Welcome to the
"Liberty Insider."
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This is a regular
program that gives you
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up-to-date news,
views, discussion,
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insight and maybe
even some provocation
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on the issue of religious
liberty in the United States
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and indeed around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
Editor of Liberty Magazine
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and my guest on the
program is Kim Peckham.
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Of any guests that
I've had for a few years
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you put it to me
more than I can remember.
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I've had some good
discussions but you asked me
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a few searching
questions that get me hemming
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and hawing
because we are dealing
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with such heavy stuff that,
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you know, glib answer
will get you into trouble here.
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Yeah.
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But let's talk
about something that's
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in almost every newspaper now,
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they get the question of ISIL,
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you know, what
does it stand for?
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Islamic State of
Iraq and Levant, right.
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Yeah.
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So it's a country
that it's not a country.
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Yeah.
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What do you know about
them, questions for you,
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put you on the spot?
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What do you know about
ISIL? What is it saying to you?
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By the way, I have said
it on this program before
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but it tickle my fancy as
a history major at one point
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and I also was an English major,
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I flip my major and Mark Twain
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one of the icons
of American literature
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he wrote some
really interesting stuff
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because he was at
the time as I remember
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the Mexican American war
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and but anyhow
on the war in-- yes,
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it was Spain.
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The Spanish American
war and he made a comment
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that is all too true.
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He says foreign
wars says Mark Twain,
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are God's way of
teaching geography to Americans.
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That's true.
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All right, because
we don't really know
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where anything is
until we go and fight there.
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Well, there is a
certain irony in this
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because more and more will
having to learn where is ISIL,
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what is this
boarder they crossed?
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And the irony is they are
all about erasing borders.
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You know, what's going on?
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Well, I don't know a
lot but they sound very--
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by metaphor they
sound like Christians
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and talk about
the kingdom of God
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that they are
brining together a country
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that supersedes boarders
and maybe even ignores them
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or do you say it is
building a new country.
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Well, there is two things
at the same time as I see it.
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First of all the
Islamic community
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as I remember the
Alimah or is that the Alimah?
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Anyhow there is a word
for the community of faith.
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In Christianity
we often say that,
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you know, the bounder of faith.
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So they see the--
and remember with Islam
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it's much harder to explain
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a separation of
church and state.
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The Quran that
leads the other way.
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So when you talk about the faith
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for all around the world
they should be sort of united
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in the band of governance and,
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you know, there is the
imagery in Christianity
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that probably do under members,
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you know, poems
sailing to Byzantium.
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You know, the
mythical Christian past
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where the Roman
Empire on the religious rule
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was out of was anti
more constant and noble.
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Well, they have their
mythical idealized state
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of Islamic
governance under the caliphate
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of the Turkish caliphate.
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That was really at
its zenith. Zenith?
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Yes or--the top. Yeah, the top.
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Where there was a
whole coalition of nations
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that had their own local rulers
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but they were under the Caliph
or the Islamic king that--
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Caliphate.
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Yeah, this is Osama bin Laden
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was trying to bring
in the Islamic caliphate.
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Well, you know, its
not good but I mean,
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that's hardly unique
sort of an attitude to have.
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You know, the Holy Roman Empire
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occupied a lot of
Western Europe the idea
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to bring together
all the Christian.
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You know, the joke about
the Holy Roman Emperor was,
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holy the Roman, yeah.
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Yes, but that's
what they are after
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but what's ironic to me
is at the same time well,
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that may never
happen and there is--
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threatening to many
Christians countries
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or countries where
there are significant numbers
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of Christians in
those populations.
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What ISIS is actually doing
is not totally illegitimate
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because the Western powers
have doubled over the world
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and in the Middle
East they arbitrarily
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and I think
willfully made the countries
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that we now have today
that have no real logic
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other than a logic of weakening
different people groups
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often borders are
between the Kurds,
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the Kurds are split
up in three countries
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that I could think of.
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And that was by design.
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So ISIL as they come across
the border of Syria into Iraq
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they wanting to
pull them all together.
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And they've got
some historic arguments
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that they once were a
larger area of the Levant.
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And so this is
their, it's a political--
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I'm not saying
that we in the west
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and this is not a religious
liberty thing but you know,
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political thing of western past
whether they should allow it.
