Posted on 03/04/2006 6:31:39 PM PST by Dark Skies
The recent spate of violence gripping Iraq in the wake of the Askariya Shiite shrine bombing conclusively - and tragically - demonstrates that ideas of hatred cause wars and claim thousands of lives. A war of ideas is under way that manifests itself in the conflict between the extremist Sunnis and Shiites, as well as between the West and Islamist terrorists.
In the latest violent convulsion in Iraq, this homicidal rage has nothing to do with the United States. It has to do with the political ideology of militant Islam, which traces its development to the establishment of the radical Wahhabi sect in the 18th century in the Arabian Peninsula, then to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928 and, finally, to Ayatollah Khomeini's seizure of power in Iran in 1979.
Today, the United States, Western Europeans and other allies, as well as moderate Muslims, find themselves in a global battle for hearts and minds. Except that, unlike the Cold War - the West's last great war of ideas - this enemy is barbaric if possible and deadly and suicidal if necessary.
This is a battle against those who want to destroy the secular Western societies of Europe and the United States, moderate Muslim societies throughout the Middle East, as well as India, Indonesia and Israel, to mention just a few. Negotiation is impossible; defeat unthinkable. The challenge before the West and its allies is to utterly discredit the totalitarian ideologies of jihadism just as it discredited Nazism and communism before.
Also, unlike most wars of the past, cold and hot, this one could take generations. It calls not only for public diplomacy, but also for political covert action, something the United States hasn't attempted since the early stages of the Cold War. This campaign, fought largely on the battlefields of information and media, pits the West not against a state or coalition of states but against an array of radical organizations and the governments that support them.
Truth challenges
The nature of the conflict requires overt and covert action. Our opponents and their financial backers employ stealth, and sometimes so must we. We'll never curb the radical Islamic brainwashing taking place in madrassas throughout the greater Middle East without penetration by undercover agents. And our foreign-service personnel with public diplomacy expertise won't be allowed to practice their craft in Iran or Syria, so we need for the CIA to rebuild its political action capabilities.
Public diplomacy, a more overt activity, also presents a challenge. As we have seen from the State Department's past efforts in "branding" of the United States, the Pentagon's short-lived Office of Strategic Influence, and the modest inroads made by the U.S. government-run Middle Eastern broadcasting, regaining the upper hand in a post-Cold War media world won't be easy.
The administration needs to set a determined course in this area, and its main weapon should be truth. We must tell the truth about the terror masters and the societies they create, and we must tell it through as many channels as possible. We can't let violence be glorified any longer or the lies and deceit that sustain jihad go unchallenged. We must take it on in the schools, in the media and in society.
We'll need to assemble new talent for this new war. The government and non-profits alike must beef up their public-information skills. People from Muslim countries now living in the West should be recruited to manage - linguistically and otherwise - the challenges we all face together.
Reform the answer
Jihadis use and abuse the Internet for propaganda, recruitment, intelligence gathering and operational management - in all major languages of the world. Their Web sites and information warfare operations must be identified and shut down, and their funders, ideologues and Web masters arrested.
The United States also should expand the publication of books, journals and newspapers that promote views which debunk radical Islam and endorse liberal values.
U.S. officials should demand that Muslim states reform their educational systems to expunge messages of hate against Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists. They must demand that governments cease to operate hate-spewing radical mosques and madrassas, which exist solely to indoctrinate potential terrorists. And the Bush administration should use the CIA to topple or destabilize radical Islamist movements Islam and regimes that support them.
We've done a lot. We've toppled the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq and replaced them with emerging democracies.
But that's done little to discredit, demoralize or defeat the enemy. Now, we must turn to the ideological nature of the conflict and do with words and pictures what we might otherwise accomplish through bullets and missiles.
We didn't start this conflict. But it's up to us to finish it.
Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Fellow in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
American needs the truth. We need leadership that can communicate the truth.
Fill that void Mr. President...it is waiting for you. Step into it.
