We mourn the evil that has befallen Nairobi.
It is clear that, notwithstanding the details of the particular engagement of Jihadists' treachery, the kuffar are always directly targeted. Their race is not important; their age is not important; their incapacity of self-defense is not important; their nationality, their ethnicity, their gender -- all irrelevant.
Infidelity, that is the criterion. On that ground even the innocent child is slaughtered by a trained soldier with a lethal weapon. Oh, how brave the Jihadist who puts steel to the head of a two-year-old. What honor he has won by gaining advantage over unarmed families at a mall! Oh, what glory he is assured!
Let the Jihadist try the might of the American fighting man, even in his decline, and consider then his worth as a soldier. Let him wonder what glory he would gain if he walked into a mall full of armed American Marines.
When Saladin and the Crusaders came to arms, it was fighting man against fighting man; it was Frankish heavy cavalry against agile Arab archers and skirmishers. Discipline and mass against speed and elusiveness. It was military history, fascinating and thrilling in its own quality.
Man, reasoning rightly, can see that the slaughter at the mall was unrighteous in every way and is excluded from all possibility of bringing military glory. How Muslims can imagine their military history glorified by these latter-day razzias is a troubling question. Man has fallen far from Saladin to Muhammad Atta.
And yet, there are disturbing facts about Islam which must be faced. As, for example, that the enslavement of the innocent has ever been a feature of Muslim conquest. Hagia Sophia was filled with the innocent, doomed to be slaves, after the conquest of Constantinople. Multiple Koranic verses, some of which have been quite understandably taken to abrogate any earlier and apparently softer verses, mandate the slaying of the infidel if he will not convert. The sexual enslavement of captured women is expressly endorsed by Islamic texts. And Islam's “perfect man,” Muhammed himself, was by no means above mass slaughter. Those who say that there is “no excuse in Islam” for the terrorist acts we now see are as deluded in their own way as apologists who actually excuse terrorism.
It would be heartening if it were possible to return to the days of open, manly warfare. Then we might be able in some measure to honor our enemies even as we fight them. For terrorists, on the contrary, there must be no quarter as there is no respect.
Our Western governments often have little wisdom as they blunder about amongst the realities of the 21st century — the merciless Jihadists in our midst, their stark motivation, the seeming irrationality of their behavior, and the impossibility of “fighting them over there so we do not have to fight them over here.” As we confront the possibility of a Mumbai-style or Nairobi-style attack in the United States, we can only hope and pray that we will eventually have leaders who recognize the truth and are willing to act accordingly, rejecting the “religion of peace” and protecting us from it. Meanwhile, God rest the souls of these most recent victims of the Jihad — the war that does not end.
Comments (1)
What sort of lion is threatened by vultures? A dying one.
As terrible as these atrocities are, as bloodthirsty as these people are, as frenzied by the whips of demons as these butchers are, they are scavenging opportunists.
Posted by Recusant | September 26, 2013 6:21 PM