Defending the True Faith

PREPARING THE COUNTRY for its next war, President Obama declared that the Islamic State is not really Islamic. Like ravenous carp, Republicans bit, loudly retorting that indeed the Islamic State IS indeed Islamic, because it says it is. Well, that's true enough. People have the right to decide what they are, even if others disagree. However, most American conservatives seem to think that all Moslems, all Arabs, are the same, no matter how many different nations, sects, and organizations inhabit the middle east. Any religion with over than a billion members is going to experience differences of opinion about the true faith. Often, when people claiming to be true believers perpetrate horrendous acts, they are branded heretical. Timothy McVeigh and Benito Mussolini called themselves Christians, after all. Most Moslems seem to consider the Islamic state a gang of heretics. The trick is to convince Christians in the United States that the Islamic faith, like the Christian faith, has its share of bad apples, but that inter-faith understanding and cooperation is vital. Moslems, like Christians, are generally well intentioned. One must do more than tolerate all religiosity; one must accept, continued tolerance without acceptance is an insult. But this newly upsprung Islamic state is a problem for nearly everyone, most particularly those poor people subjected to its violent tyranny. Obama plans only to bomb the Islamic State, and let real Moslems do the groundwork. There is no foreign policy problem that can't be resolved with the American Air Force. The Germans, regrettably, have indicated they have no intention of launching air strikes against the Islamic State, although they don't mind if the Americans do. Could it be that the United States, Iraq, Iran, Bashar's Syria, and the Syrian rebels might all unite to destroy the Islamic state, then get right back to destroying each other? Strange bedfellows. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, at least, briefly.