| Author | Message | ||
     tjohn Supporter Username: Tjohn Post Number: 4535 Registered: 12-2001  |
There have been a number of posts that completely demonize Islam. Aside from the fact that some countries, such as Turkey, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Indonesia don't quite fit this model, how does demonizing Islam serve any useful purpose. Unless somebody is planning to apply the Final Solution to all Muslims, then some sort of rational policy is called for. That policy has to start with recognizing that the Islamic world is not nearly as unified as the demonizers would like us to believe. Even in Iran, there is a large portion of the population that would like to move into the 21st Century. So, a good start is to understand how to exploit natural fault lines in the Islamic world. Of course, given our support of Israel, these fault lines are harder to exploit, but they are still out there. | ||
| Strawberry Supporter Username: Strawberry Post Number: 7579 Registered: 10-2001 |
So all this is the fault of the U.S and Israel? | ||
| tjohn Supporter Username: Tjohn Post Number: 4537 Registered: 12-2001 |
Whether you love Israel or hate Israel, it is a simple fact that our consistent strong support of Israel limits our options in dealing with some Arab governments. | ||
| Illuminated Radish Citizen Username: Umoja Post Number: 37 Registered: 6-2006 |
Does the West demonize Islam or does it demonize Arabs? One can very easily lead to the other, I just question if it's a 'chicken or the egg' scenario. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1157 Registered: 4-2006 |
Hmmmm... Some quotes from the suras of the Koran: " Believers, take neither Jews or Christians for your friends" - Sura 5:51 "Fight against such as those to whom the scriptures (Jews and Christians) were given, until they pay tribute out of hand are are utterly subdued"- Sura 9:27 "Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you. Deal firmly with them." - Sura 9:121 And there is more. So, um what were you saying there tjohn? | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 5776 Registered: 8-2003 |
tjohn -- seeing as our support of Israel makes it harder to reach out to moderate Muslims, how many of those moderates want to wipe out Israel do you think? | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1159 Registered: 4-2006 |
tjohn seems to believe they warmly embrace western secular values like a woman's right to choose, gay rights, and representative government. And if we were nicer to them and dumped that damn pesky Israel, they would then elect the Arab equivalent of John Kerry. Oh boy. Alternative universe stuff. | ||
| tjohn Supporter Username: Tjohn Post Number: 4538 Registered: 12-2001 |
Sounds like cjc and FvF are in the Final Solution camp. My point is that unless you are planning to beat the Islamic world into submission (hint: this isn't going to happen), then we have to find some way to deal with them. Demonizing Islam is not part of dealing with Islamic governments. After twenty years of demonizing the Chi Coms, we found some way to deal with them and the PRC was not then and still is not a shining example of democracy and human rights. | ||
| anon Supporter Username: Anon Post Number: 2886 Registered: 6-2002 |
I am a strong supporter of Israel and I agree with tjohn. Not all critics of Israel are motivated by anti-semitism, but some of them are. I don't see why support of Israel should result in anti-Muslim sentiment. A Jewish scholar who lectured a few months back at a local synagogue said that quotations from the Koran like those posted above were often taken out of context. Muhammed was angry at the Jews for not following him, and in his opinion, for not being faithfull to their own religion and the Torah. In any event for how long did Christians preach the "the Jews killed Jesus" and for how long was the Vatican the source of anti-semitism? I don't think Jews faired any worse in Muslim countries than in Christian ones, and their status and treatment probably varied from one Muslim country to another, just as it did from one Christian country to another. The Jews of Muslim Spain did pretty well and when the Catholics took over and expelled them they were given refuge by the Muslim Turks. Jews survived in Turkey for hundreds of years under benevolent rule. They were pretty badly off in other Muslim countries such as Yemen, but certainly no worse than in Catholic Poland or Orthodox Russia. In my opinion part of the problem between Israel and its neighbors from the beginning was that the Arabs viewed the Israelis as westerners rather than as middle-easterners and much of the leadership of Israel viewed themselves the same way. | ||
| Spinal Tap Citizen Username: Spinaltap11 Post Number: 88 Registered: 5-2006  |
