The Anchoress alerts us to this fine column for RealClear Politics by Canadian winger David Warren. The subject is the deadly radical-Islamist cartoon riots, which Warren argues are the opening salvos of a war that’s right before our eyes but which many of us refuse to see:
“Even after the experience of the Great War, and the Depression, people on the eve of the Hitler war could not appreciate what was coming. It is only in retrospect that we understand what happened as the 1930s progressed — when a spineless political class, eager at any price to preserve a peace that was no longer available, performed endless demeaning acts of appeasement to the Nazis; while the Nazis created additional grievances to extract more.
“This is precisely what is happening now, as we are confronted by the Islamist fanatics, whose views and demands are already being parroted by fearful ‘mainstream’ Muslim politicians. We will do anything to preserve a peace that ceased to exist on 9/11. Not one of our prominent politicians dares even to name the enemy.
“And from a mixture of fear of, and sympathy for, large, recent, Muslim immigrant communities in the West, we confuse domestic and foreign issues. I do not doubt the great majority of Muslims, in Canada and around the world, are decent, ‘moderate’ people, who want no part in a ‘clash of civilizations’. But it has become obvious they can do nothing to stop the triumph of ‘Islamism’ internationally, or oppose the fanatics proselytizing in their own communities.
“Germany was full of moderate Germans, as Hitler rose; Stalin drove his oars through a sea of moderate Russians. While we must not forget that the Muslims are the first victims of ‘Islamism’, and may suffer most from its triumph, we are beyond the point where we can do more for them than destroy the tyranny by which they are enthralled.”
A must-read.