“Je Suis Charlie!” & the Cultures of Offense

Following close on the heels of the N. Korean terrorist attack on our freedom of expression, now we have a terrorist attack in Paris on the press.  A group assassination of 11 in an editorial board meeting of “Charlie Hebdo,” a satirical weekly magazine that pokes fun at everything, including Islam, with cartoons also depicting Mohammed.  The 3 masked perpetrators, who also killed a Muslim policeman, shouted the usual “Alahu Akbar!” and reportedly told a bystander to tell the press they were from Al Qaida of Yemen (some think they are desperate to regain the limelight from ISIS), and were avenging the honor of the prophet Mohammed.  1 terrorist turned himself in, and 2 others were on the run for 2 days, then took a hostage and went out in a blaze of gunfire.  An associate took several hostages in a Paris Jewish grocery store, to gain release of his fellows, and killed 4 before being killed.  Some are calling it the French 9/11.  They are in shock that something like this could happen in Paris!  In Iraq or Syria or Afghanistan, yes, but Paris?!

Now we’ll see how much the press, the people, and our leaders, really want freedom of the press rather than appeasement and political correctness.  It should be obvious to even the block-headed left-leaning media that you don’t defend it by giving every indication that you’ll accommodate the terrorist demands.  For instance, the NY Times pixelating the cover of the magazine being held by one of the victim editors. 

Just as should have been done with the Danish cartoons many years ago, you do it by showing solidarity with everyone publishing them as a show of strength and defiance, which doesn’t leave only one or two who do dare, to be such obvious targets.  Charlie Hebdo and Mark Steyn’s outfit were about the only ones who courageously did, and have paid the price. 

When we don’t stand together, and send mixed signals to the enemies of our freedoms, this is how we lose our freedoms, one step at a time.  Now is the time to intensify attacks on ISIS, Al Qaeda, etc. – the only thing they understand is strength.  They are emboldened by their own successes and our weak responses.  When will we learn this?  Buying peace for the moment – “in our time,” as Chamberlain said – with appeasement, pays with greater misery and less freedom later. 

Obama at the UN recently, on another apology tour (& deceptively shifting the blame for Benghazi), said that “the future does not belong to those who attack the prophet of Islam.”  That kind of statement emboldens and further justifies terrorists who feel offense.  Just as sympathetic statements for the police-vilifiers, following Ferguson, emboldened and justified the cop-killers.  They, too, felt racially offended. 

This culture of victimization and offense seems prevalent in the West, and Islam.  It manifests itself in political correctness in the West, and in sharia justice in the radical Islam world.  The preoccupation is with avoiding offense, and when it is not avoided, by justifying all sorts of persecution, legal injunction and even murder.  The racial and cultural haters & victocrats fan the flames of resentment and retribution, deepening the divides in our societies, and leading to more and more lawlessness and violence.  Isaiah clearly foresaw our day – “And in that day….all that watch for iniquity…That make a man an offender for a word,…” (Is. 29:18-21).  Atheists are offended at public displays or mention of Christmas or prayers, etc.  Otherwise good and accomplished men are fired or disenfranchised for a slip of the tongue in private.  For all their avowed horror at the Inquisition, witch trials & McCarthyism, are they really any better?

All this to achieve power and demands by intimidation and vigilantism.  When they can’t seem to earn respect, they demand it, and force it.  They demand special treatment – for Black lawbreakers to be given special treatment, and for the Muslim religion to be above all other religions and institutions by being free from any criticism or restraints.  And ultimately, of course, for sharia to be implemented.  They have largely achieved those objectives in France, where, I think following the massive riots & car burnings years ago, entire sections of cities have been declared off-limits for French police, and sharia is in effect.  But did that satisfy them?  No.  They will always want more.  Should the Paris attack, then, be a surprise?  The French had gradually been ceding ground to the extremists, and this is just another step in the progression.  The safe areas gave the terrorists free reign to recruit and plan attacks.  They felt emboldened and justified, by every indication of the French establishment.  The French leaders criticized Charlie Hebdo, and even filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against them.  And president Obama joined in the criticism.  All the leaders of Europe & the U.S. have been feckless in this. 

The only current leader who has spoken clearly on what needs to be done, is the Egyptian president, who this week unbelievably courageously spoke to a gathering of their leaders, including the grand Mufti – the most authoritative Islamic cleric in the world – like the Pope.  He said basically that the Islamic religious leaders must stop this hijacking of their religion that is bringing the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world into conflict with the 7 billion others.  His days are likely numbered, just as Sadat’s were after making peace with Israel.

It is incredible to me that every time the problem of radical Islam is raised in the media, the Left continues to counter with the fact that it's not all Muslims.  As if we didn't long ago realize and acknowledge that (and as if that totally absolves Islam).  That's why we say radical Islam.  Is it only the Left that is still struggling with that distinction?  And they complain that we are the ones who only think in black and white.  But it is not a miniscule and ignorable number of Muslims -- as evidenced by the strength of ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Taliban in Afghanistan & Pakistan, Iranian-sponsored terror, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc., etc.  It has been said that not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost invariably (over the last 3 decades and more) all terrorists have been Muslim.

