Is there a threat to Western civilization from radical/fundamentalist Islamic jihadists, or not?
Point.
Counterpoint.
Discussion?
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8 comments:
Not surprisingly, I agree far more with Robert Spencer's take than with the one David Ignatius makes.
I find it interestingly ironic that Ignatius' description of the first through third generation of modern jihadis very closely mimics the description of the first several generations of Muslim jihadis in the 620s.
In the 620s, Muhammad was an exile in Medina and had a following that consisted of, at most, a few dozen people, loosely organized, badly funded, and quite dispirited. Even after his return to Mecca, at most his core following was several hundred.
Further, great portions of Muhammad's early armies consisted of disaffected Bedouin youths persuaded to join Islam's cause not by religious furor, but by Muhammad's charisma and the desire to affiliate oneself with a crusade that appeared to be bent on "righting the wrongs" of Arab life at the time.
Yet, from that humble origin, the people who came to follow his religion conquered a swath of territory that stretched from Yemen to Greece and from Spain to Afghanistan by the early 700s.
The powerful comparison lies in the fact that the Muslims of 630 found themselves with the same technological, manpower, and logistical situation they find themselves in, yet they managed to establish a nearly perpetual state of global jihad that lasted until 1918.
From that view, 1918 to 2001 was just a rebuilding period for the next round.
I think we've spoken before about taking 'news' with the grain of salt that is indicated by the manifest leanings of those putting it forward. Find clear analysis of the issues from someone (Horowitz and his "Freedom Center" who publishes Frontpage Magazine) who isn't so vehemently and rabidly pushing a political agenda and get back to me. But really I just hate the site because I object to the tone of condescension that pervades it as if anyone who dares disagree is some hippy-dippy peacenik telling America to take a few Qualudes and 'relax'.
This version of historical assessment is interesting, but it neglects salient points such as the plague that swept Europe, depopulating the continent and strongly lending itself to the early successes of the Muslim invasion. External forces that played a significant role in history that are not currently in play and unlikely to recur. It also implies that Muslims now have a charismatic leader on whom they can center their aspirations - assuming any of them really are fighting to establish a caliphate - and that they have ANY unanimity in their aims. And neglects the economic component of unrest in Islamic countries.
Both views reflected in these articles are flawed, but the second moreso than the first inasmuch as at least Ignatius takes due notice of the fact that Islamic fundamentalism isn't all based on the same fundamentals. They're not all fighting for the same Islam or reading from the same Quran. Or following the same leader.
But we've had this argument before...
What does the plague have to do with the fact that the Muslims were invading in the first place?
And was there a plague that depopulated Greek-speaking, Christian Palestine and rendered it particularly succeptible to Muslim invaders that would have otherwise been repelled?
Never mind the second question. Depopulated or not, the places that fell to Muslim invasions fell to Muslim invasions, not the plague.
Who is Horowitz, and what does he have to do with anything?
An estimated 280 million people died. The depopulation by plague made the successes in Europe possible by weakening the ability of western civilizations to resist the invasion. The successes lent momentum and success of this kind feeds - by implication - the impression that God is on your side, which - by extension - lent ever more momentum to the muslim cause because Christendom couldn't be rallied to stop it at the Rhine... so to speak.
It's that nuance thing again.
Horowitz runs the magazine where Jihad Watch resides. He's not a journalist, he's a hack as is anyone purporting to be journalist whilst pushing a political agenda and all fruit of the poisonous tree is suspect thereby.
But they did stop it at Vienna.
And again, where's the "nuance" in invading a plague-weakened continent? It's still Muslim imperialist/religious war of aggression.
And just because you disagree with Horowitz in general doesn't really mean that you can/should disagree with Spencer in any given specific. I don't buy "fruit of the poisonous tree." It sounds too much like "ad hominem."
Then we disagree.
I might buy the plague argument if it universally applied. Certainly, parts of the Byzantine Empire and Spain were affected by that plague, but what about Mesopotamia and Persia? The plague did not affect them at all. What about North Africa? The plague did exist there, but at nowhere the levels it did in Europe.
It also does not address the sheer disparity between the invaders and the conquered. Most of the Muslim armies at the time at best numbered 10,000. They were fighting Byzantine and Persian armies multiple times their size. In one case, I need to look up the particulars again, one of those Muslim armies defeated a battle hardened Byzantine one while outnumbered 10-to-1. What they lacked in numbers they made up for in sheer zeal, as they have in Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan, and elsewhere in modern times.
Frankly, I have always found the plague answer to be a convenient "it can't happen to us in modern times" cop out for something we'd rather ignore. We haven't had a worldwide plague or a devastating meteor strike for awhile either, so should we disregard those as well? I think what modern society tends to believe is that we're somehow better than those Byzantines, when we are those Byzantines with iPods and double-half-caf-lattes.
As for the whole issue of who and what Horowitz, Spencer, and the whole lot of them may or may not be, one has to believe that journalism is possible in order to make the judgement that what they are doing is wrong.
Reaching back to the certainty principle discussed elsewhere, if everything is what we believe and not what we know, then how is what Horowitz or Spencer doing wrong? They are stating what they believe in a far more honest fashion than, say, the New York Times, simply because they are directly saying what they believe rather than saying it and trying to pretend like they didn't.
Meanwhile, if the debate is about journalism, then the debate about what is actually happening is lost, and we all pay a price for that, whatever the facts may actually be.
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