John,
I'll write at least one more message, if only to answer your question (hm, will I resist making a point or two of my own? nah). Islamicism is Daniel Pipe's term for the totalitarian Islamic fundamentalism espoused by the Taliban and Al Quaeda. Here's an article that explains the difference:
Protecting Muslims while Rooting out Islamists
By Daniel Pipes
meforum.org
Now, to answer your point:
But that hardly makes the argument wrong. Particularly, the argument that Huntington gets it all wrong when he over generalizes. And that such over generalization contributes to very bad policy.
First, I agree the argument is not wrong, per se; the issues are at bottom much more complicated than us vs. them. I called the argument 'misdirection', not 'false', because I believe that Said is directing our attention away from the most important point, the clear and present danger of Islamicism, towards the general but less pressing point of the complexities of our relations with the Islamic world.
Your point, that overgeneralization contributes to bad policy, is not one that I saw Said make particularly well in his article; one could almost get the impression from his article that we should sit around studying the complexities of the situation rather than risk making ANY policy right now. Because no action we take right now will favor the political causes that Said favors, I don't believe that this impression is an accident. That's why I called the whole argument misdirection.
Besides, it would be one thing to make Said's argument if the Bush administration was calling for crusade to wreak revenge against all of Islam; but they have been taking great pains to differentiate the terrorists from Islam; to say that we are not at war with Islam or the Afghani people; to enlist Arab states in the coalition; etc., etc. So it's even more unclear exactly what bad policy Said is trying to correct by his argument. This enforces my impression that he would prefer that we not do too much of anything at the present time. |
