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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (4080)	10/10/2001 1:37:50 PM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 281500

I got a lot of grief for mentioning it on the Booms & Busts thread, but I do know what you are talking about, and I agree that both sides are aware of the history, e.g., bin Laden's reference to "80 years" is apparently a reference to the end of the last Caliphate, which suggests that one of his goals is restoring the Caliphate. >>I don't know if this is something that Europeans and other Westerners have in common with us, but there is a deeply held belief in the US of a mystical duty to hold the line against the nations of Islam. We don't talk about it in public, it's spread by word of mouth. I have been told, for years, by people that some day we would be called on, just as the French were called on at the Battle of Roncevalles, just as the Austrians and their allies were called on at the Battle of Vienna.<< Message 16360718 A history of interaction between the West and Islam over the past 1400 or so years (I left out the 20th century since we all know it): Message 16366639 Why Columbus sailed west: Message 15862105 I do have a tendency to wax poetic - "mystical duty" is the way it was told to me, not the way I see it. No mystical duty to kick ass when you're being attacked, it's just self-defense.