Posted on 03/27/2006 10:09:17 PM PST by goldstategop
Only four types of individuals can deny the threat to civilization posed by the violence-supporting segment of Islam: the willfully naive, America-haters, Jew-haters and those afraid to confront evil.
Anyone else sees the contemporary reality -- the genocidal Islamic regime in Sudan; the widespread Muslim theological and emotional support for the killing of a Muslim who converts to another religion; the absence of freedom in Muslim-majority countries; the widespread support for Palestinians who randomly murder Israelis; the primitive state in which women are kept in many Muslim countries; the celebration of death; the "honor killings" of daughters; and so much else that is terrible in significant parts of the Muslim world -- knows that civilized humanity has a new evil to fight.
Just as previous generations had to fight Nazism, communism and fascism, our generation has to confront militant Islam.
And whereas there were unique aspects to those evils, there are two unique aspects to the evil emanating from the Islamic world that render this latest threat to humanity particularly difficult to overcome.
One is the number of people who believe in it. This is a new phenomenon among organized evils. Far fewer people believed in Nazism or in communism than believe in Islam generally or in authoritarian Islam specifically. There are one billion Muslims in the world. If just 10 percent believe in the Islam of Hamas, the Taliban, the Sudanese regime, Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism, bin Ladin, Islamic Jihad, the Finley Park Mosque in London or Hizbollah -- and it is inconceivable that only one of 10 Muslims supports any of these groups' ideologies -- that means a true believing enemy of at least 100 million people. Outside of Germany, how many people believed in Nazism? Outside of Japan, who believed in Japanese imperialism and militarism? And outside of universities, the arts world or Hollywood, how many people believed in Soviet-style totalitarianism?
A far larger number of people believe in Islamic authoritarianism than ever believed in Marxism. Virtually no one living in Marxist countries believed in Marxism or communism. Likewise, far fewer people believed in Nazism, an ideology confined largely to one country for less than one generation. This is one enormous difference between the radical Islamic threat to our civilization and the two previous ones.
But there is yet a second difference that is at least as significant and at least as frightening: Nazis and Communists wanted to live and feared death; Islamic authoritarians love death and loathe life.
That is why MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) worked with the Soviet Union. Communist leaders love life -- they loved their money, their power, their dachas, their mistresses, their fine wines -- and were hardly prepared to give all that up for Marx. But Iran's current leaders celebrate dying, and MAD may not work, because from our perspective, they are indeed mad. MAD only works with the sane.
There is much less you can do against people who value dying more than living.
The existence of an unprecedentedly large number of people wishing to destroy decent civilization as we know it -- and who celebrate their own deaths -- poses a threat the likes of which no civilization in history has had to confront.
The evils committed by Nazism and Communism were, of course, greater than those committed by radical Islam. There has been no Muslim Gulag and no Muslim Auschwitz.
But the threat is far more serious.
The 10% is commonly used by pundits for their armageddon arguments. Your point is well taken. Most of the "muslims" in the balkans are secular and muslim in name only. Note those muslims are mostly economically succesful and educated, exposed to western news and culture. The brainwashed jihadis are found in the impoverished shitholes of the world where the only information they get is from their imams.
Thank you, dr_lew. At least somebody understands me (cue violins...)
A simple exercise:
Make a list of people/groups who hate America. Then make a list of people/groups who hate Jews. Aside from the occasional oddball like Pat Buchanan, the lists are virtually identical.
The brainwashed jihadis are found in the impoverished shitholes of the world where the only information they get is from their imams.==
It is naivety. See Saudi Arabia. The econimical success is its highest but the country has the Vakhabism as official ideology. This country dissiminates it around the world of islam. Economy follows policy.
"The evils committed by Nazism and Communism were, of course, greater than those committed by radical Islam. There has been no Muslim Gulag and no Muslim Auschwitz."
Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. WRONG!
No Muslim Gulag? Ask some Christians living in Muslim countries. Ask some Muslim women. Ask Muslim activists that have criticism or questions about Islam. No Muslim Aushwitz? Yeah right, ever heard of a country by the name of Sudan? They're trying hard to make that a better islamic place by exterminating every Christian they can find. And there are many more places on that list.
In my view Islam is a much worse oppressive system than the Soviet Union or the Third Reich because the perps claim to have a Divine mission to force the entire world into submission "for their own good". How twisted is that!?
Look at what just 19 did with four planes on one day. You don't need that many to screw things up. And there's a whole lot more than 19 that would like to screw things up.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
And who knows what else is planned for us: http://tinyurl.com/dl2dm
Let us not forget there are and have been several Americans caught among the ranks of the jihadis. People born and raised in Europe & America.
The Spanish were strong when the Gold flowed to them. Don't you see the connection between oil and this conflict? Without oil (and expensive oil at that) we can leave them alone in their medieval squalor.
The evils committed by Nazism and Communism were, of course, greater than those committed by radical Islam. There has been no Muslim Gulag and no Muslim Auschwitz.
Yet. Should Israel be over run, the reality would be very different.
Nice dream, but naive.
Trying to fight these people is like trying to rid your house of an ant invasion without use of mass chemicals. You kill one here and there where you catch them, but hidden away are thousands more planning and attacking.
Oil is not their source of power or wealth. Hatred of the West is their motivator.
yeah, but islamm has been a danger since the 7th century or have you forgotten the battle of Tours, the Spanish Reconquista, the fall of Constantinople, the freedom of the Balkan nations?
Total war against islam may be the only answer. Perhaps the crusaders had it right the first time.
Not to mention that all of northern Africa and the Middle East were Christian nations before the invasions of the Muslimes who then transformed the very essence of the people who remained after the massacres.
The real danger of Islam is the fact that it masquerades as religion. This gives it alot of protection in the west. No one thought there was anything wrong with keeping tabs on communists or nazis within the US (or other western countries). In the case of Islam, however, any hint of keeping tabs on the true believers is seen as discrimination.
It is making the job of the good guys much harder.
America-hating fanatics and Jew-hating fanatics have fanaticism & hate in common, not America & Jews.
OH MY GOD YOU'RE RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hope everyone is writing this down, because your insight is incredible! "Hitler was lying." Wow. You've enlightened us.
"Jews weren't blowing up and beheading Germans, Jews weren't demanding Germany be turned into a Jewish state, Jews weren't taking over German churches and turning them into synagogues, Jews didn't execute people people for being or becoming "German"... Does any of that sound familiar to you? BECAUSE THATS WHAT MUSLIMS DO."
You must be referring to our new Iraqi allies, the Afghans, Pakistan, Libya, the governments - though not populace - of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE.
All by virtue of being Muslim. The "case" against them is indeed a lie, and exactly the same lie that Hitler told. And you.
True, but the rest of the world has been fighting them for the last 1300 years. This is only new to us.
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