Posted by
JDComments on Wednesday, December 06, 2006 1:45:30 PM
Daniel Pipes has written a
piece which attempts to lay out a strategy for defeating terrorists. If my reading of it is correct , it concludes that the "Islamists" have perverted Islam into a Utopian philosophy which is utilizing terror, and to defeat it we must , well, defeat it by all means possible, while the "good" Muslims purify themselves of these miscreants and their fanaticism. I obviously have simplified his ideas, but not all that much. Please take the time to read it.
While I respect Mr. Pipes, I find this article, to put it mildly, a fluff job, another attempt to excuse Muslims while blaming a few bad apples, and yet in reading it, it is difficult not to draw the exact opposite conclusion. His only real defense of his contention is that Muslims were not blowing themselves up a generation ago, hence the religion is not to blame, only some vague "political ideas". Well if that is valid reasoning, then North Korea can't be all that bad since 75 years ago they weren't threatening the world either. Just because tactics or aspirations change doesn't mean that aberrant behavior is involved. A generation ago suicide bombings hadn't been introduced into the world by the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka as an offensive weapon. Now that it has, Muslims have adopted it quickly and efficiently, maybe the only thing that we can say they've done successfully in the last thirty years. I guess they just had to find their talents.
As for the lack of aggression by Islam in the recent past, Mr. Pipes is extremely short sighted. Ask the Serbs about Muslims, or the Greeks, and I think you will get an earful about their historical war on Christianity. Fourteen hundred years of trying to subjugate the world can not be ignored or forgotten because for the past few decades they have been "peaceful' [again, ask the Israelis about that. You might get a different answer].
What has changed is that after WWI Islam was an exhausted ideology, attacked from within by Kermal Ataturk as he attempted to secularize Turkey. But after getting a second wind, the radicals began preaching, as Pipes references. The creation of Israel was a big motivator, but over the years the victories over the Shah in Iran, the Russians in Afghanistan, and the various unanswered attacks against the US have emboldened those seeking to reimpose the caliphate. This is an idea that started with Mohammed, and just because it was not always able to be pursued doen't mean it was gone, only hibernating,waiting for fertile soil to germinate. Today is a very fecund time.
Are there peaceful Muslims? Sure, I guess. But so what? Does anyone refer to the peaceful Christians when they refer to the Inquisition? Yes, it would be nice if the decent people would stand up and take a hand in helping to bring their ideology into the twenty first century, but I don't see that happening. Waiting for that to is a formula for suicide. We have to defeat the enemy by any means possible, with that I agree with Mr.Pipes. This is a war not just of cultures, and certainly not a struggle against a distorted and hijacked Islam. This is a battle of ages, with our century engaged with a medieval enemy who has stayed remarkably true to its ideals and beliefs. The Art of War says to defeat your Enemy, first you must know them. So far we have failed miserably at that.