[Stultis]

They don't matter. Their position is far too weak both politically and textually.

You could have said the same thing, at some point, about Andrei Sakharov, Lech Walesa, not to mention thousands and thousands of other Soviet/Communist dissidents (most nameless) during the Cold War. Does that mean we shouldn't have made every effort then to legitimize and build them up? So why do you counsel the exact opposite strategy: lumping dissidents with our enemy, pretending they don't exist, and thereby making it easier for our enemy to marginalize and intimidate his own "fifth column"?

[EnochPowellWasRight]

"You could have said the same thing, at some point, about Andrei Sakharov, Lech Walesa, not to mention thousands and thousands of other Soviet/Communist dissidents (most nameless) during the Cold War."

The Soviet dictatorship didn't actually have the conceit that they were on a mission from Allah to support their cause. Your example fails, however, as Sakharov and Walesa were anti-Communists. Your "fifth column" would need to be made up of anti-Muslims....

"So why do you counsel the exact opposite strategy: lumping dissidents with our enemy, pretending they don't exist, and thereby making it easier for our enemy to marginalize and intimidate his own "fifth column"?"

That's the approach that will get more of us killed - waiting and hoping for this fifth column. Without a rewrite of the Koran, it's doomed to fail, anyway. We must confront the Islamic ideology squarely.

We confronted Communism squarely.