Islamic Terrorism and the Power of Ideas

American Thinker ^ | 8/28/2014 | Yoav J. Tenembaum

[markomalley]

In a concise and clear manner, the former United States president, George W. Bush, said on the 11th of May, 2011, that United States foreign policy should continue to promote the ideas of freedom and democracy as a way to combat global terrorism.

"The long-term solution," Bush said, "is to promote a better ideology, which is freedom. Freedom is universal."

In the light of the current confrontation with the Islamic State terror organization, as well as with Al Qaeda and its affiliate groups, it is pertinent to assess to what extent Bush is right.

In order to defeat a totalitarian ideology, the United States needs to advance an alternative. It must challenge Islamism with a morally superior vision and with a pragmatically more enticing solution.

However, totalitarian ideologies have rarely been defeated solely by the peaceful counter-argument of alternative ideologies.

Napoleon's dictatorial version of the French revolution was finally defeated at the battlefields of Waterloo, following years of warfare and destruction.

Nazism was brought to an end by the Allied armies.

The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia was defeated by fellow communists Vietnam.

Even Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union was not brought to an end just by posing an alternative ideology, but by a policy of containment, combining a military, political, and economic dimension.

Equally, Islamic terrorism won't be defeated only by the inherently superior ideas of democracy and liberty.

[markomalley]

What makes it worse with this group is that these people are "true believers." They have a religious "faith" that compels them to act in the way they do:

Beheading people: “When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks…” (Qur’an 47:4).

Subjugating women and girls: “Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them” (Qur’an 4:34).

Killing Muslims: “They wish that you reject Faith, as they have rejected (Faith), and thus that you all become equal (like one another). So take not Auliya’ (protectors or friends) from them, till they emigrate in the Way of Allah (to Muhammad SAW). But if they turn back (from Islam), take (hold) of them and kill them wherever you find them, and take neither Auliya’ (protectors or friends) nor helpers from them” (Qur’an 4:89).

Killing Christians: “Fight those who believe not in God nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Qur’an 9:29).

They want to experience death, believing that if they die to uphold the values expressed above, they will have eternal paradise. And they believe what they believe with all their hearts.

Whether Øbama, Bush, Cameron, or any other of these idiots want to believe it or not, there is a religious war going on.

And unless this mess of jihadis utterly recant their core belief system, there will be only one way to stop them.

[nathanbedford]

Is not clear whether the author in making his faulty distinctions between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union was motivated by a socialist bent or by his Jewish faith/ethnicity. Whatever motivation, his conclusion that the Nazi leaders were irrational and Soviet leaders were rational simply does not hold water.

First, the Nazis did not live in the age of the atomic bomb and the Soviets from 1945 until the fall Soviet Union did and that fact changes everything. One might remember that the Nazis refrained from using poison gas in World War II on the battlefront because they were deterred. One might argue that it is more irrational to attempt to extinguish entire races such as Jews and Gypsies that it is to extinguish entire classes such as kulaks or the intelligentsia but I find this distinction to be unpersuasive. Whatever your judgment on that issue, it would have very little to do with the authors point that an irrational society is more difficult to deter. I agree with that fundamental proposition but I disagree with his application of this theory in history.

But I think the author does touch on a very important point. He is quite right when he says that terrorism has little to do with the wealth and education of the terrorist or whether the society generally offers hope in the Democratic Party sense of the word and has everything to do with the "sociopolitical culture" which spawns terrorists. This implies that if one wants to understand what motivates an individual to strap on a suicide vest, one might be better informed by examining the cult mentality of the Bloods and Crips and other like gangs in Los Angeles rather than seeking to vindicate academic preconceptions about society and making assumptions about Islam.

A few articles away from this one cites a poll that tells us that 89% of Gazans support the rocket attacks on Israel. That tells me that as much is 11% opposed them. The Israelis would do well to understand the nature of this opposition and amplify the factors which produced it. I suspect that continued artillery shelling of much of Gaza might increase that 11% substantially.

I note that supposedly irrational Nazis were quick to hang sheets of surrender from their houses windows as the British and Americans advanced into Germany and the threat of execution by him agents of the Nazi party disappeared. These people who are supposedly so irrational behaved quite rationally.

If we blind ourselves by our willful inability to identify what part of Islam is pernicious and what part is not, we will not identify the psychological power of the cult which thrives within Islam. It is understandable that our presidents have been loathe to say that we are at war with Islam, after all there are 1.6 billion of them out there and many of them live in the United States. But it is also foolish to pretend that Islam by its nature is a peaceful religion or that it is not a fertile ground for the spawning of murderous cults.

Why are the psychologists who have so many easy answers about what motivates conservatives so absent when it comes time to tell us how to frustrate the formation of a cult mentality?

[ballplayer]

How do you defeat an idea that your idea and system allows to infiltrate and grow at exponential rates?
Our side has been totally appropriated by its enemies,with propaganda and fellow travelers in every aspect of our culture,key areas,media,education and just useful idiots.
The great experiment is done,it’s just a matter of time,there is not much left