[tort_feasor]

Ender's Game Bump.

[Tolik]

Orson Scott Card:

The terrorists want a world war between all of Islam and everybody else, because they believe that in such a war Allah will give them the victory and the entire world will become Muslim (or at least be ruled by Muslims).

So leaving them alone will not cause them to leave us alone – it will encourage them to provoke us more.

Giving more aid or support to Muslim nations will not be seen as generosity, it will be seen as tribute or ransom money, and the credit will go to the terrorists ... thereby inviting further acts of terror. (This is the pattern that the Palestinian terrorists have already demonstrated for years.)

That is the thing that the advocates of “peace” just don’t seem to understand: Peace cannot be achieved unilaterally. When an enemy is determined to make war – even a pathetically weak and under-armed enemy – then a war will be fought ... or the enemy will become your conqueror.

War postponed never becomes easier to fight, or less costly in lives and treasure. And those who mock President Bush as a “cowboy” or even, insanely, claim that America (or “the Jews”) staged 9-11 just so we’d have an excuse for war will not, if their views prevail, bring about peace. They will simply bring about far more death.

And if we abandon this war, then a day will almost certainly come when all of us will look back with deep regret to the time when we might have rid the world of the scourge of extremist Muslim terrorism (meanwhile liberating more than a few Muslim nations from tyranny) at the astonishingly slight cost in blood and horror, compared to most wars, that we have paid so far in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

He writes fantasy, the lowest form of writing.

[danneskjold]

Card has always been one of my favorite authors. Enders Game is brilliant in both its complexity and simplicity...

[Tolik]

another brilliant essay from Orson Scott Card

[Cicero]

Excellent article, and very much to the point.

Card is a terrific writer. I recommend "Ender's Game," of course. Also "Wyrms," a terrific fantasy that is less well known, maybe my favorite of his books. Just read the first chapter and you'll be hooked. Also "Seventh Son." I don't think the sequels to Ender's Game and Seventh Son are quite as good as the first books, but it's a very high level to follow.

[Democratshavenobrains]

Unfortunately for us, people these days don't have the courage and common sense of our great-grandparents. Today we are afraid to kill ANY muslum, lest we be called racist.

[null and void]

Bump

[yonif]

bttt

[livius]

Intersting article. I'd never read anything by him before.

War postponed never becomes easier to fight, or less costly in lives and treasure.

Good point.

[Servant of the 9]

I am afraid going to the 'hoof and mouth disease' remedy is the only way we are gonna beat this.

Time for the 'cowboy' President to play 'Cowboys and Muslims'

So9

[x]

Card brings back a forgotten period of history and raises some good points, but his conclusions are highly confused. He writes: "The best answer to extremist Muslim views is to live in a country ruled by extremist Muslims. Citizens of Iran under the ayatollahs and Afghanistan under the Taliban are far less likely a recruiting ground for anti-Western terrorism." If this is true, most of his other conclusions aren't. And vice versa, though it's possible that neither is entirely true. At any rate, he's very confused in his prescription.

The nub of his argument seems to be here: "The terrorists want a world war between all of Islam and everybody else, because they believe that in such a war Allah will give them the victory and the entire world will become Muslim (or at least be ruled by Muslims)." Is this true? Is it necessarily likely to remain true? Others have seen the conflict as involving more specific issues, and see wars like the current one as simply making things worse.

I can't say Card's entirely wrong. He captures the fanaticism of the terrorists better than those who'd argue against him. But it does look as though he's in over his head. He has to take into account the factors (short of annihilation) that break or inhibit or dissipate fanaticism and make it possible for people of different religions to live together, and it doesn't look like he has.

[Jeff Head]

If you cnsider that the Re Chinese are a part of this mix too...and are definitely up to abetting the terrorists and the radical muslims as a tool in distracting us to their own purposes...then you have a recipe for World War if we do not hold firmly to the current path.

And that is the premise for my own Dragon's Fury Series of novels about World War III. Volume IV is just coming out.

Thanks for the post of Card's views on this. Very thought provoking and compelling.

[GeorgiaYankee]

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