
Liberals, Leftists, Conservatives, Neo-Cons, Neo-Liberals, Islamists, Pan-Islamists and everyone else concerned keep speaking of a long awaited Islamic Reformation.
Actually, that Reformation has already began and is ongoing. Except that Islam is going from a slumbering megalith to an extremist controlled ideology.
Islam began a long sleep sometime in the 1700-1800 era. It went near comatose after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Two things occurred to awaken Islam:Conflict in the Middle East predates Islam by thousands of years. This region is a crossroads of history. Traditions of hate, violence and war date back to before the Greeks and Persians to the earliest stories of the pre-Phoenician peoples. Expecting “Peace in the Middle East” One may as well search for the burial place of Genghis Khan. Find one; you may find the other.
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None of this is to say that the United States or Britain is to blame for Islamic Extremism. Islam was born in blood. It will die in blood. Islam was spread via conquest. Muslims and Liberals love to deny this. However, the Islamic Empire spread from Medina to Andalusia (Spain) in an amazingly short period of time. None of these territories invited Mohammad, Abu Bakr or Uthman into their lands. Islam did not quietly knock and ask for admittance. Islam rode at the head of a world devouring empire. People “submitted” to Allah not because they suddenly saw the light. They converted or “reverted” because it was the prudent thing to do. If you were given the choice between conversion, death or high taxes and second/third class citizenship in your own lands, most would choose to convert.
Islam is a violent Abrahamic religion. All three of the religions spawned by Abraham are violent and full of blood lust — Xtianity, Judaism and Islam.
The Extremist Muslims are following the path of previous Muslims including that of Mohammad. Denial of this is denial of historic reality.
Islam is violent. It also knows peace. However, like Xtianity, the majority of the religions is about purifying the world and making it ready for God/Allah via force.
Same God, same violence, same hatred for the non-believer. Muslims choose which path to follow. Those who choose violence choose that path regardless of outside influence. They would choose that path even if the US and Britain had never existed as neither existed when the Islamic Empire first invaded Europe, Africa and Asia.