Posted on 10/19/2003 12:53:02 PM PDT by Bobby777
Not all, just a significant majority. Furthermore, "we too" comparisons bewteen Islam and Christianity are generally based on ignorance of both historical and contemporary facts. I would suggest you carefully read through the following thread and the links in it.
But most people don't want to see what kind of war it is, as it is a war with a socio/economic/religious philosophy bent upon world domination which entails the killing of all who won't ascribe to that philosophy. It is a war that we need to take seriously and win because our antagonists certainly do. It is a war started by Islam against all philosophies different than theirs and mostly aimed at Judeo-Christian based Western cultures thriving in the success of capitalism.
It is a war that unfortunately but in all reality we can't win by logic. Only brute force and the utter anihilation of Islamists can insure our survival.
Our society is not yet ready for that reality, but believe me the Islamists in their bent to destroy us will get us to the point. Equally as unfortunate it is going to take an event in this or another Western nation that makes 911 seem like a sunday school pinic.
Check.
"Islam is barbaric."
That is up to a lot of people. They can make it so by taking the side of the barbarians in the war, or they can make it not so by taking the side of civilization in the war.
It is a free choice. Every Muslim can get out of bed tomorrow and denounce the terrorists as giving them a bad name, and clean house. Or can get out of bed tomorrow and cheer the terrorists on. None of them is forced to do one rather than the other.
Either way we must fight those that side with the terrorists, certainly. Anybody who likes can issue his prediction about where they will go or how they will split. But the point is not to predict anything, it is to change something. We want as many of them getting out of bed on one side, and as few getting out of bed on the other side, as possible. Tomorrow, and every day.
"is Western Civilization worth saving"
Yes it is, but that is not the question above. The question above is whether one sixth of the human race is worth saving. And a civilization that says "no" to that question may be many things, but one thing it won't be.
Christian.
Still in denial. Sigh.
Radical Islam is an insane murder cult, "moderate" Islam is its Trojan Horse in the West.
Iraq is one of the more secular of the Mideast countries
The war is against Islam, as distinct from against the populace of the Muslim countries, just as the Cold War was against Communism rather than against the people of the old Soviet Union
You got that right.
Of course, they know that, but can't say it for obvious reasons.
How do you think we'll be judged in 1,000 years? While I can think of more complex outcomes, there are basically four sides to this issue: the west (led by America) remains tolerant, fights Islamic extremists, and wins. Or it loses because after all, a hudna is just a hudna, and our birthrate has relegated us to the past.
Or we fight every Islam everywhere on the planet, leading to a genocidal unleashing of our doomsday weaponry. And we win, because we're just that powerful. Or else we lose because we alienate every remaining human being on the planet, having rendered ourselves into guilt-wracked impotents.
(What we're leaving out of the discussion is what China and Russia, plus France are doing to either make this situation worse -- or better, as the case may be.)
My WWII vet dad and I agree: escallation of hostilities should have a clear goal; to retain our humanity, we cannot simply push this world war (and that is what it is) to the next level without knowing what we can obtain towards victory by doing so. Any U.S. aggression that could lead to using WMDs should have a clear goal in reducing overall suffering and loss of life. Until we know what we want, we need to take precaution. There is still hope for the future. I think Rice and Bush are taking the long view. Let's just hope 1,000 years from now the human race looks back on this choice as a wise one.
I came to an interesting conclusion based on this principle: the DPRK will stand, but Iran's fundamentalist regime must fall. The DPRK probably already has nukes, but we can stop the Iranian mullahs from getting them if we take drastic measures now. This might not be the wrong choice to make, given Iran's continual support for Hezbollah and other extremist groups merely on the basis of Islamic nationalism.
Maybe I'm just taking a hypothetical scenario to its illogical extremes, but it makes sense. While there's still time to prevent yet another Islamic country from obtaining WMDs, we have to act. We'll see what Rice and Bush do. Let's hope the people of Iran make it through the next few months safely. Ledeen says the Ayatollahs are closer to testing nukes than we realized.
In any case, Rice and Bush are doing what one would expect based on my father's criteria: without knowing the results of escallating, they are taking a longer route. I support that. Millions of peoples' innocent lives are in the balance. When we nuked Nagasaki on 11:02 am, August 9, 1945, we killed many people who had nothing to do with the second world war. But we also obtained total surrender of the whole nation, millions of enemy combatants. Doing so meant fewer casualties overall and the liberation of thousands of our POWs, one of whom was my uncle. A clear result was obtained, and fewer people died.
Today, we can still hope to encourage moderate Islam while the unstoppable progress of modernity seeps from the west into Islamic culture. They have their "Mecca cola" but it's cola -- still a western invention! I say we have already won, we won when we were victorious at the end of the second world war. Medievalism is dead, and a few nutcase extremists can be managed with direct application of force. Until we know this isn't true, we should be very careful.
We could call this a war between civilizations in public today, but with other forces moving through our cultures, we might also be able to win just by removing the perpetrators. History would judge us harshly for the deaths of millions of people if we didn't actually need to raise the stakes yet.
The coming years are going to require us to have more courage than we ever thought we had. But my father assures me that we can find it in ourselves.
The problem is that the 'troubling' Koranic quotes are taken in context and are followed by many Islamic teachers holding high positions and by millions of followers- in context.
And the odds of one or more of the above happening are quite high.
Well we know it's not a jet airliner flying into the Pentagon.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.