While there are differences among Muslims, the most obvious being the Sunni / Shiite split, I think the radicals are pretty unified in their hatred of us. I’m reminded of a book I read a while back, “The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Empire”. The author contends that the Soviet Union was crumbling from the beginning and that we could have brought about its demise more quickly if we had exploited the cracks in Communism both within the USSR and among the various Communist nations instead of viewing them monolithically. Perhaps there is a lesson to be applied here. Of course there are those who say that Islam is incompatible with modernity and cite those Suras posted and others. I don’t think that it’s the Koran itself but rather how Muslims view it. Muslims don’t think the Koran is the divinely inspired work of men, or that it applied to a particular set of circumstances in history, as most Christians and Jews view the Bible. They believe that God dictated the Koran, in Arabic, word for word, through the Angel Gabriel, to Mohammed, and therefore there is no room for interpretation. It is the literal and perfect word of God for all time. I also think the Koran is missing a key concept that is present in the New Testament, that men give to God what is God’s and to Cesar what is Cesar’s, a clear order to keep the affairs of Church and state separate. In Islam, Mohammed was Cesar. Christ rejected earthly kingdoms while Mohammed conquered them by force of arms. And while Jews have suffered at the hands of Christians, it was in spite of the teachings of Christ, not because of them. It was a human perversion of His teaching whereas it can be argued Muslim terrorists are doing exactly what the Koran says they should do. If you believe this to be the case, that Muslims can’t coexist peacefully with us because of their beliefs, then we should be engaged in a campaign similar to that against Japan in 1945, total annihilation. However, if you believe that, what does that mean for our current war fighting strategy of spreading freedom? How can it work? Can you call yourself a neoconservative and subscribe to the foreign policy if the Bush administration? The neoconservates believe, as Bush has stated, that the notion that 1/5 of the world’s population is doomed to despotism and terrorism by virtue of their religion is nothing more than the soft bigotry of low expectations. They believe that most Muslims want freedom, democracy, and to live in peace and that it’s our job, in fact our responsibility, as the most powerful nation on the planet, to push them into it. Is a belief in the tenants of neoconservatism and the demonizing of Islam, compatible? | ||
| Bob K Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 12207 Registered: 5-2001 |
Spinal Tap, nice post. I suspect that most Muslims aren't any different than anyone else. As TJ points out, there are a number of Islamic countries with moderate governments and reasonably open views. The Koran like the Bible, and I suspect the Torah, are full of contradictions. To take a few quotes out of context (see Anon's post) and use that to demonize an entire religion is wrong and racist. It is also the worst form of propoganda in that it is an enabler to make killing Muslims acceptable. | ||
| Larry Seltzer Citizen Username: Elvis Post Number: 120 Registered: 4-2006  |
For you or I to take them out of the Koran is treacherous. For us to take them out of the Hamas Charter or public pronouncements of Hezbollah is another matter entirely. There it's just calling out murderous racism for what it is. | ||
| Bob K Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 12214 Registered: 5-2001 |
Larry, I don't think Hamas and Hezbollah are the face of mainstream Islam. At least I hope this is the case. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1162 Registered: 4-2006 |
First to claim and use the words " final solution", as if the genocide of muslims is being sought in discussion posts about "demonizing islam" is both offensive and outrageous considering the experience of the Jewish people in modern times. But of course the poster using this phrase is one who has claimed in a separate thread that the Jews are " colonizers" in the Middle East. Guess no suprise there. I quoted some examples of the suras for the purposes that SpinalTap so admirably picks up on, namely that there is clear and unambiguous language that support the jihadi radical position. In short, they can say there they are not inferring their positions from the Koran, but rather they are clearly stated as being requiring of muslims. Again, some posters perceive the true weight and significance attached to these religious scriptures in terms of their own society and culture, and not the relevant ones. Islam was not, nor is it now, a benign religion, it grew by the sword and forcible conversion on non-believers. Unlike Christianity, which Bob K correctly notes had a violent past, there was never a reformation in islam. You will find that is one of the key discussions among muslim intellectuals today as muslims feel humiliated by the lack of modernity and success in the modern arab world. One example is the small number of patents taken out in the arab world today, in comparison to the hugh number in small Israel. Reformation of islam is one key to a permanent solution, but this then is an internal matter for the muslims,and not one the USA can help with. Citing Turkey, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Indonesia as examples of " successful islam" is problematic for a number of reasons, the first being these countries are not arab. Another is that it ignores what has been going on in islam in these countries. They are not quite poster boys for our ideas of secularization. Similarly Bob K's reference to "moderate" islamic countries ignores that in most there is no representative democracy. The problem with the modernization and economic growth of muslim nations are pretty much internal issues. Israel has been a convenient crutch and a means of avoidance for the elites in these countries to avoid reforms. We have not been capable of doing anything significant in this regard for 50 years, unless you consider the Iraq democracy experiment. unless Iraq is a demonstrable success you will not stimulate any " fault lines", whatever that means. U.S. support of Israel, BTW, has mattered very little in that experiment. As I have posted before there is a cyclical nature to arab radicalism. The US has limited capacity to effect change in the areas in which change has to be had. In the meantime removing the most egregious jihadi players from the field is the best available approach. | ||
