Real Clear Politics has published an excellent piece by writer David Warren arguing that Islam's threat to the Western world has been realized not due to Islamic strength, but because of the West's moral and intellectual decline. (i.e. because the West has become too leftist.)
I don't know much about Mr. Warren, but he has really hit the nail on the head. The West has the power to thoroughly defeat jihadism this very moment, but restrains out of a supposed moral "sensitivity" that resultingly allows our evil enemies to fight another day. In order to win the war, we must shed this ultra-liberalism and return to the principles that allowed us to win World War II and the Cold War. As Warren concludes,
It is the recovery of our own sense of what we are, what we believe, and what we are about, that would defeat Afghan cave-dwellers and shrieking ayatollahs fairly quickly.
I agree, and let's hope this happens soon.
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11 comments:
Islam in its fundamentalist form *is* the enemy of the West and of all other peoples (both non-Muslims and Muslims who aren't fundamentalist). Read the Koran. They have a religious duty to subjugate the world and covert it to Islam through terror and violence.
I don't think the US should ban Islam outright, but anyone who advocates and works toward overthrowing the U.S. government and replacing it with Sharia law (and there are many Muslims doing this, not just Al Qaeda) should be subject to being thrown out of the country. This is not a religious matter; their Muslim religion may be the factor that motivates them, but I'd advocate the same thing if, say, it was a group of neo-Nazis who want to overthrow the government and replace it with a neo-Nazi government. (Or if it was any other group that wanted to overthrow the goverment).
Dukakis88:
If you were aware of the legal tradition in the United States, you'd know that even advocacy of violent overthrow of the government is protected speech.
That's also why we allow neo-Nazis and white supremacist groups to exist. Because the founding fathers, who had overthrown their government through force of arms, and were wary of overbearing state power, didn't think it was wise to give the government the ability to ban disfavored ideologies.
And fundamentalist Islam is the enemy of the West the same way a mosquito is the enemy of an elephant. Anyone with a gun can kill another person, and that's the central appeal of terrorism. But to conquer a country, you need a lot more. There's no Islamic fundamentalist movement capable of conquering any Western state through force of arms.
If I were concerned about someone setting up an American theocracy, I'd be looking to fundamentalist Christians before fundamentalist Muslims.
Solid Surfer:
According to your logic, then, if a totalitarian force wants to take over the U.S. government and overturn our freedom, you'd just let them.
That's exactly what fundamentalist Muslims want to do. They may not have the strength now, but over a long period of time, they certainly aim to do it through immigration, through conversion, and especially through terrorist attacks designed to demoralize the American people into submitting to them.
How do you think Islam, in the past, conquered North Africa, Persia, Afghanistan, Indonesia, and parts of India and Central Asia? By doing precisely what I described above over a long period of time.
They want to do the same thing to America and the rest of the world. If we don't want that to happen, then we need to nip it in the bud before it gets out of control. Any Muslim who wants to take over America and turn it into a Sharia theocracy doesn't belong in this country.
Dukakis88:
First of all, I can't understand why you're obsessed with Islamic imperial conquests from a thousand years ago. You sound like Osama Bin Laden, obsessing endlessly about the Crusades. Second of all, Christianity was also spread by military conquest. But it sort of seems beside the point.
Second, in this country we wait for people to commit a crime before we lock them up. We allow even very radical political speech because we don't trust the government to determine which beliefs are unacceptable.
We have strong laws against criminal conspiracies that allow us to lock someone up when they've committed a single overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy. We also lock people up for giving material aid to terrorists. We don't need to start imprisoning or deporting people for having radical ideologies.
Third, in your zeal to fight terrorism, you tear every page from the racist, anti-Semitic playbook.
One of the major anxieties of white supremecists is that, through immigration and large families, minorities will become a majority and displace whites. That's why they're so upset about illegal immigrants.
Right-wing groups in Europe call themselves "nationalist," and spout largely the same ideology you do about Muslim immigrants. Of course, similar ideologies fed the whole history of European anti-Semitism.
