In five years we have, remarkably, never had such a sustained effort to publicly debate the nature of the danger. At the outset of the Cold War, Congress spent years holding hearings on the "red menace." Some people think they overdid it. I do not. But it required that sort of an effort to establish the public support and bipartisan judgment over 50 years that communism was, in fact, a worldwide threat to civilizations. It was such a threat; and it was defeated. But only because the public, for 50 years, understood the danger and voted for politicians who were prepared to vote trillions for defense.
Until the American and European publics have become convinced of the present danger to them, we will continue to stumble, take half measures and fail to adequately defend ourselves. Before action, must come belief; before belief must come understanding; before understanding must come education and debate. In the beginning was the word. It is time to begin.
The Bush administration, by overselling the Iraq War as vital to the "war on terror" (which is a stupid and misleading phrase; terror is a tactic; the war is on Islamism), has made it a lot harder to have this debate. People are suspicious, or should be, about being manipulated. I get that, and we should be wary. Still, I am awfully tired of all the cant from right and left about "freedom" and "democracy" and "Islamophobia" and so forth. I'd really like to hear a credible and sustained public discussion about the war we're actually fighting, as opposed to the war this or that faction -- including the media -- would prefer to believe we're fighting.
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For one thing, Marxism, though like a religion, was ultimately a materialist philosophy, and thus falsifiable. Islam is a religion. "This doesn't work to improve material conditions" is not an answer to one who believes in Islam, or any religion. Political Islam will, I think, prove to be a far more durable phenomenon than Marxism.
I'm not sure that's entirely true, Rod. Marxism offered early 20th century Leftists more than just a promise of improving material conditions. It offered a grand eschatological vision -- the Revolution, on the completion of which the state would wither away, people would live in perfect harmony, and all human-caused suffering (the product of what Christians call Original Sin) would disappear. "To each according to his needs ... blah, blah, blah".
The failure of Marxist regimes to improve material conditions was obvious as early as the 1920s. But the ideology lived on because it captivated so many people, especially those who had no traditional religion, with its beautiful eschatological vision. What eventually undermined Marxism was the realization that ALL Marxist regimes depended on brute force to survive, that they produced their own despised kleptocracy far worse than the ancien regimes they had overthrown, and that the propagated an endless stream of lies and disinformation about matters both great and trivial. Nearly anyone who lived under Communism or witnessed it up close became disgusted by it.
Islam, as a traditional religion, is certainly far more durable than Marxism. But Islamism, the current crude take-us-back-to-the-7th-century ideology, may not be. It certainly isn't beloved by the Iranian people, who have been brutalized by it for 27 years. Nor by the Afghans who lived under the ignorant Taliban. Nor by Algerians who experienced the extreme barbarism of the Salafist insurgency there in the 1990s.
As with Communism, I suspect that the countries ruled by Islamism will provide the most eloquent testimonies against it, and ultimately undermine it as a credible force.>
In Europe, the demographic collapse of the indigenous populations will, barring unforeseen events, cause most of the continent to become majority Muslim by 2100, or so Bernard Lewis has said. Everything depends on the kind of Muslims Europe ends up with. Will we see a kind we've never seen before, en masse: secular Muslims? Because if we see religious Muslims, given the particulars of the Islamic religion as it has historically been practiced, it's not going to go well for non-Muslims living there.
I read this claim by conservatives all the time, and but have never seen it credibly supported by evidence. Muslims, even by the largest estimates, make up no more of Europe's population than African Americans do of the United States. Is the US likely to become a black-majority country within 100 years?
The Eurabia hysteria is all based on present trends in birthrates. And if there's one thing anyone with an historical sense knows, it's that present trends in anything do not continue indefinitely. That's why they're just trends.
Lots of bad things may happen to Europe over the next century, including perhaps complete political, social and economic meltdown as a result of declining birthrates (which eventually will affect immigrant Muslim populations as well). But there isn't one chance in 100 that Europe will be majority Muslim a century from now.>
Also, the oil weapon could bring the world economy crashing down. For that matter, a suitcase nuke in a US harbor could. Stephen Flynn, ex-USCG and now at the Council on Foreign Relations, says that such an event would force the govt to close all shipping into US ports for at least two weeks, until they could set up radiation monitors offshore. That would be enough to bring the world economy down, he said.
Rod, as much as we depend on oil (much, but not all of it from the Muslim world), the Muslim world is far more dependent on oil revenues, which come from us. They can use the "oil weapon" only the shoot themselves in the foot.
As for the myth of "suitcase nukes", I though Brendan Miniter had rather effectively demolished that one:
">http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007478>
Rod said
For one thing, Marxism, though like a religion, was ultimately a materialist philosophy, and thus falsifiable. Islam is a religion. "This doesn't work to improve material conditions" is not an answer to one who believes in Islam, or any religion. Political Islam will, I think, prove to be a far more durable phenomenon than Marxism.
I'd add the other half of Simon's disagreement with this. Not only is Marxism a political religion, but Islam may be a religious politics (as it were). The aim of Islam (what it is for, and, historically, relatively good at) is creating stable political and social order. By contrast, for instance, the aim of Christianity is getting people into heaven (I'm being blunt for the sake of drawing the contrast). Sometimes Christianity has created good social and political orders, other times not, but it really doesn't matter in terms of verifying Christian claims, because that's not what Christianity is for. Could only really say the same about Islam, that what it is for is getting people into Paradise? If not, then it is falsified by political failure.>
Lest we forget: MAD -- mutual assured destruction.
I know it's a bit of hyperbole, but for the sake of argument I can safely say that MAD is what won the Cold War for the west. The result was that the USSR ruined its economy and infrastructure to try to maintain nuclear parity. Nukes are expensive to make, to maintain, and to dispose of afterwards... and it's that last point that gives us the real reason to fear that USSR nukes might be wending their way through the global black market in arms.
I will not, despite my earlier rhetoric, deny the possibility of a "suitcase nuke" being used against the perceived enemies of the Muslim fanatics. My point is that it would have happened by now if they had the nukes in their possession... and now I must add to the the possibility that MAD may be playing in keeping those suitcases unused.
Think, just for a moment. Afghanistan under the Taliban openly and vehemently supported the group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Where were they a year later? Dead, in hiding, in exile. The US missed a golden PR opportunity (or maybe I missed it?) by not emphasizing the point: f**k with the US, and you go down, hard. Let us be clear about it: we forcibly removed a sovereign nation's government because it allowed people on its soil to perpetrate an act of war upon our soil.
In terms of proportionality, it was exactly right (sorry, Rod, but that's not a dig on your other post).
So, here's where I hope our then leaders understand the situation should a suitcase nuke be used here (or in Europe for that matter). Find the source, fasten the responsibility including the passive blame, and wipe them out. I'm pretty sure the fanatics understand this very well, and their "hosts" are warning them that there are lines that must not be crossed, or the "hosts" will waste no time in saving their own asses and hunting the fanatics down themselves.
I sincerely hope my little scenario does not get a chance to be proven correct. But that is my view.>
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