Posted on 09/08/2005 9:06:52 AM PDT by manny613
Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida acolytes around the globe are a lot of things: terrorists, murderers, extremists, theocratic medievalists, homophobic hoodlums and misogynistic thugs...
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Osama is too moderate to become the leader of the true muslims. Anyone who follows the quran as it is written, will become a murderous terrorist. That is what their religion is all about.
the support numbers are depressing. Shows that region is still the butt-hole of the world...but there is small hope
I have never heard of Tim Duncan, Kirk Gibson or Carly Patterson. Who are they? Of course, I'd never heard of Dale Earnhardt until the intense media coverage of his death. I was amazed there was so much media attention being paid to a man I never knew existed.
At the end of the day, bin Laden and his associates are in the public relations game. So the recently released results of a long-term metasurvey conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project will come as a major disappointment to the mullah marketers.
Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam
by Gilles Kepel, Anthony F. Roberts (Translator)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0674008774/104-6311178-1241565?v=glance
Hardcover: 464 pages
Publisher: Belknap Press (April 15, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN: 0674008774
From Publishers Weekly
In this history of fundamentalist Islam, Kepel stands conventional wisdom on its head, asserting that the spate of Islamist violence during the last few years is a result not of the movement's success, but of its failure. A professor at Paris's Institute for Political Studies, Kepel clearly traces the rise of the contemporary Islamist movement from its origins in the mid-20th century through its later appearance in countries such as Malaysia, Algeria and Turkey, as well as in Western Europe. Its apogee, he argues cogently, was the 1979 revolution in Iran that brought about the defeat of the Shah and the rise of a fundamentalist Islamic regime. But while ideologies that fused Islam with political power gained adherents throughout the world in the ensuing 20 years, says Kepel, in no other country were Islamists able to seize and hold power for more than a few years, a factor that he attributes to the ideology's inability to attract both the middle class and the poor. "Muslims no longer view Islamism as the source of utopia, and this more pragmatic vision augurs well for the future," he writes. Despite some outpourings of support, he believes, Osama bin Laden and his followers squandered much of the movement's political capital with its attacks on American institutions, most notably the World Trade Center. Kepel's approach is not without weaknesses in many places around the globe, fundamentalist political Islam has transformed society and politics, even if Islamists have not been able to attain political rule. But amid the plethora of books on Islam released since September 11, this work stands out, both for its erudition and its provocative thesis.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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