Current stance, after a few weeks of contemplation. was Re: Why Do They Hate Us?

Wed, 31 Oct 2001 20:10:39 -0800

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Well Fucking Said, Jbone.

Now here's the problem.  Islam is one of the fastest growing
religions, and I'm not willing to wager out of that mass, how many are
or would adopt 'radical' Islamic tendencies.  I'd equate it to be
similar as to the Crusades time, wrt Christianity, or hell, if
Christianity was threatened now, how many people go crazy?

What do we do?

Wednesday, October 31, 2001, 12:01:51 AM, you wrote:

> For once, I agree with Paul.  At the risk of being a labeled a cultural
> bigot --- and with the defense that these things *can* be measured
> quantitatively, via economic quality-of-life metrics --- it's become
> entirely clear to me over the last several weeks that the current culture,
> sociopolitical context, and economic impact of same that the Taliban (and,
> more generally, the "extremist" or maybe really the mainstream
> man-on-the-street fundamentalist Middle Eastern Islamists) endorse is
> fundamentally incompatible with the things we hold as fundamental and dear
> principles in the West.

> We are engaging militarily in order to discredit / defeat / destroy ---
> however impractical this may be --- a way of life and set of memes that
> poses a fundamental threat to "our" (i.e. our culture's) own continued
> existence.  Radical, political Islam is a cancer which Western civilization
> must cut out in order to survive.  Let us hope it has not metastasized too
> thoroughly to be eliminated.

> We can namby-pamby around the issues in an attempt to avoid the perception
> non-PC cultural myopia and to give lip service to multiculturalism, but
> indeed doing so may be engaging in even more dangerous cultural myopia.  At
> the end of the day I have come to believe that this is a clash to the death
> of cultures, secular-Western vs. Islamist-Eastern.  Islam per se may not be
> a "killer religion" as Howard Bloom and others have labeled it, but
> Islam-meets-government in the seething cultural stew of the Arab world has
> *clearly* evolved to become a killer memetic culture medium.  Note that
> this isn't a slam against Islam, rather a slam against what "street Islam"
> has become in many nations of the world for any number of reasons.  (For
> the record, I believe Zionism and puritanism are equally dangerous though
> perhaps just slightly less directly threatening.)

> Having said that, let me say that I still think ethnic profiling at
> airports is foolish and ineffective, and that I still think we need to hold
> the Israelis to the same humanitarian standards that we hold others, and
> give some hard and critical thought to our policies there.

> :-)

> $0.02,

> jb

> Paul Prescod wrote:

>> Kris Ganjam wrote:
>> >
>> >....It and these articles [2],
>> > put forth the case that the underlying strategic reason for our
>> > overthrow of the Taliban is so US oil interests can more easily build
>> > pipelines from the Caspian to Central Asia via Afghanistan.
>>
>> I think that the "underlying" reason for our overthrow of the Taliban
>> should be equally obvious to those with or without an understanding of
>> oil industry economics. Oil companies may be rubbing their hands
>> together in glee but that doesn't really change the reason that the
>> military is there.
>>
>>  Paul Prescod
>>
>> http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

> http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

- --
Carey Lening

I need a witty quote.
 carey                            mailto:carey@tstonramp.com