Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made news yesterday addressing the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington, D.C., when she said the following as reported by Breitbart.com:
Militarily, where is our commander-in-chief? We’re talking now more new interventions. I say until we know what we’re doing, until we have a commander-in-chief who knows what he’s doing, well, let these radical Islamic countries who aren’t even respecting basic human rights, where both sides are slaughtering each other as they scream over an arbitrary red line, “Allah Akbar,” I say until we have someone who knows what they’re doing, I say let Allah sort it out.
In other speeches Gov. Palin wisely has pointed out that one of the most important factors in deciding whether to send American soldiers into another nation’s conflict is America’s own best interests. America’s interests are not served by interfering in Syria, regardless of the atrocities being committed there.
But the reason I’m writing this post is that there is a fascinating history to the phrase, “Let Allah sort them out,” which dates from July 22, 1209, when Pope Innocent III ordered the slaughter of a Christian sect called the Cathars because they rejected his authority:
De Montfort [commander of the army sent to kill the Cathars] demanded that the leaders of Beziers turn over the town’s Cathar heretics to him. They refused. The Crusaders attacked.
According to accounts written decades later, as the attack began, a soldier asked Amalric [the French Cistercian monk there as the Pope’s representative] how they would be able to tell which Beziers townspeople were Catholics and which were Cathars.
Amalric supposedly answered (in French): “Kill them all. God will recognize his own.”
Some sources give the alleged quote as “Kill them all, for the Lord knows his own” or as “Kill them all. The Lord knows his own.”
It eventually came to be most commonly paraphrased as “Kill them all and let God sort them out.”
[snip]
Amalric’s infamous quotation was updated during the Vietnam War, when the saying “Kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out” became popular among American special forces troops.
This “witticism” was put on unofficial military patches, pins and t-shirts that are now sold as “collectibles” on eBay.
More recently, American troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan updated the saying again in the form: “Kill ‘em all. Let Allah sort ‘em out.”
T-shirts with that variation are now being sold online by the SEAL Team Gear store.
The awful truth is that there will only be a semblance of peace in Syria when one side seeking absolute power has crushed the other side, which also is seeking absolute power. There is no advantage to America in interfering with this process because it would be like trying to stop an avalanche. The forces involved are too powerful to stop until they reach an angle of repose on their own. It also would be the Obama administration’s excuse for a flood of Syrian immigrants to the U.S.–immigrants whose religion requires them to kill or subjugate all unbelievers. Let Allah sort them out.