Radical Islam

     The 18th Century Irish statesman/philosopher, Edmund Burke, said it best when he said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."  It appears the we, as well as the rest of the non-Islamic world, is doing precisely that, nothing!  No one is really doing anything when it comes to trying to rid the world of this vile, barbaric menace, the so-called "radical Islam."  Instead, there appears to be the policy of appeasement, turning the other cheek and hoping that by being nice, it will somehow disappear!
     Did you know that there are currently 23 hostages from various non-Islamic (Western) countries being held as hostages by ISIS?  Four of those hostages are Americans!  Lack of intelligence assets inside ISIS makes it very difficult for us to carry out any rescue attempt, but still, the absence of any attempt is truly disheartening.  Perhaps with our new policy of allowing payment of ransom by private parties, our government is hoping that the situations will be resolved by the families?  Hopefully Pentagon will have an opportunity to deploy our Special Operations troops to perform a rescue, who knows, may be it is in the works and I am just being impatient.  But whatever the case may be, we are not doing enough!
     But ISIS is not the only radical Islamic group that has American hostages.  Iran has four!  Yes, Iran, the country with whom we just negotiated (?) a "good" (according to Washington) Nuclear Agreement is a part of that radical Islamic group, the same as ISIS (ISIL), Taliban, Al Qaeda and several others.  Iran is the main (and only) sponsor and financial supporter of Hezobollah, that radical group in Lebanon who not long ago held hostage and murdered several Americans, including our CIA Station Chief in Lebanon.  The Hamas in the West Bank, the ones that daily are trying to destroy Israel and whose favorite targets are school buses with children, are also supported by Iran.  Why did we not include some sort of a demand for the release of our hostages when we negotiated that "good" deal with Iran?  Could it be that our government doesn't consider them "true" Americans because they are naturalized citizens of Iranian birth?  Why has not there been more coverage on their fate?  One of these Iranian-American hostages is a former Marine, veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Whatever happened to "no Marine left behind" promise!
     Make no mistake about it, the so-called radical Islam's main focus is the destruction of the Western World with America leading the list.  There is not a single Islamic country in the world that does not have extremists, the radical Islamists who preach Jihad for destruction of non-Islamic world.  Their main target, without exception, is America!  America is the biggest enemy of these radical Islamists.  It doesn't matter if these countries are our "friends" like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, they all have and harbor extremists who preach destruction of America to their followers.  In Lebanon, textbooks that are used in Islamic schools openly state that the goal of Islam is to destroy America!  It seems that in every country, Western countries included, various Muslim clerics preach violence and destruction of the Western culture and America!  It is like a broken record, America appears to be the target in every one of those anti Western speeches and lectures.
     Just a few days ago, one of the high ranking Mullahs in Iran came out with the same old rhetoric, "death and total annihilation to Israel, death to the great Shaitan (devil), America!"  It seems he hasn't heard of the "deal" that we made.  In fact, the only Iranian official that went along with the deal was their Foreign Minister who did the negotiating!  The president of the country and all the others are unchanged, still spewing out hatred towards America.  They consider the "deal" as a non-military victory for Iran and are celebrating it as such!  Nothing else has changed, and we call that a "good deal"?
     The main problem appears to be that although we are all looking at the same object, we are seeing a different version from what the radical Islamist see.  Their vision and goals are clear cut - death to Israel, death to America.  Ours is different.  We seem to feel that perhaps we can "change" them.  We are optimists and see the glass as being "half full" rather than "half empty" while the radical Islamists see only complete destruction of their enemies.  I guess we are like the missionaries in a cartoon that insist on trying to convert cannibals to Christianity even as they are being boiled in a cauldron!  We are not going to convert those radicals in Iran or anywhere else for that matter!
     Islam is like any other religion or philosophy, it can be corrupted, changed to the needs of whoever decides to twist it to their use.  A simple definition of Jihad is a holy war against non-believers or non-Muslims.  However, the radicals are able to twist it into a definition of Jihad into that of a holy war that must be carried out by all believers to destroy the West!  The Jihad is presented as the most wonderful thing anyone can participate in and go to heaven by dying!
     The Muslim mentality is different.  I learned that a long time ago and mentioned it in one of my short stories in Snap Shots.  In that story, which takes place in Egypt, I mention the fact that there is an Air War Victory Museum in Cairo.  At first I was a bit confused and thought perhaps it was a museum dedicated to some war that was fought that I was unaware of.  But I discovered the museum was in honor of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Israel completely destroyed the Egyptian Air Force!  Things got so bad for Egyptians that Israeli jets were flying unmolested and strafing Cairo at will!  Yet, the Egyptians built a museum honoring their air victory in that war!  Obviously they were seeing things differently from the rest of the world!  It was the same thing when Saddam Hussein declared an Iraqi victory in the first Gulf War when we stopped short of Baghdad!  You see, according to Iraqi mentality, we didn't take Baghdad (they felt that we couldn't) so they won the war!  This, despite the almost complete destruction of their armed forces!  Its hard to fathom that kind of mentality and try to reason!
     So, in the minds of Iranians and other Islamic countries, Iran "won" on the nuclear deal.  Actually, they did indeed "win."  They got billions of dollars and sanctions partially lifted and to be lifted completely.  What did we get in return?  The right to inspect nuclear sites, but with 23 hour notice, and a promise from Iranians that they will not build nuclear weapons in the next ten years.....right!  On the other fronts, we are still fighting Al Qaeda.  Yes I know, we have killed many of their top leaders, and according to Washington have done irreparable damage to the organization.  That may all be true, but they are still around, and we are still fighting them.  The Taliban is also still very much around and we are still struggling to rid Afghanistan of their presence.  ISIS, despite all our efforts, even bringing in Iranians into Iraq while Hezbollah is in Syria, is still very much around and causing havoc.
     We are just not doing enough.  There are politicians in Washington who are aware of this and insist that we should do more.  Unfortunately, those who are in power and make the decisions seem to have a different plan.  We are sort of chipping away, dangerously close to not doing anything.  Had Edmund Burke been still around and witnessed what is going on, he no doubt would have quipped something prophetic like:  "The only thing ISIS needs to triumph is for America to continue to do as
little as it is doing now!"