More on Paul

Come on, Steve, I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing -- personally, I think Diana Krall is preferable to moonbat wailing, but that's just me -- but I am saying that it's absurd to think that introducing into one's culture ideas, images and suchlike that radically upset the foundational beliefs of that culture won't cause backlash. Cultural artifacts, among them ideas, are often good, and often bad, but rarely benign.

Even if "blowback" occurs, people are responsible for their actions. We are, bin Laden is, Saddam was. We can't ignore Saddam's repeated defiance of U.N. resolutions, shooting at plans in the internationally sanctioned "no-fly" zones, etc. when discussing the context of the current war. We do need to examine our actions and motives. We also need to avoid the "paralysis of analysis" that is a constant temptation in our educated, Westernized culture.

I'm all for a realistic analysis of casues and effects, and I certainly agree about the cause and effect of globalization, swift cultural change and backlash. I also want to make sure we're realistic about what aspects of this dynamic can be controlled. Anybody whose answer is to stop, or even try to significantly slow, globalization is doing is really good King Canute imitation.

Rod, why isn't it tenable that our enemies aren't "jihad-crazed nutters who attack us without the remotest cause"? Why don't you talk to the victims of London, Bali, Madrid, Istanbul and Beslan, let alone 9/11? Besides, you know quite well what their cause is: the re-creation of a worldwide Caliphate, the subjugation (if not the slavery and murder) of anybody who disagrees with them, and eternal warfare with Dar al-Harb until it converts or becomes destroyed. You are treading on very dangerous ground, here. You run the risk of conceding legitimacy to the propaganda of murderous fanatics. The moral equivalent would be conceding legitimate to the Nazi propaganda of victimization, which blamed the Versailles treaty, capitalists, socialists, the West and the Jews (among others)for all of Germany's ills. Remember, Christ Himself said that "you shall know them by their fruits." What are the fruits of the jihadists except terror, death, tyranny, murder and more of the same? The rationales of victimzation from such people do not deserve to be heard until they stop murdering the innocent -- and they will not stop because the Greater Glory of Allah demands that they continue. Rod, you are a good and decent man. But you are becoming more and more of a fool concerning the Middle East. It's one thing to disagree legitimately with American policy. It's quite another to twist yourself into an ideological pretzel to fit into some sort of "crunchy conservative" ideology that, in foreign policy, is beginning to sound like the ghosts of Taft (the Ohio senator, not the president), Lindbergh and Coughlin come to life, only without the anti-Semitism. Don't believe me? Then read Pat Buchanan.

Rod Cool, I admit the error.

Never mind.
That was totally unrelated to your original point.
Disregard.

Qutb did not "come up with" the concept of Jihad, he merely articulated a principle tenet of Islam itself.
There continues to be a danger that good people like Rod fall into. That being, assuming that the "Islamic nutters" aren't actually the orthodox Muslims. This is the approach of the D'Sousas and others of the world that want to claim that traditionalists among the Muslims are the natural allies of the right in America who hold the current state of our culture in equal disdain. The problem however is that the driving force of orthodox Islam has always had at its core not just the maintenance of some "traditionalist" order but the expansion, violent if needed, of its realm at the expense of all non adherents. Consequently, we may have in fact been attacked in part because of the filth of our culture and our infecting it abroad, yet that is only the first step of the jihadists who if they take their faith seriously can not and would not be deterred from attempting to restore the Caliphate given the means and opportunity, even if the culture was as it was in the 1950s. After all the horrible decadence that so offended Qutb was in part his observance of our culture in the late 1940s! So the fundamental problem, no pun intended, seems to be paradoxical from a traditional Christian western prospective. On one hand a way to potentially fight this ideological war is to hope that the orthodox Muslims who actually take their faith seriously will be influenced by the "moderates" into not really believing that stuff anymore then the West does Christianity. Turn them back into the sex obsessed decadent idol worshipers they once were, prior to the "visions" of their "prophet", and that we in the West have already become.
On the other hand, there was once another option when the West was actually a coherent culturally confident entity. That was instead of the vain hope that mainstream Islam will turn more to Dubai/Vegas then to Mecca, that we would appeal to those "moderates" who are gravely offended by the acts of the jihadists in the name of Islam yet are forced to remain silent out of at least in part a tacit acknowledgment that they have the better argument as to what it means to be a "true" Muslim. For them another way could be shown that explains that the conflict within them is the call to face the Truth. The Truth that is also the Way and the Life. Of course, that can not happen today when we no longer recognize as a culture that Truth ourselves.

I m just curious: I m fairly close to Paul s view of what is causing the jihad, but let s just suppose for a minute Paul is totally wrong, and the great majority of the world s Muslims believe in taking the whole world for Islam by force. Then what are we realistically supposed to do? It would stand to reason: 1) Bringing democracy to Iraq (Bush s stated goal) is a very bad idea, because the Iraqi people will spontaneously choose Islamism. 2) Thus we need to support an anti-Islamist dictator in Iraq to suppress the inclinations of an Islamist people, and in effect run all Muslim nations under semi-colonial puppet rulers who will brutally repress Islamism, regardless of the will of their own people. 3) Or else, as some are suggesting, we are supposed to convert all Muslims to Christianity? Wow! (Well, in fairness, Ann Coulter suggested doing that right after 9/11.) In effect, a cultural genocide (complete destruction of Islam, by a combination of force and persuasion) is what s being proposed. Based on these premises, it would make more sense to follow a sort of containment strategy similar to the Cold War: forget the internal politics of Islamic countries, but keep Islam from spreading to any other countries, and especially make every effort to keep all Muslims out of the US, Europe, and presumably Israel. We would have a large advantage compared to our situation in the Cold War, since we have such an overwhelming advantage in military power. (The Munich analogy used to justify pre-emptive war would be wrong, too, because in the case of Nazi Germany, we correctly assumed Germany would revert to normalcy once invaded and defeated.) In any case, what good are our troops doing in Iraq?

But if we insist on seeing ourselves as unsullied and misunderstood innocents, and on seeing our enemies as merely jihad-crazed nutters who attack us without the remotest cause, we're going to misread reality and wind up in situations from which we cannot easily extricate ourselves. The jihadists do have a cause: they are commanded to fight the infidel by their holy book. Indeed this crucial fact is misread by most Americans, and I m sorry to see Rod also misinterpret the source for the animus against us and instead to retail such neo-Marxist notions as Western cultural imperialism.

Rod - Slightly off topic, but I m curious as to what your religious reasons for your support of the state of Israel are. I can certainly understand supporting Israel because it s a western democracy. But if you re not a dispensationalist, what sort of reasons are there to support Israel that are religious per se? Don t get me wrong, there are good reasons to support Israel, but Israel is a secular state, and I don t believe the Jews as a nation referred to in the Bible is a literal nation.

'globalization (which means the universal export of Western culture)' Really? Says who? Isn't asking Hollywood not to sell our films overseas rather like asking Sony not to sell Handycams in the US? How does one extricate Sony (not to pick on them)from the US marketplace anyway without a huge loss in jobs, benefits, capital etc. to the economy? I don't like materialism any more than you, but I also fail to understand how to reverse it without causing catastrophic damage to the WORLD economy. Also: you don't hear much about the effects of 9/11 on anyone other than the US. But go check some statistics in the middle east, Thailand, Sri Lanka, etc. and you'll find a lot of hardship for families came out of those attacks in the form of tourist monies dried up, failure to refill manufacturing and factory orders, reduced air and cargo traffic, etc.
These Islamic nutjobs do not care about anyone other than themselves. Period. Other people be damned. They really don't even care too much about their own people, considering the way they treat each other.