| Elgato Citizen Username: Elgato Post Number: 77 Registered: 2-2004 |
I agree with Bob K. Muslims are no different from any of us. We are all human beings and capable of the same attributes. Muslim countries are no more united in their beliefs than are Christian countries around the world, many of which would not wish to have the USA's version of 'democracy' shoved down their throats any more than a Muslim country would. I have both Muslim and Jewish friends...in fact the Jewish ones left Israel when they employed Arab workers in their business (as many do) and when the Israeli government clamped down on the Arab's movement thro' checkpoints to the point where they could no longer work, they moved back to the USA. I think it's about time we all looked past old hatreds and recognized that we are all pawns in a big game that certain people are profiting from. Constant war is the name of the game. It seems to me that this is a war between the USA and Syria/Iran. Israel is simply fighting it on our behalf with the certain approval of Washington. | ||
| 3ringale Citizen Username: Threeringale Post Number: 312 Registered: 1-2006 |
Is there a difference between demonizing Islam and telling the truth about Islam? I guess one's answer to that question would probably be like a social/political Rorschach test. Since a few posters have recommended books on Islam and the Middle East, I thought I would mention The Sword of the Prophet by Serge Trifkovic. It is well written and I find myself in agreement with his analysis. He has just published a follow-up volume called Defeating Jihad which I am looking forward to reading. Cheers | ||
| joel dranove Citizen Username: Jdranove Post Number: 767 Registered: 1-2006 |
The truth, in part, and only recent part: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html#Attacks Not for the faint of heart. But, we must not be of that sort. jd | ||
| joel dranove Citizen Username: Jdranove Post Number: 768 Registered: 1-2006 |
Of course, for a daily report on Islamic storming against us, all of us, you could read http://jihadwatch.org/ The author's opinions are easy to separate from the quotes and news, leaving the continuing truth. jd | ||
| Slim Jim Citizen Username: Arrakis Post Number: 36 Registered: 6-2005 |
Report? Looks like a blog. I hope its peer reviewed... | ||
| Spinal Tap Citizen Username: Spinaltap11 Post Number: 89 Registered: 5-2006 |
This is one I read about Islam - Islam Unveiled: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1893554589/sr=8-1/qid=1153670011/ref=pd_bbs_1/1 03-3912794-5692656?ie=UTF8 This and the Sword of the Prophet are pretty scary stuff. I tend to not believe it because obviously the vast majority of Muslims around the world live peacefully. However, I would say that even most of those are virulently anti-Zionist which some would argue is just thinly veiled anti-Semitism. But again – if the worst is true, what are the implications for our current strategy? If Islam is an unreformed, primal religious force, that is incompatible with liberalism, secularism, egalitarianism, individual rights, religious freedom, etc., all the things that have made Western Civilization what it is, is it a reasonable course of action to embark on a campaign to democratize the Muslim world? Or are the Realists right? Should we just let them have at it and strike deals with secular rulers like Saddam on the condition that they keep the Islamists at bay? Consider this alternative history – In 1991, instead of going to war to save a monarchy, Kuwait, and, protect one of the most repressive, barbaric regimes on the planet, the House of Saud, we instead tell Saddam to take it all - on three conditions. 1. Leave us alone, 2. Exterminate the Islamists, especially the Wahhabis, a task that I’m sure he would have done far more efficiently than we ever could, and 3. Sell us cheap oil. I think he would have jumped at the opportunity. Or are the conservative traditionalists right? Should we just stay out of it all together? And if attacked, respond with a scorched Earth policy. Or is the Left right? Get involved, but only to the degree and in such a manner that the UN says is ok. | ||
| Dave Supporter Username: Dave  Post Number: 10196 Registered: 4-1997  |
Your Realist position is in conflict with your Left position because the UN sanctioned the Gulf War to drive Saddam out of Kuwait. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1163 Registered: 4-2006 |