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But it isn't just
religious fanaticism,
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this is
aspirations for statehood
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and for autonomy in
that region that have not
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really been recognized till now.
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And maybe the
problem is that in casting
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as just as religious fanaticism
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we dismiss a very
legitimate need to look again
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at what's
happening in that area.
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And the great irony is I think
the US started the ball rolling
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by dismembering Iraq
which was never as strong
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as we thought
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and we sort of broken it
up into constituent parts
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particularly the
north with the Kurds
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and its collapsing.
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And so these--
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Now what is that that every time
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we bring religious freedom
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somewhere like
we brought to Iraq
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and like with the fall of the--
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We didn't bring
religious freedom please.
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Well, wherever we
cause a relaxation
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of the territorial
government that certainly
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you have an outbreak
of religious conflict.
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I mean, it happened in Iraq
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and before that with
the fall of Soviet Union
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and Azerbaijan
and places like that
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where suddenly
people left to themselves
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will break out in
religious conflict
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where as under despotic control
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they seem to
get along just fine.
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You bring up very good questions
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and that great I
had you on the program.
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But you know, this
are just not one reason,
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not one thing at any one time
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but you sort of
answer the question
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in couple of those
cases like the Soviet Union
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as a secular religion in essence
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to religion of the
progress of man had a necessity
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the need to
restrict religious expression
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and identities
try to submerge it.
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So when it disappeared
what they had thought
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and frustrated bubbled up again.
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It wasn't because
we gave them freedom,
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it was just that the
damage that have been done
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before now was more evident.
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What disappoints me
after 70 years of practice
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of getting along together
and apparently doing all right,
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that the minute
the led comes off
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they are each other sorts again.
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They didn't get on well.
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And in Iraq this seems
not to have impressed anyone
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and I've not read discussions
of it even after the fact
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that Saddam Hussein who
has probably well resting
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in his grave not a good man
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but as leader he held
together a fractious country
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against the direct threat
of Islamic fundamentalism.
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He did it in a very ruthless way
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but that was his problem.
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He kept the lid on
it for a long time.
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And so now we see it, it
flying apart doesn't mean
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that the problem is
that they have freedom.
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He had the problem
all along but he solved it
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by a means that I don't think
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in the modern
world is acceptable.
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By being ruthless.
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I will say murderer and --
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Secret police--
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I mean, every mechanism
he could think of including
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a divisionary war that
killed a million Iranians.
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Yeah.
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Horrific conflict
where children were killed
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and all sorts of things.
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I mean, this is a story--
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again the historians know it
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and you can find it
in the fight magazines
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but the general
public don't know.
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Did like the Iraqi soldiers
complained during that war
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that they had a human waves,
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you know, I think this way
you are saying the children,
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good proportion of
them were tens and substance
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the Irani's were conscription
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because they didn't really
have an organized military
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of any
consequence of that point.
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So they were trying
to overwhelm the Iraqis
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by sheer weight and
numbers and the Iraqi soldiers
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many of them some
eventually panic and ran
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because they couldn't
deal with the fact the bodies
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were piling up so high in
front of their gun employments.
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They just kept
coming and kept coming.
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They were just
bulldozing and mowing down.
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It was an horrific
war and one of the images
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that I will never get rid of
just before the fall of Saddam
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and then once I
saw it after he built
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a victory arch in Baghdad--
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With two swords.
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With the two swords, yeah
I'm trying to think of it.
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Two makers, two swords
and then on either side
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and immense pile of helmets,
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Iranian helmets that they had
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from soldiers killed in the war.
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Mecabra remembrance of
war. It was a bloody war.
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And--
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Now the issue on
nationhood is a religious one.
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No, on the issue of nationhood
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it was a
disaster for both of them.
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But it sort of
guaranteed that when the lid
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was taken off religion
would be part of the mix though.
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Because, you know,
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the people were
existentially bothered.
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So what is the answer to this?
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Do we just make fences
between people that believe
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differently in
that part of that world
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because they are
just not gonna get along?
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It sounds like to me that
we need to get Liberty Magazine
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to that part of the world
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because they need
to understand well,
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religious freedom
more than anyone does.
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No we do, I was
joking with you in response.
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No the answer-- the best
answer I can see is education.
