Historian: U.S. May Lose War on Terror - Daniel Freedman
The victor of the war on terror is far from clear, Princeton historian Bernard Lewis told a Hudson Institute conference. Lewis said he agrees with Natan Sharansky that the only real solution to defeating radical Islam is to bring freedom to the Middle East. Either "we free them or they destroy us," Lewis said.
The contention that Arabs aren't suited to democracy and that the West's best hope lies with friendly tyrants shows an ignorance of the Arabs' past and contempt for their present and future.
(New York Sun)
3 comments:
I think the victor in the war on terror is far from clear because the fight is, unfortunately, far from over. I don't know if the midlle east muslim wants to embrace democracy or not. When freed from opression, the modern middle east muslim does seem to lean towards a conservative agenda with clearly defined rules that leaves little available to the imaginative politician. Situations, such as Iran, since the 70's and again, after the brief but ineffectual rule of their prior moderate president comes to mind, as does where the initial newly elected governments of Iraq and Afghanistan has leaned. I am not sure Western pundits, scholars or politicians are yet in a position to know and appreciate what these people desire and therein lies one reason why the war on terrorism is far from over. If we want to stop them, we had better fully understand what can motivate someone to strap explosives on their kids back and send them off to die. Otherwise we will remain as ill prepared as when those first few hints arrived to our intelligence agencies that terrorists were planning to use our own planes against us.
i believe we already have a lot of information on what motivates the terrorist. For the most part they tend to be the educated class who are drunk with dreams of re-establishing the Caliphate.
In a sense they've inherited the mantle of fascism, with a dangerous religious twist. Their dream is not just to overthrow despots in their own lands...they lust to rule us as well. It would be the equivalent of the Pope saying he longs for the good old days when the Church ran Europe and beyond.
Do they want to rule us? Maybe. Does Bin Laden feel he is closer to that role by scrambling in caves for his life when he used to be Arab elite? I don't know. But I do believe the rank and file common person blowing themselves up has been convinced by these leaders that we are an enemy defiling their G-D and their ways of life, and looking to dominate them, and support those that would thwart them. Unfortunately, I don't think there are easy answers here and I believe what you have said is correct for some of them, and what I have said, for some, and what has remain unsaid here, for many more. This is an area that will have to be clarified because terrorism won't stop until we can diffuse the motivation, as well as the motivators, of terrorism.
Post a Comment