Spinal Tap- The use of the islam to foster and support radical extremism is historically cyclical. The primarily arab practioners of this brand of islam are part of a wider group of a most practical people, if you take the long view of arab history. For example, the arabs did not challenge the europeans after their golden era due to their correct analysis of the strengths of the europeans and their relative weakness, although a strict interpretation of jihad as floating about today, would demand they had continued to contest with them by war, assymetrical or not. As I said before, islam has never gone through a reformation like christianity, not a period akin to the enlightenment which would have had a similar impact on islamic religious thought and thinking as it did with christianity. Internal change is the key to a permanent solution. The key elements to fighting radical islam today are: 1. Ensure jihad does not pay, by taking out the most egregous and violent players. It sends an understandable message to the vast majority of non- jihadis that the jihadis have an unattainable and dead-end goal. 2. Do attempt a radical experiment in breeding democracy in Iraq. More arabs then most americans appreciate are watching this in their own repressive countries, and see Iraqis' freedom, including putting Saddam on trial. 3. Do fund and support saudi and other islamic cultural and religious thinkers who propose alternatives to the wahabi school of islam, and get their views widely disseminated in the arab world. 4. Focus on alternative energy development. 5. Continue to be the country that we are. What scares the mullahs in Iran is the number of young Iranians that view our country favorably. They hold the key to a peaceable future with Iran. | ||
| Spinal Tap Citizen Username: Spinaltap11 Post Number: 91 Registered: 5-2006 |
FVF – Got it. I’m not sure but I think you are one of those who generally support the president and our current foreign policy. Over the past couple of weeks (I started the “How Would You Fight the GWOT” thread) I have been trying to provoke some responses from those who despise the president and believe that our efforts since 9-11 have been a total or near total failure. I’d like to know what alternatives they propose to combat Islamofascism and terrorism. Particularly considering that the president’s foreign policy, contrary to popular belief, is actually pretty idealistic and liberal, not extreme right wing. | ||
| Illuminated Radish Citizen Username: Umoja Post Number: 38 Registered: 6-2006 |
The solution to ending radical Islam is running out of oil. Once the geopolitical attention isn't on the middle east anymore, I'm sure the radical nature of Islam (which I see as anti-western) won't really have a visible western enemy. | ||
| tjohn Supporter Username: Tjohn Post Number: 4540 Registered: 12-2001 |
FvF writes: "First to claim and use the words " final solution", as if the genocide of muslims is being sought in discussion posts about "demonizing islam" is both offensive and outrageous considering the experience of the Jewish people in modern times. " The Holocaust was built on a foundation of centuries of demonizing Jews. Whenever I see posts that imply that all Muslims are essentially Hezbollah members then I seen no difference from the language we used to describe the Japanese and Germans at a time when we were going to kill every last one of them if that was what it took to win World War II. So, if you want total war with the Muslim world, then by all means continue to post along the lines that all Muslims are terrorists or terrorist supporters beyond any home of reconstruction. | ||
| Strawberry Supporter Username: Strawberry Post Number: 7581 Registered: 10-2001 |
TJohn's work on this thread has earned him this award.  | ||
| 3ringale Citizen Username: Threeringale Post Number: 313 Registered: 1-2006 |
Is "radical" Islam the problem or is it Islam itself? This book review by Theodore Dalrymple provides some food for thought: City Journal All or Nothing The quest for a moderate Islam may be futile. Theodore Dalrymple 4 June 2006 Islamic Imperialism: A History, by Efraim Karsh (Yale University Press, 288 pp., $30) The week following the Muslim protests in London against the Danish cartoons—with marchers carrying signs calling for the beheading of infidels—other Muslims demonstrated to claim that Islam really meant peace and tolerance. While their implicit recognition that peace and tolerance are preferable to strife and bigotry did these Muslims personal honor, the claim regarding Islam was both historically and intellectually preposterous. Only someone ignorant of the most elementary facts could believe such a thing. From the first, Islam was a religion of pillage, violence, and compulsion, which it justified and glorified. And it is certainly not “the evident truth of the doctrine itself,” to quote Gibbon with regard for what, with characteristic irony, he called the primary reason for the rapid spread of Christianity throughout the civilized world, that explains the exponential growth of the Dar-al-Islam in its early history. It is important, of course, to distinguish between Islam as a doctrine and Muslims as people. Untold numbers of Muslims desire little more than a quiet life; they have the virtues and the vices of the rest of mankind. Their religion gives to their daily lives an ethical and ritual structure and provides the kind of boundaries that only modern Western intellectuals