What the Frankfurt jihad attack tells us

From MSNBC, a detailed account of the Kosovo Albanian’s murderous attack on American servicemen on a bus in Frankfurt, Germany. Shortly after he was arrested, Arid Uka, who was raised and educated in Germany, told police his motive was revenge for the American mission in Afghanistan.

Now let’s see. The Afghan government and lots of Afghanis want the U.S. forces to remain in their country, to help protect them from the Taliban. Regardless of that fact, lots of other Muslims, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, regard the presence of U.S. forces in a Muslim country, even with the invitation of its government, as a capital crime against Islam, as indeed it is according to Islamic law.

There is no way that this problem will go away. The large-scale presence of U.S. forces in Muslim countries is far from the only reason for Islamic jihad in the West, but obviously it’s an important reason, and the longer that involvement lasts, the more such jihad murders will occur.

At the same time, anything the West does to offend Islam—of which such offenses there is no end, because the offenses include our very existence as non-Muslims—will also set off jihad attacks. Which is why we should not be involved in the internal affairs of Muslim countries, and Muslims should not be in the West.

- end of initial entry -

N. writes:

Once again we see the ever-changing demands of Islam. Recall that Osama bin Laden in his original videos mentioned the presence of U.S. troops, whom he called “crusaders,” in Saudi Arabia. The fact that those troops were there to protect the country from Iraqi threats was irrelevant. Now recall that after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, there was no longer a need for U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, and they were withdrawn.

What happened then? The demand to remove “crusaders” from Saudi Arabia had been met, but another demand simply arose in its place. Now the demand is for U.S. troops to leave Iraq and/or Afghanistan.

Meeting an Islamic demand simply means that another demand will arise in its place. And the reason for this is simple, as you point out: it is the existence of a non-Moslem West that offends.

So, ultimately, what Islam demands is surrender. That is why there is no end, can be no end, to the demands of Islam; so long as there is a piece of the West that is not either Islamic or dhimmi, the ultimate demand—submission to Islam—has not been met.

The existential threat that is Islam cannot be appeased.

LA replies:

You wrote:

What happened then? The demand to remove crusaders from Saudi Arabia had been met, but another demand simply arose in its place. Now the demand is for U.S. troops to leave Iraq and/or Afghanistan.

This is not a good example for making your larger point about Islam’s existential hostility to the non-Muslim West. The fact that Muslims objected to the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia, and then objected to the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, would appear to indicate that Muslim demands are consistent, not that they are open-ended and unappeasable.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 05, 2011 11:47 AM | Send