In a twenty-minute speech via audiotape, Mr. Ayman al-Zawahri, the al Qaeda gang’s number two, has threatened “very precise retaliation” against the United Kingdom for the Queen’s awarding of a knighthood to Sir Salman Rushdie.
The al Qaeda organization generally carries through on its threats, or tries to, so I don’t think that Mr. al-Zawahari is indulging in bluster. It seems more probable that Mr. al-Zawahari truly believes “very precise retaliation” is necessary: that the “insult” to Islam of a knighthood for an extraordinarily tedious author that nobody but the ivory-tower literati reads can indeed only be redressed by blood.
Obviously Mr. al-Zawahari has something ghastly in mind, but carrying through on such threats seems to me to be rank political lunacy. If Mr. al-Zawahri and company really want to revive support in the West for the war, and provide cover for politicians to take active measures against their own Muslim minority populations -- “precise retaliations” or repeating 9/11 is a sure road to that objective.
Perhaps the weakness of al Qaeda and militant Islam in general is that what its followers see as keeping faith with their God necessarily involves what amounts to a death wish for their own civilization ? Yes, yes, al Qaeda and its radical friends wants to wipe out the decadent West: to bring death to America, to Israel, and to the apostates and re-establish the caliphate, but at the end of the day, I just don’t think they’re big enough. The West has more money, more guns, and may Study War No More because it’s too good at it. (By war, I don’t mean Iraq, I’m talking about the all-out kind -- Dresden and Hiroshima. This beast must not be roused again, and al Qaeda is playing with it). The question before the House is: how many of us will Mr. al-Zawahiri and company be allowed to kill before the West decides that If There’s No Hoof-and-Mouth Disease, There Won’t Be Any ?
Islam must save itself from Mr. al-Zawahiri and those like him, such as Mr. Ahmadinejad. The hour is very late.
The al Qaeda organization generally carries through on its threats, or tries to, so I don’t think that Mr. al-Zawahari is indulging in bluster. It seems more probable that Mr. al-Zawahari truly believes “very precise retaliation” is necessary: that the “insult” to Islam of a knighthood for an extraordinarily tedious author that nobody but the ivory-tower literati reads can indeed only be redressed by blood.
Obviously Mr. al-Zawahari has something ghastly in mind, but carrying through on such threats seems to me to be rank political lunacy. If Mr. al-Zawahri and company really want to revive support in the West for the war, and provide cover for politicians to take active measures against their own Muslim minority populations -- “precise retaliations” or repeating 9/11 is a sure road to that objective.
Perhaps the weakness of al Qaeda and militant Islam in general is that what its followers see as keeping faith with their God necessarily involves what amounts to a death wish for their own civilization ? Yes, yes, al Qaeda and its radical friends wants to wipe out the decadent West: to bring death to America, to Israel, and to the apostates and re-establish the caliphate, but at the end of the day, I just don’t think they’re big enough. The West has more money, more guns, and may Study War No More because it’s too good at it. (By war, I don’t mean Iraq, I’m talking about the all-out kind -- Dresden and Hiroshima. This beast must not be roused again, and al Qaeda is playing with it). The question before the House is: how many of us will Mr. al-Zawahiri and company be allowed to kill before the West decides that If There’s No Hoof-and-Mouth Disease, There Won’t Be Any ?
Islam must save itself from Mr. al-Zawahiri and those like him, such as Mr. Ahmadinejad. The hour is very late.
2 comments:
imo, if there is very precise retaliation against the United Kingdumb:
1) it will be bush/cheney's fault
2) no one will connect the act to islam or muslims in general
3) no one will connect the act to terrorism in general
EJM I said:
keeping faith with their God necessarily involves what amounts to a death wish for their own civilization ?
i take issue with this characterization. they do not have a civilization. while they do keep records the only technology they possess is the assembly of IEDs. and by M-W definition they do not have,
3 a : refinement of thought, manners, or taste b : a situation of urban comfort
as evidence of this, google "gaza".
imo, what they do have is a tribal culture. there is no difference between them and the tribal cultures of the rain forest as seen on national geographic, EXCEPT, they have access to fly planes into our buildings. as long as UBL generates 42 brothers/sisters using their women as breeding stock there is no danger of this culture of death ever ending. is has been going on for 1400 years and we are told they are multiplying like cockroaches.
you read GoV. you know what is going on in sweden.
and the other column bigots such as myself must face, is those who live in the west, losth its' existence and see AQ as their militant wing to the wests demise.
as long as our leaders don't want to hurt anyone, and/or offend our enemy in any way, this war will morph into the war on poverty and/or the war on drugs.
and the answer to the question, "who is they?" is "yes".
I used the "civilization" word more for convenience than for anything else it connotes.
As for what will happen,and the political and military choices of the present lot of cravens running things both here and in Europe. . .it's too early to say. I'm not buying the Eurabia scenario yet. The one thing history proves is that no trend remains constant: that every action produces an equal and opposite reaction.
To be sure, I'm pessimistic to a fault: but I think that we will prevail in the struggle with radical Islam. But first, we have to struggle with ourselves: and with the ersatz Marxism and decadent leftism that prevails in the academy; in the media and that informs so much of public life in the west.
I think we win that struggle too, eventually: but I think we're going to bankrupt ourselves, and that the world of tomorrow will be run by China. We need to straighten ourselves out to compete in that world.
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