would have the temerity to belittle. But the fact that many Muslims are not fanatics is not as comforting as some might think. Consider, by way of illustration, Eric Hobsbawm, the famous, much feted, and unrepentantly Marxist historian. No one would feel personally threatened by him at a social gathering, where he would be amusing, polite, charming, and accomplished; if you had him to dinner, you wouldn’t have to count the spoons afterward, even though he theoretically opposes the idea of private wealth. In short, there would be no reason to suspect that he was about to commit a common crime against you. In this sense, he is what one might call a moderate Marxist. But Hobsbawm has stated quite openly that, had the Soviet Union managed to create a functioning and prosperous socialist society, 20 million deaths would have been a worthwhile price to pay; and since he didn’t recognize, even partially, that the Soviet Union was not in fact on the path to such a society until many years after it had murdered 20 million of its people (if not more), it is fair to assume that, if things had turned out another way in his own country, Hobsbawm would have applauded, justified, and perhaps even instigated the murders of the very people to whom he was now, under the current dispensation, being amusing, charming, and polite. In other words, what saved Hobsbawm from committing utter evil was not his own scruples or ratiocination, and certainly not the doctrine he espoused, but the force of historical circumstance. His current moderation would have counted for nothing if world events had been different. In his new book, Islamic Imperialism: A History, Professor Efraim Karsh does not mince words about Mohammed’s early and (to all those who do not accept the divinity of his inspiration) unscrupulous resort to robbery and violence, or about Islam’s militaristic aspects, or about the link between Islamic tradition and the current wave of fundamentalist violence in the world. The originality of Karsh’s interpretation is its underlying assumption that Islam was, from the very beginning, a pretext for personal and dynastic political ambition, from the razzias against the Meccan caravans and the expulsion of Jewish tribes from Medina, to the siege of Vienna a millennium later in 1529, and Hamas today. Contrary to its universalistic pretensions, Karsh argues, Islam has never succeeded in eliminating political power struggles within the Muslim world, where, on the contrary, such struggles have always been murderous. Islamic regimes, many espousing in the beginning the ascetic principles of what one might call desert Islam, invariably degenerate (if it be degeneration) into luxury- and privilege-loving dynasties. Like all other political entities, Islamic regimes seek to preserve and, if possible, extend their power. They have shown no hesitation in compromising with or allying themselves with those whom they regard as infidels. Saladin, a mendaciously simplified version of whose exploits has inflamed hysterical sentiment all over the Middle East, was not above forming alliances with Christian monarchs to achieve his imperial ends; the Ottoman caliphate would not have survived as long as it did had the Sultan not exploited European rivalries and allied himself now with one, now with another Christian power. In short, Islamic imperialism, in Karsh’s view, illustrates three transcendent political truths: the Nietzschean drive to power, Michels’ iron law of oligarchy, and Marx’s economic motor of history. Religious feeling, on this reading, is but an epiphenomenon, a mask for what is really going on. This interpretation raises the difficult and perhaps unanswerable question of what should count in history as a real, and what as merely an apparent, motive for action. When Bernal Diaz del Castillo claims a religious motive for the conquest of Mexico, at least in part, should we just dismiss it as a sanctimonious lie to justify a more rapacious motive? That he ended up a rich man does not decide the question; and Diaz himself would have taken his material success as a sign that God smiled upon his enterprise, just as Muslims have viewed their early conquests as proof of God’s approval and the truth of Mohammed’s doctrine. (On the other hand, failure for Muslims never seems to provide proof of the final withdrawal of God’s favor, much less of his non-existence, but rather shows his dissatisfaction with the current practices of the supposedly faithful, who will return to His favor only by restoring an earlier, purer form of faith.) Karsh seems to oscillate between believing that Islamic imperialism is just a variant of imperialism in general—imperialism being more or less a permanent manifestation of the human will to power—and believing that there is something sui generis and therefore uniquely dangerous about it. I hesitate to rush in where so many better-informed people have hesitated to tread, or have trodden before, but I would put it like this. The urge to domination is nearly a constant of human history. The specific (and baleful) contribution of Islam is that, by attributing sovereignty solely to God, and by pretending in a philosophically primitive way that God’s will is knowable independently of human interpretation, and therefore of human interest and desire—in short by allowing nothing to human as against