Incubating ISIS professionals

I understand William Pesek the Bloomberg columnist poked fun at the brouhaha created by this touching dogs event. To many including those in Malaysia, the whole issue must have appeared as absurd.

Look at the last few paragraphs of the story. You can feel the hostility and the desire to violently hurt the organizers and its participants. I wonder how many more steps are needed to bring them to become fully ISIS worthy. To me they are being incubated for apocalyptic Islam. ISIS offer them a caliphate in the making. Who the hell do they think they are that can force the Almighty's hand? I wonder how many of these extremist Muslims are aware of the direction that they are headed. To me, the moment you start nursing anger and retribution against others, you are no longer Islam worthy. You have gone over to the dark side.

Almost every day I wanted to write something about the ISIS but I restrain myself. The above is from ST October 20.

Malaysian society is fertile ground for ISIS to incubate and mine for misguided Muslims professionals to further their cause. No doubt some of these potential recruits have been under cover threatening violence toward Syed Azmi and the other organizers.

Today we are witnessing the rise of a hateful version of Islam. They may not be the majority but they have far greater drive and energy. They are growing market share faster than the other Islamic schools. Since many peaceful Muslims regrettably also possess little knowledge (a problem with Christianity too) of their religion, instead of battling ISIS deviant theology, they are potential prey. The difficult and onerous task is left to a small group of Muslim theologians. They are poorly organized and therefore out gunned. Some these theologians are even sitting on the fence and have not make up their minds! They could even tip over to ISIS side.

I am still waiting and may be in vain for the big theological contest against Salafism in general and specifically Wahhabism as presented in ISIS and Al Qaeda. Until the battle of ideas began we will not make progress fighting this evil idea virus. In the west, a growing number of people aren't so patient. They have made up their minds that Islam is an evil religion and not a religion of peace. That is most regrettable. That is the path of violence, tears and death. Do they know what they are wishing for?

Update: Oct 25, 4:45pm

Imperfect, but we in Singapore is probably doing this better than anywhere else. In London they are trying and failing big time.

Under Bush, the US believed too much in their big guns. Obama is much more sophisticated and nuanced but America's politicians, media and people are too shallow. They fail to understand that Obama refusal to give in to them will spare America a lot grief tomorrow. If you can't make things better, don't make it worse. On their own they are already very good and doing themselves in. Assad is the most astute player but also most evil and self centered.