The United States and Islam: What Is Going On?

by Amir Taheri • December 22, 2015 at 5:00 am

The irony is that no major power in recent history has gone out of its way as has the United States to help, respect, please and, yes, appease Islam. And, yet, no other nation has been a victim of vilification, demonization, and violence on the part of the Islamists as has the U.S.
The politically correct crowd has turned Islam into a new taboo. They brand any criticism of Islam as racist, ethnocentrist or simply vile, all crammed together in the new category of "Islamophobia." Is it Islamophobia to question a religion whose Middle East leaders often preach "Death to America" and hatred for Western values?
More prevalent than Islamophobia is Islamophilia, as leftists treat Muslims as children whose feathers should not be ruffled. The Islamophilia crowd invites Americans and Europeans to sacrifice part of their own freedom in atonement of largely imaginary sins against Muslims in the colonial and imperialist era.
Many Muslims resent the kind of flattery that takes them for idiots at a time that Islam and Muslims badly need to be criticized. The world needs to wake up and ask: What is going on?

After the San Bernardino massacre carried out by jihadists Syed Farook (right) and Tashfeen Malik (left), the perennial debate about "why do they hate us" is on with more intensity than ever since 9/11.

With Americans still trying to absorb the shock of San Bernardino massacre, the perennial debate about "why do they hate us" is on with more intensity than ever since 9/11. The irony is that no major power in recent history has gone out of its way as has the United States to help, respect, please and, yes, appease Islam. And, yet, no other nation has been a victim of vilification, demonization, and violence on the part of the Islamists as has the U.S.