divine nature—it tries to abolish politics. All compromises become mere truces; there is no virtue in compromise in itself. Thus Islam is inherently an unsettling and dangerous factor in world politics, independently of the actual conduct of many Muslims. Karsh comes close to this conclusion himself, when he writes at the end of the book: Only when the political elites of the Middle East and the Muslim world reconcile themselves to the reality of state nationalism, forswear pan-Arab and pan-Islamic dreams, and make Islam a matter of private faith rather than a tool of political ambition will the inhabitants of these regions at last be able to look forward to a better future free of would-be Saladins. The fundamental question is whether Islam as a private faith would still be Islam, or whether such privatization would spell its doom. I think it would spell its doom. In this sense, I am an Islamic fundamentalist. The choice is between all and nothing. http://www.city-journal.org/html/rev2006-06-04td.html | ||
| anon Supporter Username: Anon Post Number: 2889 Registered: 6-2002 |
FactsvFiction: The five-point program you set forth in your post of 1:44PM is logical and consistent. It appears to be the actual position of George W. Bush, and I don't see anything in it with which certain leaders of the Democratic Party, Particularly Hillary Clinton, would disagree. I would ask that other posters react. I am interested in the opinions of tjohn and others "on the left" , Joel and others with an extreme anti-Islam positon and 3ring and any other Buchananite isolationists. Perhaps we can have a serious discussion rather than just sniping. | ||
| joel dranove Citizen Username: Jdranove Post Number: 769 Registered: 1-2006 |
Having an extreme anti-Islam position can get you killed by Islamists. Remember Pym Fortyn, in so-liberal Holland? I don't have an extreme position. I have an educated position. jd | ||
| tjohn Supporter Username: Tjohn Post Number: 4541 Registered: 12-2001 |
Anon, Points 4,5: I agree as is. Point 3: Yes, but can't be too heavy-handed Point 2: See B'rer Rabbit and de Tar Baby. More recently, see Iraq. Point 1: Certainly terrorism has to be fought directly. But the ultimate defeat of radical Islam or fascist Islam or whatever you want to call it will happen when the general populace see that this will not improve their lives. Of course, this is a trickier thing with religion than with, say, an economic policy such as communism, because religions are so much more complex than communism. The five points: The key elements to fighting radical islam today are: 1. Ensure jihad does not pay, by taking out the most egregous and violent players. It sends an understandable message to the vast majority of non- jihadis that the jihadis have an unattainable and dead-end goal. 2. Do attempt a radical experiment in breeding democracy in Iraq. More arabs then most americans appreciate are watching this in their own repressive countries, and see Iraqis' freedom, including putting Saddam on trial. 3. Do fund and support saudi and other islamic cultural and religious thinkers who propose alternatives to the wahabi school of islam, and get their views widely disseminated in the arab world. 4. Focus on alternative energy development. 5. Continue to be the country that we are. What scares the mullahs in Iran is the number of young Iranians that view our country favorably. They hold the key to a peaceable future with Iran. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1164 Registered: 4-2006 |
Spinal Tap - I believe the current problem of radical islam is both our greatest existential and practical threat, and transcends the usual politics, whose concepts we tend to misapply to other societies and cultures. Probably I can be characterized as a Bush "supporter" in M.E. foreign policy, but only to the extent his administration injects sufficient realism into our dealing with terrorism and the Middle East. They have been insufficiently tough on the Saudis to my mind, and Iraq was very poorly handled in terms of regime change and the credibility and support given certain Iraqi opposition figures by the administration. We will have no choice but to attack Iran's nuclear capacity in my estimation. Ahmadinejad and his people are beyond negotiation and clear reason. And the Middle East and the world is well served by Israel heavily degrading Hezbollah and Hamas. There is an interesting article in the Jerusalem Post online edition by Professor Yehezkel Dror, titled " The Lebanese War is Not a Game." The article discusses strategic thinking resulting from applying a game or life-death approach. I think the following quotes point out our problem here in the U.S. in implementing # 1 of my earlier post : }" contemporary western values, culture, economies, and politics are dense with factors that distort reality... among these are ill-founded beliefs that human beings are sure to prefer liberal democracy and that material interests necessarily reduce fanaticism" also : " western handicaps are the lack of readiness to kill or be killed, even when doing so is likely to save many lives in the future." As a consequence if we love life more than our jihadi enemy loves a martyr's death, we must ruthlessly give them and their ilk their fondest wish. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1165 Registered: 4-2006 |
