This shoddy article in a US Student newspaper shows what passes for thinking in today's groves of academe, especially in its supine take on Islam.
The author criticises Sen Rand Paul for saying that Islam is waging a war with Christianity. Now, I don't have much time for the politics of Sen Paul, but on this point, he's right. It's not him making that assessment; it's said by many leaders in Islam. They themselves see Islam as waging a war against the west in general and Christianity in particular. If we choose to ignore that, it's our choice, but it does not make Paul's comment incorrect.
I did a quick comment at the site, awaiting moderation:
The author criticises Sen Rand Paul for saying that Islam is waging a war with Christianity. Now, I don't have much time for the politics of Sen Paul, but on this point, he's right. It's not him making that assessment; it's said by many leaders in Islam. They themselves see Islam as waging a war against the west in general and Christianity in particular. If we choose to ignore that, it's our choice, but it does not make Paul's comment incorrect.
I did a quick comment at the site, awaiting moderation:
[Commenter] "KingHasNoClothes" makes the right points.
Indeed the figures are even more disturbing. According to various polls the numbers of Muslims in western countries who want to replace secular laws with Islamic Sharia laws is 55%. Of UK Muslims, 25% support the London 7/7 bombings (is that a "small minority"?)
And the figure of 7% who are extremist: where does Haddix get this? A Pew Research report of August 2011 found that 21% of Muslim Americans thought there was "a great deal/fair amount" of support for extremism amongst Muslim Americans (note: that's what US Muslims think of other US Muslims...). Did Haddix get his figure from the 2008 Gallup report "Who Speaks for Muslims?" (it seems to ring a bell). If so, he should know that those figures were shown to have been massaged and were more likely to be in the mid teens. Even if in the low teens, that would be like close to 200 million Muslims supporting extremism. As KHNC says: "That's a lot"!
As for the hoary old chestnut of the alleged "interdiction" of the Crusades, Haddix should really inform himself and read up about them. They were clearly -- by all scholarly accounts -- acts of self defence after the invasions (not "uniting force") by Islam of Pagan, Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian lands. Yes, and even of Jerusalem.
