Jim

No, the guys I’m talking about have tyrannical tendencies. They fuse religion and political power and pedophilia has nothing to do with any of this. The founders of our nation understood that mixing religion and politics was a perilous mix and any accurate term should describe that this movement mixes religion with tyranny. I think, probably, it's just resistance to going down the path that the term suggests coupled with the laudable tradition in Western democracies of tolerance. If you read Mein Kampf you’ll see references to Christianity but I don’t think the thrust of Hitler's message was religious. Hitler cynically used religion where it suited him but religion was not the primary force behind his message. In fact, if you look at the table of contents for Mein Kampf, not one word directly relates to religion. Likewise, the KKK uses Christianity but its hatred flows from racial bigotry which they, of course, partially justify with religion. If you feel like being slimed, take a look at the KKK’s web page and you’ll see, bottom line, their goal is political power to use for these purposes: A. Become the leader of the White racialist movement B. Strive to become the representative and driving force behind the White Community C. Organize and direct white people to a level of activism necessary to bring about a political victory. In Ireland much of the motivating force behind the terrorism was religious and we talked about the Catholic IRA. The problem here is that we have never had a cohesive Christian movement in modern history devoted to the establishment of a world-wide Christian theocracy by violent acts against civilians. If such a movement existed and emanated from countries which were tyrannical, I would call them Christiofascists... or Christio... something or other to do with tyranny; Christiodespots... Christiotheocrats; Christiocrats... Christiofreedomhaters. I'm not sure an apt labeling of this movement would be any more comforting than Christiofascists. All of this said, I agree that there are a variety of motivations behind Islamo .... er, the guys who were described by B. Lewis as follows:

I've quoted before this conclusion to his post-9/11 afterward to the book, "What Went Wrong: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East:" I agree that this language is more nuanced than the label "Islamofascism." However, it is easier to use the label than to requote this text in every post. I've italicised the section of this work that speaks of giving, for want of a better phrase, Islamofascism, a pass.

It was credible to Libya, although I wonder whether Libya regrets its move now that the policy is being undermined. Unfortunately, we have a dynamic similiar to that which occurred with the Tet offensive where our public reacts to every bomb blast killing Iraqi's lining up to be in the military and ignores far greater act of courage which put those poeople in that line in the first place. Millions of Iraqi's courageously stand up to this terrorism but they are given short shrift and pushed out of headlines by simple acts of destruction. Perception is starting to trump the reality on the ground. In any event, what is the alternative to the Bush Doctrine? To permit terrorist groups to hide in countries like Afghanistan and Iran, cook up plots and WMDs and launch them with impunity against the US? We have no choice but to become credible as we initially were to Libya. I see a reluctance to think of the problem in these terms because it is wrapped up in religion and we have been conditioned to be tolerant in such m atters.

This policy, announced within hours of the attacks of 9/11, resulted in Libya forfeiting its advanced nuclear program. It's implementation has been spotty, as implementation always is, but the policy itself was wise and historic. It is exactly what we need to make these nations understand. If Iran does get nukes, it needs to believe that its very survival depends on maintaining control of its arsenal. The alternative is to let terrorism marshal the resources and protection of a nation state even as the dangers of technology ramp upwards along an exponential scale.

The world wants is a ceasefire so it can go back to ignoring the problem.

I'm not sure why government after the singularity, if it comes, still couldn't be participatory. You would think that the logical ability of the members of the community would be enhanced and superstition would be minimized by such creatures.

This event struck me as cyncial politics of the worst kind. Maybe I'm wrong.

Oh, I agree that the PM is in the wrong but the method here and the timing could not be worse. America's interest is directly engaged in Iraq and humiliating the newly elected PM is not helpful.

This has a bad smell to me. I am very supportive of Israel's position but I'm not sure that the PM's position hurts Israel considering our support. Snubbing the prime minister of Iraq at this time seems almost calculated to disrupt. It has the smell of blatent politics triumphing over national security. Instead of making his own serious foreign policy statement, here's Schakowsky making the most hay possible against the Bush admininstration: I'm sure it will help this fledgling democracy if their Prime Minister is humliated before the world. Let's never forget that national security is about blasting Bush. Nothing comes before that primary goal. I'm sure it is not lost on the dems that the polls show Americans solidly behind Israel in this controversy...

