[Winstonm]

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The story of Islam is an illustration of how a common belief, however irrational, can forge fragmented aspirations of tribes together and so become a nationalistic political force.
In the case of Christianity an obscure figure in Jewish history became its representation of the ideal man. Six centuries later an Arab was chosen to be a religious leader. Prophet Muhammad captured the minds of his people and unleashed a power that set its mark on the history of the world.

Part of the problem in Islam is a psychological one: human beings have a herd instinct, a need to belong to a community in a certain peck-order. It is an ideal breeding ground for institutionalized religions. They provide a myth that influences and establishes a certain frame of mind for the whole population and so introduces a form of social control.

There is no doubt that western civilization has an enemy in extreme fundamental Islamism, and that group is actively planning, staging, and carrying out jihad across the globe via terror. But what is the best means of countering this attack?

The more I learn, the more it seems these souls are a victim of their own culture, more like children raised in a cultist environment who act on emotion rather than reason and logic. I find no difference between the fundamentalist concepts of any organiztion or religion, though, in that what is of paramount importance is the status of non-challengeability of the core belief - questions, doubts, historical research are dismissed as breaches of faith that lead to ruin.

How do you fight this mindset? How can a culture be changed?

[pbleighton]

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How do you fight this mindset? How can a culture be changed?

There's very little we can do to positively affect Islamic culture.

There's a lot we can do to stop providing ammunition to the anti-Western radicals. Start behaving decently, for one...

Peter

[Winstonm]

This truly is a complex, important, and dangerous issue, and I, contrary to what some may think, do not discount the dangers of terrorism or terrorists. I simply have a problem with calling it war.

Japan attacked and the U.S. responded with conventional war.
The U.S. responded to Germany's threat by conventional war.
The threat from fundamental Islam is "jihad", loosely translated to mean "holy war".

How do you respond in kind to "holy war"? Do you send only christians to do battle? That was tried during the crusades and the christians got their asses kicked.

I would think the only true method of responding in like kind would be to send a battalion of Jehovah's Witnesses to knock each night at dinnertime on the doors of each fanaticals and simply aggrevate them to death.

Seriously, though, I believe it true that a faction of Islam has indeed declared a non-traditional war on the U.S. But what good comes from a conventional war response?

I think Mike may be right that this is a 50-year or longer conflict, but for a different reason - the goal of the conflict should be to deprogram the cultist victims of this religion/culture.

[pbleighton]

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I think Mike may be right that this is a 50-year or longer conflict, but for a different reason - the goal of the conflict should be to deprogram the cultist victims of this religion/culture.

The situation is much different than the Cold War, but in both cases engagement with govenments, leading by example, and patiently waiting for change is much better than reactionary violence.

We really can't deprogram individuals who are trying to kill us. What we can do is to try to make it possible that the next generation has far fewer of these folks.

Peter

[Al_U_Card]

Let's see....Islam has been around for some 1300 years or so....and the U.S. has been a target since....when did they start looking for oil (trouble)? around the time of the shah of Iran or so? Even if before, Afghanistan has been a sink-hole for western lives since before Alexander the Great.....

I gather that people need friends and politicians need enemies.

[boris3161]

I think the roots of this conflict go back a lot further than 50 years. Well over 500 years in my opinion. Remember that the Moslem world has a different sense of time to the Western world. The crusades are still remebered with hatred.

There are also arguments that suggest that the British Empire tried to harness Moslem extremism in both World Wars to its cause - and then carved up the Middle East to its advantage to exploit the oil revenues.

The US is actually reaping the effects of a long history - much of which it was not responsible for and of which it is, for the most part, unaware.

I think the solution might be somewhere along the lines of supporting moderate islamic factions. The trouble is that the media seem hell bent on defining all moslems as evil - and this is just making the situation worse.

[Al_U_Card]

Unfortunately, when we are dealing with religions and theocracies, there are flocks and there are shepherds.....and those shepherds that want to stampede their flock.....just get out of the way

[Winstonm]

The one requisite to begin to see a slow dismantling of this heirachy structure is the seed of doubt planted in the apostolates' minds. Notice how strongly groups of this type fight to hold onto power - the Catholics burning at the stake those who translated the bible and those who read the new translation, the Mullahs forbidding historical research into the origin of the Qu'ran - and doubt is attacked even by the structure itself; doubt and you burn in hell.

The concept of religious doctrine as state doctrine has a long and sordid history. Even the Puritans who fled to the new American colonies incorporated this structure. Seperation of church and state is a relatively new concept to the world at large.

The threat from the "jihad" may last 100 years or more, but it will never equate to the threat from WWII Germany and Japan, and later the U.S.S.R. To send military to do battle with phantoms is to play into the fallacies taught by the Mulllahs and reinforces the lies.

The better alternative is to discredit them by ignoring them publicly, keeping an eye on them privately, and arresting them with their actions violates law.

