Why the Islamist threat is greatly exaggerated

[DKW 86 7,429]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...95-7583,00.html

I wrote a paper on how societies that fail to adapt always fail years and years ago. I was wondering when we would see the tipping point with Islamic Extremism.

Matthew Parris: Rotting empire v inept enemy

Why the Islamist threat is greatly exaggerated

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May 07, 2007

WRITING in The Spectator three weeks ago, David Selbourne - the distinguished essayist, author and thinker - had sniffed the wind and concluded that it is all up for what he calls the US imperium. Islam has been Washington's undoing, he believes, and after six short decades as top dog of the world, America is already stumbling and set to lose its predominance.

It's a fascinating thesis. Selbourne is right about one thing. The American empire has passed its zenith. More disputable is his implicit suggestion that the US and the world are heading for some kind of nemesis. And he is mistaken, I reckon, to conclude that Islam will prove that nemesis.

I think the question of how, when and by whom an imperium is toppled is often secondary. Cometh the hour, cometh the mutiny. Empires fall because they rot from within: they over-extend themselves, become greedy, and lose idealism, nimbleness and drive. The balance of power shifts away from them as other, smaller nations learn to combine forces to harry. By this stage an imperium is a vulnerable giant, and any number of potential Davids with their slings could bring it down.

Looked at in terms of relative economic and military power, the US was probably at its most formidable in the decade following 1945. By the time Americans fully took on board what clout they had, and adjusted their foreign policy mind-set accordingly, the rest of the world was catching up, and ganging up. Now that the rest of the West feels no need to hide beneath Washington's skirts from the Soviet empire, this will intensify.

Selbourne thinks it might have been very different for Washington. He thinks America's mistake has been to underestimate the guile, energy and willpower of international Islamism. If only the US and its allies had fully understood and squared up to the devil they were facing, he laments.

Have we not noticed how incompetent are Islamic governments and organisations the world over?

Has it not occurred to us that if al-Qa'ida really were as wily and resourceful as we tell ourselves it is, and if its tentacles really did extend as wide and deep as some say, it would be on the advance - not battled into a stalemate by Western security and intelligence? Al-Qa'ida's failure to infiltrate or penetrate Western structures has been complete.

There is a reason for this. Islam, in its more fundamentalist form, doesn't work. Serious, committed Islamists are most unlikely to succeed within any structures but their own. Their own, meanwhile, are notoriously inefficient and corrupt. Only by lucky coincidence have much of the world's known petrocarbons been found beneath Islamic nations, giving them what temporary influence they wield.

How can any culture that despises modernity, hates mobility, distrusts individual liberty and autonomy, persecutes those who deviate from cultural or ideological norms, imposes a kind of brutal conformity on the way people live, love and work, and at a stroke disempowers 50 per cent of its people (women) from proper education and from all career opportunity so that every male child it produces is being brought up by a person who knows little of the world and only a fraction of what the boy must learn - how can such a culture bestride the 21st century, as Selbourne fears Islamism will do?

We are hugely overestimating our supposed enemy. We are overlooking the fractures and potential fractures within it. Even if we were not, even if Islamism really were a great, fearsome and growing beast, cynics would say that we in the West would be best advised to let its most implacable enemies shed their blood and money confronting its advance.

In Chechnya, as in southeast Asia, with China, and all across that swath of nations ending in stan, the struggle between Islam and its rivals is one from which the West can stand aside, leaving both sides to an expensive and wasteful scrap. The Chinese and the Russians are infinitely more savage than we dare be.

This is a battle Islamism cannot win. Fundamentalist Islam is a medieval force. It has little to contribute to modern business, science or government, and subsists uneasily in today's world. Profoundly and essentially reactionary, it hardly creates, innovates or invents, and appears chronically disorganised and prone to internal division and distrust. Islam in its more convinced forms may even be in its death throes - it is too early to say.

We should stand well clear. An imperium in its death throes can be a nasty beast; I am by the same token nervous that the American empire may lurch dangerously around for decades to come. For the rest of us, as we contemplate these dysfunctional beasts, the best advice is that offered to his country (when the US really was at a zenith) by president Harry Truman, as the Soviet imperium headed for its afternoon: containment, not confrontation, is the wisest policy.

Matthew Parris, a former British Conservative MP, is a columnist for The Times and The Spectator in Britain, from which this is reprinted.

[otterinbham 0]

Here's my opinion. Make development of alternative energy a strategic priority. Provide incentives to people to stop using their cars or living 15 miles from their office. Invest heavily in public transportation. And then stop importing oil. The Arab countries would dry up and blow up.

