To: LindyBill who wrote (40573 ) 8/28/2002 3:07:17 PM From: greenspirit Respond to He may need an editor, but I though he made a few excellent points. Here's a couple I particularly enjoyed. Radical Islamist fundamentalism not does content itself with mere rejection of the West's alleged vices. If that were all there was to it, its program might be simply to stage a retreat from modernity's wickedness — to do, in other words, what the Amish have done. But Islamist totalitarianism, though it claims otherworldly inspiration, is obsessed with worldly power and influence. It does not merely reject the West; it wants to beat the West at its own game of worldly success. Osama bin Laden is constantly claiming that the United States is weak and can be defeated; he and his colleagues lust for power and believe they can attain it. And so, although it attempts to appropriate a particular religious tradition, Islamist totalitarianism is not, at bottom, a religious movement. It is a political movement — a quest for political power.
