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Secularisation of Islamic countries accomplishable by outside force? O'Leary, are you completely out of your mind? What and how much have you been smoking? That's the single stupidest thing I've seen anyone suggest in weeks, and that's saying something, what with the recent encounter with WCOTC. That's the one thing that is guaranteed to radicalize the absolute majority of Muslims and topple the regimes that currently serve Western interests, because any such interference would be seen as an attempt by the West to destroy Islam.

The only way that change can come is from within, with education and an increase in living standards, because once they have something to lose, they won't be so eager to toss their lives away and embrace fundamentalism.

As for Israeli rationing of water for the Palestinians, how is this morally acceptable when they use much of it, as you put it, for maintaining their lifestyles, including showers, gardens and so on? What most of your post amounts to is nothing more than unrepentant apologism for Israel's policies and flimsy excuses for continued oppression of Palestinians. Perhaps you'd care to comment on Sharon's threat of war against Lebanon if Lebanon uses water from a river within its own borders?

Edi

Edi wrote:Secularisation of Islamic countries accomplishable by outside force? O'Leary, are you completely out of your mind? What and how much have you been smoking? That's the single stupidest thing I've seen anyone suggest in weeks, and that's saying something, what with the recent encounter with WCOTC. That's the one thing that is guaranteed to radicalize the absolute majority of Muslims and topple the regimes that currently serve Western interests, because any such interference would be seen as an attempt by the West to destroy Islam.

I am proceeding on the calculation that the majority of Islam already is radicalized, and I believe the evidence does support that contention. Rather like with the Japanese in the Second World War, even the most extreme of fanatics - Religious at that, for the Japanese fanaticism was built around Emperor-worship - can be compelled to surrender and their nations rebuilt into functioning democracies - Historical evidence suggests that what you claim is false; that a decisively and vigorously waged war to secularise Islam would accomplish exactly that.

But we would have to be prepared to accept atrocious casualties on both sides before it was concluded - Which is why I say that the event that would provide the spark for such a war would have to be quite a severe one, indeed.

(For instance, some of the original casualty figures for the WTC they were throwing around in the first hours, of up to 50,000 people killed.)

The only way that change can come is from within, with education and an increase in living standards, because once they have something to lose, they won't be so eager to toss their lives away and embrace fundamentalism.

But you see, that will never happen. Their culture is static and rigid; their religion is inseperable from their government, the Quran mandates a set system of laws which is to be followed exactly; to deviate is apostasy. This is so precise that it even specifies the tax on mines, for example, nevermind their primitive and brutal legal code.

That is why they cannot change - Because their religion and government are inseperable, and their religion mandates that as a fixed part of the belief of Islam, and furthermore demands a form of government which is eternally locked in the 7th Century CE.

When it was created, Islam was a better religion that Christianity; but it was a fixed and rigid structure, and so passed by, thanks to the ability of western culture to secularise, when Islam was incapable of doing so. So the West triumphed and Islam fell.

Only a Great Man of History can overturn that kind of force - And they do not come about often. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was one; there has not been another that has been able to combine both democracy and secularism in a Muslim country.

The reform, within a meaningful length of time, will have to come from the outside.

As for Israeli rationing of water for the Palestinians, how is this morally acceptable when they use much of it, as you put it, for maintaining their lifestyles, including showers, gardens and so on? What most of your post amounts to is nothing more than unrepentant apologism for Israel's policies and flimsy excuses for continued oppression of Palestinians. Perhaps you'd care to comment on Sharon's threat of war against Lebanon if Lebanon uses water from a river within its own borders?

Edi

I don't know any details about the particular incident, so I can't comment. Does the river originate or terminate within Israel, or is part of it disputed, etc? If you have some more information on the river and the dispute that would be helpful.

What are you talking about, a war with the arabs would be like a turkey shoot. They can't even shoot straight. The isrealis kick thier ass so many times becasue they are so horrible at fighting. But we are many times more powerful than isreal, and more advanced with ouer hardware and software, and have lots more of it. We will kick thier ass, and if they try and stop us it will be like a 100 to 1 or worse kill ratio.

This is cold harsh reality. We were willing to let them kill eachother as long as it was over tere, but now that they have attacked us, if they resist, they will die.

Darth Wong wrote:

Sea Skimmer wrote:You last bit would seem to suggest that if Isreal was say a dictatorship or Communist, somthing non western, then its current methods would be more acceptabul? I hope thats not what you mean.

I think he's saying that when you're relatively wealthy and comfortable, you have fewer excuses for acting like a savage.

Yeah that's pretty much what I meant. Israel should be more willing for compromises. One of the worst thing they do is constructing those colonies in middle of others' territory just because the area happened to be inhabited by Jews in the past. If we follow their reasoning, Finns could go St. Petersburg and set up a nice little town in middle of the Palace Square and along the Nevsky Prospekt -- after all not a single Russian lived there four hundred years ago.

Oberleutnant wrote:
Yeah that's pretty much what I meant. Israel should be more willing for compromises. One of the worst thing they do is constructing those colonies in middle of others' territory just because the area happened to be inhabited by Jews in the past. If we follow their reasoning, Finns could go St. Petersburg and set up a nice little town in middle of the Palace Square and along the Nevsky Prospekt -- after all not a single Russian lived there four hundred years ago.

Actually - The reasoning for the construction of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, at least under the current Sharon administration, is quite clearly laid out in Ariel Sharon's autobiography. He states that he believes that to defend territory, you must both know the terrain and possess the high ground - And do so by physically occupying it, by having your work live and work on the soil of the high ground. So he supports the establishment of settlements the militarily valuable terrain in the West Bank and Gaza for a long-term strategic purpose of defending the main Israeli population centers.

Of course, that is only his personal opinion; I nor he cannot speak for Israelis in general nor especially some of their right-wing minority parties.

I am proceeding on the calculation that the majority of Islam already is radicalized, and I believe the evidence does support that contention.

Would you care to provide that evidence then? I'll grant you that the majority of Muslims in the Palestinian territories are radicalized, but that has happened in the past seven years due to Israeli actions. However, the rest of the Muslim world is by no means radicalized to the extent you claim. The hardline Islamic regime in Iran is having trouble simply holding on to power and has resorted to blatant oppression to stay on top. The majority of Iranians are Muslim, yes, but rather moderate. Marocco is pretty secular, so are Tunisia and Libya. Syria might finance organizations like Hizbollah, but I've no information that Syrian government and population are Islamic radicals. Iraq is rather secular. The majority of Muslims in Indonesia are not radical, and the Middle East situation is not one of their primary concerns.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia and some of the countries on the Arabian peninsula are another story, they have substantial radical factions, but it should be noted that these radical factions are not in power. In Egypt the majority does not share those radical views. Pakistan is currently one of the most problematic countries in this regard, and arguably the one where radicals wield the greatest political power (in terms of influence over government decisions), yet the US tends to say nothing because Pakistan is currently an ally.

The radical Muslims are not the majority, though they are the most visible portion due to the amount of press they get.

Historical evidence suggests that what you claim is false; that a decisively and vigorously waged war to secularise Islam would accomplish exactly that.

And how many are you willing to kill to achieve that end? A hundred million? Two hundred million? Three hundred million? Six hundred million? Because supposing your ridiculous idea was in any way viable, there would have to be Muslim dead numbering in the hundreds of millions before you could start to have an impact, and even then that impact would likely just backfire on you. Even if the war was won, it would only breed resentment and resistance, because it would be an attack on their way of life, a forcible coercion to something they do not want.

Besides, you're ignoring the tiny little problem of geography. Japan was an island, a rather small island at that, so it was confined and containable. There are hundreds of millions of Muslims all over the world, from the Middle East through Central Asia to Indonesia, and you'd have to take them all on to fulfill your vision. There is no way your delusion of genocidal grandeur is feasible, for which I am thoroughly grateful.

Which is why I say that the event that would provide the spark for such a war would have to be quite a severe one, indeed.

Severe in what way? In terms of casualties or otherwise? The easiest way of starting such a world wide conflagration would be if some nutcase got the means the do it and decided to nuke Mecca and Medina, the two holiest sites of Islam. Of course the death toll would be enormous, but it would be almost secondary to the spiritual impact.

(For instance, some of the original casualty figures for the WTC they were throwing around in the first hours, of up to 50,000 people killed.)

A hasty guess and obviously overlarge, but not surprising it was made since about that number of people worked in the two towers. Assuming all of them had been killed, it would have been accurate. I was (pleasantly, needless to say) surprised there were less than three thousand victims in NYC.

But you see, that will never happen. Their culture is static and rigid; their religion is inseperable from their government, the Quran mandates a set system of laws which is to be followed exactly; to deviate is apostasy. This is so precise that it even specifies the tax on mines, for example, nevermind their primitive and brutal legal code.

It will not? Take a look at Iran, again. They have education, and compared to other areas in the region, a reasonably high standard of living. And the hardline government is in serious trouble with popular discontent and is staying in power only through its control of the courts, military and police forces (which together enable it to control the press and the courts by suppressing opponents with spurious lawsuits and following imprisonment). Have you buried your head in the sand every time news about President Khatami's (moderate) troubles with the hardliners have made the headlines? And this is only after about 25 years since they had an Islamic revolution.

True, the culture is static and rigid from a Western point of view, but this problem is worsened by the fact that the masses are ignorant and easily led. Where ignorance and hatemongering don't hold sway, and where there is education, there is room for improvement and harmonization with the modern times, at least to an extent. Sadly, there are comparatively few Muslims now who think this way.

It's also true that their religion is inseparable from their government if you follow it exactly, but it does not follow that an Islamic government has to be like the Taliban. More on this later.

The Sharia law, while unacceptable by Western standards, is not mandatorily brutal in all instances. True, it specifies amputations for thieves and such horrors, but e.g. the stoning of women for adultery is not directly drawn from Quran, but instead inferred from other texts because it was done in places where such practices had been custom even before the rise of Islam. I'd never want to live under Sharia law, but most of what we see touted as Sharia law are not what it should be but mockeries instead. My source for this is actually a fundamentalist Muslim convert (an Australian one) who has studied the Islamic texts more than I care to think about.

The reform, within a meaningful length of time, will have to come from the outside.

The reform, within a meaningful length of time, will have to come from the inside, or it will not come at all. There is a way for outside intervention to speed it up, however. The form of that intervention is for the US to stop propping up the dictatorial, unpopular regimes in the Middle East and cut off all support for Israel and leave the region to its own devices (or take a truly evenhanded role in trying to forge peace between Israel and its neighbors and settling the Palestinian issue). Once there is no longer a single external entity that can be blamed for all the evils plaguing those people, they will really have to take a look at reality and fix things for themselves. You might get a few decades of instability, various dictators, Islamic hardline regimes ala Iran and so on, but eventually there would have to be progress. Right now there is none because the resentment of the people is focused on three things: US, Israel and the corrupt regimes that kowtow to Western interests. As long as this remains the case, there will be no incentive to change from within, and any outside imposition will only generate more resentment and lead to more radicalization. It's one hell of a tangle to solve, and would require a substantial shift in US foreign policy, but if such a shift were to occur, it would be a start. Unfortunately, this is not likely for the foreseeable future. When the oil runs out, then we will see how things change (if nothing happens before it, that is).