tjohn- Your defense of your inappropriate "final solution" comment post and beyond faulty comparison of opinions about muslims with the Holocaust don't sway me in the least. No one has stated, as far as I can read in this thread, that we should commit genocide against anyone and everyone who happens to be a muslim. Hopefully MOL readers will take the time to view your "body of work" on these threads on Israel and the Middle East and, IMHO, draw the inferences they appear to richly deserve. | ||
| Hoops Citizen Username: Hoops Post Number: 1722 Registered: 10-2004  |
tjohn brings up good points and this thread has allowed some posters to finally discuss the religion of islam and the problems of the middle east seriously. tjohn called fvf and other posters on the problem with demonizing an entire religion. fvf finally provides some serious insight and finally elaborates on what his ideas are about radical islam. His points 1, 3,4 and 5 all have merit, however it still does not make the Iraq war (point 2), a moral war, a necessary war, or the right thing for America. Iraq is still a canard of a failing neocon theory. | ||
| anon Supporter Username: Anon Post Number: 2891 Registered: 6-2002 |
FvF: tjohn agreed with 4 of your 5 points. He never said or suggested that anyone was proposing a "final solution" or genocide. He was just reacting to certain posters who seem to believe that Islam is inherently evil, cannot be reformed and that its adherents will always be our enemies. To me that is an extreme position and does not comport with my reading of history, nor my personal interaction with Muslims. Tjohn was challenging those with what I called an extreme anti-Islam position to come up with a "rational policy" to deal with the Islamic World. Similarly I challenged them to react to your 5 point program which is such a rational policy. Joel's only response was to say that his position was not "extreme" only "educated". Why do you continue to fight with tjohn? His position on the History of the Middle-East conflict is clearly very different from yours or mine. Our sympathies are with Israel and his are with the Palestinian Arabs. So what? We all know that there must eventually be a solution to the problems of the middle-east, Israel's relationship to the Arabs and America's relationship to both. You have posted a 5 point program. I challenged people to respond. It appears that only tjohn so far has accepted the challenge, and again, agreed with much of your position. So why attack him? Why do MOL adversaries have to be more intractable than the actual antagonists in the middle-east conflict? | ||
| anon Supporter Username: Anon Post Number: 2892 Registered: 6-2002 |
Just saw Hoops's post, along the same lines as mine. There is actually more agreement here than disagreement. Perhaps the glass is half full. Good night. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1169 Registered: 4-2006 |
anon- First, I doubt people are more intractable here on MOL than in the Middle East, for here we can simply turn our computers off, and don't have to spend our days and nights in bomb shelters as a result of "font" conflicts. I believe it is fair and appropriate to consider tjohn's posts in their totality on these subjects, while recognizing we are in the middle of a real war with radical islam. The consequences are too important not to challenge ideas and opinions that mispercieve, minimize, or ignore the very real threat facing us, with dangerous consequences, as brought home by 9-11. In fighting this enemy we cannot afford to substitute our religious, cultural, and political values for the ones that they actually follow. If we accept our opinions as governing our enemies, we fail. Posters who see Israel as the "cause" of this problem, ignore the fact that they are simply the closest available stand-in for the true enemy, us. One writer likened Israel to the canary in the cage brought down into a mine. If there are poisonous gasses the canary is the first to die. Israel, for the west is the canary. The jihadists view Israel as the test case for bigger things. The US must be ruthless in killing this enemy in ways the left may not approve. Outside legalities, not in immediate self-defense, and including the sad loss on innocent lives as " collateral damage". As for Bush and Iraq, the thinking is too simplistic and dangerous in light of the world we now live in. Bush is attempting to do something truly bold, revoluntionary, and important in Iraq which will reverberate through the arab world. It may fail or succeed as historic events do. And yes, we also must sadly suffer to see american blood being shed in Iraq for this purpose and others. I think the Professor's quotes and his article point out our situation in this war on terror : we must be willing to kill and be killed. Without this we are a country in decline, incapable of preserving ourselves. I wonder if the vehement posters here really believe Bush takes some form of pleasure in this or is too stupid, privileged, or detached to feel the sense of responsibility as commander in chief for the deaths of each soldier in Iraq? In any event I hope we win this war on terror, another outcome would be unthinkable. | ||
| tjohn Supporter Username: Tjohn Post Number: 4543 Registered: 12-2001 |
