193 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
193 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
Mirror, Mirror — why Americans Don’t Understand the Threat of Jihadism
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<p><em>(Third in a series.)</em></p>
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<p>In <a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/index.php?m=200206#6">What<br />
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al-Qaeda Wants</a> and the first essay in this series, <a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/index.php?m=200206#48">The<br />
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Mirage of Moderate Islam</a>, I have described Islam as a warlike and<br />
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bloody religion subject to periodic fits of violent fundamentalist<br />
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revival. I have analyzed the roots of Islamic terror in the Koranic<br />
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duty of jihad, and elucidated Osama bin Laden’s goal as nothing less<br />
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than the destruction of the West and the establishment of a global<br />
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Islamic theocracy.</p>
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<p>I have further explained why it is difficult for anyone living<br />
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within the Islamic worldview to reject or argue against these goals.<br />
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Jihadism — the belief that Muslims have not merely the right<br />
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but the <em>duty</em> to smite the infidel and propagate the Faith by<br />
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force — proceeds direct from the Koran and is accepted as a core<br />
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religious duty by almost all Muslims.</p>
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<p>These are simple truths, readily discernable from reading the words<br />
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of the Koran, the study of even an outline of Islamic history, and the<br />
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propaganda of Osama bin Laden himself. Yet they are truths that<br />
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almost no one in the West is speaking in public, in plain language.<br />
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In this essay, I will examine the reasons Americans are not yet<br />
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ideologically prepared to fight the war against terror as it must be<br />
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fought if we are to win.</p>
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<p>First, the U.S. government is telling a Big Lie for diplomatic<br />
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reasons. It is trying to sell the idea that Islam is a `religion of<br />
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peace’, with al-Qaeda representing only a small fringe of extremists.<br />
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Part of this is in order not to be seen attacking the religion of our<br />
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Arab allies in the Middle East.</p>
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<p>But domestic politics is an even more important motive for this Big<br />
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Lie. U.S. policymakers in the know may well fear that if they<br />
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described the relationship between terrorism and Islamic doctrine<br />
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accurately, the current broad consensus on war policy might collapse<br />
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under a hailstorm of accusations of bigotry, prejudice, and<br />
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intolerance by the <em>bien pensants</em> who run the national media<br />
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and academe. In a political climate where directing extra scrutiny at<br />
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young male Middle Eastern air travellers is attacked as unacceptable<br />
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`racial profiling’, this fear would be well-grounded.</p>
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<p>Second, the academy has failed us. Americans are almost<br />
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universally ignorant of Islamic doctrine and history. Most of the few<br />
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who have some knowledge of the area cannot connect that knowledge to<br />
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current events. The Islamic-studies and Middle Eastern history<br />
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establishment completely, utterly failed to anticipate al-Qaeda’s<br />
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revival of jihadism, ignored or rationalized the decade of<br />
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anti-American terrorist acts that led up to 9/11, and is presently<br />
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incapable of supplying any significant analytical help to defeating<br />
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the terrorists.</p>
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<p>The exact anatomy of this failure is well described in Martin<br />
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Kramer’s <a href="http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1101/wrong.asp">Ivory Towers On<br />
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Sand</a>. One background problem was a Marxist-influenced tendency to<br />
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see political change as all-important and dismiss religious fervor as<br />
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a spent force. Another was a reluctance to confront or discuss the<br />
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continuing phenomenon of terrorism at all except through the lens of<br />
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`post-colonial theory’ that excused it as a legitimate tactic of the<br />
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Palestinian or anti-imperialist struggle. Yet a third was the<br />
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postmodern belief that objective truth is impossible. In effect, the<br />
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Marxist/multiculturalist/postmodernist preoccupations of the<br />
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Islamic-studies establishment rendered it incapable of seeing,<br />
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thinking, or passing judgment. Confronted by the smoking hole where<br />
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the World Trade Center used to be and Osama bin-Laden’s gloating<br />
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videos, the academics had no way of connecting their theoretical<br />
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abstractions to the brutal facts and nothing to say. Nine months<br />
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later, they still doesn’t.</p>
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<p>Americans outside of universities have few grounds for smugness,<br />
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however. While most of the rest of us have not had our critical<br />
