Self-delusion wins no wars!
I have been alerted to two very well-written, and extremely accurate, essays on the threat of Islam, and how to deal with it. These essays were written a little while ago by my good friend and colleague Jason Pappas, whose weblog, Liberty and Culture has much to contribute to the war we are engaged in.

Please take a look at these. The first is long, but well worth the time it takes to read it. It is full of insight and facts. The second one is somewhat shorter, but no less important for that.

Do conservatives recognize the threat?

Rarely, in the course of history, has a nation gone to war while praising the enemy’s ideology. We can, however, see this absurd spectacle today. While terrorists attack our greatest cities in the name of Islam, we are told that these ideas have nothing to do with their actions. As Muslims cheer with joy throughout the Islamic world, we are told that we mustn’t rush to judgment and stereotype another culture. With each report of repression, misogyny, self-imposed poverty, anti-Semitic hatred, and suicidal glorification, we are told that they are human beings just like us – don’t judge! There is a pathological fear of saying anything negative about the motivating force driving our enemy: Islam.

At first this may seem like an exaggeration. But is it? We do condemn radical Islam but notice how we unduly minimize our criticism. We add the qualifier “radical” or “militant” to imply that it is something added to Islam. The problem must be this additional element – not Islam itself. Or we borrow a word from Christianity and call them fundamentalists as if there were differing versions of Islam. We presume fundamentalist Islam is spurned by the average Muslim, who, we imagine, sees this 7th century practice as a relic relevant to Mohammad’s time. How enlightened we imagine the modern Muslim!

Or we may complain that Islam needs some missing element that will transform it and bring it into the 21st century. We make a moral equivalence between Christianity’s failures centuries ago and Islamic backwardness today. If Christianity can move forward and adapt to the modern world, why can’t Islam? It must be this missing element, modernity, which Islam needs. It took Christians two thousands years to grow up, we are told; you can’t expect Islam to do that in 1400 years. At no point must we question the Islam religion itself.

The taboo against subjecting a religion to critical analysis is even greater when that religion is part of a foreign culture. Conservatives are quick to attack the relativism inherent in contemporary multi-cultural analysis – particularly on the left. There is indeed a wide-spread relativism and vitriolic anti-Americanism on the left but it is by no means universal. I will address this at another time. The contention of this article is that conservatives’ response to the Islamic threat is inadequate and they need to change if we are to fight this enemy effectively. The Conservative Response to the Islamic Threat. by Jason Pappas © September 5, 2004

Saudi Arabia spearheads the worldwide Islamist movement by the establishment of educational institutions around the globe dedicated to reawakening the jihadist ideology. A vast recruiting and training network produces hate-filled warriors eager to kill anyone in their path for the glory of Islam. Saudi powerbrokers finance global terror groups from Hamas to Al Qaeda. (See our review.) The time has come to reconsider our repugnant association with these duplicitous international criminals. What should we do in the face of this threat? Let’s start by severing all ties with Saudi Arabia – military, trade, travel, and diplomatic.

Impossible, you say? Given that 15% of our oil imports originate in Saudi Arabia, the idea of ending our Saudi trade relationship is deemed unimaginable or only possible in the distant future after the development of alternative sources of energy. Neither political party dares suggest such a move in the current context. Unfortunately, the economics is poorly understood but far worse, moral leadership is next to non-existent. First the economics:

Oil is a commodity. Like any commodity its price is determined by the market and it can be sold and resold any number of times. Oil isn’t made-to-order for a particular buyer like a custom suit from one’s personal tailor. The production, purchase, resale, and consumption of oil in today’s modern global economy are determined by market forces – not personal relationships. The path from producer to consumer is spontaneously rearranging. The Saudi Problem by Jason Pappas©

Mark Alexander