Last night in the Republican candidates’ debate Tom Tancredo said:
“My dear friend Ron here, I dearly love and really respect, but I’ll tell you: I just have to disagree with you, Ron, about the issue of whether … Israel existed or didn’t, whether or not we were in Iraq or not, they would be trying to kill us, because it is a dictate of their religion, at least a part of it. And we have to defend ourselves.”
It is a sign of the times that Jason Easley of 411mania.com (thanks to Kaosktrl), who reported these words, thinks they’re loony. Why? Well, just because. Easley classes Tancredo as among last night’s losers, and comments: “Tancredo got to say a lot more in this debate, and unfortunately for him, this wasn’t a good thing. His idea that the Muslim faith is crazy and blood thirsty was the topper of a really poor night for him.”
Yeah, where did he get a crazy idea like that? Maybe from Qur’an 9:5 and 9:29? Maybe from teachings from all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence counseling warfare against unbelievers?
Naah. For Easley and multitudes like him, Osama bin Laden and other jihadists can quote the Qur’an and invoke Muhammad to justify violent acts until doomsday, or until the Mahdi returns, and they will never be willing to acknowledge that there may be something in those texts that deserves attention if we are ever going to see a cessation of that violence. The facts of the case are just too disturbing, too hard to believe. It’s easier to assume that when people like Tancredo intrude a bit of reality into the polite fictions that dominate the public discourse about Islamic jihad, that they’re just going off half-cocked, committing a “gaffe.”
Unfortunately, the evidence that Easley would prefer to ignore just keeps piling up no matter what.