Make sure to check it out and read Baron and Dymphna's related posts:
The Bloody Borders Project
Bloody Borders: Updates
White Space
The Islamintern
I found "The Islamintern" an especially interesting post. Baron makes a defensible comparison between militant Islam today and Communism in the 20th century. An excerpt:
It is a war of ideas, and will be won or lost in the journals and on the television screens of the West.Well said.
To that end, the Islamists are closely following the playbook of the Communists. Like the Communists, they are spread out in loosely-connected clandestine networks. Like the Communists, they are guided and funded by a few sources, but operate independently as “indigenous” movements. And, like the Communists, they understand that the success in the propaganda war is absolutely crucial.
As soon as Communism consolidated power in Soviet Russia, it began its preparation for the World Revolution by establishing the Communist International. For the next sixty years or so the dedicated cadres and willing dupes of the Comintern took Soviet money, propaganda, and materiel, and used them to undermine and overthrow governments all over the world.
But Stalin did not directly command most of these operations. Even at the apogee of Soviet power, the Kremlin could only enforce its ukases in the Soviet Union itself and the “near abroad,” those communist vassals immediately contiguous with Soviet territory.
Tito, Hoxha, Mao, and Castro all followed Soviet guidelines when its suited their interests, and departed from them when required. But all of them were acting in the name of Communism, and all were intent on establishing their version of its soul-destroying totalitarianism.
And so it is with militant Islam. The Islamists are not directly controlled by bin Laden or King Abdullah or the mullahs of Iran; but they work towards a common purpose, co-operating with each other out of self-interest and deferring the cutting of each other’s throats until the opportune moment arrives.
Look at the Sunni-Shiite division as a parallel between Soviet Communism and Maoism. Give Zarqawi the role of Josip Broz Tito, with his propensity to ignore central direction and follow his own plans. The Communists had the KGB to spread money and disinformation; the Islamofascists have the Saudi “charities” to perform the same functions.
Call it the Islamintern. Like the Comintern, it attracts the marginal, the disaffected, the petty thugs and common criminals, and gives them a clear and simple ideology to guide their actions. It allows them to continue in their customary ways — murdering, raping, stealing and extorting — while furnishing them with a mandate from Allah to do so. The Communists were following the dictates of History, and the Islamists are carrying out the will of God.
To the willing dupes in the West, there is no connection among all these groups, just as there was none among the Viet Cong and the FMLN and revolutionaries of Angola. But somehow all these native freedom fighters just happened to be fomenting violence in the same way at the same time.
And somehow all these terrorists spread all over the globe just happen to be murdering and maiming in the name of Allah. It’s just coincidence.
The Comintern, of course, was aided in its efforts by all the fools and shills in the West.
The 1930s had George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Walter Duranty, and The New York Times.
In the 21st century, the Islamintern has Dan Rather, Cindy Sheehan, Jimmy Carter, and The New York Times.
Every generation has its useful idiots.
2 comments:
Tipping point possible?
Brave Moderate Muslim speaks out….whoa, and it is a Woman!
This is a surprisingly good article for the NYT. I hope she has a good life insurance policy. The religion of peace obviously won't tolerate her views:
Perhaps her most provocative words on Al Jazeera were those comparing how the Jews and Muslims have reacted to adversity. Speaking of the Holocaust, she said, "The Jews have come from the tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling."
She went on, "We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people."
She concluded, "Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them."
1 posted on 03/11/2006 7:56:50 AM PST by mathprof
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1594497/posts
Thank you Maz for pointing to this. Other reasonable Muslims are welcome to add their voices and insights. This may be the beginning of the *turnaround*. I hope so. TG
*(The Iranians) must know everything is on the table and they must understand what that means,* US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told a group of visiting British politicians last week.
*We can hit different points along the line. You only have to take out one part of their nuclear operation to take the whole thing down.* In other words, he was calmly proposing an illegal attack on a sovereign state, possibly involving nuclear weapons.
http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewNote6.cfm?REF=48
Bolton knew his words would be leaked, so maybe it was just deliberate posturing to raise the pressure on Iran. But on Sunday, addressing the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee in Washington, Bolton repeated the threat:
*The longer we wait to confront the threat Iran poses, the harder and more intractable it will become to solve ... We must be prepared to rely on comprehensive solutions and use all the tools at our disposal to stop the Threat…* He may really mean it — and no one in the White House has told him to shut up.
By Gwynne Dyer
TG
Post a Comment