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Why do people hate us this much? What can we do to change this? It's no use thinking we are dealing with a small bunch of maniacs, as seems to be the popular view, who need to be 'stamped out.'

From Amir Taheri: But to the Islamist those Muslims who think like that are themselves regarded as lapsed, and deserving of death.

What is unclear is the number of such islamists. Whether it is a small or large bunch does not really change the argeument over which course to take does it? If it does, where is the break point?

"The reality is we are looking at a large number of entire countries of people to whom the American (and English) flag is a symbol of evil. Of selfishness and bullying imperialist aggression. This is what we must address. This is what we owe it to our children to do. In my opinion."

OK, so it is a large number who hate us. And our path should be?

But what if non-Muslims refuse to take the right path? Here answers diverge. Some believe that the answer is dialogue and argument until followers of the “abrogated faiths” recognise their error and agree to be saved by converting to Islam. This is the view of most of the imams preaching in the mosques in the West. But others, including Osama bin Laden, a disciple of al-Maudoodi, believe that the Western-dominated world is too mired in corruption to hear any argument, and must be shocked into conversion through spectacular ghazavat (raids) of the kind we saw in New York and Washington in 2001, in Madrid last year, and now in London.

So in the view of this musician we should respond to these shock raids and listen to the wisdom and sense of Islam?

So in the view of this musician we should respond to these shock raids and listen to the wisdom and sense of Islam?

The Barbary pirate route is the one to take. To paraphrase someone, may have been Burke, there are a few truly good and a few truly bad people, the majority go either one way or the other, depending on who happens to be in power. The necessity, in the current situation, is to identify as many of either minority as quickly as possible, reward the former, and annihilate the latter. Someone else, it may have been Pipes, said that Islamicism depended upon a perception of the inevitability of its success in taking over the West. Demonstrations like Afghanistan, Iraq, and what Israel could do if not hampered by the West, are gigantic body blows to this perception. Such demonstrations should continue as quickly and as devastatingly as possible. Too bad we couldn't design a bacteria with a specific taste for only those crude oils that come from nations supporting Islamicists and take out all their oil at the source.