I don't know any details about the particular incident, so I can't comment. Does the river originate or terminate within Israel, or is part of it disputed, etc? If you have some more information on the river and the dispute that would be helpful.

I don't remember the name of the river, but it's a tributary of the one that empties into Lake Genesaret, and is contained entirely within Lebanon's borders. The area used to be part of the Israeli control zone when Israel occupied Lebanon, and was used as a water source for Jewish settlements. Apparently Sharon still regards it as part of Israeli territory because of the importance of water, but I think he can go fuck himself. That war criminal has no business telling other countries what to do with resources they own and threatening war unless they comply.

Actually - The reasoning for the construction of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, at least under the current Sharon administration, is quite clearly laid out in Ariel Sharon's autobiography. He states that he believes that to defend territory, you must both know the terrain and possess the high ground - And do so by physically occupying it, by having your work live and work on the soil of the high ground. So he supports the establishment of settlements the militarily valuable terrain in the West Bank and Gaza for a long-term strategic purpose of defending the main Israeli population centers.

Whatever. What Sharon believes doesn't change the fact that the de facto reason for the settlements is to extend Israeli presence and extinguish any attempts to form a Palestinian state. It's funny how this need to defend Israel's main population centers has suddenly increased so dramatically in the past ten years, during which the number of settlers has doubled, during which every promise given to the Palestinians in the Oslo accords has been broken by the Israeli government on flimsy pretexts and during which the Palestinians have seen all their hopes systematically dashed.

Just seven years ago, support for Palestinian suicide bombings was around 10 or 20 percent, now it's around 90%. If you take into account the actions of the Israeli government during this period, there is a clear cause-effect relationship visible. Things have gone straight to hell in a handbasket, and the one man above all we have to thank for that is the Jewish fanatic Yiagl Amir who murdered Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin back in 1995 for being too acommodating to the Palestinians. We've hears Israel's government endlessly bemoan how the Palestinians don't want peace, how they have torpedoed the peace process, but it was Jew who killed Rabin (who had achieved the peace deal), and the people of Israel who elected Netanyahu to succeed Rabin and destroy that deal. Barak's efforts were too little too late after all the broken promises, and now with Sharon in power, is the current state of affairs any surprise? Not to me it isn't. Israel is reaping what it has sown, though Arafat and his PA isn't clean by any definition of the term either.

By the way, there was a very interesting documentary on BBC World yesterday, titled The End of an Affair, written and narrated by Gerald Kaufman, a British member of Parliament and a Jew. Have you seen it, Marina? If you haven't, you should. It was very, very good, and what came through most clearly was Kaufman's sadness at the state of modern Israel.
They'll probably run it several times, so it shoudn't be a problem for you to get your hands on it.

Edi

Edi wrote:

I am proceeding on the calculation that the majority of Islam already is radicalized, and I believe the evidence does support that contention.

Would you care to provide that evidence then?

It's in their response to certain events; you can use that as a barometer for how people think. It's also in how they view certain things - Like honour killings, and so on. The evidence for this conclusion has been gathered over a rather long period of time and ranges from news articles and studies to personal observations of the region.

I'd invite you to

http://pub82.ezboard.com/bhistorypoliti ... fairs68862

And I'll sponsor your signing up, if you want to start posting there. That's mostly where the conclusion has been reached, at least in my case. Otherwise I can answer, but it may take a fair bit of time to provide evidence with the level of precision that would be enjoyed here; it's quite possible, but, as I said, it's not gathered in any one place and it would take time.

The hardline Islamic regime in Iran is having trouble simply holding on to power and has resorted to blatant oppression to stay on top. The majority of Iranians are Muslim, yes, but rather moderate.

I agree; the Iranian regime is no longer supported by the people. But that's a Shi'ite Islamic country. The primary problem is focused in Sunni Islam, which is being heavily influenced by religious teachings from Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, which has massive amounts of money to fund its religious instruction problems in the most fanatical sect of Islam, throughout the Islamic world, and is doing so. This is the cause of the rise of fundamentalism in Egypt, for example.

Marocco is pretty secular,

Morocco is a highly conservative Islamic country where this is currently considerable instability due to the perceived belief that the Sultan is a homosexual. They're having a noticable rise in extremism, and there's been several recent standoffs with Spain over Spanish enclaves on the northern coast as the Sultan tries to prove himself and divert domestic attention from his private life.

Syria might finance organizations like Hizbollah, but I've no information that Syrian government and population are Islamic radicals. Iraq is rather secular.

Neither Syria nor Iraq are fundamentalist, but they are fascist; and they provide a large amount of money to fundamentalist terror groups which fund religious education in addition to their terror programmes.

The majority of Muslims in Indonesia are not radical, and the Middle East situation is not one of their primary concerns.

No, the majority of the population is not radical there, but as we have recently seen, their Islamic groups are tied to Al-Qaeda, and receive Saudi funding for their efforts as well.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia and some of the countries on the Arabian peninsula are another story, they have substantial radical factions, but it should be noted that these radical factions are not in power.

Not in Egypt; however, in Saudi Arabia the House of Saud has been Wahhabi, and directly linked to Wahhabi fortunes, since the 18th century. They are extreme fundamentalists to the core, and so is the majority of the Kingdom's population.

In Egypt the majority does not share those radical views.

That's changed thanks to the Sauds - The younger generations are voluntarily more and more Islamic.

Pakistan is currently one of the most problematic countries in this regard, and arguably the one where radicals wield the greatest political power (in terms of influence over government decisions), yet the US tends to say nothing because Pakistan is currently an ally.

Incorrect; Saudi Arabia is absolutely the most fundamentalist country currently. I'd suspect that some of the Gulf Emirates come a close second, though it is hard to tell. After that - theoretically - Iran, but their application is complex. Beyond that you get some African countries, including Morocco. Pakistan is actually one of the most secular Muslim countries, period.

The Islamists only have power in the tribal districts, which really haven't changed much since British colonial rule. So the population centers should treat them like the tribal barbarians they are.

The radical Muslims are not the majority, though they are the most visible portion due to the amount of press they get.

That's the key; if the majority of the population is apathetic and lets the radicals dictate Islamic theology, Islamic policy, etc, they might as well all be radicals. Inaction = negative action.

And how many are you willing to kill to achieve that end? A hundred million? Two hundred million? Three hundred million? Six hundred million? Because supposing your ridiculous idea was in any way viable, there would have to be Muslim dead numbering in the hundreds of millions before you could start to have an impact, and even then that impact would likely just backfire on you. Even if the war was won, it would only breed resentment and resistance, because it would be an attack on their way of life, a forcible coercion to something they do not want.

That isn't what happened in Japan. We quite successfully turned Japan into a western country. We killed at most three millions first. Considering the Islamic population of the world today, if the ratio was the same, you'd probably see less than seventy-five million Muslims killed in all-out war to secularise Islam.

Altogether that's a small price to pay compared with some of the potential long term scenarios. However, it's quite possible that it could be accomplished with far fewer deaths; after all, we're talking about a threshold until the will of a people is broken. That isn't some fixed percentage of a populace, but rather a moral calculation.

If it's higher than that, it doesn't change the fact that the war is necessary to fight. Preferably it is much lower. I would really like to end this thing with minimal casualties; I just don't think we can do it. If we can, all well and good. If not, well, I'm willing to see that happen too.

Besides, you're ignoring the tiny little problem of geography. Japan was an island, a rather small island at that, so it was confined and containable. There are hundreds of millions of Muslims all over the world, from the Middle East through Central Asia to Indonesia, and you'd have to take them all on to fulfill your vision. There is no way your delusion of genocidal grandeur is feasible, for which I am thoroughly grateful.

It's quite possible. You wouldn't have to take them all on, first of all. There are numerous divisions within Islam, and some muslims are already secularised.

Most importantly, I'm not proposing any sort of genocide. I'm just proposing the necessary military operations required to bring about an end to Islamic terrorism, a threat which may be vastly more considerable than the average person has begun to comprehend.

Severe in what way? In terms of casualties or otherwise? The easiest way of starting such a world wide conflagration would be if some nutcase got the means the do it and decided to nuke Mecca and Medina, the two holiest sites of Islam. Of course the death toll would be enormous, but it would be almost secondary to the spiritual impact.

I was actually thinking of a nuclear attack on an American city as being the most probably causation.

It will not? Take a look at Iran, again. They have education, and compared to other areas in the region, a reasonably high standard of living.

Remnants of their advancement under the Shah; since the Shah - When Iran was Spain's equal in most respects - Iran has gone all downhill.

And the hardline government is in serious trouble with popular discontent and is staying in power only through its control of the courts, military and police forces (which together enable it to control the press and the courts by suppressing opponents with spurious lawsuits and following imprisonment). Have you buried your head in the sand every time news about President Khatami's (moderate) troubles with the hardliners have made the headlines? And this is only after about 25 years since they had an Islamic revolution.

No, I haven't. Within a year of our conquest of Iraq the Iranian regime will fall from the inside; that is my prediction. They are very close to revolution - Praise to the Persian people! But, you see, they are Shi'ites, not Sunnis, and so there is a difference overall in how you must perceive where they fit into the Islamic world, their perceptions and so on. They are one of the more western Islamic countries, oddly enough.

The Sharia law, while unacceptable by Western standards, is not mandatorily brutal in all instances. True, it specifies amputations for thieves and such horrors, but e.g. the stoning of women for adultery is not directly drawn from Quran, but instead inferred from other texts because it was done in places where such practices had been custom even before the rise of Islam. I'd never want to live under Sharia law, but most of what we see touted as Sharia law are not what it should be but mockeries instead. My source for this is actually a fundamentalist Muslim convert (an Australian one) who has studied the Islamic texts more than I care to think about.

You're correct. The stoning of women for adultery comes from the Hadith, the Traditions of Muhammed, which are counted by most Muslim Ulemma to be equal in importance to the Quran.

Combined, the Quran and the Hadith form the entirety of the Sheriat, and that is the rigid, unchanging mass of Islamic Law. It was in fact very enlightened for the 7th century - But you can't do much with it now. Not even back in the Renaissance era. Then, the Ottomans got around troublesome portions by using their sacred power as Khans, the word of a Khan in Central Asian tradition being considered sacred, to bend the Sheriat, which is part of why their Empire lasted so long.

