TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Ron Paul chastises that are seeking to stop the New York mosque from being built:

The debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a perfect example of how the right to own property also protects the 1st Amendment rights of assembly and religion by supporting the building of the mosque.

Instead, we hear lip service given to the property rights position while demanding that the need to be “sensitive” requires an all-out assault on the building of a mosque, several blocks from “ground zero.”
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Conservatives are once again, unfortunately, failing to defend private property rights, a policy we claim to cherish. In addition conservatives missed a chance to challenge the hypocrisy of the left which now claims they defend property rights of Muslims, yet rarely if ever, the property rights of American private businesses.

Absolutely right. I do find it amusing, though, that liberals are enthusiastically quoting Ron Paul on this, when many on the left just as giddily portrayed him as a racist in the 2008 primaries.

Paul went on to say:

This sentiment seems to confirm that Islam itself is to be made the issue, and radical religious Islamic views were the only reasons for 9/11. If it became known that 9/11 resulted in part from a desire to retaliate against what many Muslims saw as American aggression and occupation, the need to demonize Islam would be difficult if not impossible.

There is no doubt that a small portion of radical, angry Islamists do want to kill us but the question remains, what exactly motivates this hatred?

This is a terrible misunderstanding on Paul’s part of what motivates Islamists. Paul, and others, believe that Islamists are fundamentally only interested in the Muslim world (which is usually conveniently, but inaccurately, defined as the Middle East), and attack the U.S. because of our involvement in the region.

While the U.S.’s involvement in the Muslim world certainly is a motivating factor, it isn’t their primary motivation. For groups like al Qaeda, their goal isn’t to change the Middle East, but to change the world. Their goal is to restart the caliphate and extend Taliban-like rule across the Muslim world—from North Africa to China—and from there, Islamize the world. From this perspective, the U.S.’s involvement in the Muslim world is incidental. The U.S. must be defeated not because it has hurt Muslims, but because it is the world’s superpower and thus the largest threat to their ultimate goal.

Handing Iraq and Afghanistan to Islamists, renouncing Israel and withdrawing all forces from the region may, in the short-term, placate them. But the short-term is, well, short. Would we rather deal with al Qaeda as a group forced into the mountains of the Pakistani-Afghan border, or as a movement in control of Iraq and Afghanistan?