My friend Ty Cobb, a knowledgeable Reno Gazette-Journal political columnist who worked in the Reagan White House, performed a public service last Sunday by pointing out the threat that militant Muslims pose to those of us who don't agree with their intolerant and violent worldview.
"There is a movement rapidly gaining fanatical adherents in the Islamic world," Cobb wrote. "Unfortunately, the direction of this 'reformation' of Islam is not forward toward economic development, respect for human rights and tolerance, but backward toward the Dark Ages." He added that militant Muslims who support this alleged Islamic reformation "aim at nothing less than the total destruction of (Western) values and culture..." That's a strong indictment of millions of Muslims, but Cobb's analysis is right on the money.
As he noted in his column, even if only 20 percent of the world's Muslims adhere to radical jihadist theology, "that means some 200 million fanatics are committed to the struggle against us." In other words, they want to kill as many Americans and other non-believers as possible. "Further," Cobb added, "the disappointment is that the remaining 80 percent have been largely silent or acquiescent in the militarization of the Muslim religion." I have long wanted to ask a related question: Where are the moderate Muslims? When is the last time, if ever, you heard a Muslim clergyman denounce suicide bombers?
Cobb wrote that a compilation of Islamic laws, known as the sharia, "lays the foundation among extremists for intolerance and hostility against unbelievers, the enemies of Allah. Their ultimate goal: the replacement of the system of nation-states with a worldwide caliphate and the implementation of sharia law globally." That's a scary proposition that is entirely possible unless we, and the politicians who represent us, wake up and confront the worldwide threat posed by militant Islam.
"We can debate whether Iraq was the place we should have chosen to launch the counter-attack (against Islamic terrorism)," Cobb concluded. "The key point is that our next president must make the eradication of this global terrorist threat our No. 1 national security priority." Although I don't think Iraq is the central front in our continuing War on Terror, I agree with Cobb when he puts the Islamic threat at the top of our national security priorities. We simply cannot afford to elect a president who doesn't understand the life-and-death nature of the threat against us and our cherished way of life.
In a recent Washington Post op-ed piece, Bahraini journalist Mansour al-Nogaidan challenged his fellow Muslims to take another look at their religion. "Islam needs a Reformation," he wrote. "It needs someone with the courage of Martin Luther." A few years ago he wrote an article for a Saudi newspaper arguing that "Muslims have the right to question and to criticize our religious leaders and not to take everything they tell us for granted." What a concept! "That article landed me in the center of a storm," the journalist recalled. "Some men in my mosque refused to greet me. Others would no longer pray with me." So much for religious tolerance among militant Muslims.
Al-Nogaidan wrote that Islam needs "a strong charismatic personality who will lead us toward reform, and scholars who can convince Muslim communities of the need for a bold new (and non-violent) interpretation of Islamic texts to reconcile us with the wider world." He's right of course, but such reform is highly unlikely as long as Islamic imams and schools continue to preach hatred and intolerance against "infidels" - anyone whose religious beliefs are different from theirs. There are Islamic schools right here in the U.S. preaching that hateful doctrine to young students, indoctrinating them in preparation for a worldwide jihad against the hated infidels.
Cobb calls the current confrontation "a clash of civilizations" and urges our politicians to be alert to the threat. Some of them are, but many aren't as they continue to placate militant Muslims with soothing rhetoric about our constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion. That's all well and good but when the Justice Department and FBI seek authority to wiretap conversations between Americans and terrorists who want to kill us, Congress should grant such authority without quibbling about the terrorists' alleged right to privacy.
BURNING MAN
My friend and colleague Sam Bauman will be returning to Burning Man next weekend, and I wish him well. I was out of town when he published his most recent defense of the Burners on Friday the 17th, but I want to respond briefly and respectfully to his critique of my views. I simply believe that it's morally wrong for self-respecting adults to do drugs and take off their clothes on public lands in the presence of young children. I would never write another word about the naked drug festival if the Burners would hold their ten-million-dollar event on private property and leave the kids at home. I don't think that's too much to ask. It would cost the BLM a few bucks, but who cares?
Sam wrote that the festival offers "bare boobs, a few ugly naked men and a lot of people smoking fat cigarettes (and that ain't all), and kids taking it all in." Well, if that's your idea of family entertainment, that's your choice, but personally I think you should get naked and/or do drugs in private. If that makes me an old fuddy-duddy, so be it!
• Guy W. Farmer, of Carson City, won't be attending Burning Man again this year although he thanks the organizers for their kind invitation.