State security forces of Bashar al-Asad, the opthamologist cum dictator of Syria, shot up crowds of people attending funerals for other people who had been murdered by State security forces yesterday. Reuters reported that "scores" have been murdered by al-Asad's thugs in anti-government protests.
There is not the reverence for life in the Islamic world as there is in the West. Nor is there in China, nor has there ever been in China.
Doctrinally and as practiced, Islam and Chinese communism are violent. Mao Zedong threatened America and the West with attack. Mao Zedong attacked American troops in Korea. There were those, William F. Buckley was one, who urged a preemptive nuclear strike on Maoist China in the 1960's. American governments chose not to, believing that Mao would not attack, in significant part because he could not attack effectively. That turned out well for America. China is not a "friend" of America today, but it is not threatening as it was under Mao.
If Islam had been considered a doctrine, as was Maoist communism, Nazism and Japanese imperialism, all of which modern Islam closely resembles, after the attacks on America on September 11 America would have obliterated Islam as America did Nazism and Japanese imperialism, and the people, Muslims, who practice Islam in the way it is practiced and preached in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, in the same way America did the people of Germany and Japan. That is what Public Occurrences favored after September 11.
America chose not to.
The American government of President George W. Bush chose to view Islam not as a violent doctrine, and it's practitioners in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan not as practitioners of a violent doctrine who had attacked America; the American government of President Bush and now President Obama chose to view Islam as a religion and its practitioners as religious followers. America decided not to war on Islam but to pressure "extreme" practitioners and their groups, such as al Qaeda.
America's view of Islam has worked so far, and, since we are now nearly ten years removed from September 11, it has worked.
Syria is not a friend of America, but it has not attacked America. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have long been considered by American governments to be friendly. They are not. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are enemies of America. Their religion/doctrine threatens America; their practitioners/followers have attacked America; the religion/doctrine that they inculcate in the Saudi and Pakistani people is directly responsible for the attacks. But they have not been able to attack America effectively since 9/11.
