The Passion of Religious Lunacy

The frenetic dedication to Islamist jihad creating chaos and slaughter throughout those areas of the world where Islam managed to overcome the initial 7th Century resistance of populations throughout the Middle East and North Africa continues to play itself out as the vicious religious zealotry engaged in delivering the peaceful message of Islam continues to wrack the world.

From groups like Boko Haram and al-Shebaab, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and the Haqqani network, the slaughter and the fear that terrorizes Muslims and the West alike, continues apace.  The West is becoming, frankly, tired of reacting to all the bloody outrages that religiously-demented groups playing at violent jihad are imposing on populations in Mali, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and elsewhere.

NATO and ISAF forces are played out with exhaustion over trying to protect Afghanistan from its darker side.  Darker, that is, than the kind of normal, everyday Islam practised everywhere that oppresses women and considers all other religions inferior enough to have their sacred symbols held in contempt and destroyed, overlaid with Islamic symbols and mosques.

The West is dismayed that a Muslim-state ally in the mutual war against terror that has slaughtered so many Muslims who wish only to worship Islam in their own way, and to be left alone to do so, would hold one of its own for treason as reward for actually aiding in the war on terror.  But then, in Muslim societies it is held as reason for capital punishment to be applied to any who become apostates, denying Islam.

Irrationally vehement hatreds abound in the Middle East and Muslim countries where tribalism and virulently destructive violence plays out constantly between clans and sects of Islam.  African and Arab countries practising their avowed 'religion of peace' cannot seem to accept diversity and wince with distaste at the very thought of infection by Western values. 

Yet it is the West that champions the right of Muslims to live in peace.

When France's new President, Francois Hollande, made it official that France plans to withdraw shortly from any further military role in Afghanistan, he stated: "We, along with other (European) friends, came to Afghanistan to topple the Taliban.  Today we are happy to see Afghanistan standing on its feet and getting more responsibility."

Certainly responsibility is being handed over to Afghanistan, but it not becoming more responsible for itself.  The world of Islam is conflicted with itself and with its relationship with the non-Muslim world.  On the one hand it appeals to the non-Muslim world to help it solve its Muslim-dominated problems, on the other hand, it abhors intervention by Western powers in Muslim geographies and incidents.

Foreigners are viewed with dread and disgust, even while Western-based and -sourced humanitarian aid groups do their utmost to alleviate the dreadful burden of war and drought and oppression for ordinary people suffering inhumane living conditions.  The very indigenous military that NATO forces have been consigned to aid and assist and train have an increasing number of conscripts who turn deadly weapons on foreigners dedicated to their aid.

It is generally conceded by diplomats and by the western military hierarchy that not one single Afghan province has been certified as having completed its transition to full Afghan control.  Nor have the actions of any Afghan military or police given confidence to those who have been tasked with aiding them in that mission.

Countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq and Libya, Egypt and Syria were delighted to welcome and accept financial aid to ensure their administrations' survival.  They called upon the West to deliver them from situations they could no longer control, all the while disdaining the very powers that they implore assistance from.

It is a sterile occupation, that of attempting to place band-aids on the self-inflicted wounds of countries and of people who haplessly flounder, incapable of mustering their own inner resources to aid themselves and develop themselves into socially responsible and economically advanced countries of the world.