Cafe Alpha provides this link:
Sixty years later the lessons from the era of Japanese reconstruction have been ignored entirely following the US-led military interventions in Afghanistan, now under the post-Taliban Karzai regime, and Iraq, after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Indeed the post-World War II paradigm of neutralizing Japan’s bellicose, religio-political creed of Shintoism, has been turned on its head with regard to Islam, and the theocratic Islamic legal code, Shari’a—imbued with jihad, and completely antithetical to modern human rights constructs.
The core problem is that the West still doesn't comprehend (or refuses to acknowledge) the true nature of the enemy. If Islam is a religion of peace which is being "perverted" by a few psychotics, then we don't have to worry about the influence of Islamic law in Afghanistan and Iraq. Reality, however, doesn't jive with this premise.
It is because of Islam that an ex-Muslim was a few days away from death in Afghanistan. It is because of Islam that Jews are not welcome in Iraq. Islam is the problem.
To be fair, our job is far tougher. Japan was and is one nation. Islam infects dozens of countries with over a billion people. If we come out and bluntly say that a state has no business implementing sharia, then this will put the West in an explicit war with the majority Muslim world. The Bush Administration has tried to avoid this scenario. They'd rather co-opt the "peaceful" majority and defeat Al Qaeda and its ilk.
The problem would still remain, though. What Al Qaeda won't gain through terror, the "peaceful" majority will achieve through demographics. The West will eventually have to broaden the scope of this war in all spheres -- in objectives, strategy and tactics.
4 comments:
Yes, I agree.
In fact, I believe the clash of civilizations is inevitable. I don't understand how anyone believes we are going to avoid it.
The first step toward defeating Japan was not an ideological step. It was instead, using the brute force required to absolutely subdue the nation into believing they had no choice but to change.
Pastorius, sometimes it's like you're reading my mind or I'm reading yours. Now that's scary...!
Conversely, I doubt that any but a small percentage of Americans knew much more about Shintoism or even Nazism on December 8, 1941 than all but a tiny minority of Americans know about Islam and jihad today. (Did I mention that one of the kids who works with me had never heard of it? Not even when I spelled it for her?) What got the "sleeping giant" off its ass and moving was the realization that whoever these people were they fully intended to kill us, and since at that moment they had far superior arms and manpower there was a damn good chance they'd do it if we didn't wake up and get a move on, you should excuse the expression. I can see no reason to believe that the same thing won't happen this time, and that when the Iranian ICBM -- oops, sorry, communications satelite -- with the nuclear -- for peaceful energy use only, of course -- warhead hits, say, Miami, it will have the same effect. And that there will be someone left in the Pentagon besides Hesham Islam and his cronies to deal with it.
Isaac, btw, what you said is the essence of Stephen Coughlin's thesis "To Our Great Detriment". No wonder the Islamist moles tried to have him thrown out of the DOD. Now that his job has apparently been saved and attention called to his work, I just hope he can have enough influence.
Pastorius, I agree that the clash appears to be inevitable. Our last chances here are fading, Giuliani is gone and Romney is hanging on by a thread. (And damn the Huckabee supporters for dragging him down.) I think this is what Phares means when he puts such emphasis on the importance of education. He doesn't want to come right out and say, look, the political will isn't there at this time, so we must educate as many people as we can so they will have some clue what's going on when the balloon goes up.
RRA,
Fuck Huck!
I remember a few years back Hugh Fitzgerald got extremely angry with me because I said the exact same thing Bostom said in his essay which Epa linked to today. That is that our situation with the Jihadists is eerily similar to our situation with the Japanese, and that we have completely ignored the lessons of our own history of triumph.
The way to win is to beat them mercilessly with our military, and THEN to be just as merciless with their ideology. We must ban aspects of Sharia which are counter to Western values.
That's that. That's the way to win.
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