—I can’t condemn every last individual as Bostom and Co. do.

And while I don’t think much of most versions of Islam—or have any real hope for the Middle East—I can’t condemn every last individual as Bostom and Co. do

I have no patience with bigotry, whether it comes from the right or the left. And, by the way, having done a good bit of research in Indonesia, for one example, I can tell you that Bostom’s giving you the Mein Kampf version.

Should we agree to hate a billion people and to fear them all? Should we put American Muslims in concentration camps? What, exactly, is Bostom’s answer?

The hate-speech running around the Internet on this subject makes me want to vomit. I’m all for killing terrorists—but these guys strike me as cowards who dream of slaughtering the innocents.

So now we know for sure what was obvious before. Peters’s attack is aimed at the Islam critics such as Bostom, Robert Spencer, and Bat Ye’or, who all argue that jihad and dhimmitude are built-in features of Islam. Other than adding Bostom’s name, Peter’s argument is the same as in his published articles. He jumps, with no transition, with a total absence of logic, from the Islam critics’ general statements about the nature of Islam as a religion to concluding that the critics

condemn every last [Muslim] individual … I have no patience with bigotry…. Should we agree to hate a billion people and to fear them all? Should we put American Muslims in concentration camps? … these guys strike me as cowards who dream of slaughtering the innocents.

This is insane. How could anyone look at the writings of Bostom, Spencer, and Bat Ye’or and draw such a conclusion about these writers’s feelings and intentions?

This is the way I think Peters sees it. He sees Islam as a big problem, but because he doesn’t state this criticism categorically, therefore he is not condemning all Muslims. But because Bostom’s critique of Islam is categorical, Bostom is condemning and dreaming of slaughtering all Muslims.

However, that does not get Peters off his own hook. Peters says that Bostom’s general statements about Islam mean that Bostom condemns and dreams of killing every last Muslim individual. But Peters also says that he, Peters, condemns Mideastern Islam, adding that he doesn’t condemn all Islam and sees positive forms of Islam elsewhere. But then, by Peters’s own logic, Peters condemns and dreams of slaughtering every last Mideastern Muslim individual.

I again cannot refrain from some psychologizing. Peters has strongly negative views of Islam, he consigns the Muslim Mideast to hell, and he keeps repeating that he wants to kill a lot of Muslims. But the liberal part of his mind is very uncomfortable with this, so he projects the violent and anti-Muslim part of himself onto Bostom and Co., identifying them as the real villains because they supposedly condemn all Islam and therefore want to slaughter all Muslims, while Peters remains innocent and pure. Peter’s innocence and the rightness of his stand depend on his finding nice forms of Islam in Indonesia and Africa, which is why he will keep ignoring the evidence of jihad in those areas.

Here is a follow-up e-mail that Andrew Bostom has sent in response to the Peters e-mail. Bostom writes:

This man is a despicable lunatic who is beneath contempt. Speaking and writing honestly about Islamic doctrine and history—a history Peters is profoundly ignorant of——and calling for fundamental reform—has NOTHING to do with calling for the slaughter of innocents of any ilk, which of course despite Peters’s LIES, I have NEVER done.

In fact, I have focused in my calls for “counter jihad” on cultural/religious/juridical reforms highlighting the institutions which need to be reformed.

Is that call “murderous”? Only to a sick mind that has some other agenda.

Peters is the one who is much enamored of grandiose military schemes, like “re-making the entire Middle East map,” a rather bloody venture, without even dealing with the inherent pros and cons of such an effort.

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Andrew Bostom replies to my above discussion of Peters:

Yes. He conflates my criticism of the elements of Islam I focus on historically (which is all I do out of time and interest—similarly in Medicine I chose to study the worst killer in modern societies, cardiovascular disease), the jihad and the dhimmi condition for non-Muslims, as criticism of ALL individual Muslims, regardless of whether or not they abide by or abet etc., or EVEN criticize and REJECT these Islamic institutions.

Ben writes:

Andrew Bostom said:

“Peters is the one who is much enamored of grandiose military schemes, like “re-making the entire Middle East map,” a rather bloody venture, without even dealing with the inherent pros and cons of such an effort.”

I agree with this statement by Dr. Bostom. It seems to me that Peters believes that the only people who should be killed, the only wars that should be waged are the ones which Peters says are to be fought. Sending other peoples’ sons to fight and die in a war which cannot be won, a war for universalist liberal ideas that have no basis in reality in Islamic ideology, is fine. However, if you have a man speak the truth about the real doctrines and culture of Islam and how to combat this that contrasts with Peters own idiotic liberal ideas, then he is defined in Peters’s warped mind as a blood thirsty war monger who wants to kill billions.

Who the hell has been cheering for this debacle in Iraq for the past four years regardless of the errors made by the Bush administration? Who has refused to have any discussion about the Iraq war and how best to proceed and win? Who has gotten thousands of men’s sons to die and be injured for utopian ideas the past four years not permitting any intelligent national discussion from the likes of Spencer, Bostom, and other men who have studied Islam and are much more qualified to speak about this issue then Peters?

Peters is a disgrace and not even worth reading. He’s the one who is a bigot and full of hatred. I wouldn’t wipe my shoes on his articles. He is not helping America one bit with his stupidity. All he is doing is trying to silence any man who has the guts to stand up and tell the truth about Islam.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 13, 2006 12:43 PM | Send