Actually, in Iran, the Shi'ite government of the Islamic Republic does the same thing - They have a law interpetation council. That's so they can avoid problematic things like having to apply a law code so exacting that it determines the tax on mines, and so on, to a 21st century society.

But then, Iran, again, is Shi'ite, and the Iranian Islamic culture is influenced by Zoroastrian traditions. Sunni Islam, outside of the Sufi tradition, and the divine concept of the Khan's law, as practiced in Turkey, is much more rigid - Especially so under its Wahhabi branch, which is rapidly spreading thanks to the Saudis' generous use of their money to spread Wahhabi schools throughout the Sunni world.

The reform, within a meaningful length of time, will have to come from the inside, or it will not come at all. There is a way for outside intervention to speed it up, however. The form of that intervention is for the US to stop propping up the dictatorial, unpopular regimes in the Middle East and cut off all support for Israel and leave the region to its own devices (or take a truly evenhanded role in trying to forge peace between Israel and its neighbors and settling the Palestinian issue). Once there is no longer a single external entity that can be blamed for all the evils plaguing those people, they will really have to take a look at reality and fix things for themselves. You might get a few decades of instability, various dictators, Islamic hardline regimes ala Iran and so on, but eventually there would have to be progress. Right now there is none because the resentment of the people is focused on three things: US, Israel and the corrupt regimes that kowtow to Western interests. As long as this remains the case, there will be no incentive to change from within, and any outside imposition will only generate more resentment and lead to more radicalization. It's one hell of a tangle to solve, and would require a substantial shift in US foreign policy, but if such a shift were to occur, it would be a start.

It will not happen, because their culture is a culture of despotism. The change can only be forced by a single charismatic individual, with the support of the armed forces, when happening from the inside. Then, it is a sudden and awe-inspiring thing. And it's happened before - Mustafa Kemal Pasha, in Turkey.

But such men are so rare to history... We will not have enough, not soon enough.

So Despotism will remain the languid inheiritance of the Sheriat law, unless we deign to sweep it away for them. Why would they change, after all? It is God's Will that they live by the Sheriat; if something is wrong, it is either the mechination of the Infidel, or they are not applying the Sheriat properly (And thus is the story of many, many Islamic puritan movements over the past two centuries).

Unfortunately, this is not likely for the foreseeable future. When the oil runs out, then we will see how things change (if nothing happens before it, that is).

Pray to god, if you are a religious man, that you're not alive when the oil runs out. Do you really think the industrial age ended barbarian invasions? They're too much a staple of history to have been halted that easily. Saudi Arabia already imports most of her food, and that populace is still growing. The same is true for many other Arab countries. "Starve or kill the Infidel and take his land". A fantasy, perhaps, but you surely would have accused me of a fantasy had I told you have 9/11 the day before.

It's in their response to certain events; you can use that as a barometer for how people think. It's also in how they view certain things - Like honour killings, and so on. The evidence for this conclusion has been gathered over a rather long period of time and ranges from news articles and studies to personal observations of the region.

So-called honour killings (which are properly called heinous murders) have nothing to do with Islam itself, but are a facet of the culture in that region that has existed for far longer. The conclusion that the majority of Muslims are radical is not supported by the news I have seen, and though I have not been to the region personally, I have talked with people who have and their observations do not support it either. Perhaps we should define what is considered radical in order to avoid going around in circles?

I'd invite you to

http://pub82.ezboard.com/bhistorypoliti ... fairs68862

And I'll sponsor your signing up, if you want to start posting there. That's mostly where the conclusion has been reached, at least in my case. Otherwise I can answer, but it may take a fair bit of time to provide evidence with the level of precision that would be enjoyed here; it's quite possible, but, as I said, it's not gathered in any one place and it would take time.

I've taken a look at that place previously. Tempting offer, but time constraints make it impossible at this point. As for the signing up, do you mean to say that only those approved by existing members are allowed to post? I was under the impression that anyone with a valid global ezBoard account could post on any board, and I do have one, my username on ezboards is Edirr.

I agree; the Iranian regime is no longer supported by the people. But that's a Shi'ite Islamic country. The primary problem is focused in Sunni Islam, which is being heavily influenced by religious teachings from Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, which has massive amounts of money to fund its religious instruction problems in the most fanatical sect of Islam, throughout the Islamic world, and is doing so. This is the cause of the rise of fundamentalism in Egypt, for example.

You're going to regret stepping into that mine in short order...
Not that I don't agree about Saudi influence on the spread of Wahhabism and Egypt's radicalisation, but you are trying to create an artificial distinction here and have conveniently put your head in a noose. Prepare to be hung with the rope you so generously provided...

You see, most governments in the Middle East, in all these Muslim countries, are extremely unpopular, because they are oligarchic dicatorships that oppress the people. Many of them backed by the US, too. So it's easy for the governments to distract the populace from theirown failing by pointing at the US as a scapegoat. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq (64% Shi'ite), Syria, Yemen, the list goes on.

Morocco is a highly conservative Islamic country where this is currently considerable instability due to the perceived belief that the Sultan is a homosexual. They're having a noticable rise in extremism, and there's been several recent standoffs with Spain over Spanish enclaves on the northern coast as the Sultan tries to prove himself and divert domestic attention from his private life.

Marocco may be conservative, and its main religion is Islam, with tiny minorities of others, but it is not a theocracy, hence its government is secular. Influenced by religion, but secular nonetheless. The US is a Christian country (if we judge by majority) and Christian influence is certainly felt in the government, but it is still secular and not (yet) a theocracy.
The rise of extremism in Marocco is not something I have paid much attention to, but I wouldn't be surprised in the least if it had been imported from Algeria and Sudan as well as Saudi Arabia. The incidents with Spain may have that domestic political agenda, but the Moroccans are understandably miffed at the presence of Spanish enclaves that are nothing more than a holdover of the colonial era.
Those three separate issues do not make that country a matter of overly large concern.

Neither Syria nor Iraq are fundamentalist, but they are fascist; and they provide a large amount of money to fundamentalist terror groups which fund religious education in addition to their terror programmes.

Fascism and religious fundamentalism are two different issues, at least in this discussion, so better keep them separate so as not to muddy the waters. I know Syria's role in Hizbollah's backing, but didn't most of the funding come from Iran? Hizbollah is a convenient tool for the secular Syrian regime, nothing more, just as several terrorist organizations have been a convenient tool for the US in Latin America to keep certain politically undesirable (namely socialist) people from power. Could you please tell me the difference?
As for Iraq, their record on terrorism is far better than that of Pakistan which even now funds fundamentalist Muslim terrorists in Kashmir. Saddam has never been fond of religious extremists because they are not something he can control. Saddam may be funding Hamas, but he's not doing it out of sympathy for the plight of Muslims, but to annoy Israel and the West and to gather himself good PR in the Arab world. It's a very recent development besides.

No, the majority of the population is not radical there <Indonesia & Southeast Asia>, but as we have recently seen, their Islamic groups are tied to Al-Qaeda, and receive Saudi funding for their efforts as well.

Not much of a surprise given that there are many veterans of the Afghan War there and Abu Sayyaf for example was rather well represented in Afghanistan training camps at one point. So there are ties to Al-Qaida? So what? Yes, they performed a horrible terrorist strike which cost over two hundred people their lives, and those responsible should pay for that as well as the recent bombings in the Philippines, but those are side notes to this discussion and the big picture we are talking about.

Do the math: Indonesia alone has over 200 million people. Jemaah Islamiya has an estimated 200 to 500 members, Laskar Jihad (which disbanded on its own initiative, or so they say) has around 15000, the Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines numbers around 1000 and the MILF at a guesstimate somewhere around the numbers of Laskar Jihad or maybe twice or three times that at most. So if we take the high end of all those estimates, we'll end up somewhere around less than 100,000 individuals that fit in the category of extremist, and 100,000 is a damned 0.5% of the Indonesian population. If you add the rest of the population in Southeast Asia, that figure goes so absurdly low as to be ridiculous when you examine the big picture. Besides, Islamic terrorism in Southeast Asia has markedly different overall goals than it has in the Middle East. Down there it's more about creating an Islamic country according to the vision of whichever group you listen to, and the means they use toward that is creating racial, ethnic and religious disharmony they can exploit. It's not that much about being anti-American or anti-Western, though they'll cheerfully lay the blame for whatever on the West, we're a convenient scapegoat. You want more on them, I'll talk to a few Singaporean and Philippino people I know, they'll give you an earful...

The SE Asian terror groups (some of them anyway) get money from Saudi sources and are loosely linked with A-Q, but they are not the problem in the region. Indonesian corruption and inefficiency and their lack of willingness to do anything about it, coupled with US support of Indonesia, is. If I recall, the US was in no hurry to withdraw that support even when Indonesian troops were perpetrating a genocide in East Timor, posing as East Timorese militia, as recently as 1999.

in Saudi Arabia the House of Saud has been Wahhabi, and directly linked to Wahhabi fortunes, since the 18th century. They are extreme fundamentalists to the core, and so is the majority of the Kingdom's population.

The house of Saud is Wahhabi, yes, but they are not extremists. some of them do have sympathy for the extremists, and the Saudi government often has to bend somewhat in the direction of the extremists in oreder to appease the population, but do you know why this is? The idiots encouraged the rise of the Wahhabite sect and their anti-Western stance in order to give the population something other than their own corruption and greed to fume about and failed to supervise them enough, so that the whole experiment backfired on their faces and landed them in their current mess. Now they do a balancing act between the West, which props their dictatorial regime up, and the domestic extremists who would like to slit their throats for being Western lapdogs.

Incorrect; Saudi Arabia is absolutely the most fundamentalist country currently. I'd suspect that some of the Gulf Emirates come a close second, though it is hard to tell. After that - theoretically - Iran, but their application is complex. Beyond that you get some African countries, including Morocco.

Yes, the Saudi population is the most fundamentalist. But even if the fundies got in power there, they would not have a nuke on their hands. Don't know about the Gulf Emirates, but they don't have anywhere near the population to be very significant. The majority of Iran's population seems to be moving to a more secular direction, so why are you so worried about them? They have a fundie government that has fucked things up royally and is teetering precariously at the top and hopefully topples soon, so the best thing to do is to let them do it in peace and maybe lend them some rope to hang the fundies with if they run short.

Pakistan is actually one of the most secular Muslim countries, period

Then how come the fundamentalist parties were the ones that made the biggest gains in the elections? Pakistan, already active in funding Islamic terrorism, especially in Kashmir, and possessed of nuclear weapons, is becoming very much more fundamentalist than it is or was. Not the government, yet, but the populace. Yet you do not find this a matter of concern?

The Islamists only have power in the tribal districts, which really haven't changed much since British colonial rule. So the population centers should treat them like the tribal barbarians they are.

