20/01: Understanding the Enemy: A Counter-Point
Category: America and the World
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
Worth Looking at: Martian Mariner takes exception to the Okie Gardener's post (read here in its entirety), which featured S. K. Malik's The Quranic Way of War. In conclusion, The Gardener commented: "We are not in a War on Terror. We are in a war with radical Islamists. This is not a new war. We are in another hot period of the nearly 1400 year-long war of Islam against everyone else. We need to understand the enemy in order to defeat him."
Guest Blog Rebuttal: Martian Mariner
"Understand the enemy."
Pakistan and its army is an important ally of our current War on Terror, misnamed as it may be. The reason that every Arab government, and most Islamic governments, are cooperating with us is because radical Salafism is as threatening to their regimes as it is to us. I'm certain that these secular but assuredly Muslim leaders do not consider themselves in the midst of a 1400 year-long war against the West.
My point here is that you're giving the Salafists more credit than they are due, by granting them the point that their brand of Islam is the true Islam. This point is not decided within Islam, and we shouldn't help legitimitize the side which would be most harmful to us.
I for one am not looking for a fight, and to claim that we're in the midst of an epoch-long war can have no benefit in a search for peace.
Guest Blog Rebuttal: Martian Mariner
"Understand the enemy."
Pakistan and its army is an important ally of our current War on Terror, misnamed as it may be. The reason that every Arab government, and most Islamic governments, are cooperating with us is because radical Salafism is as threatening to their regimes as it is to us. I'm certain that these secular but assuredly Muslim leaders do not consider themselves in the midst of a 1400 year-long war against the West.
My point here is that you're giving the Salafists more credit than they are due, by granting them the point that their brand of Islam is the true Islam. This point is not decided within Islam, and we shouldn't help legitimitize the side which would be most harmful to us.
I for one am not looking for a fight, and to claim that we're in the midst of an epoch-long war can have no benefit in a search for peace.
Tocqueville wrote:
By Mark Steyn
"Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries. There'll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands--probably--just as in Istanbul there's still a building called St. Sophia's Cathedral. But it's not a cathedral; it's merely a designation for a piece of real estate. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate. The challenge for those who reckon Western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the West."
Full essay here:
http://www.opinionjournal.c...