Article

2008-07-28 Arabia

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-07-28 15:35|| || Front Page|| [7 views ] Top

#1 Most Muslims believe that democracy usurps power from their deity. Their clerics only play the voter card when they believe it can lead to victory.

As for the so called 19th "reformers," they emulated the Romantic movement's internationalism, so as to advance the Islamist agenda. Abdu later became Mufti Sahib of al-Azhar University in Cairo. He, like Afghani, were reactionaries.

Currently, Muslims promote the "islamization of knowledge," in the same way that Marxists promoted the "socialization" of same. They are not an integral element where they reside in the West; they are inherently subversive.

Posted by McZoid 2008-07-28 16:05|| 2008-07-28 16:05|| Front Page Top

#2 What Is the Arab World's Problem?

Islam and modern health/sanitation. Take either away and the problem becomes self limiting.

Posted by ed 2008-07-28 18:57|| 2008-07-28 18:57|| Front Page Top

#3 The paradox is that one of our sharpest limitations is that we believe democracy is a universal cure-all, good for all people at all times, when that is almost certainly not the case. However, as Pollack argues, democratic reform seems to be the only thing that will save the Middle East from consuming itself in violence, for the region can get worse than it is now, much worse.

The last two sentences of the essay and Nimble Spemble's final comment sum up the situation nicely, although I disagree that there remains the alternative of starving the Middle East into submission; the region has too much money socked away in other investments, and the people are now accustomed to the idea of moving to greener pastures such as Europe and North America, where some of them will continue to fight their jihad regardless of conditions back home.

However, being that we are civilized men and women, we had to give Muslim Asia (not merely the Arab World) -- as represented by the two countries where we exerted any control, Iraq and Afghanistan -- a chance to prove themselves capable of evolving into acceptable neighbors before eradicating them as functionally rabid dogs too dangerous to be allowed to live in the same universe as the rest of us. The experiment has not yet run its course, I believe, but it is interesting to see others beginning to conclude that it has.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-07-28 19:21|| 2008-07-28 19:21|| Front Page Top

#4 The problem was that there was never an Islamist success in modern times until Jimmy Carter handed them one by abandoning Iran. And as soon as Carter did that, Russia invaded neighboring Afghanistan setting the stage for the second Islamist success. And then the Iranian Islamists created the third Islamist success with Hezbollah in Lebanon. I have seen the enemy ... and it is us.

Thanks Jimmah!

WORST.PRESIDENT.EVER

Posted by knerfley 2008-07-28 19:37|| 2008-07-28 19:37|| Front Page Top

23:59 bigjim-ky
23:42 anymouse
23:23 trailing wife
23:18 trailing wife
23:14 Red Dawg
23:11 bigjim-ky
22:59 Intrinsicpilot
22:51 bigjim-ky
22:44 Pappy
22:42 Pappy
22:39 Red Dawg
22:38 JosephMendiola
22:33 Alaska Paul
22:31 Red Dawg
22:24 Old Patriot
22:15 Sock Puppet of Doom
22:07 Alaska Paul
22:06 Sock Puppet of Doom
21:56 Nimble Spemble
21:48 3dc
21:44 knerfley
21:38 OldSpook
21:36 Frank G
21:35 Frank G