So why did they score so high in the elections (despite EU monitor accusations of government interference, presumably in government favor)? Did you see the news footage from some of those very population centers where they called for Americans to be expelled from the region during the Afghanistan campaign last year and early this year? And do you really advocate democracy only as long as the votes swing in favor of those you support? Because it sure sounds that way. What you advocate here is despotism: If they don't do as you would have them, ignore them and do what you want anyway.

That's the key; if the majority of the population is apathetic and lets the radicals dictate Islamic theology, Islamic policy, etc, they might as well all be radicals . Inaction = negative action.

Are you willing to turn that around and apply it to the American people and Christian fundamentalists, and the Israelis and their fundamentalists? If you are, then I'll give you that you're that being consistent, and if you aren't, well, that'd make you a hypocrite.

You also conveniently ignore the fact that Islam is nowhere near as monolithic as it is being portrayed in the Western media, and given half a chance they'll cheerfully slaughter each other over differences of religious opinion, especially if you have Shi'ite vs. Sunni and a few regional conflicts of interest thrown in the mix.

Considering the Islamic population of the world today, if the ratio was the same, you'd probably see less than seventy-five million Muslims killed in all-out war to secularise Islam.

You really do live in a fantasy land, don't you? You would only radicalise them all. I'll give you a real life example: In the 1890s, the czar of Russia decided that Finland, up until then an autonomous Grand Duchy with its own laws, was to be Russianized. Up until then we'd given them no trouble, we'd been relativelyhappy under Russian rule, but when those ill-considered policies went into effect, it was like lighting a fuse to a powder keg. All of a sudden, Russians were hated here. The Governor-General was assassinated in broad daylight. Nationalism rose. We declared independence amid the confusion of WW1 and got away with it. Much of the Russian minority in Finland fled, either to Sweden or to Russia, and many were killed in a haze of anti-Russian anger. Civil war followed in 1918-1920 where the communist side got thoroughly trounced and thousands, if not tens of thousands died. And when the Soviets invaded us in 1939, all of the differences of the civil war were put aside in favor of the common hatred of Russia, and the injustice inflicted on us after a long and bloody war and Soviet meddling in our affairs afterward only deepened and cemented that hate. To this day Russians are the most hated nationality here, if you ask the common man, and that label is easily slapped on Belarussians and Ukrainians too.

We lost only about a hundred thousand people out of four million and that hate and resentment still isn't dead, I learned it from my father whose parents lost everything they owned, and so did many others. I'm not proud of my irrational prejudice, but it's there. I can overcome it, because I know better, but if I wasn't as educated as I am, and if I wasn't taught the principles I was, I probably couldn't.

Do you really want to set to boil that sort of a cauldron of hate? Do you have any idea of what you're talking about? I caught just a whiff of the fumes and that's enough to sicken a person for a lifetime, but you'd spoon-feed the stuff to hundreds of millions!

The reason you succeeded with Japan because Japan is geographically small and isolated, and therefore it is possibly to occupy and control it militarily. Powerful as the US military is, it cannot hope to contain even the whole of Middle East and the Arabian peninsula, never mind the whole of North Africa, Central Asia and the Southeast Asian archipelago that makes up Malaysia and Indonesia as well. It's a delusional pipe-dream.

You don't seem to understand about pain thresholds at all. Did the WTC bombing cause Americans to withdraw into their shell? No. So obviously they didn't kill enough. How about three hundred thousand instead of three thousand? Would that break your spirit? No? What if they killed three million? Would that be enough, would you cry for mercy? Or would you resist even harder? Thirty million? That's be around 10% of the population, would it be enough? Maybe one hundred million? Would that suffice?

Newsflash: People won't stop resisting unless the only alternative is absolute and total annihilation. That's what the Japanese faced at the end of WW2. It's the what the Germans faced. It's what we would have faced if Stalin hadn't had higher priorities in central Europe in 1944. It's what nearly happened to the Estonians and others conquered by Soviet Union. And in all of those cases, the threat was backed up by physical occupation and imminent force.

With regard to the whole of the Muslim world: YOU DO NOT HAVE THE CAPACITY TO DO THAT! How many times does it have to be pounded into your skull?

If it's higher than that, it doesn't change the fact that the war is necessary to fight. Preferably it is much lower. I would really like to end this thing with minimal casualties; I just don't think we can do it. If we can, all well and good. If not, well, I'm willing to see that happen too.

Which is a very good reason why you should never be given any political power whatsoever. Someone who is willing to start a war that will kill tens if not hundreds of millions of people because she thinks her beliefs are better than those of others, without even really trying to find other answers, is a monster, pure and simple, a butcher wallowing in blood for her own aggrandizement. We've had monsters like that before in history, and they go by names such as Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic and many, many others. Some of them were less successful than others, or were restricted in their scale of atrocities, but they all had in common the same callous disregard for life and lack of basic humanity you have displayed here.

The difference between us is that I'm willing to kill in order to prevent beliefs contrary to my own being forced on me, while you are willing to kill in order to force your beliefs on others.

It's quite possible. You wouldn't have to take them all on, first of all. There are numerous divisions within Islam,

And they will cheerfully stand by while you pick them off one by one? You have to be unbelievably stupid or naive or both to subscribe to that! I might have one hell of a difference of opinion with my brother, and I might fight with him over that if things got heated enough and we'd beat each other black and blue, but at the end of the day he's still my brother, and if somebody else thinks he can just go and beat my brother up and force him to slavery while I watch from the sidelines, he'll never know what killed him. Because I would walk behind him and slit his throat from ear to ear. That's what happened to the Russians in 1939-40 when they invaded Finland, they thought the red faction that got hammered in the civil war would welcome them. That particular little incident is was dubbed the Winter War. Look it up. http://www.winterwar.com is a good place to start online.

some muslims are already secularised.

So you'd radicalise them and the indifferent majority, then? How the hell will that help?! Better work with what you have and build on that, only it takes patience and effort, something you're not particularly fond of, it seems.

Most importantly, I'm not proposing any sort of genocide. I'm just proposing the necessary military operations required to bring about an end to Islamic terrorism, a threat which may be vastly more considerable than the average person has begun to comprehend.

Then why are you talking of secularising the Islamic world through military conquest? That's what you suggested, and trying to implement it your way would require genocide on a scale never seen before! You use a fine-bladed scalpel and lasers for brain surgery, not an axe!

Besides which, Islamic terrorism has its root in problems that re ultimately political in nature, and there are no short term military solutions to political problems!

Remnants of their advancement under the Shah; since the Shah - When Iran was Spain's equal in most respects - Iran has gone all downhill.

The Shah was an American-backed, extremely unpopular and cruel dictator, and it was his reign of incompetence that gave the opportunity for Islamic extremists to rise into power. Might be Iran has gone downhill, certainly economically, and also in social values if we use the Western value system, but has it by any chance that they've already hit rock bottom on their own and are climbing out of the pit?

Within a year of our conquest of Iraq the Iranian regime will fall from the inside; that is my prediction. They are very close to revolution - Praise to the Persian people! But, you see, they are Shi'ites, not Sunnis, and so there is a difference overall in how you must perceive where they fit into the Islamic world, their perceptions and so on. They are one of the more western Islamic countries, oddly enough.

Within a year of your conquest of Iraq the fundamentalists will be more entrenched in power than ever since the death of Khomeini, since it will allow them to turn all attention to the evil of America and blame all bad things on you. Let them sort it out on their own. Did you ever happen to ask why they are one of the more Western Muslim countries with regard to society? Education, which is better than in most of their neighboring countries, and ostracism by the West in general and the US in particular. They tossed out everything Western, took the time to royally fuck things up all by themselves, and they are now in the process of fixing that, all by themselves. They made enough rope to hang themselves and actually proceeded to do just that, and are now set on correcting that mistake. Nothing odd about it if you bother to use your brains for a moment. It's no different than what Mike said in his essay about what is going to be the only workable solution to the Palestine conflict (and the least likely to happen). People want to be free, on their own terms, not on those imposed by an outsider who is invariably seen as a conquering imperialist.

It <change from within> will not happen, because their culture is a culture of despotism. The change can only be forced by a single charismatic individual, with the support of the armed forces, when happening from the inside. Then, it is a sudden and awe-inspiring thing. And it's happened before - Mustafa Kemal Pasha, in Turkey.

Why would it not happen? People want to be free. The dreams of the ordinary people over there are not so much different than our own, prosperity, family, security, love. The change will be slow, but it will happen eventually. Education is key in this respect.

So Despotism will remain the languid inheiritance of the Sheriat law, unless we deign to sweep it away for them.

You would only reinforce the idea that it was something to be adhered to. It's not about you deigning to show them a better way, it's about you presuming that you are correct and then forcing your beliefs on them instead of educating them on why it is good for them and why your system is better. They'll take a domestic despot over a foreign and Infidel one any day of the year.

Pray to god, if you are a religious man, that you're not alive when the oil runs out. Do you really think the industrial age ended barbarian invasions? They're too much a staple of history to have been halted that easily. Saudi Arabia already imports most of her food, and that populace is still growing. The same is true for many other Arab countries. "Starve or kill the Infidel and take his land". A fantasy, perhaps, but you surely would have accused me of a fantasy had I told you have 9/11 the day before.

I'm not, I'm an atheist. I'm under no illusions about what you're talking about, there will be wars, vicious ones, and a lot of people will die. There are already serious disputes and threats of war over water in Africa and in the Middle East. And you're wrong about the 9/11 issue. Most people thought it outright impossible. I'd have said that I don't think so, but that the concept itself was viable. It is simply the kamikaze mentality taken to this day. I'd have underestimated the coordination displayed, the idea of simultaneously hijacking more than two planes was, back then, too far-fetched for me. It was especially viable because it hadn't been done before, and it will likely never succeed again.

Edi

Edi wrote:

I'd invite you to

http://pub82.ezboard.com/bhistorypoliti ... fairs68862

And I'll sponsor your signing up, if you want to start posting there. That's mostly where the conclusion has been reached, at least in my case. Otherwise I can answer, but it may take a fair bit of time to provide evidence with the level of precision that would be enjoyed here; it's quite possible, but, as I said, it's not gathered in any one place and it would take time.

I've taken a look at that place previously. Tempting offer, but time constraints make it impossible at this point. As for the signing up, do you mean to say that only those approved by existing members are allowed to post? I was under the impression that anyone with a valid global ezBoard account could post on any board, and I do have one, my username on ezboards is Edirr.

Anyone may lurk on the board, but to actually post requires authorization. This was done in response to a large spate of trolls on the board.

