A certain female presidential candidate was heard to say that we do not need to profile people who could be our enemies, possible members of groups that are our enemies. Another candidate from the same political party was heard to say that we are not at war with a religion but with a radical arm of it or radical people who believe in that religion and are perverting it. All of these statements carry truth in them.
These statements are perhaps mostly true, and yet . . . . Islamic teaching seems to echo the negative principles that the radicals follow, without the caveat that the Christians have of an older time that has been changed by a watershed event. The Muslim cannot say, as the Christian does: Our laws were brutal in older times (Old Testament times) until the Savior came to pay for our wrongs and eliminate such harsh justice by man. Islam has no similar switch in it's harsh teachings; and, though it recognizes the historical figure, Jesus, it considers belief in Christ the Redeemer a sin.. Other modern hints seem to reveal occasional, or more than just occasional, agreement between radical Islamic teaching and the general beliefs of the average Muslim.
We don't know. And that's the bottom line. We don't know how much we hear is true, but we do know that the old saying 'where there's smoke there's fire' is based upon decades of observation. Today, in this modern ever so sensitive world, people are getting killed for their beliefs around the world in very brutal ways, while slavery also exists among Arabs, and subjugation of women in modern times is institutionalized. Those are facts. Another fact is that Christians and Muslims have been fighting almost nonstop through the ages since Islam first assaulted Christians in the early beginnings of the Islamic faith.
First, the modern, politically correct narrative has taught wrongly that the Christian Crusaders were the aggressors in their wars against Islam. In fact, as Islam grew and spread itself by the sword (a blame generally lain on Christians), Muslims conquered Christian lands in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, more or less completely conquering Spain except for a small hold out area. These Christian lands were not stolen from the Arabs. Christianity began in those lands. It seems there had been tolerance and some assurances of safety to those Christians by Muslim leaders. The failure of such safety precipitated the earliest crusades. Application by moderns of their modern standards to brutal historical times and the warriors who fought then have caused another mischaracterization of the Crusades. Yes their warriors were brutal, everybody's warriors were brutal then.
Long after the Crusades, Spain freed itself only to sail across the world to settle the Philippines with a strong Muslim presence in its southern regions. Having fought the Muslim Moors at home for 800 years, Spaniards called the Filipino Muslims 'Moros' (Spanish for Moors). Spain fought the warlike Moros; America took the Philippines in the Spanish American War in 1898 and fought them from around 1902 onward. Peace was achieved and after Philippine Independence the Filipinos have fought them off and on ever since. Radicals within the Moros are now part of the worldwide terror network, and they have taken tourist captive off and on in the area.
Additional facts that are generally known but little reported are that several Islamist groups and Muslim nations do not recognize Israel and do not want it to exist. Israel is located in its ancestral lands and was reestablished there in modern times when there was no other established nation present in the area. Perhaps the British occupation at the time had prevented such a Palestinian nation; and perhaps when Israel was thus founded there in 1947 after World War II, wise leadership could have divided the land and formed two nations at the time. It did not happen, but the Palestinians do have Jordan.
As to profiling and whether we are fighting a whole religion, questions brought up at the beginning of this essay, and I have no definitive answers for, we will address them in future essays. I have some suggested answers.
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