a_unique_person
24th August 2003, 07:25 PM
The antidote for an Islam that has gone mad
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/24/1061663672388.html
I would not agree with all he says. Indonesians, for example, have a big problem with radical Islam that has imposed it's terror on Australia, too.
They are, however, working hard to convict those responsible for these crimes. In the Phillipines, the biggest problem appears to be not so much the existence of extremists, whose muslim credentials appear to be a flag of convenience for a bunch of pirates. In Saudi, the use of Islam is to prevent the creation of a democratic state rather than any real devotion to Islam by the rulers.
However, this article does show there is more to the issue than just sending out hi-tech armies to kill people, and that Israeli's are not just a bunch of nutters harking back to a golden age that never existed.
[quote]
This bloody ailment cannot simply be squashed by force. It is not enough to tame it with a big stick; it needs to be cured.
I believe the antidote for Islamism that has gone mad can only be found within the realm of moderate sane Islam. (The same is true for other cultures that contain seeds of internal insanity.)
We cannot cure madness just by smashing it. We are bound to endorse, support and indeed to rely primarily on the healthy elements, on the silent majorities, on the pragmatic forces within each infected society and culture. Rather than wag our finger at Islam as such, or at the Jews, or at the "West" - let us seek, find and reinforce the moderates in every society. Let us help them prevail. Let us help them tame and heal the contaminated parts of their own families.
We have a family friend who is a muslim, and he wouldn't hurt a fly.
Thomas friedman, however, wants to have his cake and eat it too.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/08/24/nyt.friedman/index.html
He believes the armed method will work, and then states he is dissappointed that the 'marshall plan' for Iraq is not going too well. The post victory plan was never worked out or thought out. If anything, it has pushed back the cause of those working for peace.
So, the terrorists get it. Iraqi liberals get it. The Bush team talks as if it gets it, but it doesn't act like it. The Bush team tells us, rightly, that this nation-building project is the equivalent of Germany in 1945, and yet, so far, it has approached the postwar in Iraq as if it's Grenada in 1982.
We may fail, but not because we have attracted terrorists who understand what's at stake in Iraq. We may fail because of the utter incompetence with which the Pentagon leadership has handled the postwar. (We don't even have enough translators there, let alone M.P.'s, and the media network we've set up there to talk to Iraqis is so bad we'd be better off buying ads on Al Jazeera.) We may fail because the Bush team thinks it can fight The Big One in the Middle East — while cutting taxes at home, shrinking the U.S. Army, changing the tax code to encourage Americans to buy gas-guzzling cars that make us more dependent on Mideast oil and by gratuitously alienating allies.
We may fail because to win The Big One, we need an American public, and allies, ready to pay any price and bear any burden, but we have a president unable or unwilling to summon either.
There never was a marshall plan, just a rough idea of making the war pay for itself by using oil to pay american companies do the reconstruction. The military, meanwhile, is spending one billion dollars a week achieving nothing much at all.
If this ever was going to work, the US military needed to be much more than a hi-tech army able to beat any army in the world in a set piece battle. Those simple requirements were never going to be enough.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/24/1061663672388.html
I would not agree with all he says. Indonesians, for example, have a big problem with radical Islam that has imposed it's terror on Australia, too.
They are, however, working hard to convict those responsible for these crimes. In the Phillipines, the biggest problem appears to be not so much the existence of extremists, whose muslim credentials appear to be a flag of convenience for a bunch of pirates. In Saudi, the use of Islam is to prevent the creation of a democratic state rather than any real devotion to Islam by the rulers.
However, this article does show there is more to the issue than just sending out hi-tech armies to kill people, and that Israeli's are not just a bunch of nutters harking back to a golden age that never existed.
[quote]
This bloody ailment cannot simply be squashed by force. It is not enough to tame it with a big stick; it needs to be cured.
I believe the antidote for Islamism that has gone mad can only be found within the realm of moderate sane Islam. (The same is true for other cultures that contain seeds of internal insanity.)
We cannot cure madness just by smashing it. We are bound to endorse, support and indeed to rely primarily on the healthy elements, on the silent majorities, on the pragmatic forces within each infected society and culture. Rather than wag our finger at Islam as such, or at the Jews, or at the "West" - let us seek, find and reinforce the moderates in every society. Let us help them prevail. Let us help them tame and heal the contaminated parts of their own families.
We have a family friend who is a muslim, and he wouldn't hurt a fly.
Thomas friedman, however, wants to have his cake and eat it too.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/08/24/nyt.friedman/index.html
He believes the armed method will work, and then states he is dissappointed that the 'marshall plan' for Iraq is not going too well. The post victory plan was never worked out or thought out. If anything, it has pushed back the cause of those working for peace.
So, the terrorists get it. Iraqi liberals get it. The Bush team talks as if it gets it, but it doesn't act like it. The Bush team tells us, rightly, that this nation-building project is the equivalent of Germany in 1945, and yet, so far, it has approached the postwar in Iraq as if it's Grenada in 1982.
We may fail, but not because we have attracted terrorists who understand what's at stake in Iraq. We may fail because of the utter incompetence with which the Pentagon leadership has handled the postwar. (We don't even have enough translators there, let alone M.P.'s, and the media network we've set up there to talk to Iraqis is so bad we'd be better off buying ads on Al Jazeera.) We may fail because the Bush team thinks it can fight The Big One in the Middle East — while cutting taxes at home, shrinking the U.S. Army, changing the tax code to encourage Americans to buy gas-guzzling cars that make us more dependent on Mideast oil and by gratuitously alienating allies.
We may fail because to win The Big One, we need an American public, and allies, ready to pay any price and bear any burden, but we have a president unable or unwilling to summon either.
There never was a marshall plan, just a rough idea of making the war pay for itself by using oil to pay american companies do the reconstruction. The military, meanwhile, is spending one billion dollars a week achieving nothing much at all.
If this ever was going to work, the US military needed to be much more than a hi-tech army able to beat any army in the world in a set piece battle. Those simple requirements were never going to be enough.