Hear! Hear! Stand Up Oh Silent Ones

From The Washington Times

British official tells Muslims to stand up to terrorism

Britain's most senior policeman called on the country's Muslim community yesterday to end its "denial" about extremists in its midst and to engage actively in the fight against terrorism.

Muslim leaders have expressed shock that four British-born Muslims were the perpetrators of last week's attacks in London, which left at least 54 persons dead.

But Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair said Muslims could do more to help find those plotting further atrocities.

The Muslim community, and Muslim leaders, have come under some criticism since 9/11 for not being outspoken enough about terrorism. HeavyHanded has always agreed with this criticism, but HeavyHanded has also felt that the criticism was coming from a rather (too) small segment of the world community.

There has not been enough outrage expressed by the Muslim community as a whole, nor has there been enough pressure from the world community through criticism in order to get Muslims to denounce terrorism more openly and vehemently.

But let's be honest. Even if there was a lot more outrage expressed by Muslims and Muslim leaders, this would not be enough. Anyone can openly denounce such acts, but still secretly support these very same acts. As the saying goes, "talk is cheap".

Christianity has gone through a reformation. Islam has not. Islam has so many different interpretations, no central figurehead, no continuity. Imams and clerics all over the world can be preaching different ideas, preaching hate, preaching jihad, preaching death, and there is no religious figurehead or religious body to tell them to stop.

It then falls upon the "silent majority" (?) of Mulims to stand up to the hatred that is being spread and preached; and falls upon each soverign nation to legislate, and eradicate this kind of behavior from their respective countries.

But with a continued silence from the silent majority in the worldwide Muslim community and an insane, run amok environment of political correctness that neuters a countries ability to take a necessary firm stand against its enemies, we're doomed for destruction.

"It matters little that 'the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists,' to quote a familiar Western mantra. It matters a great deal that most terrorists are Muslims. The sooner Western leaders and Western media begin stating what is obvious to most people, the quicker the real root cause can be dealt with."
--Cal Thomas

"[T]errorists celebrate the suffering of the innocent. ...[T]errorists murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent. ...[T]he aim of the terrorists is to remake the Middle East in their own grim image of tyranny and oppression by toppling governments, by exporting terror, by forcing free nations to retreat and withdraw. ... These kinds of people who blow up subways and buses are not people you can negotiate with, or reason with, or appease. In the face of such adversaries there is only one course of action: We will continue to take the fight to the enemy, and we will fight until this enemy is defeated." --President George W. Bush

"[Y]ou are dealing with an enemy that does not want anything specific, and cannot be talked back into reason through anger management or round-table discussions. Or, rather, this enemy does want something specific: to take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make round the clock and, if you dare resist, he will feel it is his divine duty to kill you." --Amir Taheri

It all seems so clear. What's not to understand? "This has nothing to do with Israeli 'occupation' of 'Palestinian lands,' America's 'unilateral invasion' of Iraq, 'torture' of prisoners at Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, the widening 'income gap,' or any of the other litany of complaints that the terror apologists trot out. Islamist terrorism arises from religious fanaticism and hatred, plain and simple."