Standards of living will rise for those who practice a moderate form of Islam, and with any culture the higher the standard of living and educational standards the less influence from those teaching illogic and fear. Islam has to morph into what Islam will be, through a process similar to natural selection, and with moderates outnumbering fundamentalists the war is already won although there may still be many battles along the way.

[mike777]

"The threat from the "jihad" may last 100 years or more, but it will never equate to the threat from WWII Germany and Japan, and later the U.S.S.R. To send military to do battle with phantoms is to play into the fallacies taught by the Mulllahs and reinforces the lies."


Why do you say this? It may be true but I fail to see why the Jihad cannot get a few nukes, nanobots or computer virus that results in failures of machines and death or whatever in the next 100 years.

Germany or Japan never attacked the mainland as the jihadists have already.
I think technology could bring many potential threats that are just as great as Germany or Japan posed. Keep in mind the main threat from Japan was not a takeover of the 48 states.
Perhaps not, but possible, yes.

I think taking only police actions is a terrible idea. Why limit our options?
Dragging jihads who wish to kill us through the court systems for years is a good way to get more of us killed. I do not see any credible candidate for President advocating this position.

[Winstonm]

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Why do you say this? It may be true but I fail to see why the Jihad cannot get a few nukes, nanobots or computer virus that results in failures of machines and death or whatever in the next 100 years.

Germany or Japan never attacked the mainland as the jihadists have already.
I think technology could bring many potential threats that are just as great as Germany or Japan posed. Keep in mind the main threat from Japan was not a takeover of the 48 states.
Perhaps not, but possible, yes.

I think taking only police actions is a terrible idea. Why limit our options?
Dragging jihads who wish to kill us through the court systems for years is a good way to get more of us killed. I do not see any credible candidate for President advocating this position.

I do not disagree that the potential exists for the Jihad to someday equal or even exceed the threats of human destruction posed by WWII Germany and Japan, simply due to the advent of nuclear arms. However, had Germany or Japan reached that nuclear goal before the U.S., we would be talking about New York City and Chicago in equality with Nagasaki and Hiroshima, so comparing Jihad to Germany is somewhat a mute argument - comparing apples-to-kiwi fruit.

Although the nuclear threat can never be entirely discounted, the logistics of such an attack make it highly improbable; however, even a miniscule chance of occurence, due to the impact it would cause, is enough reason to incorporate its possiblilty into defense strategies. (Note, defense to me does not equate to preemption.) A possible nuclear scenario that could occur would be to somehow smuggle a small nuclear device onto a transatlantic flight and detonate it as the plane came into to land - to actually bring a device into the country first would be more problematic.

The technological threat is apt - something to work to defend against as it has real potential to do extreme financial and economic harm.

I do not say limit the options - but history shows us that fighting with conventional troops and warfare this type of opponent is doomed to failure.

Logic suggests to me that the stated reasons for our current wars disinginuous, at best. Those who planned and executed the stategies are not stupid, and they know history shows the futility of their stated aims. If they knew in advance that there was no possible win, what was the target of their aims?

Current disclosures show this administration and its advisors had targeted Iraq from almost the inception of their assent to power, well before 9-11. So in my mind, any debate on Iraq versus the "war on terror" is meaningless as the Iraq invasion seems to have been planned well in advance of any terror strike and for reasons other than fighting terrorists.

If Saddam were still in power, Iraq would still be stable, Iran would still be next door, and those two countries would still be pissed off at each other - and Iraq would be as violently opposed to Iran's nuclear program as Israel, albeit for different reasons.

Fundamental Islam functioned before the 2000 election, there were terror attacks pre-2000 election, and the preemptive strike on Iraq has done nothing to change either of those threats but instead has decreased stability in the region while galvanizing our opponents even more.

The nation of Islam must change before the threat ends - if it ever will. But that is the concern of Islam. In the meantime, a defensive posture is reasonable against a real threat - the debate is how strong of a defensive posture to take and whether the trade-offs of liberties that would and have occured are equal to the risk. I am far from convinced that the risk, although real, is anywhere near the sacrificed liberties that have already occured.

To me, it is not unreasonable to question whether a group of like-minded individuals, once gaining power, might utilize by overexageration a security threat to disguise their true intent. I would say that a good attorney could at this time make a compelling circumstantial case to show the true intent of this particular power group to be a consolidation of power within the executive branch in order to eliminate or substatially reduce interference with their greater goals.

IMHO, of course.

[mike777]

We can still convert.

Of course just as the Catholic vs Prot. wars were terrible, long and bloody, converting may just exchange one war for another kind.

[Winstonm]

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We can still convert.

Is not that what fundamental Islam is trying to get us to do? I would argue that "we can still convert" is impossible, as no one can get another human being to change via his own will or efforts. "They can still convert" would be the way to express this hope. We convert=Crusades. They convert=change.