In my latest reading of Mitt Romney’s No Apology: Believe in America, Romney talks about radical Islam. He believes that the goal of radical Islam is to create a worldwide caliphate in which everyone is under sharia law, and he refers to a statement by the 1928 founder of the Muslim Brotherhood that manifests that kind of vision. And Romney maintains that radical Islam hates the United States because of our freedoms and our culture, which go against its Muslim beliefs.
To his credit, Romney is not a complete Islamophobe, for Romney acknowledges that there are moderate Muslims. My impression is that Islamophobes do not believe that there are actual moderate Muslims but rather regard all Muslims as part of a sinister conspiracy. But, as Romney points out, radical Muslims have killed moderate Muslims.
I do not agree with Islamophobes, but I wonder: If they are right, what exactly can people do? One way that the U.S. has been fighting radical Islam has been to cultivate relationships with moderate Muslims and to promote them. But if there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim, then the West is in a losing battle. Fortunately, there are moderate Muslims.
James' Ramblings 