Moral Atomic Bomb

Wall Street Journal ^ | 2/9/06 | Bernard-Henri Levy

[dervish]

...it is hard not to see that insidious forces have brought these drawings to the attention of the Muslim masses... this calculated offense (calculated, mind you, by the organizers of the distribution of the cartoons), it is hard not to link this blasphemy to a new planetary configuration, itself determined by three recent and major events.

The diversionary tactic of a Syria which we never saw so concerned over religious matters...

'snip'

The hardening of Iran's Islamic Republic, ready to make all kinds of theological concessions (including a grand historic alliance of Shiites and Sunnis, which experts have been telling us for decades would be against nature)

'snip'

And then this tragedy in the Palestinian territories of the victory of an ideology whose themes (the call, based on the denial of the Holocaust, for the pure and simple destruction of Israel and the Jews) had up to now been in power only in openly dictatorial, sometimes even crypto-fascist, states.

'snip'

These three events are linked as a triangle. There is between these three poles a veritable triangle of death, which is in the process of locking into place thanks to the cartoons affair -- and which, if it is successfully welded together, will produce not just symbolic heat, but, with an Iranian bomb, a fissile heat unlike anything we saw in the good old axis of evil.

And, faced with this triangulation in progress, faced with this formidable hate-and-death machine, faced with this "moral atomic bomb," we have no other solution than to counter with another triangle -- a triangle of life and reason, which more than ever must unite the United States, Europe and Israel in a rejection of any clash of civilizations of the kind desired by the extremists of the Arab-Muslim world and by them alone.

'snip'

[Semper Paratus]

Alexander the Great gave Zoroastranism a blow they never really recovered from.

[horse_doc]

Alexander the Great gave Zoroastranism a blow they never really recovered from.

Alexander the Great gave the Achaemenid Persian Empire a blow that they never recovered from. Zoroastrianism fueled the later Sassanid Empire just fine 1000 years later, in a deathmatch with Byzantium.

"First Crusader - Byzantium's Holy Wars", by Geoffrey Regan, is a very vivid account of what a close shave it was.

[arthurus]

The cartoons did not cause he unpleasantness that is coming, that is already to some extent here. It is a handy excuse to take attention away from Iran. If the cartoons were not available some other excuse would have sufficed.The war is happening right now. These tantrums just might jar the Euros and more Americans to understand a bit of what is at stake.

[calex59]

So the liberals have a culture of death because they support abortion and homosexuality and low-birth rates and mindless materialism. And now according to you the Muslims have a cult of death even though they oppose abortion, oppose homosexuality, support high birth rates and are anything but mindlessly materialistic. I think you need to work some more on your sloganeering.

apparently you missed 9/11 and all the killings and be-headings, kidnappings etc. since then. Islam is a cult of death and one only has to look at what they have wrought to know that. The rioting over a few harmless cartoons shows how easy they are to incite to violence, they look for any excuse. Islam, the stinking, rotting, culture of death.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

That is not a culture of death. That is a culture that supports murder.

A "culture of death" is one that favors the death of its own culture, i.e. liberalism.

The Islamicists don't wish the death of their culture, they wish the death of ours.

What you wanted to say is "Culture of Terrorism".

But then that isn't even true as most Muslims don't support terrorism. Unfortunately "most" probably only means about 60% but that still is greater than the 0% that it should be.

[Salvation]

Moral Atomic Bomb    BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

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One can find these cartoons mediocre. One can perceive in them, as I do, a certain similarity with the anti-Semitic and racist caricatures of the 1930s or '50s.

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One can — and it would still be true — decide that depicting the prophet in this way, particularly with such dumb and obnoxious features, wasn't the brightest idea in the present context and amounted to tossing a lit match onto a powder keg.

Still, it is one thing to publish ludicrous cartoons in a newspaper that no one has heard of outside Denmark, but it is quite another to see these cartoons travel around the globe four months later, igniting a form of planetary intifada with enormous demonstrations, embassies and consulates set on fire, a priest shot dead in Turkey, four protesters killed in Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan, not to mention the turning of Westerners living on Islamic soil into targets, mortal enemies threatened with death — expiatory victims offered to the white-hot, crazed and radicalized crowd.

[JohnBovenmyer]

But Islam has an Achilles heel, in the cities of Mecca and Medina. If they were to vanish, Islam would be crippled, and would shrivel up.

I'm not sure it would require anything so drastic. Snuffing the Zoroastrian "eternal" flame was a very precise, irredeemable, attack. What would Islam's moon god think about taking that meteorite, sending it back into space and dropping it into the sun? If the faithful kept praying toward the rock we'd soon have a lot more blind Imams. Not only would it confuse their prayers, but an Allah that couldn't protect His rock wouldn't look very strong. Some religions could dream up a theological work around for this, but Allah is out of prophets.

[Doe Eyes]

The first step would require an admission from our "intellectuals" that we are in a war between civilizations/religions.

Why single out "intellectuals"?

Our political leaders have not made this admission.