The following political cartoon was published soon after 9/11:
Posted on 11/14/2004 12:26:17 PM PST by No Blue States
ATHENS, Greece - The same day Dutch mourners gathered outside a crematorium for a final goodbye to slain filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, police on the other side of the world made a horrific discovery in a hut: the decapitated body of a Thai laborer.
The two events - in settings as different as tidy and prosperous Holland and a tropical rubber plantation in southern Thailand - bear similarities that suggest new flash points in the global struggle against radical Islam.
A note impaled on Van Gogh's body by the alleged Muslim killer threatened further attacks against Dutch politicians in the name of Islam. The body of the 60-year-old Buddhist worker in Thailand also was found last week with a message: "More will be killed" in revenge for the deaths of 85 Muslim protesters last month in a region with a mounting Islamic insurgency.
"The fault lines are growing," said Fawaz Gerges, a professor of Middle Eastern and International Affairs at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y. "It's not just between the Muslims and non-Muslims. It's also within Islam itself. It's a battle between moderate Muslims and extremist forces that threaten to hijack Islam."
The most recent hot spots zigzag around the atlas - from Liberia in West Africa to the Netherlands to Southeast Asia. They join a growing roster of places already feeling the strains of religious conflict and terrorism along the edges of the Islamic world - regions as diverse as Chechnya, Nigeria, Spain, Central Asia and the Philippines. Even China is worried about separatist sentiment in its vast and mostly Muslim western province of Xinjiang.
"The militant voices on the street are gaining credibility in more and more places," said Gerges. "That's a worrisome trend."
Part of the reason, many Islamic experts say, can be traced to global communications that forge common points of reference such as al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's defiance or the guerrilla attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq. But even more powerful rallying cries come from firebrand imams and opinion-shapers: that Islam is under threat and it's the duty of followers to take a stand.
In Amsterdam, a moderate imam, Abdel Eillah, feared the scales were tipping in a troubling direction among Muslim immigrants in Europe who fail to adapt.
"When I hear young men praise violence in the name of Islam, I fear for my faith and I fear for the world. We must fight it before it's too late," he said after the Nov. 2 slaying of Van Gogh, whose work included harsh commentary against traditional Islam. "I didn't like what Van Gogh said, but he should not pay with blood."
Dutch police moved sharply against suspected Islamic radicals following the murder. Last Wednesday, special forces stormed a house in The Hague following a 15-hour armed standoff. The two suspects captured - among more than a dozen detained since the Van Gogh slaying - are under investigation for possible links to terrorist cells accused of plots in Morocco and elsewhere.
New laws were proposed to give Dutch authorities greater powers to hold and investigate suspected terrorists.
"Extremism is reaching the roots of our democracy," the Netherlands' prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, said last week in Parliament.
Or as former U.S. ambassador Richard Parker terms it: "The common language of Islamic militancy is growing louder."
"This is not something that happened overnight. It's a feeling of injustice among Muslims that goes back decades," said Parker, who served as a diplomat in Lebanon, Algeria and Morocco. "But now it's become much more legitimate to say that violence and 'holy war' is the proper way."
The Van Gogh killing and backlash has captured headlines. But the bloodshed in southern Thailand could mark a resurgence of a long-simmering Muslim insurgency and, some officials fear, fertile ground for Islamic terrorists.
Thailand's Muslim minority has complained for decades about economic and social discrimination by Buddhist authorities. Violence subsided in the 1990s after government concessions for greater funds and Muslim political representation. But the calm began to erode in recent years.
In April, more than 100 Islamic militiamen were killed in raids on security posts. On Oct. 25, at least 85 Muslims died when security forces dispersed a demonstration outside a police station. Most of the victims suffocated or were crushed after being packed into army trucks.
More than 500 people have been killed this year in three southern Thai provinces, including attacks targeting Buddhists in possible bids to drive out non-Muslims. On Friday, suspected Islamic insurgents gunned down a non-Muslim boxing instructor.
Authorities are investigating possible links between separatist groups and Islamic terrorist organizations such as Jemaah Islamiyah, which seeks a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia. It's blamed for attacks including the 2002 bombing in Bali that claimed 202 lives.
Hambali, accused of being Jemaah Islamiyah's operations chief and bin Laden's alleged point man in Asia, was arrested in Thailand last year and it's unclear how much the group has rebounded.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak, an assistant professor of international relations at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, believes the strong retaliation from authorities "can only galvanize the Muslim insurgency in the south."
"We have not yet seen escalation," he said. "But I still think we may be headed from bad to worse."
He speculated that the attacks could move out of the south to hit Thailand's vital tourism industry.
"The gruesome fashion of these (beheadings) by presumably Muslim assailants ... is not normal violence," said Pongsudhirak. "It is driven by deep animosity and hatred."
In West Africa, a rare outbreak of Christian-Muslim violence in Liberia last month stunned authorities and drew comparisons to nearby Nigeria, where more than 10,000 have been killed in sectarian clashes since 1999.
At least 16 people were killed and more than 200 others injured in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, where five churches and two mosques were set ablaze. U.N. troops stepped in to restore order.
"We are seeing more tears in the fabric between Muslims and non-Muslims," said Mohammad Khalil, who researches Islam and modern society at the Middle East Institute in Washington. "In too many minds, violence has replaced dialogue; calls for separation have replaced efforts at coexistence. These are not good signs."
The following political cartoon was published soon after 9/11:
That'll happen if you slice them thin enough.
Okay, that was a bad adaptation of an old joke...but I amused myself.
The taking of the American hostages in 1979 was the first blow struck in the revived war between Islam and the West. It's a war that may last for centuries.
Islam sucks.
The one thing that argues against it lasting centuries is that nuclear technologies already exist that in enemy hands would be used agaisnt Israel or the US today.
Whatever must be done, must be done now.
I share your sentiment wholeheartedly. And Im proud of America that the pre election OBL tapes and other empty threats did not make us cower like Spain.
It's a war that may last for centuries.
The one thing that argues against it lasting centuries is that nuclear technologies already exist that in enemy hands would be used agaisnt Israel or the US today.
Whatever must be done, must be done now.
You may be right. I was thinking of both the hot and cold wars waged between the Islamic and Christian worlds for centuries. They only sputtered out at the end of the 17th century because the West was so far technically advanced of the Turks.
It's interesting that radical Islam is growing outside the Arab world. Within the Arab world, it seems to have peaked. In Algeria, people have grown tired of the civil war and it's massive killing.
I suspected that, there will be no quick fix or final victory and a long bloody war is assured along with the probability of escalation.
I hear you...
Nothing new. As I have detailed many times, a clash of religions is inevitable. Nukes or biological weapons, they will use them against us. First. And maybe last.
It will be bloody and, unfortunately, deportation to an area within striking distance of Israel doesn't solve the problem.
...and this Christian American is fully behind Israel. As far as I am concerned, Israel and the Holy Land is as much as part of my country as my home state.
dang...is = are
It's going to be a long haul and for the moment we have to stabalize Fallujah along with the civilians and Iraqi forces. Also same must be done in Mosul, Rammadi and the entire Sunni Triangle. Hopefully more well trained Iraqi forces come aboard. (one step at a time)
So they are elitists too? The wonders never cease.
Therefore, it is our duty to globalize the world around Islam and call the world to join Islam: "you may warn the Mother of Cities and those around her." This means the entire world.
You know I probably could live with their futile belief of spreading their religion worldwide if it werent for their convert of kill clause.
Same here, NIMBY.
The old Trojan horse ploy. Seems to be still working after all these centuries.
Bingo!
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