Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword

In the wake of another bloodbath unleashed by Allah's warriors, an editorial in the National Post urges leaders of the civilized world to make a sharp distinction "between Islam and the extremism that led to the Uganda bombing."

That could be a bit tricky, however, since Islam--Islam, not extremist Islam--requires the faithful to

Slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the jizya (poor-due), then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. (Sura 9.5).

That's the Koran's infamous "Verse of the Sword," only one of many in that vein that give jihadis--violent ones who are partial to explosions and non-violent ones who prefer quieter, stealthier tactics--the green light to do what's necessary to fulfill a common goal: enshrining sharia, Islam's all-inclusive law, everywhere, forever. So if there is a distinction to be drawn here--and there definitely is--it is not between Islam and "extreme" Islam: in the words of Turkey's devout premier, "Islam is Islam and that's it." It is between Muslims and Islam. Think of it this way: the Koran is, among other things, an instruction manual for global conquest. Whether or not Muslims choose to follow the instructions--and many Muslims do not--is entirely up to them.

Update: For anyone who's under the impression (as some at the National Post seem to be) that there's a "good" Islam and a "radical" Islam, Theodore Dalrymple offers this corrective/reality check:

The Americans never allowed themselves to see their task in Iraq and Afghanistan as connected to a larger effort, that effort seen best as a war of self-defense, not by America alone, but by all the non-Muslim nations, against those promoting Jihad. There was a lot of talk about the “center” of the “war against terrorism” – first that “center” was Afghanistan, and then that “center” moved to Iraq, and then that center moved back to Afghanistan, and then it was located hovering somewhere between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and lately we read that perhaps the “center” has shifted to Yemen – or perhaps to Somalia, or somewhere else. It never was suggested that the very idea of a single “center” for Islamic terrorism – or, still more obviously, for those conducting Jihad through other instruments, such as deployment of the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da’wa, and demographic conquest – made no sense. It showed a misunderstanding that the problem was not a “failed state” here, or a malignant regime there, but rather, the ideology of Islam, its appeal, its demands and pressures, that never let up, on non-Muslims, whether those non-Muslims lived in countries dominated by Islam, or whether they lived in countries that had always been peopled by, and developed by, non-Muslims who had, in an excess of negligent enthusiasm for the Idols of the Age, Tolerance and Diversity, had without too much thought, allowed milions of Muslims to settle within their borders. There is no “center” for Islamic terrorism, and no “center” for those who use other, even more effective, because less attention-getting, instruments of Jihad, in order to promote the Cause of Islam. as connected to the world-wide march of Islam, a march – or a Jihad, rather – made possible not because of any changes in the ideology of Islam, but in the ability of Muslims to conduct, or think they could conduct, Jihad against non-Muslims everywhere.

And, oh yeah, violent jihadis kill Muslims--lots of them--too, ones who aren't following Islam's instruction manual, or aren't doing so in the "right" way.

Update: More Dalrymple, further on in the above must-read piece:

(T)he war of self-defense against Islam is primarily an ideological war, and we have to be sure of ourselves, sure that whatever our own great faults, or the faults of our societies, they are as nothing compared to the death-in-life that Islam presents. We need to grasp what Islam teaches, and what the consequences are of growing up in societies suffused with Islam, and what happens to individual liberties, to the enterprise of science, to the practice of art, when one is raised up in a society where everything militates against free and skeptical inquiry, where as a consequence the craziest things, the most absurd conspiracy theories, are deeply believed not, as in the West, by a handful of cranks, but in the Islamic lands, believed by a great many, and disbelieved only by those who are regarded as a handful of cranks.

This is good, too:

This is what must be done. Not boots on the ground. Not surges. Not winning of hearts and minds. None of it. Just an understanding – a deep understanding – of Islam and its effects on the minds, and societies, of those who, through no fault of their own, have been born into, and raised up within, it.