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faculties rotted out by Marxism, multiculturalism and postmodernism in<br />
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their explicit forms, a lower-grade version of the same infections has<br />
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done much to damage our capacity to understand the threat of jihadism.</p>
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<p>Americans have always had the odd parochial habit of assuming that,<br />
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down deep underneath, everyone is basically like us — sharing<br />
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our historically peculiar mix of pragmatism and idealism; valuing<br />
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honesty and fair dealing; tolerant, materialistic, freedom-loving,<br />
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open-minded, tempting to value comfort and success over ideology. We<br />
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reflexively believe that everyone can be reasoned with essentially in<br />
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our own terms. Most Americans don’t understand fanaticism and violent<br />
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evil. We have a tendency to be `fair’ by assuming that in any dispute<br />
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there must be some right and some wrong on both sides. It’s telling<br />
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that we use `extreme’ as a political pejorative.</p>
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<p>Since at least the end of World War II, this parochialism has<br />
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become so acute that it has almost blinded us to serious threats.<br />
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While more of the left-liberals who shilled for the Soviets and Mao<br />
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Zedong and Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot during the Cold War were closet<br />
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Communists than is yet publicly admitted, a good many were honest<br />
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dupes who simply couldn’t believe that Communists were actually<br />
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motivated by the sinister craziness of hard Marxism, and therefore<br />
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assumed that America must somehow be at fault. Conservatives<br />
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apologizing for unsavory pro-American strongmen mostly weren’t closet<br />
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fascists, either; a good many of them had obvious trouble seeing<br />
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caudillos as more than cigar-chomping CEOs running a particularly<br />
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tough business, and never mind the gold braid and funny hats.</p>
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<p>The see-no-evil tendency in American folk psychology created<br />
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fertile ground for the rather less benign dogmas of multiculturalism<br />
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(“all cultures present ways of living that are equally morally valid”)<br />
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and postmodernism (“there is no objective truth”). Originally<br />
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constructed by Marxists (and one ex-Fascist) as part of a program to<br />
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ideologically disarm the West against the radical evil of Communism,<br />
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these dogmas have both outlived their original ends and seeped into<br />
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American pop culture. Their effect is that many of us can no longer<br />
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bring ourselves to think of any political movement, religion, or<br />
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culture as radically evil unless it is safely part of history (and,<br />
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for political correctness, was run by dead white European males when<br />
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it was alive and kicking).</p>
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<p>This was a relatively harmless form of self-delusion between 1992<br />
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and 2001, the decade of self-indulgence bracketed by the fall of the<br />
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Soviet Empire and 9/11. No longer. We are at war. Western<br />
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civilization is under attack by a foe that revels in the wholesale<br />
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slaughter of civilians, one that proudly announces its intention to<br />
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bring a second Holocaust of fire and blood down upon us all.</p>
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<p>If our civilization is to survive, we will need to recover the<br />
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moral judgment needed to recognize radical evil, the language in which<br />
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to condemn it, and the determination to act.</p>
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<p>In a perverse way, al-Qaeda has made this easy. They have murdered<br />
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thousands in a single attack on one of our heart cities, they have<br />
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attempted to unleash biological weapons on us, and have actively<br />
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planned to detonate nuclear/radiological weapons in our population<br />
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centers. Those who cannot recognize even this as radical evil<br />
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— those who persist in arguing that the 9/11 attack was somehow<br />
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justified by something United Fruit did in Guatemala or the Israelis<br />
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did in Lebanon — are rapidly dealing themselves out of the game<br />
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of deciding how we shall respond.</p>
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<p>Having recognized al-Qaeda’s behavior as radically evil, we must<br />
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next recognize that its motivating ideology is evil, too. And the<br />
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first step there is recognizing that Islam’s apologists are<br />
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<a href="http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=18062002-044316-3353r"><br />
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systematically lying to us</a> about what they believe and intend.<br />
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Outside of a few fringe groups like the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226056767/qid%3D1024685562/sr%3D1-1/ref%3Dsr%5F1%5F1/002-8067869-9300863">Dauri<br />
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Bohras</a> and a tiny minority of intellectual reformers who generally<br />