Edi wrote: So-called honour killings (which are properly called heinous murders) have nothing to do with Islam itself, but are a facet of the culture in that region that has existed for far longer. The conclusion that the majority of Muslims are radical is not supported by the news I have seen, and though I have not been to the region personally, I have talked with people who have and their observations do not support it either. Perhaps we should define what is considered radical in order to avoid going around in circles?

That might be a good idea. I define radicals as:

1. Wahhabis - And, therefore, the entirety of the native-born population of Saudi Arabia, along with other peoples.
2. Members of a government or NGO holding or supporting the Islamic radical agenda.
3. Those people who provide any sort of support, that is to say, are part of the support mechanism, to/of a government or NGO with a radical agenda, and do not take measures to oppose it.

Under the third definition, anyone who is a subject of any country in the Middle East with a radical government and does not oppose that government would be a radical. It fits in with the old Orwellian "Pacifists help Fascists by existing" argument. These people aren't even pacifists, though. They're the ones who provide the resources that let these despotic governments continue to function and pursue terrorist agendas, or provide the resources for the NGOs. In the later case they are much more likely to believe in and support the agenda.

I've taken a look at that place previously. Tempting offer, but time constraints make it impossible at this point. As for the signing up, do you mean to say that only those approved by existing members are allowed to post? I was under the impression that anyone with a valid global ezBoard account could post on any board, and I do have one, my username on ezboards is Edirr.

This group of Pakistani nationalists started a flame campaign against us and we went to membership by approval.

You're going to regret stepping into that mine in short order...
Not that I don't agree about Saudi influence on the spread of Wahhabism and Egypt's radicalisation, but you are trying to create an artificial distinction here and have conveniently put your head in a noose. Prepare to be hung with the rope you so generously provided...

You see, most governments in the Middle East, in all these Muslim countries, are extremely unpopular, because they are oligarchic dicatorships that oppress the people. Many of them backed by the US, too. So it's easy for the governments to distract the populace from theirown failing by pointing at the US as a scapegoat. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq (64% Shi'ite), Syria, Yemen, the list goes on.

I agree. The people are not pleased with their governments! But they're not looking to democracy as a solution - They're looking to fundamentalist Islam as a solution.

Let me explain. You remember the Mahdi, Gordon in Khartoum and all that? Well, Mahdist movements are part of the entire Islamic puritanism kick - Revolutionary movements in Islam to reform it because of perceived corruption at the top which brings about problems, because of faithlessness in the leaders, improper application of the Sheriat, etc.

It's the same thing that is going on in Nigeria, right now for example, with the huge problems that country is having where the northern Islamic states have instituted the Sheriat.

Since the Sheriat is the unchanging word of God (as recorded in the Quran and the Hadith - Most Muslim sects accord the Hadith virtually the same authority as the Quran), it is utterly, completely absolute. And when they have problems they do not try to change it, they do not look to secular alternatives.

Instead they try to improve the application of the Sheriat. Clearly, they're failing God - That's why things are going wrong. More precisely, because of the ingrained despotism of the Sheriat, their leaders are failing God. So of course there is much dissension in the Arab world today. They see their problems as being caused by corrupt leaders who do not obey the Law of the Book properly. That is what the Wahhabi teachers tell them. They tell them that if they had a true Islamic government, things would be better, God would bring about prosperity for their nations, and the reign of the Infidel would be ended.

So replacing the governments would simply bring in Islamic Republics, as it stands now - At least in several major Islamic countries. Not all of them by far, I grant you, but in several critical Islamic countries, and the number is growing as long as the House of Saud continues to fund Wahhabi preaching.

Marocco may be conservative, and its main religion is Islam, with tiny minorities of others, but it is not a theocracy, hence its government is secular. Influenced by religion, but secular nonetheless. The US is a Christian country (if we judge by majority) and Christian influence is certainly felt in the government, but it is still secular and not (yet) a theocracy.

No, I don't think you understand. Every Muslim country in the world which has the Sheriat Law as its law code is a theocracy. The Sheriat - The Quran and the Hadith - they do not differentiate between religion and government. There is no difference whatsoever. The government is not "influenced" by religion. The government is religion, and religion is government. This is the case in every country with the Sheriat Law Code.

Islam does not have any concept of the two being different. They are a single integrated whole. The entire system of government is derived from God in a clear line down from heaven, with every working of the government mandated from above. It's a perfect system for the 7th century but it was hopelessly outdated once we got the Renaissance.

The rise of extremism in Marocco is not something I have paid much attention to, but I wouldn't be surprised in the least if it had been imported from Algeria and Sudan as well as Saudi Arabia. The incidents with Spain may have that domestic political agenda, but the Moroccans are understandably miffed at the presence of Spanish enclaves that are nothing more than a holdover of the colonial era.
Those three separate issues do not make that country a matter of overly large concern.

They're not a holdover from the Colonial Era - Those enclaves have been there nearly five hundred years. They're nearly as old as the Sultanate of Morocco in fact, and most of that time they've been Spanish possessions, or at least possession of the ruling house of Spain.

Yes, some of it comes from Algeria. The government in Algeria is a secular dictatorship with problems of extremism in the southern tribal regions, which is where the fundamentalism in Morocco has been supported from.

Fascism and religious fundamentalism are two different issues, at least in this discussion, so better keep them separate so as not to muddy the waters. I know Syria's role in Hizbollah's backing, but didn't most of the funding come from Iran? Hizbollah is a convenient tool for the secular Syrian regime, nothing more, just as several terrorist organizations have been a convenient tool for the US in Latin America to keep certain politically undesirable (namely socialist) people from power. Could you please tell me the difference?

Fascism is a dangerous fantasy ideology in and of its self; we know its history in Europe, and the fascism of Arabia has a long history interlinked with that of Germany. Ba'athism has the goal of the unity of the Arab world, and by necessity the destruction of the Jews. It's been subverted by popular leaders but it's still a danger - And those leaders have made themselves more dangerous by pandering to fundamentalists. Basically, Iraq and Syria are dangerous because they're playing with fire, and because they are of an ideological background which is unstable and has caused untold human suffering in the past.

(Furthermore I should note that we did not fund terrorist organizations in South America but rather certain organizations devoted to defending their nations from communism, which fought only communists, and did not engage in acts of terror.)

As for Iraq, their record on terrorism is far better than that of Pakistan which even now funds fundamentalist Muslim terrorists in Kashmir. Saddam has never been fond of religious extremists because they are not something he can control. Saddam may be funding Hamas, but he's not doing it out of sympathy for the plight of Muslims, but to annoy Israel and the West and to gather himself good PR in the Arab world. It's a very recent development besides.

Yes, it is, but it's a very dangerous development, and especially from a fascist dictator who may have WMDs he can give to said terrorists. Anyway, Iraq has good position to use for us to go after the real threat; it's a convenient base.

Do the math: Indonesia alone has over 200 million people. Jemaah Islamiya has an estimated 200 to 500 members, Laskar Jihad (which disbanded on its own initiative, or so they say) has around 15000, the Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines numbers around 1000 and the MILF at a guesstimate somewhere around the numbers of Laskar Jihad or maybe twice or three times that at most. So if we take the high end of all those estimates, we'll end up somewhere around less than 100,000 individuals that fit in the category of extremist, and 100,000 is a damned 0.5% of the Indonesian population. If you add the rest of the population in Southeast Asia, that figure goes so absurdly low as to be ridiculous when you examine the big picture. Besides, Islamic terrorism in Southeast Asia has markedly different overall goals than it has in the Middle East. Down there it's more about creating an Islamic country according to the vision of whichever group you listen to, and the means they use toward that is creating racial, ethnic and religious disharmony they can exploit. It's not that much about being anti-American or anti-Western, though they'll cheerfully lay the blame for whatever on the West, we're a convenient scapegoat. You want more on them, I'll talk to a few Singaporean and Philippino people I know, they'll give you an earful...

Yes, they want to create a Muslim super-state, carving up some of our allies in the process. The later is a direct threat to us. So is the large scale piracy in the region they use to fund their activities. Furthermore, ignoring their membership for a moment, they need a fair support base of sympathetic people in the populace to fund and maintain their activities, considerably increasing the number of people involved.

The house of Saud is Wahhabi, yes, but they are not extremists. some of them do have sympathy for the extremists, and the Saudi government often has to bend somewhat in the direction of the extremists in oreder to appease the population, but do you know why this is? The idiots encouraged the rise of the Wahhabite sect and their anti-Western stance in order to give the population something other than their own corruption and greed to fume about and failed to supervise them enough, so that the whole experiment backfired on their faces and landed them in their current mess. Now they do a balancing act between the West, which props their dictatorial regime up, and the domestic extremists who would like to slit their throats for being Western lapdogs.

Read the history of the Arabian penninsula, of the rise of Saudi Arabia, of the Wahhabi fortunes - Utterly linked to the Wahhabis. They are complete fanatics, the Sauds, if cunning ones. Yes, they play at our friends, but then, they have an interpetation of the Quran to support their doing that util they are ready to stab us in the back. Their populace is more fanatical than they are simply because they bought their priesthood off to their method with large contributions for religious education and massive religious construction projects..

Yes, the Saudi population is the most fundamentalist. But even if the fundies got in power there, they would not have a nuke on their hands. Don't know about the Gulf Emirates, but they don't have anywhere near the population to be very significant. The majority of Iran's population seems to be moving to a more secular direction, so why are you so worried about them? They have a fundie government that has fucked things up royally and is teetering precariously at the top and hopefully topples soon, so the best thing to do is to let them do it in peace and maybe lend them some rope to hang the fundies with if they run short.

I agree with you about Iran; but, again, Iran is Shi'ite.

Then how come the fundamentalist parties were the ones that made the biggest gains in the elections? Pakistan, already active in funding Islamic terrorism, especially in Kashmir, and possessed of nuclear weapons, is becoming very much more fundamentalist than it is or was. Not the government, yet, but the populace. Yet you do not find this a matter of concern?

Of course, but I trust that General Musharraf shall have the strength of character to carry through the necessary reform in the tribal regions.

And do you really advocate democracy only as long as the votes swing in favor of those you support? Because it sure sounds that way. What you advocate here is despotism: If they don't do as you would have them, ignore them and do what you want anyway.

No, it's just that I think that secularism is a necessary component of democracy, and that the populace has to think in a secular mindset before democracy can actually work.

Are you willing to turn that around and apply it to the American people and Christian fundamentalists, and the Israelis and their fundamentalists? If you are, then I'll give you that you're that being consistent, and if you aren't, well, that'd make you a hypocrite.

Of course. But you would be severely mistaken to think of any western country as being in the same place as a Muslim country; not since the Age of Reason. I worry over Israel being driven back there by exposure and its long trials; anything is possible after all. But really, even Jerry Falwell does not think like Osama bin Laden - He does not think in the context of reality being caused entirely by God. He doesn't because his culture doesn't think that way, and it's almost impossibly hard to get your mind around the concept if you aren't permeated in it.

