Islamic Fascism 101 - Victor Davis Hanson
To read bin Laden's communiques is to be reminded of Admiral Yamamato assuring his peers that his years in the U.S. in the 1920s taught him that America, despite its fancy cars and skyscrapers, simply could not match the courage of the chosen Japanese.
Just as it was idle in the middle of World War II to speculate how many Germans, Japanese, or Italians really accepted the silly hatred of Hitler, Mussolini, or Tojo, so too it is a vain enterprise to worry over how many Muslims follow or support al-Qaeda. Most people have no ideology, but simply accommodate themselves to the prevailing sense of an agenda's success or failure. It doesn't matter whether Middle Easterners actually accept the tenets of bin Laden's worldview - not if think[ing] he is on the ascendancy, can bring them a sense of restored pride, and humiliate the Jews and the West on the cheap.
(National Review)
Islam and the Pope - Thomas L. Friedman
We need to stop insulting Islam. What is insulting is the politically correct, kid-gloves view of how to deal with Muslims that is taking root in the West today. It goes like this: "Hush! Don't say anything about Islam! If you say anything critical or questioning about Muslims, they'll burn down your house. They are not capable of a civil, rational dialogue about problems in their faith community." Now that is insulting. It's an attitude full of contempt and self-censorship, but that is the attitude of Western elites today.
I have to admit I am confused as to what Islam stands for today. I don't get it. How can Muslims blow up other Muslims on their most holy day of the year - in mosques! - and there is barely a peep of protest in the Muslim world, let alone a million Muslim march? Yet Danish cartoons or a papal speech lead to violent protests. What matters is not what Muslims tell us they stand for. What matters is what they tell themselves, in their own languages, and how they treat their own.
(New York Times, 29Sep06)
2 comments:
I'm sure it is true that many do not have a strong ideology and simply hitch a ride on the winning side. But a lot goes into the impressions the world has. Had we stuck to routing Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and sealed that little rock with a ring of 300,000 troops, we would have left the impression that Bin Laden is a loser who picks the wrong fights. By doing what we did in Iraq, we play into the terrorists hands. They can say, look, no WMD, no ties to Al Qaeda, and the Americans own 9/11 commission saw no ties to any of these acts of terrorism. But there is the US, toppling a government, killing countless civilians, because they can. Because they see all muslims as one and the same. They can say: "They think we are all terrorists and killers. No muslim is safe while America prevails because they use words like 'preemptive' to excuse crimes they commit against other nations." There are no easy answers now. It is too late to go back. To leave Iraq prematurely would only leave a terrorist state of instability, and could not enhance our credibility anyway. No, we have trapped ourselves there for sometime. But do not kid yourselves to believe that Bin Laden convinces the world he is winning by sending out a video from hiding. If he were hiding and on the run, he would be perceived as the cowardly failure he has become, bringing a reign of destruction down on his friends, the Taliban, if we didn't give him the out, and cover, of our completely misguided invasion of Iraq. Now we can only support our soldiers, and work to ensure the best most reasonable timetable for their return, while trying to clean up the mess of our own failed administration.
But I'm with Thomas Friedman on that one. It would be nice if the world would take the muslims to task for what they do to each other, because, unfortunately, we have no credibility to lead the chorus. Better, the Pope should have spoke out against the violence of muslims against muslims when he wanted to speak about muslims and peace, and left out the 600 year old commentary.
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