Moderate Muslims. We search for this mysterious and illusive species as fervently and hopefully as we search for life on other planets. We have set up high-tech listening posts all around the world in the hope of retrieving a single signal from them. Any small message at all, even the most fragmentary sign that would prove their existence. There is, we have been told, good reason to believe that they're out there, but unfortunately so far we've been unable to substantiate this belief.
However, these disheartening results have in no way diminished our enthusiasm for this worthy project, or caused us to lose confidence in the probability of its eventual success. We just keep listening and hoping.
These Moderate Muslims, we have been advised, are the Golden Key to winning this War on Terror -- or more precisely, this Islamic War against the West. It is to them we must turn to solve these intractable problems. Because, our experts have assured us, the problems inherent in Islam can only be resolved from within Islam, by those ephemeral and semi-mythical MMs. Only they have the moral authority to redefine the tenets of Islam and set it on its new course. But unfortunately so far we have been unable to substantiate this belief.
However, these disheartening results have in no way diminished our enthusiasm for this worthy project, or caused us to lose confidence in the probability of its eventual success. We just keep on listening and hoping.
Meanwhile, our brave American warriors are at this very moment confronting this ruthless Islamic menace all over the world, most particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. And, through their professionalism and their courage and their daily sacrifices, they have achieved some remarkable successes.
But here on the homefront we are still in turmoil. Here, we are in the real quagmire, still bogged down in that never-ending, and seemingly-hopeless battle of legalistic semantics. We are still stuck in those preliminary stages of attempting to define the enemy. While our heroic soldiers are fighting and dying on the battlefield, we at home are still in the process of trying to precisely determine who it is we are fighting.
We are NOT, we have been repeatedly admonished by our highest authorities, at war with Islam. Islam is a religion of peace. We are certainly not at war with all of those good peaceful Muslims all over the world. And we are most definitely not at war with those Moderate Muslims. They, in fact, are our stalwart allies in this war, which is really just a war against extremism, against just another form of religious fanaticism, kind of like a Middle Eastern version of the KKK.
We have gone to great lengths to get this message out there to the world, we want the world to understand: We are NOT at war with Islam. We take great care to make clear-cut distinctions between those good Muslims and those bad Muslims. And we want those good Muslims around the world and in our midst to clearly understand our position. You have nothing to fear from us, we promise you. We honor your religion and your right to practice it.
In short, if you're a Moderate Muslim you have nothing to fear from us.
But, now, what about those Moderate Infidels?
Surely there must be some Moderate Infidels out there. I wonder, are those eminent religious leaders, those wise and all-powerful imams and mullahs busily engaged in that laborious process of making those important distinctions between those Moderate Infidels and those Fanatical Infidels, whom they are fighting daily on their battlefields? Are they carefully separating out all those good Infidels from those bad Infidels? Are they perhaps bogged down in some moral quagmire of their own?
When they attacked us on 9/11, did they make certain that those killed in the attacks would only be those bad Infidels?
To expect to be saved by these mysterious Moderate Muslims, by their somehow rejecting the fundamental tenets of Islam, rejecting those perfect divine pronouncements of the Prophet, is as foolhardy and hopeless as expecting a Christian to reform Christianity by denying the teachings of Christ, or expecting a Jew to reform Judaism by denying the Torah.
It just ain't gonna happen.
I'm sorry folks, but the time for gentlemanly debate has long passed, it's time to wake up, before it's too late. Our enemy has clearly and repeatedly defined this battle for us, even though our political leaders have yet to find the courage to do so. For our enemy the issues are clear-cut and straight-forward: it is simply a battle of Islam against the Infidels.
We must finally accept them at their word and fight the fight that's there, not the fight we'd rather fight. WE are our only salvation. No on else. Not the British. Not the Australians. Not the Europeans. Not even those brave Israelis.
And certainly not those semi-legendary Moderate Muslims.