It's a very, very different world over there.

You also conveniently ignore the fact that Islam is nowhere near as monolithic as it is being portrayed in the Western media, and given half a chance they'll cheerfully slaughter each other over differences of religious opinion, especially if you have Shi'ite vs. Sunni and a few regional conflicts of interest thrown in the mix.

Then why am I constantly emphasizing the Shi'ite Vs. Sunni difference?

Do you really want to set to boil that sort of a cauldron of hate? Do you have any idea of what you're talking about? I caught just a whiff of the fumes and that's enough to sicken a person for a lifetime, but you'd spoon-feed the stuff to hundreds of millions!

No. I just think that, rationally, it's the only way we can win. These people live in a totally different world, one where God causes everything, where reality is simply a random, an incidental series of events dictated by the whim of an almighty being.

I think that it may be that the only way we can shake them out of that is by demonstrating to them that their God has no power, that they are completely at our mercy. Just like it was demonstrated that Japan was helpless, and ultimately the Emperor was revealed to be a Man and not a God; and we would have to do that by killing many, many people.

I don't like the idea of doing that, please believe me, I don't. I just contemplate what I see of the Muslim world and think that it may be necessary, it may be the only thing we can do in the end. Hopefully not; but in the end we may have to resort to that, and I'm really just bringing up the possibility because I think it ought to be brought up.

We can't let our civilization fall because of inaction. What I'm saying is that, if we must defend our rational ideals against such religious primitivism, by the death of millions, then let the decision be debated, let it be rationally concluded that it must be done, and let it be done. I am bringing up the possibility that it may be necessary and hoping that it shall not be; I'm simply saying that we may need to wage a war on such a scale for rational purposes.

The Shah was an American-backed, extremely unpopular and cruel dictator, and it was his reign of incompetence that gave the opportunity for Islamic extremists to rise into power. Might be Iran has gone downhill, certainly economically, and also in social values if we use the Western value system, but has it by any chance that they've already hit rock bottom on their own and are climbing out of the pit?

No, they're still falling, faster actually. Furthermore, the Shah was actually rather competent - Iran was modernizing successfully and he made many correct decisions. He just angered the wrong people during the process and then in the final days made all of the wrong decisions at the wrong times. Nothing is assured, and the Shah could have held on to power.

Within a year of your conquest of Iraq the fundamentalists will be more entrenched in power than ever since the death of Khomeini, since it will allow them to turn all attention to the evil of America and blame all bad things on you. Let them sort it out on their own. Did you ever happen to ask why they are one of the more Western Muslim countries with regard to society? Education, which is better than in most of their neighboring countries, and ostracism by the West in general and the US in particular.

Remnants of their development under the Shah. The fundamentalists will not be entrenched; the example of liberty to Iraq will rather encourage those who would see them out. We will not need to do anything there...

Why would it not happen? People want to be free. The dreams of the ordinary people over there are not so much different than our own, prosperity, family, security, love. The change will be slow, but it will happen eventually. Education is key in this respect.

People want to be free? How arrogant of you! How arrogant! That is a very spiritual region; they do not look first to freedom - But rather to eternity, my friend! Their dreams are to be fulfilled by closer adherence to the Sheriat Law. That is what their religious leaders tell them and that is what their religious books support. When something is wrong, adhere more closely to the law, throw out your leaders and find more spiritual ones.

The idea of freedom exists there; but in its most nascent form, and it competes with this awesome and ancient force. No, freedom is not what they will turn to. Certainly not secularism, and that, at any rate, is the only sort of effective freedom, for as the Islamic Republic has shown us, you cannot have a true Republic as long as the Priests still have a share of the pie.

You have a very broad definition of radical, much broader than the one commonly used. I especially disagree with #3 because that's just a blanket brush. I'll agree to the protion of it that defines people who provide support for radical NGOs as radicals, but people who do not actively oppose a radical government are not necessarily radicals. There are valid reasons for not doing this, some of which were vividly imprinted on my mind in a conversation with an Iraqi who had had to flee the country long ago.

I don't also agree with the part of the whole of Saudi Arabia. Yes, the Wahhabite interpretation is radical, but not all people there support it, only a very large majority. And of that majority, not all support it to the same extent as the fanatics who preach it. It's not black and white, there's shades of gray, though I will readily admit that we're looking at pretty dark shades of gray in this case...

Point #2 I almost entirely agree with, though there are examples such as Khatami who are trying to change the radicalist power structure from within...

This group of Pakistani nationalists started a flame campaign against us and we went to membership by approval.

Ah, okay then.

I agree. The people are not pleased with their governments! But they're not looking to democracy as a solution - They're looking to fundamentalist Islam as a solution.

Yes, they are, because they'll take a homegrown oppression over what they see as foreign oppression any day of the week. It is ignorance which fuels this choice, because democracy is a Western concept and the West has been portrayed as decadent, corrupt and evil for decades there, and on top of that has oppressed them in the past. And the icing on the cake is that we're infidels. Let them work at it. Iran turned to fundamentalist Islam for solutions and didn't find them, and is now looking for other solutions. You don't just take a system which requires a majority of the population to be educated and informed enough to make a choice and plonk it smack in the middle of an environment where the majority of the population is ignorant, uneducated, actively misinformed and very often illiterate as well and expect it to work. You can't dictate democracy, and even if your transplant was successful, it won't be a carbon copy. Cultural considerations (apart from the religion) must be taken into account. Besides, there are movements that support some sort of democratic Islam and they are growing in popularity, albeit very slowly when you compare absolute figures.

It's the same thing that is going on in Nigeria, right now for example, with the huge problems that country is having where the northern Islamic states have instituted the Sheriat.

Hardly. The troubles of Nigeria have their origin in tribal rivalries and the unstability in that part of the world is not mitigated by the fact that national borders have been arbitrarily drawn on the map without regard for old tribal boundaries. The religious rivalry only makes things worse. Corruption, poverty, favoritism and such things make for a powerful recipe of disillusionment for the common people and make them susceptible to peddled quick-fixes like Sharia, which won't really help fix the underlying problems at all.

Since the Sheriat is the unchanging word of God (as recorded in the Quran and the Hadith - Most Muslim sects accord the Hadith virtually the same authority as the Quran), it is utterly, completely absolute. And when they have problems they do not try to change it, they do not look to secular alternatives.

Yeah, they don't change the texts, but there are many ways you can interpret the text. You don't see Christians changing the Bible, which they regard to be the absolute word of God (though not necessarily literally), and look at how many interpretations you've got...

Instead they try to improve the application of the Sheriat. Clearly, they're failing God - That's why things are going wrong. More precisely, because of the ingrained despotism of the Sheriat, their leaders are failing God. So of course there is much dissension in the Arab world today. They see their problems as being caused by corrupt leaders who do not obey the Law of the Book properly. That is what the Wahhabi teachers tell them. They tell them that if they had a true Islamic government, things would be better, God would bring about prosperity for their nations, and the reign of the Infidel would be ended.

And? Then let the Western-propped governments topple and let them have their joy of Islamic government. Let them fuck things up the ass with an electric cattle-prod and fix them on their own. That's what happened to Iran, and it seems to be working. We're not talking about instant processes here, but things that take generations to happen.

the number is growing as long as the House of Saud continues to fund Wahhabi preaching.

The preaching by the Wahhabites can't be the only reason. If there were no other external reasons, they wouldn't find purchase. Problem is, they have a very convenient external target to heap all the blame on: The West in general and the US in particular. But it's always 'Death to America' that they shout, not 'Death to Europeans' (not that the extremists make a distinction, really, but not all of those teeming millions are extremists). I've suggested again that America should review its foreign policy, with the long term (50+ year) goals in mind instead of the current short-sighted see-sawing in pursuit of short-term (2-10 years) interests. There's a lot that could be accomplished by changes that are not even very far reaching in scope, as well as a change in attitude. Unfortunately I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Every Muslim country in the world which has the Sheriat Law as its law code is a theocracy . The Sheriat - The Quran and the Hadith - they do not differentiate between religion and government . There is no difference whatsoever. The government is not "influenced" by religion. The government is religion, and religion is government. This is the case in every country with the Sheriat Law Code.

I understand the distinction all too painfully clearly, I've had it hammered into me by a Muslim fundamentalist by the handle of Salahudeen over at Heavengames.com main forums. Indeed, the Islam these fundies promote is the government and the government is religion, no separation, not even the concept of them being separate. However, places where they do implement some bastardization of the Sharia these pure Islamists promote, the government is still separated in most cases. Nigeria, Morocco, many of the other places, they still have separate governments though they are heavily influenced by the clergy. There is a difference between them, though it is minor.

Islam does not have any concept of the two being different. They are a single integrated whole. The entire system of government is derived from God in a clear line down from heaven, with every working of the government mandated from above. It's a perfect system for the 7th century but it was hopelessly outdated once we got the Renaissance.

Yes, it is outdated. Especially the strictly literal interpretations that allow no leeway for independent thought (which is possible if you have brain and the education to use it). You'd probably be surprised at what an educated fundamentalist with a good knowledge of those texts has to say, as opposed to a fundamentalist who has memorized a shitload of stuff by rote but has no understanding of it. Remind me to sic Salahudeen on you sometime, the fireworks will be spectacular...

They're not a holdover from the Colonial Era - Those enclaves have been there nearly five hundred years. They're nearly as old as the Sultanate of Morocco in fact, and most of that time they've been Spanish possessions, or at least possession of the ruling house of Spain.

Spain was a colonial power five hundred years ago... Not that it matters, your point stands if it's the later period of time you refer to.

Yes, some of it comes from Algeria. The government in Algeria is a secular dictatorship with problems of extremism in the southern tribal regions, which is where the fundamentalism in Morocco has been supported from.

As I thought. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the problems in Algeria start when aforementioned secular dictatorship simply annulled election results because they didn't like it that religious parties were winning? Unless my memory has become very shoddy lately, it was that which sparked the bloodbath going on in that country and radicalised the whole region.

Basically, Iraq and Syria are dangerous because they're playing with fire, and because they are of an ideological background which is unstable and has caused untold human suffering in the past.

On fascism in the Arab world, what do you mean long time? Result of the meddling of European colonial powers there and the formation of nation states that were pretty arbitrarily defined if you look at the map. As for Iraq and Syria being dangerous, yes, in different ways and to different people, but are they less dangerous than Saudi Arabia and Pakistan? You've already made clear what you think of the Saudis, but seems your main objection to Syria and Iraq is that they are hostile to US interests. Yes, they play with fire. So does the US in many respects, though not in the same way, and it has done so in exactly the same way in the past (but not within its own borders).

