One of the many problems with today’s version of liberals is that they simply cannot grasp the concept of an enemy that hates us simply for what we are. They are all looking for what "WE" did wrong. What did "WE" do to cause them to hate us. What can "WE" do to mollify them. The Moslems declared war on Christianity, along with every other religion, 1400 years ago. To think there is any way to get them to like us, or to even tolerate us in other than a position of servitude, is a fools dream. Moderate Islam must destroy the extremists or the entire Umma can expect to live at the level of Afghanistan and NW Pakistan.
We better get used to the idea that the extremists hate us for what we are. That to them we are on the level of rats and cockroaches, to be exterminated simply because we are. Reasoning with them is like reasoning with a man on PCP. Islam has caused the relative poverty and backwardness of Moslem countries, but they blame us. Buying into their delusions and paranoia will not end, or even alleviate the problem. Crushing their threat every time it rears it’s head will at least hold it at bay.
Iraq is the testing ground. Can Moslems live democratically, or must they live under autocracies? Never before has an overwhelmingly Moslem country had this opportunity. Iraq is a fairly educated and rich country with the human and physical capital to be democratic. Can they overcome the autocratic imperative that has always defined Islamic governance? The Islamic Jihadists hate us, but they hate and fear true liberalism even more. Democracy, class mobility, women’s rights, modernity, true literacy, freedom, equality before the law, all these are un Islamic and must be stamped out at all costs. If it works everyone in the Middle East will want to live that way. Festering resentments will give way to hope, mobs will become citizens, and energy spent nursing thousand year old grievances will be used instead to promote enterprise and build wealth. And then where will Osama and his fellow Jihadists be?
We all like to think of ourselves as rugged individualists. But when push comes to shove most of us are sheep who do what we are told. Worst of all, a lot of us become unpaid agents of whoever is controlling the agenda by enforcing the current dogma on the few rugged individualists who actually exist.
