The article is a biased opinion piece.
And this is your biased opinion. I read a book of his called "The End of Faith" and he makes a very solid logical case why Western secularism is morally superior to Radical Islam. His premise is based on moral realism and the rejection of relativism as a moral philosophy. You can read the book to see for yourself- this is the premise the bases his "opinions" on.
If the Muslims had the sophisticated weaponry of the Israelis/Americans, do you think they would use the same tactics of asymmetric warfare that they use today?
You mean tactics like suicide bombers targeting civilians? I don't know, but I do know that the IRA, Basque separatists, FMLN, Viet Con, the Maoists in Nepal and Peru, the Tibetans in China, the Christians in Darfur are all at the same kind of tactical disadvantages, yet these groups did not use suicide bombers targeting civilians when they were fighting their assymetrical warfare campaigns. I wonder why-could it be because of faith based fanaticism perhaps?
If Americans and Israelis are so morally pure, why are little Lebanese kids getting blown up daily by American cluster bombs that the Israelis scattered all over southern Lebanon?
Perhaps it is because Hezbollah started a war by kidnapping Isreali soldiers and launching rockets into Isreali territory.
But anyway, why does the Christian Right recognize "the threat of radical Islam" but "secular liberal humanists" do not? Maybe because liberals are reality based, and the Christian right believes in fairy tales like the Rapture and Creationism.
If liberals were reality based, like you claim, they would realize that Islamists are every bit as dangerously deluded as the Christian right, the 14th century Christian right that is. They believe not only in the coming of the Mahadi or whatever, they also think they will go to a paradise in the afterlife if they sacrifice themselves "defending Islam" which they interpret as blowing themselves up to kill infedels. Why are liberals so concerned with Revelationist Christians but not Muslims who believe it is a duty and honor to kill infidels, and don't mind blowing themselves up in the process because of their beliefs of being rewarded in a glorious afterlife?
The main threat posed by radical Islam is a direct result of Bush's vanity war in Iraq. That has dramatically increased anti-Americanism throughout the world, and has increased the threat of terrorism as well.
Oh, you mean on September 11, 2001, there was very little in the way of a terrorist threat, and the threat only emerged after the US invaded and occupied Iraq in March 2003?
I'm just trying to point out how absurd it is to think that we are going to be forcibly overtaken. When I look around at my fellow Americans, I don't see very many people who appear prone to accepting fundamentalist Islam any time soon. I worry a lot more about my country's slide toward fundamentalist Christianity. That's probably a hundred times more likely than us being subsumed by Islam. Some of the teachings of the Qur'an have been presented to me by Christian fundies, as it happens. Very scary and probably grossly misrepresenting the religion as practiced by the vast majority of Muslims. The Bible has some really scary stuff it it, too, but most Christians would tell you that it is only allegorical, or something like that.
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I have an allegory for you. When a virus attacks a human, what is most likely to kill the human, the virus or the immune systems reaction to the virus? If Al Queda or some other Islamist group stages another successful attack on US soil, fundamentalist Christianity will gain alot more power, because they will be percieved as the only ones who recognized and tried to do something about the Islamists. The liberals will be percieved more like modern day Neville Chamberlins. When there is a real or percieved threat to security, people are willing to give up alot of freedom in exchange for security, that is just human nature. It is better to recognize the true nature of the Islamist problem and take rational steps to deal with it, even if that means fighting foreign wars, than to wait for another attack which will likely have very negative consequences for Western Civilization, especially if the attack is nuclear or some other form of mass destruction. Before you go off on Iraq, I also think that war was horribly mismanaged, but I don't think the US is responsible for "Muslim anger" , and I think involvement in fighting true threats like Iran is justified. I aslo think rational steps should be taken to develop alternative energy sources, which will in the long run reduce our dependence on Middleastern oil.
Edited by marcopolo, 26 February 2007 - 09:19 AM.