Furthermore I should note that we did not fund terrorist organizations in South America but rather certain organizations devoted to defending their nations from communism, which fought only communists, and did not engage in acts of terror.

You're going to get crucified for that...
So the death squads in El Salvador and the dozens of other incidents can just be ignored? Sorry, but doesn't wash. The end does not justify the means, especially there. That others did the dirty work does not lessen the moral culpability of the US because the US supported terrorist organizations and governments that engaged in state terrorism.

Yes, it is, but it's a very dangerous development, and especially from a fascist dictator who may have WMDs he can give to said terrorists. Anyway, Iraq has good position to use for us to go after the real threat; it's a convenient base.

And he'd stay in power how many days after those WMDs were traced back to him? I don't think so. and the attitude that you should be entitled to invade a country in order to launch an attack on something you see as a potential threat doesn't raise my opinion of your views at all.

Yes, they want to create a Muslim super-state, carving up some of our allies in the process. The later is a direct threat to us. So is the large scale piracy in the region they use to fund their activities. Furthermore, ignoring their membership for a moment, they need a fair support base of sympathetic people in the populace to fund and maintain their activities, considerably increasing the number of people involved.

Anything to justify your personal crusade then? What about the Chinese, don't they pose a greater threat, and wouldn't it therefore be wiser to take care of them first? You make a lot of claims, but fail to back them up. How are minuscule extremist groups in Indonesian islands a threat tothe US? How is the piracy a threat to the US? How is even the breakup of Indonesia a threat to the US? A real threat instead of just making a slight dent in the economy?

Of course, but I trust that General Musharraf shall have the strength of character to carry through the necessary reform in the tribal regions.

What sort of reform do you mean? Forcible secularisation? We went over this already... Musharraf, despite being a dictator, is limited in power as far as kowtowing to Western interests goes, because if he kowtows too deeply, he'll just be raising his ass high enough to get it royally kicked by the people he pisses off by doing so.

No, it's just that I think that secularism is a necessary component of democracy, and that the populace has to think in a secular mindset before democracy can actually work.

For a carbon copy of our democracies to work, yes, but I believe I said something about that earlier. And if that were true, how come do we have democracy in the West in the first place, because the West has been rather religious up until recently?

Of course. But you would be severely mistaken to think of any western country as being in the same place as a Muslim country;

The example was valid, even if our fundies aren't quite as bad as theirs. They're still bad enough.

even Jerry Falwell does not think like Osama bin Laden - He does not think in the context of reality being caused entirely by God. He doesn't because his culture doesn't think that way, and it's almost impossibly hard to get your mind around the concept if you aren't permeated in it.

There's plenty of people in the West, notably religious fundies, whose mindset is a carbon copy of Osama bin Laden's, even if their frame of reference is different.

It's a very, very different world over there.

I know, and I also know better than to just try and forcibly wreck it in order to cram my vision down the throat of people who will resist to the death.

Then why am I constantly emphasizing the Shi'ite Vs. Sunni difference?

And constantly ignoring the subdivisions in those categories? You can also divide Christianity into Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants, but is that the end of it?

No. I just think that, rationally, it's the only way we can win. These people live in a totally different world, one where God causes everything, where reality is simply a random, an incidental series of events dictated by the whim of an almighty being.

You're making a hasty generalisation about hundreds of millions of people, based on a few nutcases, and then ignoring all other possibilities. Open your eyes and take a closer look. There exist shades of gray where you only see black and white!

I think that it may be that the only way we can shake them out of that is by demonstrating to them that their God has no power, that they are completely at our mercy. Just like it was demonstrated that Japan was helpless, and ultimately the Emperor was revealed to be a Man and not a God; and we would have to do that by killing many, many people.

If a genocide that would make messieurs Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot look like schoolboys breaking a few windows is the only way you can think of to demonstrate power, you're a monster. Do have any idea of the horror your casual suggestion entails? And for the umpteenth time, Japan was geographically isolated and small in size, which made it possible in the forst place. The Muslim world is not, and you do not have the capability to do so.

I don't like the idea of doing that, please believe me, I don't. I just contemplate what I see of the Muslim world and think that it may be necessary, it may be the only thing we can do in the end. Hopefully not; but in the end we may have to resort to that, and I'm really just bringing up the possibility because I think it ought to be brought up.

And it ought to be smacked down every time it is. Repeatedly and hard. Have you even bothered to look at the alternatives? Obviously not, if this is the best you can come up with.

We can't let our civilization fall because of inaction. What I'm saying is that, if we must defend our rational ideals against such religious primitivism, by the death of millions, then let the decision be debated, let it be rationally concluded that it must be done, and let it be done. I am bringing up the possibility that it may be necessary and hoping that it shall not be; I'm simply saying that we may need to wage a war on such a scale for rational purposes.

Western civilization is hardly as fragile as you make it out to be. People like you, products of that same civilization who lack even basic humanity and would do that sort of horrors, are more a threat to it than Islamic fundamentalism.

People want to be free? How arrogant of you! How arrogant! That is a very spiritual region; they do not look first to freedom - But rather to eternity, my friend! Their dreams are to be fulfilled by closer adherence to the Sheriat Law. That is what their religious leaders tell them and that is what their religious books support. When something is wrong, adhere more closely to the law, throw out your leaders and find more spiritual ones.

Arrogant of me?! You dare to ask me that after your own presumption? Yes, they are spiritual, but do they need freedom any less, do they crave it any less? Look at Iran! Yes, they worry about eternity, but they do not expect or need every action to be regulated by the state/theocracy, even if they did have the Caliphate back! They are not all carbon copies of Osama bin Laden or Ruhollah Khomeini! Have you talked to people from that region? Really talked to anyone from there? I have, online and off when I've met some, and they are just like you and me, with the same dreams and hopes. Their religion is different, and perhaps more central to their lives, but they are not mindless fanatics, except for that small minority!

Anyway, looks like we're not about to convince each other in the least, so I wonder why I bother.

Edi

Edi wrote:You have a very broad definition of radical, much broader than the one commonly used. I especially disagree with #3 because that's just a blanket brush. I'll agree to the protion of it that defines people who provide support for radical NGOs as radicals, but people who do not actively oppose a radical government are not necessarily radicals. There are valid reasons for not doing this, some of which were vividly imprinted on my mind in a conversation with an Iraqi who had had to flee the country long ago.

Okay, I can understand that. The problem is that, whether you're being forced not to do something or you're willingly not acting, your inaction is still harming people. Furthermore, in Iran we can see that action, that resistance, is possible. Even in the most brutal of countries, the will of the people can't be resisted -- Saddam couldn't kill everyone in Iraq, obviously.

I know you can counter with, well, "it's unreasonable to expect them to resist and die for freedom with they have family to worry about, and there's no hope of succeeding against such an all-powerful and Tyrannical government." I would reply to that: "Well, they're unwilling to risk their lives, and the lives of their families, to overthrow this government, then when this government makes decisions which brings them into the line of fire, it makes them partially culpable."

IE, if they refuse to act for fear of their families, and the families of others get killed, a drop of the blood descends on to their hands by that inaction, and tough luck if they end up "collateral damage" -- Because someone else's family has already ended up "collateral damage" due to the desires of the ruler they did not act against.

I don't also agree with the part of the whole of Saudi Arabia. Yes, the Wahhabite interpretation is radical, but not all people there support it, only a very large majority. And of that majority, not all support it to the same extent as the fanatics who preach it. It's not black and white, there's shades of gray, though I will readily admit that we're looking at pretty dark shades of gray in this case...

The only people in Saudi Arabia who aren't Wahhabi are foreign workers who are treated like slaves, and foreign diplomats who are in potentially the same situation as the diplomats in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion if the muslim clerics get the people whipped up.

Seriously, there are indeed divisions in Saudi Arabia, between the city people and the bedouin, but the city people are the ones who support Osama - The bedouin are even more conservative, and don't support him because they're loyal to the monarchy.

Point #2 I almost entirely agree with, though there are examples such as Khatami who are trying to change the radicalist power structure from within...

And Khatami was a relatively conservative choice after over a hundred other more liberal candidates were rejected by the Ayatollahs, and even his relatively minor reforms have been so completely stymied that he's threatened to resign on at least one occasion.

Ah, okay then.

You're welcome to come by. We have another Finn, at least, and maybe two who post there occasionally. Differences in opinion are welcome, though if you annoy the Senior Chief, just let it roll off, because he was the real thing back in 'nam and he acts like it. *grins*

Yes, they are, because they'll take a homegrown oppression over what they see as foreign oppression any day of the week. It is ignorance which fuels this choice, because democracy is a Western concept and the West has been portrayed as decadent, corrupt and evil for decades there, and on top of that has oppressed them in the past. And the icing on the cake is that we're infidels. Let them work at it. Iran turned to fundamentalist Islam for solutions and didn't find them, and is now looking for other solutions. You don't just take a system which requires a majority of the population to be educated and informed enough to make a choice and plonk it smack in the middle of an environment where the majority of the population is ignorant, uneducated, actively misinformed and very often illiterate as well and expect it to work. You can't dictate democracy, and even if your transplant was successful, it won't be a carbon copy. Cultural considerations (apart from the religion) must be taken into account. Besides, there are movements that support some sort of democratic Islam and they are growing in popularity, albeit very slowly when you compare absolute figures.

Right, but look how secular democracy was successful in Turkey. Uhm.. Look, I don't care how secular democracy happens there, I just want it to happen. If some guy got a secular Arab movement going in copy of Kemal Pasha and defeated our armies as we tried to conquer the Arab world, and created a unified Arab secular democracy, I'd be as pleased as hell. I just think it isn't likely, and that imposition will work better.

The people are afraid of, and taught to hate the west - But, for example, in the MacArthurian Regency situation, there are ways to create democracy in the countries that do not have it, where things are ripe for it, where the populace is not so fanatical. Syria and Iraq are the best possibilities right now. In coordination with a reconstruction of the occupied nation, the infusion of aide in the Marshall Plan type, you'd provide demonstratable benefits.

For the more fanatical nations it would not work, I grant you, until you break their will first. For nations like Japan that meant large-scale civilian casualties. But it can be done.

Another option might be to detach the Hejaz from Saudi Arabia after a conventional and limited ground war with that State, and to assign it to a friendly Hashemite Jordan, or a democratic Egypt. This would allow us to implement democracy in the states where it is possible, and perhaps also negate Islamic terror in the states where the fundamentalism has too great a grip, without massive civilian death tolls. But it would require a recognition that we would have to completely redraw the boundaries of the Middle East, by our leaders. And I do not know what it would take for that to happen.

