07-17-2007, 08:20 PM | #1 |
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How big a threat is radical Islam to civilization?
Chris Hitchins believes radical Islam poses every but the specter of evil and physical danger to the United States as did Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. But having grown up under the specter of mutually assured destruction and Warsaw Pact tanks and troops vastly outnumbering NATO's along the Eastern European divide, and reflecting that in the mid-twentieth century the Nazi flag flew over Paris, and appeared likely to stay there for generations, I have my doubts.
I think I'm in Waters' camp believing these Islamic terrorists live in caves and are relics of medieval times. In the Looming Tower Richard Wright demonstrates that Al Queda really needed near-criminal negligence by the CIA (knowing full well two of bin Ladin's henchmen were in the U.S. and taking flight lessons and doing nothing about it and telling no one including the FBI for over a year) to pull off 9/11. Even getting a VISA is tough if you're a Middle Easterner, and you need to be legal to buy large amounts of fertilizer, take flying lessons, buy deadly weapons, etc. And even terrorism as spectacular as 9/11 doesn't really threaten American military and economic primacy. I continue to believe that freedom is ephemeral and doomed in the long run as it has always been, but it's not radical Islam I fear in this sense. It's probably ourselves, our own leaders. I think radical Islam will go the way of all underfunded etreme minority terrorist groups in modern times who fade away as their founders die of prostate cancer or become addled if not die violently.
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07-17-2007, 08:36 PM | #2 | |
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07-17-2007, 08:38 PM | #3 | |
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Aside from that I agree. Terrorist will continue to deliver kicks in the groin ... but never have the ability to deliver a knife to the heart of Amercia. |
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07-17-2007, 08:49 PM | #4 |
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Bin Laden lives in a cave. I presume he does not get Dish, but I could get wrong.
Either way, we know he does not get the mtn. How can a man conquer the world, if he can't even watch tv? |
07-17-2007, 08:51 PM | #5 | |
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I was referring to the destruciton of the values and freedoms we enjoy and our success as a nation. I don't think radical Islam cna do that.
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07-17-2007, 08:57 PM | #6 |
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IRA and its supporters killed some 3700 people.
It could be argued that the IRA was more effective than Al Qaeda is currently effective. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europ.../ira_7-29.html |
07-17-2007, 08:59 PM | #7 |
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Put another way, if Al Qaeda was really a threat to western civilization, the Afghan-Pakistan border would have been carpet-bombed by now. There would not be a village within 50 miles.
Bush is all about double-speak. He calls it a grave threat to our existence, but he doesn't act like it is. |
07-17-2007, 09:02 PM | #8 | |
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Perhaps a nuke attack on American soil is what is needed. As you have posted before, we don't have the stomach for total war, which is what is required. Perhaps if Al Qaeda set off a nuke in NYC or LA for example, killing tens or hundreds of thousands, we coud then nuke the region to hades and be justfiied / have the will. Not saying I advocate that, but I think that is the political reality. We don't have the stomach for the "collateral damage" of carpet bombin, etc. |
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07-17-2007, 09:09 PM | #9 | |
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I'm not saying we should do anything about Egypt or Saudi Arabia, or reject their friendship. We have no choice. But Bush's windbaggery about establishing "freedom" and "democracy" in the Middle East being our motivation for invading Iraq is pure medacity, and obviously so. I'll never forgive Hitchins for selling out to the Bushies. I don't like the Nation but I think it's funny they excomunicated him.
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07-17-2007, 09:10 PM | #10 | |
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