I couldn't say it any better Pangloss. I only wish the survey had asked questions to discover how much the shift in the right track/wrong track numbers from 2004 - 2006 relates to Iraqi perception of America's lack of resolve as gleaned from the MSM.

Hmmm.. If 9/11 is part of his core discipline and he actually intends to teach this stuff in the classroom, I would let him go. It would be like having a economics professor who teaches that money grows on trees. If there was not a nexus between his discipline and the claim, I would probably let it pass on free speech grounds. Sounds like it is the former as he is going to teach a course on Islam.

Survey taken from June 14-June 24, 2006 with 2,849 valid interviews of total sample of 3,120 in 18 of Iraq's 18 provinces. Margin of Error - +/- 3% Do you feel tha Iraq is generally heading in the right direction or wrong direction? Right: 41% Wrong: 35% Don't Know: 19% No answer: 5% Baghdad, Kurdish, Mid-Euphrates and South areas had less than 25% wrong direction poll numbers. Northern Arab = 86% Wrong Direction; Sunni Areas = 63% Wrong Direction. Note that the Right Direction numbers start at 51% in 5/04, peak at 67% in 4/05, dipped to 30% in 3/06 (the first poll ever where the right direction number dipped below the wrong direction) before going to 41% in 6/06. From reading previous polls, the right direction numbers are less influenced than in 2004 by the "getting rid of regime" responses, whereas the wrong direction results are more influenced by the "presence of occupation" responses. Consistently, more Iraqi's have felt better about the future than worse; however, this number has declined in 2006. 55% approve of the job done by PM Al-Maliki, whereas 20% disapprove. I could go on but the point here is that the true picture in Iraq appears to be complex and the most important and clear result was the following: 89% felt the establishment of a unity government was "extremely important" to the future peace and stablity of Iraq. Even in the Kurdish and Sunni areas this number was at 75% and 97% respectively. In fact, the Sunni area was the highest here.... 66% Strongly Disagree with the suggestion of segregating Iraqis according to religious or ethnic sect. 12% Disagree. Only in the Kurdish areas did the percentage agreeing exceed 7%. 75% describe the security conditions in Iraq as "poor" whereas only 38% describe the conditions as poor in their own neighborhood.

Here’s a interesting article written on February 16, 2004 A 1000:3 ratio in 1982. A 400:1 in 2004. 1000:2 in 2006? Hezbollah has historically placed a disproportionate value on the lives of Israeli soldiers over their own. Israel seems to now understand that these lopsided exchanges paint a bullseye on Israeli soldiers.

I wish he would! Are you from around here Walrusman?

Heh, actually I was channel surfing but it's true that I'm a sucker for left-wing broadcasting... Actually, next to you, I'm probably the most sympathetic person on this board to Gingrich's position. I do think that Gingrich is aware of the political impact of calling this WWIII and he said as much. This isn't, necessarily, a bad thing. Oh, I agree but I like to see both sides and Gingrich expressed a fairly extreme position. That's why they call me The Voice of Moderate Reason. Heck yeah! I'm believing in that global warming stuff tonight.

I thought we might share some of the more interesting local political spots from our various areas. My favorite is from a dark horse governatorial candidate in Oklahoma by the name of Jim Evanhoff. I've only seen it once because the guy probably has no money. The spot starts with two folksy farmers talking about high gas prices and illegal immigration. One of the gentlemen farmers says something like, "Bud, did you know Jim Evanhoff has a plan to stop illegal immigration?" Bud, visibily excited, replies, "Well then I'm going to vote for Jim Evanhoff!" The camera flicks to Jim who promises that he does indeed have a plan to solve these problems. He concedes that his opponents have plans too but he says are like this as he looks down to his feet. The camera follows his look, panning down Jim's rather rotund belly to his feet at which several small signs of his opponents have been planted in large steaming piles of cow crap. I looked in vain for the spot on the web but I thought it was too funny not to pass on. Maybe it's something you just have to see but I'm still laughing.

FYI, I just saw a short clip on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 about this issue, starting with the Gingrich interview on Meet the Press. Supposedly they will have a segment later in the program on the impact of characterizing this as WWIII.

I did think you were not wanting this in the public discourse and what I said is a logical extension of what I thought you were saying. If that is not what you meant, nevermind. Phi, no one in either of the articles I linked or any of the posts in this thread said that the enemy is "all of Islam." That is indeed a blatent strawman which isn't even a legitimate inference from what I was arguing.