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Politics : Foreign Policy Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (7979)	12/29/2006 12:22:53 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15994

Communism had intellectual appeal. One of their big mistakes was thinking they could spread their ideology by force. They did spread their ideology by force. In the end, they lost because they couldn't make the case that they had a better way to advance civilization. In the end the ideology was fundamentally flawed. But force kept it in power. Jihadism does not have any intellectual appeal. I'm not sure I'd agree. It has intellectual appeal to some. In any case intellectual appeal isn't the issue. It has emotional appeal, and it inspires devoted belief. Communism was a much bigger threat than Jihadism could ever be. Communism was a bigger threat than Jihadism is currently. I don't know that I'd agree that it was a bigger threat than Jihadism could ever be. Days when you can conquer people by force are gone. That simply isn't true. Not that its normally easy now, or that its as likely to be accepted by third parties, but human nature hasn't significantly changed. The biggest power in the world is the US. The US does use its military against other powers but it doesn't try to conquer by force (and if it did the population would strongly oppose it), and it (and many mid level powers) would oppose conquest by force in many cases. But the concept isn't, and likely never will become obsolete. The Internet has changed everything The Internet is only part of the world being more connected. The Internet is important but I wouldn't put everything on it. The greater connectedness does reduce the likely risk/benefit ratio of invasion, but it doesn't mean that no one invades anyone else anymore. Instead of trying to convince people intellectually, to win their hearts and minds, there are those that want to waste our resources by focusing on a military solution to spread our way of life. A purely military solution can't spread democracy and freedom to well, but it can remove obstacles to such a spread.

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (7979)	12/29/2006 3:35:59 PM
From: one_less	Respond to of 15994

"Jihadism does not have any intellectual appeal." Some of the most educated and scholarly human beings on the planet promote Jihadism. I will attempt to demonstrate the appeal to intellect. Jihad means to struggle for the good. That means that you engage in a personal struggle to bring goodness into the world and to remove the bad. You personally commit to this and to supporting the efforts of others taking a stand for this cause. That is central to the thinking of most decent human beings and is termed Jihad in Islam. The corruption of the term becomes a justification to use force anytime you, as a self important being, want something. Education, whether it is here or in distant lands and alien cultures is always a system of informing and training people to be competent and supportive of the dogma and doctrine of culture. Most of the world remains illiterate except as they are taught by those in their locale who are the keepers of wealth, controllers of resources, distributors and gate keepers of information. When considering the circumstance under which many people are socialized, surely you can see why they see an intellectual appeal, have emotional enmeshment, and an economic necessity to support efforts of the jihadists. As cultures are blending, we are becoming more of a global community where the opportunity to reach across as human brethren becomes a viable alternative, ... we have hope. When the 'good' that needs to be in the world is a common view point, the 'Holy Wars' thinking may be a thing of the past. Unfortunately, we aren't there yet. I see it promoted just as strongly in the USA by some groups as I do from the other side.