"Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance." -- Barack Obama, Cairo, June 4, 2009

While President Obama’s speech had some strength to it, such as reminding Muslims that the holocaust did happen and that Islamic extremism is wrong, it unfortunately had even more faults. Obama often engaged in the typical rhetoric of moral equivalence, and revisionist flattery, in attempting to appeal to the Muslim world.

With Obama-history, Islam is praised for their marvelous inventions and contributions to science: “It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing.” But as Frank J. Tipler points out at Pajamas Media, “The non-Muslim Chinese invented the magnetic compass and printing (Gutenberg invented not printing, but movable type). The non-Muslim Hindu Indians invented algebra and the decimal numbering system.”

Drawing false moral equivalence is the hallmark of a liberal comparison, and Obama is no exception. He compared the alleged ’struggles’ of women in America to that of genuine oppression in Muslim nations. Obama also denounced “torture” at Guantanamo, yet pouring water over someone in no way compares to the treatment prisoners and civilians receive at the hands of Muslims, including beheadings. He compares our defensive possession of nuclear weapons with Iran’s offensive nuclear aspirations. It’s all part of Obama’s trademark style to blame both sides while placing himself on a pedestal above it all.

In the greater narrative, the Left makes America out to be the unjust aggressor who inflamed the Muslim world after 9/11. But they ignore the fact that America was never in Iraq or Afghanistan prior to 9/11, yet America was still hit with the most devastating attack in its history. Islamic extremism predated 9/11 with numerous embassy bombings, the bombing of the USS Cole, many kidnappings, numerous hijackings, the first World Trade Center bombing, etc.

But America is not the problem, as radical Islam is waging war against the entire Western world. We have seen riots and calls for death over a Danish cartoon, a nightclub bombing in Bali, burning of Christian churches in Kosovo and Kenya, the murder of film directors in Holland, riots and looting in France, and the imposing of Sharia law on non-Muslims. All these examples have nothing to do with America, and highlight a greater movement in Islam of war against the West.

Their stated goal, frequently overlooked by western apologists, is the spread of Islam and the creation of Islamic states to eventual world domination. The West engages in all kinds of excuse-making to avoid seeing the obvious. There is a very real clash of civilizations, as is exemplified by the gradual destruction of European culture.

Ultra-liberal Europe cannot find the moral strength or resolve to fight for its own survival. Decades of postmodern thought have permeated the society, effectively paralyzing the people with guilt over past real or perceived sins. This steady cultural decline can be witnessed in many ways, including the dwindling congregations of Christian churches, with many being converted into mosques. Europeans are also too self-absorbed with their own hedonistic lifestyles to bother with having children. While not reproducing their own population, unassimilated Muslim minorities have much higher birth rates, and are well on their way to becoming a majority. With an ever-growing Islamic population, comes an ever-growing demand for Islamic laws and customs to be imposed on what’s left of European culture. The sad irony of all this is that the supposedly more ‘enlightened’ and ’sophisticated’ culture is actually killing itself, and being replaced by the intolerant and violent culture. Even France’s president Sarkozy is quoted as saying, “The Islamization of Europe is inevitable.”

This phenomenon is described very well in Bruce Thornton’s review of The Suicide of Reason. Radical Islam’s Threat to the West, by Lee Harris, in which Thornton writes:

Finally, Western cultural decadence weakens our defenses and gives traction to the jihadist hatred of the West. Living off the accumulated cultural capital of our more hardy, realistic, and brutal ancestors, we moderns are “intensely individualist, absorbed in the present moment, hostile to all forms of traditional religion and authority, champions of materialism, consumerism, and hedonism.” As such, we believe nothing is worth killing and dying for, leaving us weak in the face of a fanatic enemy, for “an intolerant ethical code will always end by trumping a carpe diem ethical code.” Given that we in the West have demonized “high-testosterone alpha males” and have institutionalized contempt for Western civilization, the West is obviously vulnerable to radical Muslims who “encourage their alpha boys to be tough, aggressive, and ruthless,” and who teach their children “to be willing to die to keep their traditions alive.”

Some like to believe that in order to eliminate hostilities with radical Islam, we need only sit down with our enemies while we calmly discuss our differences. What they fail to understand is that approach would only have a chance of working if the other side valued some of the same western ideas, such as tolerance and individual rights. Islam does not value tolerance, and is still largely a tribal religion with fanatical devotion. Therefore, you cannot reason or talk them out of their beliefs, which views non-Muslims (infidels) in the most intolerant of ways. President Obama is utterly wrong in saying, “”Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance.”

Does this mean we should obliterate the entire Muslim world? No, but reality suggests that a stronger stance seems to have a greater influence than showing weakness. Both Russia and China have been much harder on Muslims compared to the U.S., but Islam largely leaves them alone. America has bent over backwards to help Muslims around the world, including providing prayer rugs, Korans, and ethnic meals for terrorists held at Gitmo. But America was (and is) still the target for attacks, providing further evidence that only displays of national strength are respected.

All the feel-good speeches and appeasements will not fundamentally change the way Islam views the West or America. Nor will it deter them from their pan-Islamic goals of restoring the caliphate. Until Islam denounces terrorism and acknowledges other faiths, cultures, and countries (e.g. Israel) right to exist, there will never be peace. But for that to happen, it would take a series of internal reformations within Islam to go against centuries of established theology. Don’t count on it happening in Cairo or any other place soon.