Posted on 12/21/2006 4:29:49 AM PST by Tom D.
Why Radical Islam - and Why Now?
By Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Read any newspaper or turn on any news broadcast and you're bound to encounter stories of Islamic radicals fighting, killing and threatening each other — and just about everyone else.
In Somalia, jihadists, with the support of al-Qaida, have clashed with troops loyal to the country’s internationally recognized interim government and now threaten neighboring Ethiopia with all-out war.
Nearby in Darfur, Muslim militiamen called janjaweed are waging genocide against black Christian and animist villagers — apparently with the consent of the Sudanese government.
Shiite and Sunni militias, each claiming to represent true Islam, keep slaughtering each other in Iraq.
Hezbollah (“Party of God”) seeks to destroy democracy in Lebanon by provoking Israel, which it is sworn to eliminate.
On the West Bank, Hamas and Fatah have taken a timeout from their attacks on Israel to murder each other and innocent bystanders.
The Iranian Shiite theocracy — when not hosting Holocaust deniers or sending terrorists into Iraq — issues serial pledges to finish off Israel.
The shaky Pakistani leadership pleads that it can neither target Osama bin Laden nor stop Taliban jihadists hiding out in the remote regions of Pakistan from streaming back into Afghanistan.
In Europe, opera producers, novelists, cartoonists and filmmakers are increasingly circumspect out of fear of death threats from Islamists.
While each conflict is unique and rooted in its own history, the common thread — radical Islam — is obvious. It's thus worth asking why this violent, intolerant strain of Islam has taken hold in so many unstable places — and at this particular time.
The ascent of radical Islam is, perhaps, the natural culmination of a century's worth of failed political systems in Muslim countries that were driven by morally bankrupt ideologies, led by cruel dictators, or both.
In the 1930s, German-style fascism appealed to Arabs in Palestine and Egypt. Soviet-style communism had sympathetic governments in Afghanistan, Algeria and Yemen. Baathism took hold in Syria and Iraq. The secular Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser promised a new pan-Arabism that would do away with colonial borders that divided the “the Arab nation.” Then there is the more pragmatic authoritarianism that survives in Muammar el-Qaddafi's Libya or in the petrol-monarchies in the Gulf.
Radical Islam may be as totalitarian and as morally bankrupt as any of these past or mostly defunct “isms,” but its current appeal isn't hard to figure out. Unlike fascism or communism, radical Islam is locally grown, and not plagued by charges of foreign contamination. Indeed, Islamists claim to wage jihad against the modernism and globlization of the outside, mostly Westernized world. Such a message resonates in stagnant, impoverished Muslim countries.
Of course, while the people of the region may be poor, the Islamist movement isn't. Huge oil profits filter throughout the Muslim world, allowing Islamists to act on their rhetoric. In today's world, militias can easily acquire everything from shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles to rocket-propelled grenades. With such weapons, and on their own turf, Islamists can nullify billion-dollar Western jets and tanks.
There is still another reason for the rise of Islamists: They sense a new hesitation in the West. We appear to them paralyzed over oil prices and supplies and fears of terrorism. And so they have also waged a brilliant propaganda war, adopting the role of victims of Western colonialism, imperialism and racism. In turn, much of the world seems to tolerate their ruthlessness in stifling freedom, oppressing women and killing nonbelievers. So how, aside from killing jihadist terrorists, can we defend ourselves against the insidious spread of radical Islam? Here are a few starting suggestions:
Bluntly identify radical Islam as fascistic — without worrying whether some Muslims take offense when we will talk honestly about the extremists in their midst.
At the same time, keep encouraging consensual governments in the Middle East and beyond that could offer people security and prosperity, while distancing ourselves from illegitimate dictators, especially in Syria and Iran, that promote terrorists.
Establish that no more autocracies in the Middle East and Asia will be allowed to get the bomb.
Seek energy independence that would collapse the world price of oil, curbing petrodollar subsidies for terrorists and our own appeasement of their benefactors.
Appreciate the history and traditions of a unique Western civilization to remind the world that we have nothing to apologize for but rather much good to offer to others.
Finally, keep confident in a war in which our will and morale are every bit as important as our overwhelming military strength. The jihadists claim that we are weak spiritually, but our past global ideological enemies — Nazism, fascism, militarism and communism — all failed. And so will they.
PING
I'd call it more than a hesitation.
You beat me to it.
Islamic radicals... and their sympathetic brethren. The religion has has discovered its fatal flaw... and the world is now paying for it.
Good analysis. As you say, not witty and quotable, but definitely a serious and accurate analysis.
"Why radical Islam - and why now?"
Because the only thing that ignorant barbaric savages, who are mentally stunted, with a third grade religious education can be good at, is slaughtering. So, they are just flowering in their new found excellence.
And if they do, we'll give them the same thing that we gave Iran and North Korea. They'll get a tongue lashing that they won't soon forget and, if they catch us on a really bad day, we'll wag our finger at them.
As usual, Victor clearly states his case. Another factor contributing to the ability of extremist Muslim clerics to incite violence is the astonishing illiteracy rate of the Muslim world in general, about forty percent, and the hot spots such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia which are over sixty percent.
"Seek energy independence that would collapse the world price of oil, curbing petrodollar subsidies for terrorists and our own appeasement of their benefactors." Yes. I will vote for the presidential candidate who proposes a Manhattan-project type drive to find a way around our dependence on Middle East oil. If we can go to the moon and invent the atom bomb, we should be able to handle this, if big oil will just get out of the way. Then we can tell all of the Muslims to go pound sand, so to speak.
I have a cousin who is currently working with the FBI in an anti-terrorism unit. Before being assigned to this, he had to complete a pretty intensive study of Islam. After all this, he now says, "I hate to say it, but I would never trust a Muslim." Coming from him, that says volumes.
bttt
White muslims seem to think they can genocide the whole world, and hide behind the trappings and false words of religion.
2....encouraging consensual governments in the Middle East...
2. Establish that no more autocracies in the Middle East and Asia will be allowed to get the bomb.
3. Seek energy independence...
4. Appreciate the history and traditions of a unique Western civilization...
I think Hanson is being incredibly naive and simplistic here. Energy independence is very difficult to achieve in the foreseeable future because, as we more closely approximate this goal, the price of oil will fall to the point where it, again, will be attractive. On the atom bomb: to do this we're going to have to nuke Iran, and that won't happen until they shoot a nuke first. Eliminating aristocracies and dictatorships while establishing consensual governments is beyond the will of most American voters. Calling radical Islam a fascist ideology is empty rhetoric. Finally, extolling the virtues of the West has been, and is, ongoing since WW2.
The non Islamic world has to seize the oil fields and drive the muslims into the desert.
We then set up an international agency to run and distribute the oil.
We need to take the money for weapons out of their hands!
Your idea of seizing the oil fields and driving out the muslims is a complete NO GO. But as Rudder points out, so are all of Hanson's ideas. It's all pipe-dreams, so for now, we might as well all join you and at least dream big. Even though it ain't gonna happen.
Hanson provided zero (repeat: zero) new ideas on how to combat this global contagion. Maybe somebody will come up with one eventually, but for now we're stuck with the ones we've got. Because Hanson didn't add any. And I like Hanson, by the way. He's a good guy. But he struck out on this piece, at least in terms of his action items.
The israelis should be continually publishing graphic photos of the world wide genocide, beheadings and atrocities going on in the name of islam. I still remember the horrible graphic photos of the holocaust published after WWII. A picture is worth a thousand words...... I think a lot of people will wake up.
I love VDH, but he really does need to go take an economics course.
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