Ralph Peters Unhinged

By Andrew G. Bostom
FrontPageMagazine.com

Writing what can only be characterized as an unhinged column in the September 7, 2006 New York Post, military analyst Ralph Peters lashed out at those he labeled “Islam haters”. In a breathless series of vicious calumnies (summarized concisely by blogger Lawrence Auster), Peters claimed that those he lacked the courage to name, were: “an enemy within”, represent “the most repugnant trend” in the current debate on Islam, are more “destructive” than the anti-American left, are members of an ugly “domestic insurgency” among “right-wing extremists bent on discrediting honorable conservatism”, believe that “all Muslims are evil and subhuman”, believe “that Muslims are Untermenschen”, are promoting “the Protocols of the Elders of Mecca”, are “just the Ku Klux Klan with higher-thread-count sheets”, are “heirs of the creeps who once told us Jews can never be real Americans and JFK will serve the Vatican”, are “inveterate haters ... whose personal disappointments have left them with a need to blame others (sounds like al Qaeda to me...)”, and are “bigots [who] might like to try to kill a billion Muslims”.

Robert Spencer has posted an eloquent rebuttal to Mr. Peters article at Jihad Watch (here). My response focuses on Peters follow-up appearance to discuss his calumniating article on the Friday, September, 8, 2006 Laura Ingraham Show.

During his interview with Ms. Ingraham, Peters, in his trademark uinformed manner, held up Indonesia “the world's most populous Muslim country” as a paragon of moderate Islam. This is the same Indonesia that in the mid-1960s, Sukarno fatwa in hand, waged a murderous jihad against its own Chinese non-Muslim population which killed at least 100,000 ethnic Chinese. In the 1980s a frankly genocidal jihad was waged by the Indonesian government against the Christians of East Timor, leaving hundreds of thousands dead. For at least the past decade, there have been intermittent Indonesian jihadist pogroms against the Christians of the Moluccas which have also killed thousands.

The current Indonesian government released the jihadist leader Bashir after a trivial sentence despite his role in the Bali bombings. As MEMRI reports, this popular Muslim thug wants Indonesia to become, officially, a theocratic “Allah-cracy”. Moreover, during a recent state sanctioned visit to Indonesia, Iranian President Ahmadinejad was welcomed by throngs of adoring Muslim Indonesian college students.

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