Candles and Fires

In an all to common occurrence, yet another "lone wolf" attack by a Muslim extremist occurred in London this past week, killing five and injuring many more, some critically. Local politicians get in front of the camera with brave words, Western leaders voice muted concern, intelligence agencies describe the problem with  'needles in haystacks' metaphors. But there is no outrage, there are no calls for Islam to reform itself, for local Islamic communities to identify and isolate extremists in mosques and community centers before they take the last step toward mass violence.

Richard Fernandez comments on the Muslim "lone wolves" and our reaction to them:

 In some respect the Lone Wolves are more accurately likened to the U-Boat wolfpacks of WW2 notoriety than to werewolves who mysteriously arise at random in the depths of the forest. The Wolfsrudel, like the Lone Wolves, were only loosely coordinated and "could attack as they saw fit ... If their number were sufficiently high compared to the expected threat of the escorts, they would attack."

And attack they do, surprisingly yet unsurprisingly. It is Western leadership that is more deserving of criticism for turning in such a poor defensive performance despite their vast resource superiority. Obsessed with looking good, timid to the point of inactivity, determined at all costs to proclaim their own virtue, the Western elites have proved singularly incapable of combating their vastly weaker foes. The ritualualistic candle-lighting, trite speeches, frightened processions and self-congratulation of the political class are completely ineffective against laser-like menace of their foes. They haven't noticed but the voting audience is starting to.

It is long past the time to stop worrying about offending Islam by suggesting, without equivocation, that it has at least some culpability for the lone wolves. After all, the lone wolves may be crazy and suicidal but they are devout Muslims who believe they are following the dictates of their holy books. It is long past the time to recognize that the battle isn't with ISIS alone (although they truly are barbarians). It is with Islamist thought throughout the Muslim world.  The only way Islamist thought can be eradicated is for Islam to eradicate it (fatwas from major clerics would be a good start, but major clerics are oddly silent on radicalism), and we must demand that they do just that. If Islam refuses, there will come a time when Donald Trump's "Muslim Ban" will look like a friendly gesture. It is long past the time to jettison the notion that if we act "virtuously" (and therefore meekly) it will somehow influence Islamic radicals to modify their behavior. It will not.

It's terribly un-PC to note that those who are sympathetic to the call for worldwide domination and Sharia law are NOT an infinitesmal percentage of all Muslims. They represent tens of millions of people, a small percentage of whom will become fully radicalized and therefore dangerous to the Western cultures that have absorbed them. The wolf pack will grow,

If we continue to light candles to mourn while Islamists light fires to kill, we're in far more trouble than we can begin to imagine.

UPDATE:
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 After the terror attack in her home city,  Katie Hopkins writes this in London Daily Mail:

No anger for me this time. No rage like I’ve felt before. No desperate urge to get out there and scream at the idiots who refused to see this coming.

Not even a nod for the glib idiots who say this will not defeat us, that we will never be broken, that cowardice and terror will not get the better of Britain.

Because, as loyal as I am, as patriotic as I am, as much as my whole younger life was about joining the British military and fighting for my country — I fear we are broken ...

London is a city so desperate to be seen as tolerant, no news of the injured was released. No clue about who was safe or not.

Liberals convince themselves multiculturalism works because we all die together, too.

An entire city of monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Blind. Deaf. And dumb.

Western elites are truly blind to threat. Deaf to the warnings. And dumb as rocks.