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Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/
NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
Pajamasmedia: http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/
Bump.
Most excellent piece. Everyone should have to read it.
The perfect storm
Five things accounted for the rise of al Qaeda
1. Afghanistan. The Afghans, with Western weapons and Gulf money, defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan. Of nearly 800,000 resistance fighters, there were rarely over 2,000 Arabs fighting at one time. But because of the Russian collapse, and Mullah Omar’s coddling of the multimillionaire loud bin Laden, al Qaeda was able to pose to Muslim youth as the saviors of Islam that had destroyed the Soviet Union. That Arabs had little to do with the Afghan victory, much less the collapse of the Soviet Union mattered little. From 1989 on bin Laden was enshrined as some mythical Saladin.2. Islam and globalization. There were in the last 1400 years always wannabe Great Mahdis and zealots who declared jihad. But in this period of globalization and Western-inspired modernism, Islam, autocratic tyrannies in the Middle East, and the languishing Arab Street have all come together to recreate another Islamic wave of jihadism. Bin Laden’s ever expanding list of grievances, from Kyoto to mortgages, reveals that his hatred, born out inferiority, envy, and pride, is existential and elemental.
3. American appeasement. That sad tale from the Iranian hostage taking of 1979 to the attack on the USS Cole is now well known. But in the words of the terrorists themselves, the image of a static, impotent America was fixed, and with it the invitation to hit our assets at will without fear of retribution.
4. The Wall. Richard Clark, George Tenet, and Michael Scheuer may be loud critics, but prior to 9/11 no Americans had more opportunity to save us from known terrorists in the United States. Yet petty jealousies and turf battles ensured that the NSA, CIA, and FBI stayed on parallel, quite separate tracks, as these egomaniacs refused to share information that would have empowered all three agencies. Those walls are now hopefully, down, and with their fall, and the absence of the three above, we have been making good progress rounding up the terrorists among us.
5. Petroleum. Without petrodollars, there are no madrassas, no House of Saud cousins freelancing by pouring money to jihadists, no bought and paid for mullahs mouthing anti-Western drivel, and no chance to get weapons of mass destruction to kill us all.
<...excerpt.. read more at his pajamasmedia blog.>
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
The system of succession in Islam that combined both religion and state under the rule of one caliph. After the assassination of ‘Ali in 661, the caliphate became dynastic. The first dynasty of the Umayyads began in 661, and was centered in Damascus, Syria. It ended with a blood bath in 750. It was followed by the ‘Abbasid dynasty (750-1250) and was centered in Baghdad, the last one was the Ottoman dynasty that was abolished by Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic in 1924. ... www.safeplace.net/members/mer/BAI-III.html
the era of Islam's ascendancy from the death of Mohammed until the 13th century; some Moslems still maintain that the Moslem world must always have a calif as head of the community; "their goal was to reestablish the Caliphate" the territorial jurisdiction of a caliph the office of a caliph wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Caliph is the term or title for the Islamic leader of the Ummah, or community of Islam. It is an Anglicized/Latinized version of the Arabic word خليفة or Khalīfah () which means "successor", that is, successor to the prophet Muhammad. Some Orientalists wrote the title as Khalîf. The Caliph has often been referred to as Ameer al-Mumineen (أمير المؤمنين), or "Commander of the Faithful". ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate
Definitions of egalitarianism on the Web:
The practice of not recognizing, and even eliminating, differences in social status and wealth. highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072549238/student_view0/glossary.html
the doctrine of the equality of mankind and the desirability of political and economic and social equality wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Egalitarianism is the moral doctrine that equality ought to prevail throughout society. One can best understand various types of egalitarianism by asking "Who is supposed to be equal?" and "In what respect are they supposed to be equal?" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egalitarianism
No more effort should be put into answering this question. Bin Laden isn't motivated by "wanting" something. No amount of concession on our part will ever appease him. (By the way, by "bin Laden," I mean the whole islamofascist movement. In my opinion, Osama bin Laden is cave paste and has been since Tora Bora.)
No, the terrorists are driven by only one goal: destruction. They may cloak it behind lofty rhetoric or pretentious motives, but when the dust clears, the only reason they're murdering people and blowing up buildings is because they like murder and mayhem. Nothing more.
We don't have to spend any more time trying to "understand" them or to see things from their point of view. They HAVE none! They are simply a disease whose sole purpose is the destruction of anything they focus on, be it the Trade Center, a London bus, a train in Madrid, or an auditorium full of school children in Beslan.
Theirs is not a means toward an end. Mayhem is the end in itself. Time spent trying to ascertain a motive is time better used rooting them out and crushing them.
In his original diatribe against the west he not only used troops in Saudi Arabia as an excuse but the immorality of hollywood. Since they have proven to be such valuable allies he’s stopped doing that.