No Apology, No Future

Jack Wheeler, philosopher, adventurer, and aid to Ronald Reagan, in an article called “No Apology, No Future,” says the following:

After their defeat in World War II, the Germans apologized to the world for being Nazis and for the horrible atrocities Nazism committed. After their defeat in the Cold War, will the Russians ever apologize to the world for being Communists and the equally horrible atrocities Soviet Communism committed?” … It was only because the Germans went through a mea culpa emotional purge of the Nazi poison that they were able to create a prosperous free market democracy. The Russians will never be able to do the same until they can summon the moral courage to say to the world, “We’re sorry.”

Until Russians can take responsibility for their history and stop blaming everyone else for it, they can never overcome it. Until they can admit they created a monstrously evil tyranny, they can never create a morally decent society. Until they can stop yearning for past imperial glory, their former colonies will always hate them, and never trust them.

Let’s now apply this same standard to Islam: Muslims will never create a civilized society of liberal values nor become good international citizens until they apologize and take responsibility. They must apologize for creating a culture of suicide bombers that target innocent members of civilized countries. They must apologize for the support – before and after – for the 9/11 terrorists and the chief terrorist leader whom they still harbor. They must apologize for the 14 centuries of carnage inflicted by their supremacist warrior religion – Islam – which holds that some people are less than human and can be slaves, subjugated, or outright killed. They must apologize for creating a climate and culture of nihilistic hate, first subjecting their fellow citizens to its oppression and then subjecting others to violence along their “bloody boarders” and through out the world. I could go on but let me stop and ask:

Is anyone saying this?

No. And that’s the problem. We expect Muslims to just adopt democracy and vote in fair-minded governments without abandoning their past ideas and the religion that justifies atrocities. We expect Muslims to stop scapegoating Jews and America for their problems and act responsibly to create a productive society when they believe in a supremacist ideology founded by a warrior/prophet who slaughtered, plundered, conquered and oppressed.

And why should we believe Muslims can do what Russians can’t? Why do we expect Muslims to abandon their old ways when we refuse to criticize them, we don’t demand that they face their past inadequacies, and worse of all, our leaders praise the very religion that has kept they in poverty, ignorance, anger, and hell-on-earth?

This is going to be a long, long war.