After 9-11: Can the West Defeat Radical Islam?

Colpy

Colpy

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Nov 5, 2005
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Do we have the ability, the determination, the will to win the war brought to our doorstep so dramatically ten years ago?

I admit that I increasingly doubt it......western civilization, the absolute apex of human development, is too damn spoiled, lazy and full of narcissistic guilt to get down in the mud and kick Islamist arse..........we can't even really figure out that we have a problem!!!!!

The best piece I have read yet on the subject:
One example: Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, Britain's storied intelligence service, last week called the 9/11 attacks "a crime, not an act of war." She did not explain why she thought using hijacked planes as missiles to destroy the political, military, and financial centers of the free world was akin to a bank robbery. She did not cite other instances in which common criminals seek no monetary benefit, kill themselves during the commission of their crimes, and call that "martyrdom."
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National Security Adviser Tom Donilon said in a recent speech that he and President Obama know what the Iranians are against but "what are they for?" Have Donilon and Obama read nothing that Iran's revolutionaries have written? Have they heard nothing that Ayatollah Ali Khameini and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have said? Let me boil it down: They are for restoring to Islam the power and glory it enjoyed a millennium ago. They are for the defeat of the Great Satan and the Little Satan and anyone else who defies Allah's will as they interpret it.
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Disoriented :: Clifford May
 
MHz

MHz

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Are you suggesting only brown people can desire world conquests, Britannia caused more **** it it's time (still functioning BTW) than a century of rule by anybody could top. Most of it intentional also as in placing a border between Pakistan and India that was sure to cause a long internal conflict.
 
Ocean Breeze

Ocean Breeze

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to the question posed in topic title.

NO. it can't and will not. Not anymore that anyone can "defeat" any relgious fanaticism. (or any other radical ideas that are behind destructive acts of one nature or another. Fanatical Xtians blowing up abortion clinics are of the similar breed.

Fanatical ideas are as old as mankind. and it is not even realistic to think that some maniacal war machine can obliterate fanatical IDEAS / or DELUSIONS as is the more accurate description.

Might be time to get out of that reactive, emotional war thinking as it is counterproductive .......(except to those that benefit from them)
 
SLM

SLM

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Mar 5, 2011
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Regarding the OP; no the west won't do it, can't do it.

Real change comes from within.

The best step forward that I've seen in a long time are the revolutions that have either begun or begun to stir in the middle east. And it is just a step, but it's a positive step.
 
DaSleeper

DaSleeper

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May 27, 2007
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SLM said:
Regarding the OP; no the west won't do it, can't do it.

Real change comes from within.

The best step forward that I've seen in a long time are the revolutions that have either begun or begun to stir in the middle east. And it is just a step, but it's a positive step.
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We all hope.
 
Mowich

Mowich

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Colpy said:
Do we have the ability, the determination, the will to win the war brought to our doorstep so dramatically ten years ago?

I admit that I increasingly doubt it......western civilization, the absolute apex of human development, is too damn spoiled, lazy and full of narcissistic guilt to get down in the mud and kick Islamist arse..........we can't even really figure out that we have a problem!!!!!

The best piece I have read yet on the subject:


Disoriented :: Clifford May
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"They are for restoring to Islam the power and glory it enjoyed a millennium ago. They are for the defeat of the Great Satan and the Little Satan and anyone else who defies Allah's will as they interpret it."

"But few Muslims are likely to fight for such reform until and unless Islamic militancy is decisively defeated. And that cannot happen so long as the West's leaders fail to recognize 9/11 for the act of war it was, so long as they think they can sweet-talk self-proclaimed jihadis into being reasonable, so long as they remain persuaded that the global conflict now under way is a crime or a mystery and has nothing to do with the powerful currents of history and faith."

Disoriented :: Clifford May

I also like what Robert Sibley argues in Age of Terror; Age of Illusions from Ideas and Consequences.

"The question is, why are so many unwilling to acknowledge the threat Islamism poses to western civilization? More to the point, perhaps, why are so many so quick to blame the West itself, particularly the United States, for the attacks, as though the 3,000 who perished in the collapse of those 110-storey towers, including many Canadians, deserved their fate?


Sept. 11 was what the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel would undoubtedly call a "world-historical moment"; which is to say, the terrorist attacks forced a fundamental shift in the way we think (or should think) about the world. Simply stated: On Sept. 11, 2001, a half-hidden war against western civilization and all that it represents was finally made explicit for all to see. Only the most naive or ideologically purblind deny this. "Is there a war on?" asks Italian philosopher Marcello Pera. "My answer is: from Afghanistan to Kashmir, to Chechnya, to the Philippines, to Saudia Arabia, Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Palestine, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco, and elsewhere, in a great part of the Islamic and Arabic world, groups consisting of fundamentalists, radicals, and extremists -- the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad, the Armed Islamic Group, and many others -- have declared war, jihad, against the West. They have said it, written it, diffused it in plain speech. Why should we not take action?"

And this;

"We should be confident of the superiority of our civilization, which consists of a value system that has given people widespread prosperity in those countries that embrace it, and guarantees respect for human rights and religion," Mr. Berlusconi said in late September of 2001. "This respect certainly does not exist in Islamic countries. ... We must be conscious of the strength and force of our civilization."

It was, indeed, a surprising thing to say, considering the climate of opinion that prevails in western societies, particularly among the intelligentsia. As historian Keith Windschuttle says, "The statement was extraordinary because, although western superiority in every major area of human endeavour, especially in political and individual liberty, is patently obvious to everyone, it has become a truth that must not be spoken."

To say one civilization or culture is better than another is one of the Great Taboos nowadays, at least if you subscribe to the postmodern shibboleths of multiculturalism, multi-racialism, egalitarianism, relativism, post-structuralism, etc. There is one exception, of course. If the civilization you love to hate has its roots in European Christian culture, well, that's all right, then. You can have a nice career as a professor or a newspaper columnist denouncing the traditions and values of western civilization, even as you enjoy the best that civilization has to offer.

Nevertheless, Berlusconi was right -- assuming you think societies that allow religious freedom, free speech, human rights, etc. are "superior" to those that forbid the open practise of all religions, denounce non-believers as less that human and impose death sentences of those who dare criticize the faith. If you don't assume the former is better than the latter -- if you disagree with Berlusconi -- then you really need to ask yourself why you live in the West. To partake of its material benefits while denouncing its fundamental values is the life of a parasite. This isn't to say you're obliged to worship all things western. To the contrary, one of the secrets of the West's vitality is its openness to rational self-criticism (at least until recent decades). But to be "anti-western" while partaking of the benefits of western society is, to say the least, to live with a false and hypocritical consciousness. But that perhaps describes the zeitgeist for many contemporary intellectuals in these early years of the Age of Terror."
 
MHz

MHz

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Mowich said:
"
"The question is, why are so many unwilling to acknowledge the threat Islamism poses to western civilization? More to the point, perhaps, why are so many so quick to blame the West itself, particularly the United States, for the attacks, as though the 3,000 who perished in the collapse of those 110-storey towers, including many Canadians, deserved their fate?
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Because the 'official story' has more holes in it than the Bismark. Start with WTC7 and you don't even have to go any further to see what a crock it is.
 
EagleSmack

EagleSmack

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MHz said:
Because the 'official story' has more holes in it than the Bismark. Start with WTC7 and you don't even have to go any further to see what a crock it is.
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WooHoo! Get the Tin Foil Hats on!



 
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