If we invade Syria, there will be another fundamentalist uprising, but since we're civilized (and Assad is not), we will be unsuccessful in quashing it.
It's certainly a threat. However, as I've stated before, the US is in a fight against hateful ideals, and those ideals aren't going to go away by ignoring them.
I have some hope that the overthrow of Saddam has sent the appropriate message to the Baathist regime in Syria, especially Bashir Assad who was once considered the hope for a more moderate Syria (at least in regional politics).
Fighting Islamic fundamentalism will require personally targeting the purveyors of that ideology. And this fight will be long term, just as the fight against racism and bigotry must be constantly waged.
Did you read the Fouad Ajami article that CB posted?
Message 19283653
In Doha, Qatar, Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, arguably Sunni Islam's most influential cleric, at Omar ibn al-Khattab Mosque,.............
The preacher had his themes, but a great deal of the United States had gone into the preacher's art: Consider his Web site, Qaradawi.net, where the faithful can click and read his fatwas (religious edicts)— the Arabic interwoven with html text— about all matters of modern life, from living in non-Islamic lands to the permissibility of buying houses on mortgage to the follies of Arab rulers who have surrendered to U.S. power. Or what about his way with television? He is a star of the medium, and Al-Jazeera carried an immensely popular program of his. That art form owes a debt, no doubt, to the American "televangelists," as nothing in the sheik's traditional education at Al Azhar University in Cairo prepared him for this wired, portable religion. And then there are the preacher's children: One of his daughters had made her way to the University of Texas where she received a master's degree in biology, a son had earned a Ph.D. from the University of Central Florida in Orlando, and yet another son had embarked on that quintessential American degree, an MBA at the American University in Cairo. Al-Qaradawi embodies anti-Americanism as the flip side of Americanization.
Here's a guy who's condemning everything the US stands for, yet he sends his own beloved children to obtain their higher education here... He's the Jesse Jackson of Islam, and we do nothing to refute or discredit him.
That's where this battle ultimately has to be waged, IMO.. with information and a bit of positive propaganda targeting the hypocrisy of Islamic fundamentalists. And where certain clerics cross the line and call for violence and waging Jihad, I have no problem with arranging for bad things to happen to them.
They're gunning for us Bilow... We're the US and we are the most powerful nation on the face of the planet. And we stand in the way of their subjugating the entire region, let alone the world, to their brand of Islamic militancy.
We've ignored the warnings about the major threat Islamic fundamentalism posed for several decades now.. The pressure has been building, and will continue to build in the future.
And the West, out of fear, would be held hostage to the extortion of middle eastern regimes threatening to unleash their Jihad upon us, or even worse, possibly face uncontrolled Jihad, spontaneously initiated by whatever fringe group the decides to "one up" the existing militant leadership.
And the ultimate nightmare is biological, chemical, and/or nuclear suicide attack... It's coming Bilow... No amount of "containment" will prevent it. Nor will ignoring it.
And I'm not particularly interested in just waiting around to see what they have up their sleeve next, or for them to carry out such an attack that this nation winds up fully mobilizing for war that involves invading Saudi Arabia.
And the way I know this is because it's what I would do if I were in their position and advancing their particular agenda.
Hawk |
