Palin on the “war”

Did you know that there is a war going on within Islam, a war between moderate Muslims and what Sarah Palin, borrowing from John McCain, calls “radical Islamic extremists”?

But wait—I think I may have that wrong. Since the opposite of a radical Islamic extremist is a moderate Islamic extremist, maybe the war within Islam is between moderate Islamic extremists and radical Islamic extremists, with the moderate Islamic extremists being our allies.

From Palin’s recent speech to a business group in Hong Kong, it’s hard to tell which she means, if she means anything at all:

In this struggle with radical Islamic extremists, no part of the world is safe from those who bomb, maim and kill in the service of their twisted vision.

This war—and that is what it is, a war—is not, as some have said, a clash of civilizations. We are not at war with Islam. This is a war within Islam, where a small minority of violent killers seeks to impose their view on the vast majority of Muslims who want the same things all of us want: economic opportunity, education, and the chance to build a better life for themselves and their families. The reality is that al Qaeda and its affiliates have killed scores of innocent Muslim men, women and children.

Did I get that right? Has al Qaeda actually killed scores of innocent Muslims? Well they certainly are a great threat to the world, then.

The reality, of course, is that in any single terrorist attack in Iraq, al Qaeda has killed scores of innocent Muslims. Palin probably meant to say scores of thousands.

In any case, are people finally noticing, after a year of Palin on the national stage, that the ideas of this moose-hunting mom are strictly neocon? “The vast majority of Muslims … want the same things all of us want: economic opportunity, education, and the chance to build a better life for themselves and their families.” She wanted to make a mark for herself as a new and fresh political player, but all she could do was repeat word-for-word from the neocon playbook.

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MG writes:

I’m willing still to give her the benefit of doubt. She did not mean anything apart of reading text supplied by one of her untalented advisers.

It is quite possible that she spent, oh, may be 20 min in all of her life thinking about the topic. I don’t say it to denigrate her at all. Consider, the 45 year old mother of five was governor for three years, mayor for six, state oil honcho for one year, started business or two with her spouse and who know what else. She lived rather full life and her interests did not extend to national security issues. It is very likely that she has never spend any time thinking about those issues till summer of 08.

Only time will tell if she will be able to sort those issues. She was able to sort out quite complex issues with state oil leases and royalties, so I’m hopeful.

If by the next spring she still mumbles stupid neocon lines on foreign policy we can forget about her as a candidate real conservatives can support. Tragically, given the Dear Leader’s steep descent and the horrifying idiocy of Republican primary voters, she could become next Prez, a Jorge Boosh in drag.

From the AlienInChief to Jorge Boosh in high heels, a cheerful prospect.

Rocco DiPippo (who has been residing and working in the Muslim Middle East for the last year or two) writes:

“This is a war within Islam, where a small minority of violent killers seeks to impose their view on the vast majority of Muslims who want the same things all of us want: economic opportunity, education, and the chance to build a better life for themselves and their families.”
—Sarah Palin

Okay.

I think from now on, all Federal-level politicians should be made to live and work in a Muslim country, preferably a Gulf Arab one, before they can assume the office they’ve either won or been appointed to. No, I’m not talking about sending them off to some cushy, gated embassy job complete with a pool, wet bar and free sex, but a real job where they’d have to work face-to-face with no one but Muslims and Arab Muslims.

Upon their return, they would be given a test designed to verify whether or not the experience had gotten their heads “right” concerning the unbridgeable cultural and religious differences separating Arab Muslims and Pakistani Muslims—at least—from Westerners. The test would consist of listening to the above excerpt from Palin’s recent speech. Anyone who does not immediately fall to the ground in uncontrollable laughter after hearing it, would be barred from office.

Speaking of education, though it’s true that the vast majority of Muslims don’t suicide-bomb or commit other acts of mass murder, you’d be surprised at the number of Arab Muslims who sympathize with those who do. Here in the Middle East, you almost never hear outrage expressed when Muslims mass murder other Muslims. But if one Muslim dies at the hand of a Jew, the protests erupt.

By the way, as far as education goes, most Arabs don’t value education in the Western sense, but they sure love flaunting their titles; most of which come from third-rate degrees earned at fourth-rate Arab “universities”! As has been said, “inquiring minds want to know.” Non-inquiring minds, don’t.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 29, 2009 09:14 AM | Send