Washington Times columnist Diana West, who is, we’re happy to say, a Power Line reader, notes the widespread failure to speak candidly about Islamofascist terror, and wonders how Ronald Reagan would have addressed the threat we now face:
“[F]ond fictions” overwrite the urgent truth that Islam requires moderating and modernizing reform if ever it is to coexist peacefully with Western democracies. The reform starts, Mr. Spencer explains, “by identifying the elements of Islam that give rise to violence and extremism.” The place to begin is with the twin Islamic precepts of jihad, or holy war, and dhimmitude, the institutionalized inferiority of non-Muslims and women living under Muslim rule. Reform is doomed, however, if these elements are ignored, obscured and denied.
Alas, I can think of no political leader, and precious few historians and commentators, who have made this point. We hear “terrorism” and “murderous ideology” denounced, but we never hear “terrorism” and “murderous ideology” defined. We hear nothing about the religious roots of jihad’s bloody violence that must be exposed if they are ever to wither. Ronald Reagan was never reluctant to define the “terrorism” and “murderous ideology” of his day as being specifically communist-driven manifestations of the “evil empire.” I like to think he would have identified Islam’s evil elements
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.