00:10:55.48\00:10:58.92
Not formal
education but to inform people
00:10:58.95\00:11:01.96
so they sort of
see what's happening
00:11:01.99\00:11:04.46
and see as a
solution, openness, freedom,
00:11:04.49\00:11:11.13
respect for the rights
of other just even exist
00:11:11.17\00:11:15.77
and to realize that yes,
00:11:15.80\00:11:17.41
religion has
caused a lot of problems
00:11:17.44\00:11:19.01
but religion is
not the only problem.
00:11:19.04\00:11:20.88
The disputes and the inheritance
00:11:20.91\00:11:24.51
of bad history, bad
country and bad lines drawn,
00:11:24.55\00:11:28.72
all of these sort
of turn religion itself
00:11:28.75\00:11:33.12
I think often into a bad player
00:11:33.15\00:11:36.02
but it's a little more
than just faith runner--
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And so back to ISIL where
we started talking about here
00:11:39.29\00:11:43.50
we've got
several things at play.
00:11:43.53\00:11:45.33
We've got a very
natural renegotiation
00:11:45.37\00:11:51.07
of the very
countries in the Middle East
00:11:51.11\00:11:54.91
and on the norms of
history it's overdue.
00:11:54.94\00:11:58.58
You know, we kept a
lit on it for a while
00:11:58.61\00:12:00.32
in pay route Lebanon.
00:12:00.35\00:12:06.92
Lebanon is a totally out
official construct of the west
00:12:06.96\00:12:11.86
with and we see it
as religious factions
00:12:11.89\00:12:14.36
but it's just not
really a very good
00:12:14.40\00:12:17.30
well thought out state.
00:12:17.33\00:12:18.77
And so a lot of this something
needs to be renegotiated
00:12:18.80\00:12:22.17
and yet we are--
00:12:22.20\00:12:23.81
we seem determined
to hold the borders.
00:12:23.84\00:12:26.31
Then we see religion
00:12:26.34\00:12:27.91
which is an inspiring
force for most people.
00:12:27.94\00:12:30.31
All religions get,
you know, the Jesus,
00:12:30.35\00:12:32.88
emotions Jesus
is going at people
00:12:32.91\00:12:34.48
because you are
on a higher course,
00:12:34.52\00:12:36.15
God the diving is
with you to move on that,
00:12:36.18\00:12:38.95
we need to deal with that.
00:12:38.99\00:12:40.39
And then what the
west is going to find
00:12:40.42\00:12:43.06
we've also got young
people in western societies
00:12:43.09\00:12:47.40
that's become
concerned about video games
00:12:47.43\00:12:52.00
and getting this
and getting a car
00:12:52.03\00:12:53.77
and all that who don't
really fit in real world.
00:12:53.80\00:12:57.94
There's not true values,
there are little bit alienated
00:12:57.97\00:13:00.81
in their own society
00:13:00.84\00:13:02.31
and who are easily
drawn to this great Jihad.
00:13:02.34\00:13:06.78
So it's a commentary on my view
00:13:06.82\00:13:08.45
on western societal breakdown
on GIA political breakdown
00:13:08.48\00:13:14.56
of false constructs
that date back even further
00:13:14.59\00:13:18.29
but certainly it's
the first world war
00:13:18.33\00:13:21.40
and then of course
a bit of a poison pill
00:13:21.43\00:13:24.93
and that Islam at
this point in history
00:13:24.97\00:13:29.14
is sort of a victim
of the Jihad concept
00:13:29.17\00:13:31.34
which comes
from their own books.
00:13:31.37\00:13:34.74
So there is no
single answer to this
00:13:34.78\00:13:36.71
and I'm only describing it.
00:13:36.75\00:13:38.58
I don't even know that
it's the immediate conclusion
00:13:38.61\00:13:41.48
but self awareness
is always very good.
00:13:41.52\00:13:44.35
And so
education, facts and figures
00:13:44.39\00:13:46.42
will bring some
self awareness to this.
00:13:46.45\00:13:49.79
Oh, we hope it would help.
00:13:49.82\00:13:53.03
We will be back
after a short break.
00:13:53.06\00:13:54.86
I've talked
myself out but not quite.
00:13:54.90\00:13:58.00
Stay with us,
with guest Kim Peckham
00:13:58.03\00:13:59.67
we will talk a little further
00:13:59.70\00:14:01.04
about what's happening with ISIL
00:14:01.07\00:14:04.17
and that phenomena in the world.
00:14:04.21\00:14:06.27