Way to play the feminism card.

Islam and Islamism are both world-historical forces that comprehend the entirety of local struggles going on from North Africa to Pakistan to Indonesia.

I guess the neocons were right after all about the war on “Islamism”, it’s just that their tactics were completely wrong and they themselves were doomed by their own arrogance.

Islamism and it’s ilk are utterly irrational and completely driven by ideology, whereas the West, for all it’s fault and moral shortcomings, is at least rational and therefore open.

These sorts of opinions, which have their own ideological biases, masquerading as reasonable positions scare me just as much as what Amis depicts in his piece. Since the new fascism has been adequately described by a host of others including Bernard Lewis and now Martin Amis, you’re either against it or . . . . ?

Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces – with the unbounded determination of our people – we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.”

FDR
December 8, 1941

All religions are violent; and all ideologies are violent. Even Westernism, so impeccably bland, has violence glinting within it. This is because any belief system involves a degree of illusion, and therefore cannot be defended by mind alone. When challenged, or affronted, the believer’s response is hormonal; and the subsequent collision will be one between a brain and a cat’s cradle of glands. I will never forget the look on the gatekeeper’s face, at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, when I suggested, perhaps rather airily, that he skip some calendric prohibition and let me in anyway. His expression, previously cordial and cold, became a mask; and the mask was saying that killing me, my wife, and my children was something for which he now had warrant. I knew then that the phrase ‘deeply religious’ was a grave abuse of that adverb. Something isn’t deep just because it’s all that is there; it is more like a varnish on a vacuum. Millennial Islamism is an ideology superimposed upon a religion – illusion upon illusion. It is not merely violent in tendency. Violence is all that is there.

That’s funny — I thought we on the Left were the ones who were intolerant of intolerance, and it was the Right who were making all the goo-goo eyes at the “Islamofascists” all the way up until September 10th on account of agreeing on so many things like the proper place of women, homosexuals, and blasphemers.

Then again, I did leave my Little Red Book at home today, so I might be mistaken…

The subhead:
“A terrorism expert and Harvard professor examines the origins of militant movements and how to combat them.”

I suggest we all read the book and resume this discussion after we have.

I’m all for freedom of speech, but, isn’t is time to address idiocy when it tracks up your carpet? They may be why intelligent folks hesitate to post.

I believe that half the CIA is on that job along with the FBI and who knows who. Hey guys, check with kat, who figured all this out for the rest of us. I think there’s an effort to convert all the Presbyterians in NYC to “islamic shit”. Won’t happen but check with kat on this. Screw understanding scum, kill them all and let God sort them out.

I think that is done to keep people calm by scaring the hell out of everybody. We keep hearing it’s a new kind of enemy and all of that. They do the auto weapons show at airports. Give up your hairspray or we’ll spray this place with bullets. When I see this sort of thing, I think of Kent State in Ohio. There they did open fire on Americans. When the government decides we need war, it’s public and public opinion be damned. Military force is trained to destroy targets, not police an area. Police prevent killing, not engage in killing. That’s the reason for limits on using the military in civilian areas. They have the military acting as police in Iraq and the police using military tactics here in the U.S.. It’s typical of how things are being done. It’s not a convention enemy, but we are fighting it with a conventional war strategy. We have the ability to defeat the enemy, we have the will and the manpower. The people running this out of Washington are getting our service people killed because of a failed strategy. All we keep hearing is how well it’s going. I don’t think most people are buying it. We’ll see what happens in November. One party rule makes for all sorts of unchecked shenanigans. In Iraq nobody is in charge. It’s getting better, yeah right!

This is an excellent article. We need to understand the scum that is hell bent on destroying the world as it is and trying to force that islamic shit they believe in, on us. We can’t all be as selfish as Jim and think the world revolves around us. The people who died 5 years ago weren’t at war either. They were attacked for allah. They will never again water a garden, fix dinner, or organize a few things. Islamists saw to that.

So one thing doesn’t preclude my wish to have more thoughtful essays from people with direct experience.

We are never going to agree on the degree of threat posed by extremists, but trying to assess the level of danger does not make one an apologist. Neither does trying to understand their motivations. “Know thine enemy” and all that.

Misreading your enemies intentions or capabilities can cause bad choices to be made which can actually have the opposite effect than what is desired. Look up the story of the Maginot Line for a famous example of misreading an enemy’s plans.

Today someone said in a Times editorial that the US is engaged in “security theater”. If, so this is a dangerous game. We need real security, which may be more effective but less visible. I fail to see how soldiers with M16’s in Penn Station provide useful security. In the event of an incident would they start firing into a crowd of commuters?

On the other hand changing the patterns of chemical storage and transport could be useful, but is apparently lagging behind in implementation. One is visible and, perhaps, meant to reassure people that steps are being taken, the other, if done well, is invisible and thus has no psychological effect.

Robert, perhaps you missed that threaded throughout the essay were quotes from “regional experts” by name. The piece was anchored with a lot of scholarly research.

But, then, maybe you didn’t notice that?

No footnotes. No Robert. To each his own.

The US has many times allied itself with evil groups, sometimes to prevent a bigger evil, but in many cases for selfish reasons of its own.

That there are groups of religous fundamentalists who want to remake society along their lines is always true. Iran is a current, moderately successful, example. But to think that these people have global ambitions, or even if they do, that they represent a real international threat is a subjective conclusion.

There are many nominal Muslims just as there are many nominal Christians or Jews and expecting that they would be willing to give up their, mostly secular, lifestyles for a theocracy has not been demonstrated.

I find this current theme remeniscent of the same claims made about the threat of global communism for the 40 years following the end of WWII. It turned out that much of the “information” about the degree of threat was not accurate as the collapse of the USSR revealed.

Who stands to gain from this type of demonizing are the military and intelligence agencies. Without an imminent threat to point to they are at risk of having their budgets cut. Under Bush the military budget has doubled, so the transition to a new enemy has worked from a bureaucratic point of view.

I’d like to see some thoughtful essays from regional experts, rather than from someone with little expertise.

Islam, as distinct from Islamism, as distinct from Islamofascism, as distinct from a Death Cult…….as I read on I felt he was not making hard distinctions. If he was, they were with his own pen fading and falling apart.

His fictionalized conversation between OBL and John Walker Lindh contains this nugget:

“Now would be a good time to strike, John would tell Osama, because the West is enfeebled, not just by sex and alcohol, but also by 30 years of multicultural relativism. They’ll think suicide bombing is just an exotic foible, like shame-and-honour killings or female circumcision. Besides, it’s religious, and they’re always slow to question anything that calls itself that.”

So much for the Left’s continued charade of moral equivalency and vacuous multi-culti posturing that dictates all cultures and religions be accorded equal status.