"The Peaceful Majority"
(email received, 1Mar07)

    I used to know a man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War Two. 
They owned a number of large industries and estates. I asked him how many German people were true Nazis, 
and the answer he gave has stuck with me and guided my attitude toward fanaticism ever since.  
"Very few people were true Nazis "he said," but many enjoyed the return of German pride, 
and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. 
So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, 
and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything 
I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories."

    We are told again and again by "experts" and "talking heads" that Islam is the religion of peace, 
and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion
 may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, 
and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. 

    The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.  It is the fanatics who march. 
It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically 
slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent 
in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor kill. It is the fanatics who 
take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning 
and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. 

    The hard quantifiable fact is that the "peaceful majority" is the "silent majority" 
and it is cowed and extraneous.  Communist Russia comprised Russians who just wanted 
to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. 
The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China ’s huge population was peaceful as well, 
but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

    The average Japanese individual prior to World War 2 was not a warmongering sadist. 
Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing 
that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, 
shovel, and bayonet. And, who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. 
Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were "peace loving"? 
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason 
we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:

    Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.  
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany , 
they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

    Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs Afghans, Iraqis, 
Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority 
did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold; 
we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life. 

    Lastly, I wish to add: At the risk of offending someone, I sincerely think that 
anyone who rejects this as just another political rant, or doubts the seriousness of this issue 
or just deletes it without sending it on, is part of the problem. Let’s quit laughing at 
and quit forwarding the jokes and cartoons which denigrate and ridicule our leaders 
in this war against terror. They are trying to protect the interests and well being 
of the US and its citizens. Best we support them.