If he's right, it's gonna get messy...

[alfreda89]

A commentary from The Observer: "We all know who was to blame for Thursday's murders... and it wasn't Bush and Blair."

Face up to the truth

Nick Cohen
Sunday July 10, 2005

A snippet:

"Again, I understand the appeal. Whether you are brown or white, Muslim, Christian, Jew or atheist, it is uncomfortable to face the fact that there is a messianic cult of death which, like European fascism and communism before it, will send you to your grave whatever you do. But I'm afraid that's what the record shows."

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1525172,00.html

Comments

[ulitave.livejournal.com]

The Germans were a unified people - the days of warring germanic tribes were long over. They were a self-sufficient country and as industrialized as anyplace else. They had just been humiliated in WW1. Their economy was artificially depressed, due to treaty terms. And a majority of Germans of the time shared a latent/active hatred of Jews (a unified people and a religion, but not a nation.) Remove one of those factors, and the Nazi party causes much damage but cannot threaten the world.

skip to today - I can't think of one country where ALL of those factors are present. I can think of any number of places where some of the factors exist. Palestine comes close, but they are nowhere near independent, and much of their population live outside of the occupied territory. As you noticed, a truce with A doesn't mean jack to C.

I've heard several Islamic authorities condemn the killing of civilians, via suicide bomb or any other method. Killing non-combatants is expressly forbidden in the Koran.

But yes, we will have to deal with these guys forever.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

 But yes, we will have to deal with these guys forever.

I fear so. Their greatest threat may be that we will change ourselves to "protect" ourselves from them.

If we give up our freedoms in some crazy attempt to be safer, then Ben Franklin was right.

[ulitave.livejournal.com]

I think that's already happening. This conservative political/religous movement is an attempt to "protect our values". Unfortunately, it won't work. You can't fight religion with religion, or (Arab) conservatism with (American) conservatism. History shows it never works.

At best, one side will prevail and leave the losers plotting revenge for years, decades, centuries. If it comes to us or them, we'd be wise to remember that there are a LOT more of them than us.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

If it comes to us or them, we'd be wise to remember that there are a LOT more of them than us.

Why we need to push their moderates to take things in hand. Because BushCo's way of dealing with it is the big stick. We're not the only ones with a big stick, but we have big sticks.

And other players with big sticks do not like the conservative fringe, either. If the fringe becomes enough of a nuisance, I fear that the same people who are justifying torture may justify genocide.

One of these primarily Islamic countries has already done it--maybe Pakistan, maybe Syria, I can't remember, but I saw a column on it years ago. They literally did a "scorched earth" on the village where the hotbed existed. After that time, their radicals took their hysteria outside of the country... .