You said -- "It had better be, because if it's not, then it's pretty clear that we have no strategy at all."
It's either that -- or else -- launch an *all-out war* against the religion of Islam (the strategy I would prefer) -- and destroy it from the face of this earth. Make Islam an illegal relgion, all over the world. Destroy every vestige of Islam (Mosques, books, schools, outlaw the clerics, destroy the black stone in Mecca, tear down the Dome of the Rock, etc.).
However, I don't think that particular strategy is going to "fly" with the general public. So, we're left with the current strategy of Bush.
Regards,
Star Traveler
Probably 90% of all Muslims believe devoutly in the basics fo their religion, because that is al they have known since birth combined with the fact that no form of Islam encourages questioning thought, but aren't burning with hatred and spend most of their miserable lives finding twigs to burn and trying to keep lice out of their kids hair.
I recoil at what this program implies, but Islam is like a loathsome virus. Somehow, we have to get it ALL, every book, monument, mosque, and memory. It needs to be erased from the planet, there is not a doubt about that.
But what should replace it? Frankly, I am not too concerned with that. I think it most appropriate that it be whatever religion predominated before ancestral peoples were converted at knife/sword/gun point. Iran could go back to Zoroastrainaism; Pakistan and India to Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, or any of the smorgasboard of religions at home there; Indonesia to their syncretic Hindu/Buddhist amalgam; and most of the Middle East to Christianity. The important point is that whatever religion people might choose, it wouldn't be Islam.
Probably 90% of all Muslims believe devoutly in the basics fo their religion, because that is al they have known since birth combined with the fact that no form of Islam encourages questioning thought, but aren't burning with hatred and spend most of their miserable lives finding twigs to burn and trying to keep lice out of their kids hair.
I recoil at what this program implies, but Islam is like a loathsome virus. Somehow, we have to get it ALL, every book, monument, mosque, and memory. It needs to be erased from the planet, there is not a doubt about that.
But what should replace it? Frankly, I am not too concerned with that. I think it most appropriate that it be whatever religion predominated before ancestral peoples were converted at knife/sword/gun point. Iran could go back to Zoroastrainaism; Pakistan and India to Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, or any of the smorgasboard of religions at home there; Indonesia to their syncretic Hindu/Buddhist amalgam; and most of the Middle East to Christianity. The important point is that whatever religion people might choose, it wouldn't be Islam.