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

To: LindyBill who wrote (50828)	6/19/2004 2:57:15 AM
From: D. Long	Respond to of 793938

Anonymous believes Mr Bush is taking the US in exactly the direction Bin Laden wants, towards all-out confrontation with Islam under the banner of spreading democracy. The lie is put to that when Zawahiri is trying to co-opt our democracy talk. He's resorted to arguing that AQ has more Arab democracy cred than the Americans. They're losing. Derek

To: LindyBill who wrote (50828)	6/19/2004 5:16:25 PM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793938

Anonymous believes Mr Bush is taking the US in exactly the direction Bin Laden wants, towards all-out confrontation with Islam under the banner of spreading democracy. bin Laden has always operated on the basis of all-out confrontation with democracy. He didn't get it until 9/11. Until then he had only half a confrontation. The war with the islamofascists is ideological and and both bin Laden and his allies, and Bush and his allies, have said it is existential. Mr Anonymous seems to think, at least as his view is presented in the article, that carrying the war back to bin Laden and his allies, is a bad thing to do because apparently that is what bin Laden wants. There is an assumption that Islamofascism is Islam and Islam is anti-democratic in the way bin Laden is. This is foolish and can't be demonstrated except through selective quotation from Islamic theological and juridical writing and from selective quotation from islamic leaders. Theses, - both pro and anti democratic - can be "demonstrated" in this way and with equal zero credibility because they have no descriptive power of what exists.. The correct question that needs answering for the discussion to go forward is this: are Muslims pro, or anti, democratic? In the main, apart from holdouts in some parts of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Sudan, English Midlands, and the suburbs of Paris, they are pro-democratic. Can they see they are being invited by bin Laden and his allies to an internecine religious war? Probably. bin Laden and his allies are on the forefront of the religious war taking place within Islam. They wish to involve the West as a foil for uniting Islam under the islamofascist banner. This is a strategy fraught with great risk. They can only do this by attacking the West, and particularly the US, through terrorist attacks. He is assuming the US's and its allies' response will be such that he will get the wished for unity. So far they haven't got it and they are attacking Muslims - in Iraq and elsewhere - with punishment terrorism for not following the islamofascist line. This not a way to get allies. It is perhaps, in the short run, a way to discourage pro-democratic folk from being very active but in the longer term is likely to bring them to active self defense. Such defense is very difficult for many because of the nature of the regimes they live under and they must heve help from democratic nations. None of the above gives comfort to those who desire lack of confrontation between democracy and islamofascism. It also gives no comfort to those who would desire a peaceful resolution. It gives no comfort to those who think it can be resolved through policing activity with little or no military activity. It will require lots of both. Mr Anonymous and I agree on one thing. That the islamofascists are trying to acquire WMDs and when they get them, they will use them. And they will use them whether or not there is a "confrontation between Islam and democracy" because the issue for the islamofascists is the existence of democracy. They wish to deny its practice to one third of the world's population and take it away from the rest. ne significant ommission in the article is any treatment of how the islamofascists should be dealt with.