The job of our leaders is not to protect us from offense, offer criticisms of those who exercise free speech, or to empathize with those who vilify our public protectors, but rather their job is to protect our lives and freedoms.  They can do that by sending clearer messages beforehand that attacks on them are not only wrong, but will not be tolerated.  Liberal Bob Beckel even said “if we don’t stand up now, we’ll rue the day.”  Even Bill Mahr has noted that it’s not Catholics who are beheading, raping, enslaving or massacring those of other religions, homosexuals, women, or imposing their values and conquering territory and terrorizing.  It’s Muslims.  Yes, a more radical part of Islam, but hardly a miniscule part, and not a part that doesn’t find reasonable justification for its actions in Koranic scripture. 

When will the rest of the PC Left wake up, shake off their fears or fairy tales, and call a spade a spade?  And begin to stop the loss of all we (and they) value?  It is absolute naiveté to believe we can peacefully coexist with (or even negotiate with or manage) the evils of radical Islam, the modern incarnation of Nazism.  They must be squarely confronted and defeated as a scourge.

Hillary Clinton continues the progressive line of “we need to understand and empathize with our enemies.”  How long have we now been dealing with Islamic terror?  Several decades.  How long, professor Clinton, do we need to study them before we adequately understand them to be able to actually do something about them?  Or is this a lifelong research project for your academic amusement?  Or is it merely an excuse for inaction due to fear, because one can never fully understand or empathize with another?  Or are you just a naïve eternal optimist who is convinced they will somehow magically change if we just treat them nicely?  No, they have declared war/jihad on us, and we need to fight them if we value our lives, liberties and values over theirs.  They laughed when our president went to Egypt and naively and hubristically thought he could placate the Islamic world with his charismatic apology tour.  And the Taliban & ISIS just waited us out after Obama announced clear total withdrawal dates from Iraq & Afghanistan.   None of Obama’s “strategies” have worked.  And Clinton is just more of the same.

I’m reminded of the biblical verse, “THIS know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come……Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (2 Tim. 3:1,7).  When in the history of the world has anyone tamed such barbaric ideologues as these?  How long must we wring our hands & be slaughtered?  I hope I never empathize with psychopathic murderers.  I think we understand them well enough by now – all we need to know.  They can’t be persuaded, negotiated with, or ignored – they are out to kill us and take our liberties to establish a worldwide caliphate (they have attacked nations all over the world).  The only way to stop them is to kill them.  Even God, after trying persuasion and plagues, destroyed the Egyptian armies facing Moses & the children of Israel.

Yesterday Secretary Kerry did seem to stand up for freedom of speech, but a bit too little, too late.  Just as they are too little and too late with their other actions in defense of freedoms in Libya, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, etc.  Just as with the belated standing up for the police after the shooting of two of them. 

Sure, now everyone is Charlie – “je suis Charlie.”  Easy to say that.  But where were they when Charlie was about the only place courageous enough to publish the Danish cartoons which had generated fatwas against their publishers?  The media is still gutless – they’re not sticking their necks out one inch.   The editors at Charlie knew well the risks they were taking – they’d been firebombed, had death threats (on Al Qaeda’s most wanted list), etc.  The chief editor said that he’d rather die at least standing than groveling.  One French expert noted that the populace is strongly behind Charlie – it is the elite leadership that is gutless and frozen. 

We must choose our battles.  And unfortunately our current administration, and their lackeys in the media and academia and special interest activists and others on the secular Left (including Europe), have chosen to make mountains out of molehills, wherever they have found infrequent or exaggerated offenses against minority or offended groups or the environment, or social inequality.  Those are the big headlines, and political, legislative and legal battles.  They ignore or minimize genocides in Africa (2,000 killed by Boko Haram in Nigeria this week alone), in the Middle East, and the increasing power and dominion of truly evil regimes and ideologies that are much more of a threat to the things they claim to defend at home.  Why?  Because they are cowards.  They feel safe in attacking Christians or conservatives, but not radical Muslims.  They cannot acknowledge evil because of their belief in moral relativism – they also cannot acknowledge good or assert any values or judgment.  Except, hypocritically, their standards of political correctness.

But continuing down this path will lead exactly where the pacifism before WW I & II led – we will be fully engulfed in it, and it will then be a much bigger and more intractable problem than if we’d dealt with it earlier.  In fact many are saying that WW III has already begun.  Certainly the cultural battles are already being lost.  The physical battles, as well.  Because we won’t fight.  We don’t appreciate what we have – until we’ve lost it.  And then it may well be too late.

Postscript 1/12/15

On Sunday, 4 days after the massacre, over a million people turned out to fill the streets of Paris, in solidarity for the slain & freedom of expression, and against the terrorists.  More than after the liberation of Paris after WW II, or VE day.  Nice symbolism, but what else will they do that will actually be effective against radicals?  

And the heads of state of many nations joined hands at the head of a procession.  Including Netanyahu of Israel, and various Arab states.  But nowhere to be found was anyone from the Obama administration.  Where was our president?  Watching football on TV -- leading from behind, again.  The administration spokesman now admits it was a mistake.  Such an admission is rare or unheard of for this administration, so perhaps deserves some commendation.  But the problem is, its judgment is all too typically good only in hindsight – after it’s too late.  They sent 3 administration officials to the funeral of Michael Brown, who was killed when attacking a police officer.  AG Holder actually was in Paris at the time, but didn’t go to the rally.  Once again, inept at maintaining relations with allies.

And now yet another cyber terrorism attack – this time by ISIS, and directed against our CENTCOM military’s social media sites.  We’re also losing the cyber war, apparently.  With whatever cyber warfare capability we have, we should be shutting down any and all terrorist websites (recruiting & otherwise), just as North Korea’s internet went down after their attack.