Hardly. The troubles of Nigeria have their origin in tribal rivalries and the unstability in that part of the world is not mitigated by the fact that national borders have been arbitrarily drawn on the map without regard for old tribal boundaries. The religious rivalry only makes things worse. Corruption, poverty, favoritism and such things make for a powerful recipe of disillusionment for the common people and make them susceptible to peddled quick-fixes like Sharia, which won't really help fix the underlying problems at all.

Yes, and Nigeria is one of the better countries in Africa, that is, below the Sahara. But it doesn't change the fact that Muslims see the Sheriat as a solution, not a problem.

Yeah, they don't change the texts, but there are many ways you can interpret the text. You don't see Christians changing the Bible, which they regard to be the absolute word of God (though not necessarily literally), and look at how many interpretations you've got...

Oh, precisely, and that's where Mahdism comes from. But the Eastern tradition of Despotism is firmly ingrained in the Quran, and when it is religiously supported as the word of God, it is quite hard to change..

And? Then let the Western-propped governments topple and let them have their joy of Islamic government. Let them fuck things up the ass with an electric cattle-prod and fix them on their own. That's what happened to Iran, and it seems to be working. We're not talking about instant processes here, but things that take generations to happen.

And what if they decide to wage jihad against the West during that period, as all signs indicate they inevitably would? They shall simply be more powerful in that stage, at least briefly. Furthermore, the economic disruption would be massive, not just from oil, either, and western civilization lives off of trade. No, that isn't an option.

The preaching by the Wahhabites can't be the only reason. If there were no other external reasons, they wouldn't find purchase. Problem is, they have a very convenient external target to heap all the blame on: The West in general and the US in particular. But it's always 'Death to America' that they shout, not 'Death to Europeans' (not that the extremists make a distinction, really, but not all of those teeming millions are extremists). I've suggested again that America should review its foreign policy, with the long term (50+ year) goals in mind instead of the current short-sighted see-sawing in pursuit of short-term (2-10 years) interests. There's a lot that could be accomplished by changes that are not even very far reaching in scope, as well as a change in attitude. Unfortunately I don't see that happening anytime soon.

I agree about long term goals, though I differ very much in what they should be. However, as to why America is hated, I suggest you read this article:

http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson080202.asp

I understand the distinction all too painfully clearly, I've had it hammered into me by a Muslim fundamentalist by the handle of Salahudeen over at Heavengames.com main forums. Indeed, the Islam these fundies promote is the government and the government is religion, no separation, not even the concept of them being separate. However, places where they do implement some bastardization of the Sharia these pure Islamists promote, the government is still separated in most cases. Nigeria, Morocco, many of the other places, they still have separate governments though they are heavily influenced by the clergy. There is a difference between them, though it is minor.

No, there isn't. Yes, the ruler of the government isn't a member of the clergy, but he occupies a place in the religious order of the universe, and has certain religious duties to perform according to the Quran. The only possible example is Nigeria, because though the Islamic State governments are under Sheriat law, the Federal government isn't. The combination is total when you have Sheriat law instituted. Everyone occupies a place in the conceived religious hierarchy.

Yes, it is outdated. Especially the strictly literal interpretations that allow no leeway for independent thought (which is possible if you have brain and the education to use it). You'd probably be surprised at what an educated fundamentalist with a good knowledge of those texts has to say, as opposed to a fundamentalist who has memorized a shitload of stuff by rote but has no understanding of it. Remind me to sic Salahudeen on you sometime, the fireworks will be spectacular...

Me? An admirer of Voltaire, someone whom, as Gibbon commented, "caused some distress" with the Ottoman ambassador to France? I almost don't want to think about that. Another part of me...

...Relishes it. *grins*

Or we could invite him to David, Suphi, Dirk and Stu's board. Always like differences of opinion, like I said.

Spain was a colonial power five hundred years ago... Not that it matters, your point stands if it's the later period of time you refer to.

Well, the question is - How long to you possess land before it becomes your's? I mean, okay, so, fine, Spain was getting going at Colonialism, but... Five centuries of possession is a long time, and it wasn't like beating up the natives. It was a stand-up fight between two Mediterranean kingdoms. The Moroccans should accept that it modified their border to dis-include two cities and some islands a half a millenia ago, and stop whining.

As I thought. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the problems in Algeria start when aforementioned secular dictatorship simply annulled election results because they didn't like it that religious parties were winning? Unless my memory has become very shoddy lately, it was that which sparked the bloodbath going on in that country and radicalised the whole region.

The problems have been going on there since the French left; I'd need to look it up. I don't pay as much attention to North Africa as I should in the modern era.

On fascism in the Arab world, what do you mean long time? Result of the meddling of European colonial powers there and the formation of nation states that were pretty arbitrarily defined if you look at the map.

There were fascist parties in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq from nearly as early as there were in Italy and Germany.

You're going to get crucified for that...
So the death squads in El Salvador and the dozens of other incidents can just be ignored? Sorry, but doesn't wash. The end does not justify the means, especially there. That others did the dirty work does not lessen the moral culpability of the US because the US supported terrorist organizations and governments that engaged in state terrorism.

Communist infiltrators/sympathizers are a legitimate target. Communists are terrorists; their goal, after all, is to establish terror states. Guerilla fighters who engage in such actions are not terrorists as long as they limit their actions to legitimate targets. And communists are a legitimate target.

And he'd stay in power how many days after those WMDs were traced back to him? I don't think so. and the attitude that you should be entitled to invade a country in order to launch an attack on something you see as a potential threat doesn't raise my opinion of your views at all.

Well, we might nuke him, but we wouldn't invade him, if he had the Bomb. It's called strategic paralysis. Conversely, that means he'd probably never do that, almost surely not. But we can't be sure, and Saddam is a fascist, from the fascist ideology, the looniest of political mindsets. So it's reasonable to assume normal conventions may go out the window for him.

Anything to justify your personal crusade then? What about the Chinese, don't they pose a greater threat, and wouldn't it therefore be wiser to take care of them first? You make a lot of claims, but fail to back them up. How are minuscule extremist groups in Indonesian islands a threat tothe US? How is the piracy a threat to the US? How is even the breakup of Indonesia a threat to the US? A real threat instead of just making a slight dent in the economy?

Firstly, duties to our allies. Secondly, it might be considerably more than a dent considering those shipping routes. But duties to our allies is most important.

What sort of reform do you mean? Forcible secularisation? We went over this already... Musharraf, despite being a dictator, is limited in power as far as kowtowing to Western interests goes, because if he kowtows too deeply, he'll just be raising his ass high enough to get it royally kicked by the people he pisses off by doing so.

General Mustafa Kemal Pasha proved able to pull it off, changing the remnants of the Ottoman Empire and saving it from total ruin. Either Musharraf has the strength to do it also, or he does not. His one lack, I grant, is that of the victories that our great seculariser of Muslim history had. So perhaps he will fail because he does not have the popularity of a great victor, and defender of his nation. But Musharraf can at least try.

For a carbon copy of our democracies to work, yes, but I believe I said something about that earlier. And if that were true, how come do we have democracy in the West in the first place, because the West has been rather religious up until recently?

Well, the only form of democracy that can work is one in the western tradition - It doesn't have to be a carbon copy, you can have a Roman or French style Consular Republic or whatever, or Direct Democracy or so on, but the Western tradition has the unique heritage of democracy and nobody else has figured it out yet. Tribal assemblies come close, but that don't have the body and codification of written law that comes with a true State.

As for how we got the secular part? Well, the Greeks came up with it, and then we implemented it during the Age of Reason with lots and lots of blood involved over a long period of time.

I know, and I also know better than to just try and forcibly wreck it in order to cram my vision down the throat of people who will resist to the death.

That may be our only choice. I hope not; but it may be. And not all of them will resist to the death. They never do.

And constantly ignoring the subdivisions in those categories? You can also divide Christianity into Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants, but is that the end of it?

No, and I could bring up the countless other divisions in Islam from Druse onwards, too, along with the endless history of Mahdist uprisings and whatever else, but I didn't think it relevant to the discussion to display my knowledge thereof.

You're making a hasty generalisation about hundreds of millions of people, based on a few nutcases, and then ignoring all other possibilities. Open your eyes and take a closer look. There exist shades of gray where you only see black and white!

It's not hasty, and it is not based on a few nutcases only.

If a genocide that would make messieurs Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot look like schoolboys breaking a few windows is the only way you can think of to demonstrate power, you're a monster. Do have any idea of the horror your casual suggestion entails? And for the umpteenth time, Japan was geographically isolated and small in size, which made it possible in the forst place. The Muslim world is not, and you do not have the capability to do so.

It's the only way to break the will of an entire fanatical society that I know of, the only way that has been proven to work. Now, there are other solutions that may work to solve this problem, if we act quickly. I mentioned one above.

As for your comments regarding Japan, I've mentioned MacArthurian Regency and Iraq in another thread, and do not want to repost it here; please indulge me.

And it ought to be smacked down every time it is. Repeatedly and hard. Have you even bothered to look at the alternatives? Obviously not, if this is the best you can come up with.

I have, and I've considered several viable ones if they're acted upon quickly. I just thought to bring up the worst case scenario. Makes for an interesting debate.

Western civilization is hardly as fragile as you make it out to be. People like you, products of that same civilization who lack even basic humanity and would do that sort of horrors, are more a threat to it than Islamic fundamentalism.

Any civilization can fall; our survival will only be when the whole world is western civilization, and even then, we must spread into space. As for my own personality: Simply said, people like me look at a situation as make pessimistic projections, nothing more.

Arrogant of me?! You dare to ask me that after your own presumption? Yes, they are spiritual, but do they need freedom any less, do they crave it any less? Look at Iran! Yes, they worry about eternity, but they do not expect or need every action to be regulated by the state/theocracy, even if they did have the Caliphate back! They are not all carbon copies of Osama bin Laden or Ruhollah Khomeini! Have you talked to people from that region? Really talked to anyone from there? I have, online and off when I've met some, and they are just like you and me, with the same dreams and hopes. Their religion is different, and perhaps more central to their lives, but they are not mindless fanatics, except for that small minority!

Agreed. But Iran is Shi'ite, was heavily secularised under the Shah, and has been given a long example of stupid and direct rule by Theologians. The real threat will come from the Sunni world, and in particular the Wahhabis, and they do not have the same experience with secular rule, nor with the incompetence of direct theological rule.

And I have spoken with some people who are Muslim in my lifespan, thank you, who are from Muslim nations.

Anyway, looks like we're not about to convince each other in the least, so I wonder why I bother.

Edi

I think it just demonstrates the fundamental differences between an America rising to Imperial power (On the Periclean Athenian model), and a Scandanavian Republic which is willingly in the EU, and previously was subjected to Russian Tsarist dominance. We're both western nations, but the shift in mindset within that spectrum is quite different.

Well, thank you for the interesting debate.

I'll get back to you next week. No time during the weekend (no net access either...)

Edi