The same kind of political movements are still operating, and the fact that they've made Muslims their scapegoats makes them no less odious.
There's serious anti-Semitism on the Left these days. These people's anxieties about capitalism and American global military power have led kooks on the far left to identify and romanticize terrorists the way they used to romanticize communists, and it's disgusting. But the proper response certainly isn't to align oneself with the anti-Semites on the right because they also hate Muslims.
Solid Surfer:
You have just answered your own question. I'm concerned about the past *exactly* because Bin Laden and his ilk are. The Islamic drive for jihadism has never changed. Their past conquests matter because they're trying to do the same thing today. This isn't just me speculating - Bin Laden and other terrorist leaders say it all the time. Those who forget the past are often doomed to repeat it. You may be content for America to be conquered by jihadists, but I'm not.
Secondly, I don't like the European far right. In many ways, they brought their problems onto themselves, because they killed all their Jews, who were no danger to them, and replaced them with Muslims, who are. Once again, I have no issue with non-Muslim immigrants. But Muslims are a serious problem. Look at this poll of Muslims from England once again: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/1379
Do you want a bunch of terrorist and terorrist supporters in your country? I seriously doubt it.
Dukakis88:
How, exactly, is Osama Bin Laden going to conquer America.
What tanks does he have? What ships? What planes? What army does he control?
We've captured his closest lieutenants, destroyed his camps and broken his organization.
I expect there may still be cells capable of getting bombs onto trains, but he was unable to follow up Sept. 11 with any attacks on America in five years, Al Quaeda has only been behind two attacks in Europe and the bombing in Bali.
How can they conquer America?
Solid Surfer:
Bin Laden himself may not be able to at this point, but he isn't nearly the only terrorist trying.
Here is one method Iran is likely trying to use: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43956
Dukakis88:
Okay. Ahmadinejad is stealing his plans to destroy the West from "Ocean's 11."
I'm gonna lose sleep over that.
Seriously, even if one of these rogue states managed to get an intercontinental ballistic missle that could reach the United States (North Korea might be able to hit California. Iran's nuclear aspirations are a threat to Europe and Israel), they'd launch one, and that would be it.
No Islamic (or Russian or Chinese) army could be moved to occupy the United States because our naval supremacy is absolute. If a US city were hit with a nuclear attack, I expect our reprisal might be less restrained.
Solid Surfer:
But why even give Iran or North Korea the chance? Even if they can only nuke just one American city, that's still millions of people at risk. Given Iran's leadership's fanaticism, it'd be immoral and irresponsible of us to let them develop nuclear weapons. They are a threat to the whole world.
Dukakis88:
So what? We should nuke them first? That just puts us in more danger.
Kim Jong Il and Ahmadinejad are outsized personalities, and maybe a little kooky, but they're not suicidal. This is a diplomatic struggle, and they're trying to secure a more prominent place for their regimes on the international scene. Neither of them wants to provoke annihilating reprisal from the United States.
Stockpiling weapons is a diplomatic ploy, and there's a diplomatic response to it, which is economic sanctions to put these dick-waving tinpot wannabes in their proper place, without getting drawn into another military quagmire.
I think global warming is a much bigger problem than Iran's nuclear aspirations.
Solid Surfer:
Economic sanctions may have worked in the past with other regimes, but they almost certainly won't here.
Sanctions have already failed with Kim Jong Il, who lied to the US and developed nuclear weapons when he said he wouldn't. And now, Iran is saying that nothing, not even sanctions, will stop their nuclear program.
This is not so much of a worry with Kim, who is indeed not suicidal. But Ahmadinejad is another story. Maybe he isn't personally suicidal, but he could care less if his whole country is destroyed as long as he takes down America and Israel. He believes that he has a divine mission, and will not compromise this, regardless of sanctions, negotiations, or anything else: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/14/wiran14.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/01/14/ixworld.html
This means that the principle of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), which successfully deterred the Soviets, will likely not work with him. Because of this, America cannot let him develop nuclear weapons under any circumstances, even if that means having to attack Iran in order to bring the regime down.
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