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dare not speak their ideas in their own home countries, there is<br />
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simply no constituency in Islam prepared to recognize Western concepts<br />
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of peace, tolerance, and pluralism.</p>
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<p>We will not be prepared to win the war against Islamic terror until<br />
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we understand the following things:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Islam is a religion of war and conversion by the sword, not peace.</li>
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<li>The primary threat of terrorism comes from Arabs and<br />
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middle-easterners between the ages of fifteen and forty, and we must summon<br />
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the will to profile accordingly.</li>
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<li>We are dealing with religious fanaticism rather than rational grievances<br />
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against America or the West.</li>
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<li>Our enemies cannot be reasoned with or appeased anywhere<br />
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short of surrender and submission to shari’a law.</li>
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<li>Apologists for mainstream Islam are systematically<br />
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lying to us about Islamic doctrine in order to shield terrorists who<br />
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they know are acting in strict accordance with that doctrine.</li>
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</ul>
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<p>The hardest challenge for Americans is to grasp is the fact that<br />
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the evil of the 9/11 hijackings, the destruction of the World Trade<br />
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Center, and the threat of al-Qaeda weapons of mass destruction set off<br />
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in American cities is not simply the evil of al-Qaeda. It is in fact<br />
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the Koranically-correct expression of the tendency of Islam (Sunni<br />
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fundamentalism) which is has been pre-eminent through most of Islamic<br />
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history and now encompasses over 90% of the worlds Muslims.</p>
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<p>We need to face the fact that we are confronting not just a<br />
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barbaric and evil group of men, but a barbaric and evil religion. To<br />
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protect ourselves, we must either force the complete reform of Islam<br />
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(purging it of jihadism and its tendency towards periodic<br />
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fundamentalist outbreaks) or destroy its hold over its followers.</p>
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<p>This is a problem for Americans; first, because we have been taught<br />
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that we that we must not be intolerant of other peoples’ religions;<br />
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and second, because fully grasping the nature of the danger Islamic<br />
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poses to Western civilization requires thinking uncomfortable<br />
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thoughts about the dominant Christian religion of our own culture.</p>
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<p>The reader is at this point invited to learn more about the<br />
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<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61275-2002Jun16.html"><br />
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developing alliance</a> between Islamic and Christian fundamentalisms.<br />
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Then, to learn all about <a href="http://www.jhuger.com/kisshank.mv">Kissing Hank’s Ass.</a><br />
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Before 9/11, “Kissing Hank’s Ass” was an edgy joke. Today it<br />
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demonstrates why ending the threat of religiously-motivated terror will<br />
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require us to confront and destroy the fundamentalist/jihadist impulse<br />
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not merely in Islam, but also in Christianity and all other<br />
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eschatological monotheisms where it finds a natural home.</p>
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<p>Christianity, like Islam (and unlike almost all of the other<br />
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religions of the world) has violent intolerance of other religions and<br />
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the impulse to conversion by the sword wired into its doctrinal DNA.<br />
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Most Americans have trouble believing the Koran means what it says<br />
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about the duty of jihad because for most Christians, the parallel<br />
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Christian duty to smite the infidel is a historical dead letter. But<br />
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counterparts of al-Qaeda such as the <a href="http://www.religioustolerance.org/cr_ident.htm">Christian<br />
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Identity Movement</a> exist in the West, imbued with all of<br />
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al-Qaeda’s rage. Christian fundamentalists express the same<br />
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hatred of modernity and determination to jam the world back into<br />
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a medieval mold that motivates Osama bin Laden.</p>
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<p>To win the war on terror, we must understand jihadism and clearly<br />
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distinguish it from ethical self-defense. We must be prepared not<br />
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merely to counter fanaticism not merely by killing the fanatical in<br />
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self-defense, but also by discrediting the doctrines and habits of<br />
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thought that make fanatics in the first place — whether they occur in<br />
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the other guy’s religion or our own. Islam has declared itself the<br />
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immediate adversary of modernity — but more than one world religion<br />
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will have to go under the knife before our children can sleep in<br />
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peace.</p>
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<p><em>(To be continued…)</em></p>
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<p><a href="http://enetation.co.uk/comments.php?user=esr&commentid=78108401">Blogspot comment</a></p>
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