FvF, How can we lose the war on terror? The worst case for us is that terrorists manage to attack a couple of our cities with atomic weapsons. As horrific as this would be, our response would end the war on terror. In the war on terror, we have to be really careful about the loss of innocent lives since each loss of an innocent tends to help the terrorists portary America as attacking Islam. I don't care how the terrorists die, but for now, we have to be mindful of the loss of innocent life. It seems to me that Israel would have been better off launching a ground campaign in Lebanon instead of the air campaign which has destroyed targets for what many believe to be no good reason. Regarding Bush, his problem isn't one of intelligence or lack thereof or compassion or lack thereof. He is, instead, more like the investor who places huge bets. Eventually, these types of investors lose all of their money. I view Iraq as one of these huge bets. Finally, regarding Israel, the bottom line is that the world (or most of it) says that Isreal has a right to exist. Our consistent, relentless diplomat focus, then, needs to be on making sure that groups like Hezbollah aren't granted the right to operate out of safe bases. | ||
| Bob K Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 12223 Registered: 5-2001 |
I think Israel is still trying not to put significant forces into Lebanon and certainly not on a long term basis. The Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon for 18 years was tough and costly. I think that they thought they could force Hezbollah to surrender, oor at least stop firing missles, through an air campaign and that didn't happen. They are now putting troops into Lebanon and are facing heavy fighting and taking casualties. They will need at least another week to rid the area of Hezbollah and the missles and rockets. Interestingly, Israel is calling for an international force, preferably NATO, to be put into a Lebanese buffer zone. This is a major change from their previous views on international forces. | ||
| 3ringale Citizen Username: Threeringale Post Number: 314 Registered: 1-2006 |
anon, You wanted to know what people thought of Factvsfiction's 5 point program for fighting radical Islam: The key elements to fighting radical islam today are: 1. Ensure jihad does not pay, by taking out the most egregous and violent players. It sends an understandable message to the vast majority of non- jihadis that the jihadis have an unattainable and dead-end goal. 2. Do attempt a radical experiment in breeding democracy in Iraq. More arabs then most americans appreciate are watching this in their own repressive countries, and see Iraqis' freedom, including putting Saddam on trial. 3. Do fund and support saudi and other islamic cultural and religious thinkers who propose alternatives to the wahabi school of islam, and get their views widely disseminated in the arab world. 4. Focus on alternative energy development. 5. Continue to be the country that we are. What scares the mullahs in Iran is the number of young Iranians that view our country favorably. They hold the key to a peaceable future with Iran. 1-I sort of agree with this if we are talking about hot pursuit. I am not interested in "crusading" throughout the Islamic world, knocking off every guy in a turban who ever said "Death to America". That would take a long time, no? 2-I don't agree. I think the invasion of Iraq was a foreign policy blunder of monumental proportions. "Democracy" cannot be imposed at gunpoint. At this point, Mr. Bush seems to channeling Woodrow Wilson. 3-I disagree. As a Buchananite isolationist, I object to foreign aid and meddling in the affairs of other countries, however much I might disagree with their policies and beliefs. 4-I agree with this. 5-I sort of agree with this, but let's not give up on the Bill of Rights. I support securing our borders and restricting immigration from Islamic countries. I would also restrict immigration from other countries, but there is a political aspect to Islam that seems to be inseparable from the theological side and speaking personally, I would not extend the protection of the 1st Amendment to Islam. Will this ever happen? Maybe when Pat Buchanan gets elected President! Ha-ha! I would make the comparison to the cold war when we did not allow self-proclaimed Communists who advocated revolution to emigrate to the US. Cheers | ||
| Bob K Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 12228 Registered: 5-2001 |
I think we are already refusing advocates of violence entry to the USA by refusing them visas. However, this only works with promenient Imans and scholars with a paper trail. One of the things nobody has yet mentioned is economic development. Many of the Arab states (plus Iran) are still making a fortune off oil. However, very little of this money seems to be making its way to the average man/woman/child on the street. If someone is doing well, has a new Toyota, a color TV and internet access they are less likely to head down the Jihad Road than someone who is living in a hovel and begging for coins. Dubai, an absolute dictatorship (although benign) seems to be following this model, as has Lebanon before the destruction of their infrastructure, with the exception of the Hezbollah idiots. I think Jordan is also trying, without oil revenues, to increase prospects for its population through manufacturing, etc. |
