True. Thanks to our modern weaponry,The problem is (for the Islamic world) how do we(the west) do this, how do we keep coming up with these new and better machines and ways of doing things. Victor Davis Hanson touches on this in his book Carnage and Culture. In which he asks the question why the west has been so dominate militarily over the non-west, his answer is one word FREEDOM, that free men make better killers than slaves do. This is something that we don't see in the Islamic world and until they do grasp it they will not be able to match the west.
Prienne postulates that the "Dark Ages" in Europe were mainly brought about by Islamic control of the sea routes of the Mediterranean through their use of corsair pirates and the Islamic seizure of Mediterranean islands like Sicily.
This is a new one for me. If you have a link I'd be intrested in looking at it as I've begun to look at this period for a while now.
I agree with you, but my last great hope was Turkey, and when the chips were down, the Turks demonstrated that:
a) Islamic ties come first; and,
b) that old spirit of the wastes of central Asia is still alive and well in Turkey, and, as they did with the Armenians, the Turks would very much prefer to exterminate Kurds rather than reach a living accomodation with them, even if it means screwing their infidel friends the Americans.
While I was/am disappointed that Turkey made the choices they did, I am willing to take a wait and see attitude toward them. The problem with democracies (and Turkey can not be caled a strong democracy) is they sometimes do what we don't want them to. And yes they do have a lot to answer for in their treatment of the minorities. BUT it's my opinion that what the President and his team hope for is an axis of freedom in the middle east composed of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. Weather this is possible I reserve judgement.
Consequently, when the Sultan died, there was a battle to see which of his many sons (the horney devils had many wives and concubines)would succeed the dead leader. Competitors were strangled to death with a bowstring because it was not right for a Muslim to shed the blood of another Muslim.
The idea of killing competators for the throne is really nothing new in the ancient/medival world particularly in the near east but Richard the III also comes to mind.
For Mohammad and Charlemagne, see
http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm?chunk=25&skip=0&wauth=henri%20pirenne Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc. don't carry it.
"free men make better killers than slaves do. This is something that we don't see in the Islamic world and until they do grasp it they will not be able to match the west."
I agree with you there. Also a free society which is based on capitalism is open to innovation and new ideas which help generate the technology and market for new inventions, including sophisticated weaponry. An Islamic state is a socially retrograde entity, fossilized in the past and antagonistic to new ideas.
"Victor Davis Hanson touches on this in his book Carnage and Culture."
Thanks for that reference, I shall check it out.
"The problem with democracies (and Turkey can not be caled a strong democracy) is they sometimes do what we don't want them to."
Giving people the freedom of choice also gives them the opportunity to make incorrect decisions. There should be a price to pay for incorrect decisions and I hope the U.S. and its coalition partners impose that price on Turkey, France and Germany. It would be in our best interests for Turkey to come around to our side, so such consequnces in their case should be conditional on future behavior. As far as the French and Germans are concerned, particulary the French who were the ring-leaders and habe been implacable opponents of the U.S. and Britain, we should isolate them and destroy them economically. I would like to see France relegated to the social status of a second Afghanistan. The contemporary French are ungrateful, perfidious, arrogant, deceitful, vile creatures totally without redeeming merit.
"The idea of killing competators for the throne is really nothing new in the ancient/medival world particularly in the near east but Richard the III also comes to mind."
True. Richard III however was killed in battle and really died a hero defending his right. (His successor, the usurper Henry of Richmond, descendant from a Welsh gigolo, created a dynasty which did not outlast his grandchildren, and except for Elizabeth I, were really horrifying monsters, even by the standards of their own day, e.g. Henry VIII and Bloody Mary I.) This is a far better fate than being strangled in one's bedchamber. Throughout the long Plantagent period, I believe only two monarchs were really murdered vilely in an oriental fashion - Edward II and Richard II. The massacre of family members was not episodic, but continual in Islamic Ottoman Turkey.