Beliefs At The Heart Of The Conflict Against Terrorism

Self ^ | 10/04/2001 | MHGinTN

[Utah Girl]

Thanks for the analysis. I've bookmarked this to read tomorrow.

[Travis McGee]

No flames. I see OBL, the Talibans and the Al Quaida as the last desperate go for broke gamble of islam.

Sort of like the Sioux "Ghost Dancers" of 1890, or the Nazis' final run for the coast in the Battle of the Bulge.

Fundamentalist radical islamists know that they are losing their youth to Western culture. They are now attempting to smash and destroy that Western culture before it is able to complete the seduction of their next generations.

This is a classic example of "Strategic Over Reach", Napoleon in Moscow, the Germans at Stalingrad. The islamists may succeed in wrecking our developed ecomomies for a while, but while the cutoff in trade and travel will be painful to the West, it will be fatal to the islamic nations. They cannot eat petroleum.

I think that this episode will bring the end of the recent expansionist phase of islamism, which will be marginalized and on the retreat for centuries after their nations emerge from starvation, civil war, and economic depression.

[mommadooo3]

Let's see....7,000 innocents, sacrificed on the altar of the terrorists religious beliefs. All the MORE reason to hit 'em when they hold their religious unholy days. (let their god and their 72 virgins save their a**es)

[MHGinTN]

Thank you for the recommendations. I would add Dream Palace of the Arabs: A Generation's Odyssey, by Fouad Ajami, and a book entitled The Saudis, by Katherine MacKay (I think is her name).

[Ms. AntiFeminazi]

Thank you for including me on your ping list. I'm sorry I haven't had more time to read and reply to your posts, but I do appreciate the pings. I'll make my way back to these sometime. Please keep pinging me. :)

[185JHP]

Thanks for the ping. With these Islamists, it is a case of "the thing speaks for itself." Everything in the Bible will happen - not everything that will happen is explicitly in the Bible. The many reports of debauched conduct by the 9-11 tangos demonstrate that they weren't even devout Muslims - more like Paul's description of another disreputable bunch - "alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies."

[Ms. AntiFeminazi]

Didn't see you on the ping list and thought you'd like this one.

[MHGinTN]

Travis, perhaps it is time, and the passage away from immediate struggles with opposing ideologies, that mellow the great religions. I tend to agree, this is the last great gasp of radical Islamism trying to prevent movement into the modern world, trying to resist the advent of technology and scientific explanation of the universe. Since we in the West do not wholly embrace secular humanism (we Christians resist it when we see it clearly), I think rather inconsiderate to assume the world of Islam would embrace the same corrosive aspects that we still resist. But the adherents of the great religions will learn to co-exist, and may even learn to value each other's diversity of thought and scholarship someday.

As a Christian, I do not assume God has no plan for the salvation of such a vast segment of humankind. Though I don't know what His plan is, I do believe it is marvelous and not anywhere near as exclusionary of other faiths as some would promote. Faith is a force of the spiritual level of the universe; the power of it is well beyond our current comprehension, even to understand how faith found in another religion may be applied by the Creator through His Son to the glory of His Son. I conceive of God in three persons much the way I would explain my or your existence as expressed at three levels, body-soul-spirit. I don't think that is polytheism and I don't think God is offended if I hold that belief.

[MHGinTN]

Ping-a-ling-a-ling

[dixie sass]

Bump and ping until later.

[RJayneJ]

Thanks for the heads up! };^D)

[MHGinTN]

Ker-ping!

[MHGinTN]

PING)))))

[MHGinTN]

PING)))))

[Theresa]

"I tend to agree, this is the last great gasp of radical Islamism trying to prevent movement into the modern world, trying to resist the advent of technology and scientific explanation of the universe."

And they will never meet the challenge of the modern world when all they focus on is war and religion and death.

[XBob]

good piece of writing. Thanks for the bump, and it will take winning the hearts and minds by filling the rice bowls to win this war over oil.

[backhoe]

Thanks Marvin.... I am still struck by the idea that one facet of this problem is that of an essentially medieval culture at war with progress.
( or more accurately, it's fear of being dragged into the modern world )

Remember one reason the Shah of Iran was deposed was that he tried to drag Iran into the 20th century- not fast enough for the "reformers," yet way too fast for the fundamentalists, who wanted zero change.

[b4its2late]

Osama bin Laden’s mutation from Wahhabism cannot co-exist with other religions nor with less extreme Muslim traditions, and thus it is a danger for all humankind, not the least of which are the faithful in the Middle East, especially Saudis who are not on his wavelength of death and mayhem.

No flames here...

[McGavin999]

I see you are again providing great service to us, my friend, by taking a complex issue and making it very understandable. Thank you.

The more we understand the issue, the more likely we are to be able to do something about it. Knee jerk reaction is just not going to cut it this time. We'd better get smart or we're going to get....dead.

[AppyPappy]

It's not a religious war. They wouldn't kill their own if it was. These men are more like "soldiers" working for an army. The human equivalent of a Scud. They are more like Palestinian terrorists who want revenge for their homeland, not religious kooks sucking kool-aid in Guyana. That's why I think Iraq is really behind the whole thing. These attacks were against America, not Christians or Jews. If it was, they would have gone after a church and avoided Muslim casualties.