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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (39790)	4/16/2004 2:22:21 PM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793772

<<< Our problem is that the angry people are not isolated, they are getting meaning from an Islamist ideology that tells them that their problems are the fault of the West, and they should go fight the jihad against the West. So they try to kill a Westerner, or go link up with other like-minded people wishing to do the same. It's not hard, their local mosque is sure to offer opportunities.>>> I don't think (and I certainly hope so) that there is nothing intrinsically evil about the Islamic religion. I believe they think Muhammud is just a prophet not totally unrelated to our Judeo Christian Civilization (this may be more wishful thinking than reality on my part - maybe somebody could tell me). I am also fairly certain that you could not enlist as many followers as they have with anything that is truly evil. Having said that, I think the problem with Islam is their language structure (at the risk of sounding really wacky). I don't think Arabic is a language that can compete in a modern world. I imagine it to be very flowery (poetic) but not very precise. That could be one of the reasons for their economic failures. Instead of looking internally to solve their problems, along comes an OBL and inflame those having a difficult time and he blames outside influences for all their problems. He comes up with a wacky plan to go to war with the Western World. A war that he has absolutely no chance of succeeding in. It can only make their lives even more miserable. I do not believe he can win many converts to join him. Let's face it, most people are not religious and understand very little behind the religions they claim they belong to. They will do a lot of praying and all kinds of outward religious behavior, but would they actually put their lives in danger behind a stupid ideology that an OBL formulates. I doubt it very much. Put yourself into their shoes (we all have the same DNA structure - there is no such thing as Arabic or Muslim DNA). The differences between the Islamic World and the Western World are major. They will be difficult to overcome. OBL will make thing more difficult, but I don't think he will be clever enough to be more than a footnote in history. The Islamic world will have to solve their problems in a different way. It will not be easy, but they will have to suck it up and come up with leadership that can provide them with another plan. At the end of the day, I don't think OBL will be able to recruit too many of the everyday Muslims to his wacky and militant craziness - especially if we don't do anything stupid that could help OBL.