Root Cause Identified
Yes, one more Islamic Supremicist story for this morning: For years I've argued that the "they just want the West to quit interfering" argument is a shallow and naive view of Islamist goals. They want us to quit interfering because we're in the way of their ultimate goal of reestablishing their twisted vision of the Caliphate and forcing the West into submission, and that means that we need to continue interfering with their fundamentally evil goal. Sitting in his jail cell in Jakarta, the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, Abu Bakar Bashir, joins many other Islamist leaders in saying exactly that:

SA: What can the West, especially the US, do to make the world more peaceful?

ABB: They have to stop fighting Islam. That's impossible because it is sunnatullah [destiny, a law of nature], as Allah has said in the Koran. If they want to have peace, they have to accept to be governed by Islam....We'll keep fighting them and they'll lose. The batil [falsehood] will lose sooner or later. I sent a letter to Bush. I said that you'll lose and there is no point for you [to fight us]. This [concept] is found in the Koran.

SA: How can the American regime and its policies change?

ABB: We'll see. As long as there is no intention to fight us and Islam continues to grow there can be peace. This is the doctrine of Islam. Islam can't be ruled by others. Allah's law must stand above human law. There is no [example] of Islam and infidels, the right and the wrong, living together in peace.

So, we can have peace if we stop fighting conversion to Islamic law. We shouldn't "fight Islam" not in order to have peaceful coexistence but in order to ensure that we go quietly. Peaceful coexistence is forbidden by Allah: We must be assimilated or destroyed. Exchange a few proper nouns and you have a transcript of 1930's Germans discussing the future of Europe.

Leftists reading this post saw nothing beyond the words "They have to stop fighting Islam," at which point they pumped their fist in the air, shouted "Yeah, man! That's genocide!" and lit up a joint.

Update: Helpful reporters at Australia's state-funded ABC:

Sure, we shouldn't really negotiate with killers, Price said on Monday, but "things have progressed so far beyond that".

To save ourselves we must open talks-if not with bin Laden himself, at least with "someone within the (al-Qaida) organisation that doubts what's happening".

And for half an hour her listeners rang with helpful suggestions to cut a deal with the terrorists who have killed so many of us.

Hang on, warned one listener, but wasn't one of al-Qaida's desires the return of Spain and East Timor to Muslim rule?

Well, that could be just a "starting point" in these talks, Price replied.

Remember: They're not fighting for the other side! Australian tax dollars at work, I guess. Considering that Islamist teachings specifically advocate cutting cooperative deals with infidels to gain an advantage than betraying them at the opportune moment as a long-term strategy, this tends to support the "shallow and naive" thesis.