[DKW 86 7,429]

Here's my opinion. Make development of alternative energy a strategic priority imperative. Provide incentives to people to stop using their cars or living 15 miles from their office. Invest heavily in public transportation. And then stop importing oil. The Arab countries would dry up and blow up.

100% agree. Let the Chinese and the Indians deal with them.

[CCTAU 3,327]

Here's my opinion. Make development of alternative energy a strategic priority imperative. Provide incentives to people to stop using their cars or living 15 miles from their office. Invest heavily in public transportation. And then stop importing oil. The Arab countries would dry up and blow up.

100% agree. Let the Chinese and the Indians deal with them.

A slow death as opposed to going out with a bang?

Islam will only be stopped by banning islam. Muslims, other than the terrorists, are taking over the world by population. They don't mind living in squalor. They just want to reproduce until they are in larger numbers. At that time, they will ELiMINATE anyone that is not them. There is no peace to their religion, only patience. We as Americans think only in the short term. Muslims have been around for thousands of years. They know their time will come if they are only patient. Run them out of town now, or they will run your great grandchildren out later.

[DKW 86 7,429]

Here's my opinion. Make development of alternative energy a strategic priority imperative. Provide incentives to people to stop using their cars or living 15 miles from their office. Invest heavily in public transportation. And then stop importing oil. The Arab countries would dry up and blow up.

100% agree. Let the Chinese and the Indians deal with them.

A slow death as opposed to going out with a bang?

Islam will only be stopped by banning islam. Muslims, other than the terrorists, are taking over the world by population. They don't mind living in squalor. They just want to reproduce until they are in larger numbers. At that time, they will ELiMINATE anyone that is not them. There is no peace to their religion, only patience. We as Americans think only in the short term. Muslims have been around for thousands of years. They know their time will come if they are only patient. Run them out of town now, or they will run your great grandchildren out later.

The Chinese alone out number all muslims. Then add in the Indians, etc and you get the picture. I agree we do not need ot allow them to get anymore power in the US. But in totality, they could very easily go just like the writer said. They are the worst in govt, etc. They will ruin themsleves keeping their young from acting like everyone else. The more they are exposed to the 21st Century, the more likely they will fail.

[drewau02 0]

Empires crumble from within? What are you talking about?

Sincerely,

Rome

[CCTAU 3,327]

Here's my opinion. Make development of alternative energy a strategic priority imperative. Provide incentives to people to stop using their cars or living 15 miles from their office. Invest heavily in public transportation. And then stop importing oil. The Arab countries would dry up and blow up.

100% agree. Let the Chinese and the Indians deal with them.

A slow death as opposed to going out with a bang?

Islam will only be stopped by banning islam. Muslims, other than the terrorists, are taking over the world by population. They don't mind living in squalor. They just want to reproduce until they are in larger numbers. At that time, they will ELiMINATE anyone that is not them. There is no peace to their religion, only patience. We as Americans think only in the short term. Muslims have been around for thousands of years. They know their time will come if they are only patient. Run them out of town now, or they will run your great grandchildren out later.

The Chinese alone out number all muslims. Then add in the Indians, etc and you get the picture. I agree we do not need ot allow them to get anymore power in the US. But in totality, they could very easily go just like the writer said. They are the worst in govt, etc. They will ruin themsleves keeping their young from acting like everyone else. The more they are exposed to the 21st Century, the more likely they will fail.

I don't think the Chinese and the Indians have a religion that tells them to go forth and kill those who are not you. Islam will not tolerate anyone but them. The Indians and Chinese tend to stay in their part of the world. Hence the huge population in their countries. Muslims are spreading to all nations. Kinda like a cancer.

[DKW 86 7,429]

My scenario:

1) We go fuel independent.

2) OPEC starts to sell big time to China and India.

3) OPEC starts to kick them around with fuel shortages, etc.

4) They load up the tanks and trucks and straighten out OPEC.

My scenario had nothing to do with Religion being the end of the OPEC/Mid East/Muslims. It has everythng to do with oil and economics.

[AURaptor 1,125]

We will never be 'oil import independent' . Never.

The oil we import goes to far more than just gasoline for automobiles.

The Islamo Fascist will always be willing to send their deranged faithful to die for their cause. This won't stop until we show them it's a futile and pointless endeavor. So far, we've done NOTHING to paint that picture.

REAL energy conservation will first have to come from cities and states, taking overt action, such as more recycling programs, cutting power to unnecessary areas, etc... Until the public sees that the elected officials are serious about getting the OPEC monkey off our back, things will continue exactly as they are now.