Let me ask you a question: How long has ISIS (called ISIL by the U.S. government) been in existence? Do you know? Here's a better question: What is ISIS? Can you define them, other than by defining the meaning of the stupid acronym based on what your favorite search engine tells you?
Let me set the record straight in case you're confused by the title of this article: I am NOT some whacko conspiracy theorist here to tell you that ISIS is a made up entity used by the government to distract people as they (the government) stage elaborate hoaxes to further an agenda. That's the kind of tin-foil-hat bat-shit crazy stuff that gets spread on the Internet every time there's an attack. That's the kind of thing that's spread by people who call themselves "9/11 Truthers", believe that the arlines are systematically poisoning them via "chem trails" as part of a conspiracy, etc. And that's not at all what the title of this article is indicating. There really is a group of people who are actively slaughtering people by the hundreds & thousands simply because they follow an insane religion and have brains made of mush that have been filled with garbage since the day they popped out of their equally crazy mothers.
My beef, is with the use of the term "ISIS". Not because it's an acronym (although I do hate acronyms). But because these people are exactly the same individuals that were called Al-Qaeda only a few short years ago. When's the last time you heard about Al-Qaeda, other than a historical reference? And before that, we called them the Taliban, at least in Afghanistan. And before that, the Mujahideen. And before that, "freedom fighters" - but that's when we were foolish enough to think that they were our friends and their mission was honorable.
I know... some of you are jumping through the screen about to tell me that I'm wrong and that there are differences between these entities. Well I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Sure, there are some subtle geopolitical distinctions between these groups. But the reality is that ISIS is made up mostly of people who were called Al-Qaeda as recently as two years ago. They didn't switch teams. They didn't form a new mission and set new goals. They are the same exact crazy mother fuckers who have been shooting innocent people and lopping off heads their entire lives. The term ISIS/ISIL is simply a marketing identifier (for lack of a better term) slapped onto them for their current campaign of violence.
The reason that you occasionally hear about old groups like the Taliban "making a comeback" is because, IT'S THE SAME FUCKING PEOPLE. It's all one big group of goat-humping, camel-sucking nut jobs that all share the same insane ideology and all want exactly the same thing... the rest of us dead!
This silly divvying up of the crazies into easily identifiable little groups with fancy labels serves little purpose, other than as a mechanism for our government to dumb it down for the average American citizen who has the attention span of a fruit fly. In other words, it helps to keep people engaged in the idea of fighting the enemy if the enemy gets a face lift every few years.
Frankly, I don't care what we call them or what they call themselves. At the end of the day, they are who they've always been and they will never change. Their tactics may advance. Their weapons & methods may evolve. They may (and are) advance deeper into civilized western territory. But they are simply Islamists who are brainwashed from the get-go.
So... I guess it's time we discuss the terms "Muslim", "Islamist", and the use of the pointless qualifier: "Extremist" used by some to distinguish the actively violent ones from those who are not.
I once had somebody actually say to me (in a Facebook discussion), that I shouldn't use the word "Muslim" to describe people who are part of "Islamic" religion. My head exploded with confusion when I read that statement. Once I explained to them (probably rather abrasively) that the definition of a Muslim is a person who studies an adheres to Islam, they simply stopped responding because they realized that they are too dumb to continue the discussion.
So now that we agree Muslim = Islamist, what about the term "Extremist"? This is what gets people all bent out of shape and why they jump on my shit every day. Any time I (and others) criticize Islam as being the cancer of humanity that it is, people jump in with "you can't lump them all into one category. Not all of Islam is bad, only a very few bad apples who give it a bad name". Well my friends... that's BULLSHIT!
Somebody much smarter than me once put it this way: "A Muslim extremist is the guy who chops off your head. A moderate Muslim is the guy who holds down your feet and lets it happen.". You may think that's an over-simplification, but it's exactly right. The reason that people get so bent out of shape about this is because they are confused (misinformed) about what it means to be a Muslim. These are people who went to college with somebody who claimed to be a Muslim. And that college buddy never blew himself up. Maybe they drank alcohol and engaged in regular relationships with the opposite sex. Maybe they listened to cool music and didn't seem to mind that the women around them weren't dressed like Casper the ghost. Well I hate to break it to you and your college buddy, but that dude is not a Muslim. He may think that he is, but he's not. Here's a good test of that theory: ask yourself how long their head would remain attached to their torso if they moved to Syria. Because those crazy fuckers in places like Syria (really all of the middle east), are the real Muslims. They are the ones that follow its teachings & writings WORD FOR WORD. They are the ones who understand that the religion is built on the concept of viciously slaughtering ALL non-believers, including those who don't fully commit to its teachings. The Koran (Quran) has many many passages that provide clear instructions for them to kill us. If your college buddy doesn't subscribe to those instructions, then he's not a Muslim. He may be a really good dude and he may practice a form of religion that is rather honorable and admirable. Heck, maybe he should start his own religion. But... he is not a Muslim. And neither is the guy fresh out of prison who has reformed himself into a peaceful, tolerant pacifist. Islam and peace are mutually exclusive. Completely incompatible concepts that cannot coexist. They tolerate only one thing - themselves.
I once used a Star Trek analogy to describe Muslims. They are blend between the Borg and the Klingons. The Borg are the singular collective of cyborgs who assimilate entire species and destroy anybody who refuse to be assimilated. They are where the phrase "resistance is futile" comes from. In their mind, you assimilate and become one of us, or you die. The Klingons are the guys who are an ancient barbaric species of aliens who know only violence. They speak of "honor" and use it as an excuse to drive an axe through the skulls of whoever pissed them off that day. They fight for fighting's sake. They want no alliances with anybody else and they look at every other way of life other than their own, as inferior and irrelevant. Sound familiar?
Look, I don't care what we call these people. They are a scourge on the human race. Does Islam have some beautiful concepts and respectable elements? Probably. But in this case, the bad heavily outweighs the good. And the way that it's actively practiced (the elements that drive its following) are directly responsible for the murder of millions of innocent people. And it's no longer just "over there". It's here in our homeland, in New York, Detroit, Washington D.C., Pittsburgh, Paris, Madrid, London, etc. We no longer have the luxury of ignoring the true nature of these people and this religion. We can no longer dismiss the fundamentalists as rare artifacts that don't represent the moderates. The moderates really have no place in this discussion at all. They are a side topic that has absolutely no bearing on the matter at hand.
If you're thinking of responding to this with some reference to times when violence was committed in the name of Christianity, save your breath. The Crusades were a long time ago and were an isolated time in history. Christianity, with all of its warts and rocky past, has reformed itself and flushed out its corruptive elements that detracted from its peaceful teachings. Don't bother pulling out some Old Testament references. Because that doesn't represent the way that Christianity is taught and practiced at all. Everybody was nuts back in those days. I think that two thousand years of a good track record pretty much clears the table. Sure... every once in a while there's a nut job who claims to be Christian that does something crazy & violent. The difference is that these are isolated incidents and that true Christians stand up against them and denounce them. That's something that simply doesn't happen in Islam.
To sum up: ISIS = ISIL = Al Qaeda = Taliban = Mujahideen = Freedom Fighter = Islamist = Jihadist = Muslim = [Fill-in-the-blank identifier of the day]
You can only polish a turd so much. It's still going to be a turd when you're done with it. The only change will be that you're covered in shit.
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