I hate to say this , but I dont think this war will stop until they win or we kill them back to the point they wont fight any more. Isnt that the definition of war? In the end you have to destroy the enemy's will to fight.There is no dealing with religious fanatics. They dont care who they kill. Arresting them is a waste of time,
"Stop Jihad Now!"
This question of islam is a major step for human kind. It can no longer just be tolerant...it must judge.
Islam is evil...if it lives, its evil will spread. Islam is the "black plague" of the 21st century. For the sake of humanity and for the sake of goodness...the evil aspect of islam must be exorcised.
sure.
How'bout weaning the economy away from the oil addiction first?
If not for oil, why would anyone putup ith so much jihadi nonsense?
Fill that void Mr. President...it is waiting for you. Step into it.
I have no doubt he already has.
Even Roosevelt had to prepare the country for what was coming, he couldn't just do what needed to be done with
the stroke of a pen.
It's not even the end of the beginning yet.
I won't suggest an answer, but we found it, we drilled it, we pumped it out. And then we gave a big chunk of the profit to the ones we deemed royalty.
And now they use our cash to spread the Wahabbist message around the world.
I think we have a little leverage here. Who started this Mr. Nice Guy contest? Let's obey our consciences and let the votes fall where they will. IMHO.
But we are waiting, aren't we?
but I do know the President is not stepping into the void of leadership.
What do you mean?
One way to wean from oil is to develop fusion.
There were a few experiments a year or two ago, which achieved fusion using acetone, sound waves to create bubbles, then to hit the imploding bubbles with a burst of neutrons.
That gives you fusion, on a small scale, so you don't wreck the machinery. With fusion power, all the power you need in your life uses the amount of sea water you can hold in the hollow of your hand.
I am reading a valuable book, Jihad, by Paul Fregosi, on the history of Islam and its wars with Europe.
The sacrament of Catholics is wine, representing the blood of Christ. The sacrament of Muslims is the blood of infidels, and they call the taking of this sacrament Jihad. It has been a violent religion from its inception in 622.
However we now have perhaps a billion people, in a wide swath across Africa, the Middle East and Asia, with large populations across the world. Hatred, violence and lies are taught from birth, and have been for nearly 1400 years now.
We will not kill nor deprogram them all. This is a cancer on human civilization that will not be cured, only beaten back into submission for a while, at great cost.
Eric Hoffler's The True Believer explains these and other fanatics well. The human species is capable of great evil, and it is not within our power to change this.
Well, I'm gloomy about the prospects for getting Islam, but the same gloom might have applied to Shinto in the heyday of Imperial Japan, or the followers of Menno before the hideous seige of Muenster pushed them to embrace absolute pacifism.
And within Islam, the most peaceable large group are the Ismaelis, the followers of the Aga Khan. But not always: the Assassins were Ismaelis.
First? Think about it. Alternative fuel technology is moving faster than ever before, but it's still going to take some time to accomplish this. FIRST, we have to stay alive.
Do you really believe that the jihad (being far from nonsense) is about oil? How old are you?
Jihad isn't about oil, but oil is helping fund Jihad at present. And what's worse, that oil is critical to both our economy and our military. All of which gives the Islamic fanatics both more of our money, and more control over our power, than we would like them to have
Jihad has been around for a while -- over 1300 years. Like a cancer, it gets worse when it finds a source of nutrition, and when the body grows weaker. Right now oil money is its nutrition, and has been since the second World War.
I suppose there has always been a desire by a few to rule the world. Alexander, Napoleon, Caesar,Hitler, Stalin ,Islamics .My belief is the latest is called Chavez. Oil money is helping the Islamics and Chavez. IMO we do need to become energy self-sufficient or they will always have a hold on us we cant break.
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION:
There was a post on FreeRepublic that suggested how muslim immigration eats
away at the host nation's law.
It went something like:
At less than 10% Muslims accept the host nation laws.
At 25%, they start asking for changes in the host nation laws.
At 50% they start asking for sharia to be added to the host nation laws
At 75% they institute sharia and ban all host nation laws.
IF ANYONE HAS THIS POST, I WOULD APPRECIATE RECEIVING A COPY BY MAIL.
THANKS . . .
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