Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
This interview does such a good job of expressing many things I think:
|
It's immaterial, because it appears we've chosen "war, war, war" of the two options provided.
But I'm not sure the alternative isn't a trap in which Neville Chamberlain would be quite comfortable. De Villepin rightly views the conflict as bigger, global. The struggle against Western control is real, and it's been on open display since 1979. But one can't make peace with its leading edge because that edge - Radical Islam - desires total control, domination.
The West can easily abide the rising East. The Chinese may be diabolical in numerous regards, but they are rational. Indonesia, Vietnam, India... they are all transactional. Even Russia is transactional (if we'd not fiddled in Ukraine and left it as a Russian buffer state, Putin would not have felt the need to do what he did).
Radical Islam, which is metastasizing throughout Europe, is not transactional. Extreme Islam should be take at its literal word, because its followers are generally lacking formal education and cannot behave or interpret scripture in anything but a literal sense. And the literal scripture of Islam is this:
Any land once held by Islam is always property of Islam and if lost must be reclaimed.
Hence, one hears Imams in Gaza right now calling for removal of not only the Jews, Christians, Hindus, and any other non-Muslim in Israel, but also for the re-annexation of Spain, Italy, Turkey, and all other nations once under Islamic control. (One also hears them at the moment in speeches at protests in downtown NYC. Look it up.)
Hamas follows this dictate.
The writings of that semi-illiterate seventh century Joseph Smith known as Muhammed are very clear - Islam's is the final word on all things regarding the Universe. Full stop.
So, how does one "negotiate" a world peace with a half billion or so near illiterate people streaming into other countries who believe they have the final revealed truth, and that truth directs that they must compel all people they see to follow Sharia or die?
It's a cult of suicide bombers. No attempt to find common ground will come to anything ultimately because their raison d'etre is prosecution of the position that There Is No Common Ground - There Is Only Islamic Ground.
As technology leaves even more of these dumb young jihadists without constructive endeavors, we can expect more and more of this sort of thing. Israel is just the start, the threshold. This leads to a not unpersuasive argument that the only way to deal with these hordes of radical idiots is to treat them like an infestation. De Villepin should understand this, as France has seen the wages of dithering about the problem of Radical Islam firsthand quite a bit.
