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| Angrier than this? | |
Muslim Extremists are
angry people. they don't like to see people making their own choices. They
don't like to see people happy. They don't like to see people more affluent than they are. They
don't like other pointing out their ignorance, corruption and
incompetence. They don't like to see people have fun. Actually they don't seem
to like very much - except controlling other people. The War on Terror is a little like the War on Drugs - it can never
be won. The Left is right that you will never have enough bullets to kill an
idea (genocide notwithstanding). But they are also wrong in thinking that there
will ever be a level of submission which satisfies megalomania. You cannot
appease fundamentalist Islam. Fundamentalist Islam will not stop until it
controls every aspect of your lives. How do you deal with an enemy you can't defeat, and can't make peace with?
You can either wage continual war with them, or contain them. Containment is
the best strategy - you don't let them cross your borders, and you ensure they
don't develop the technology to hurt you from outside them. Keeping fundamentalist Islam poor is easy - poverty is a natural by-product
of a repressive society, and just as their thirst for repression is unbounded,
so is their capacity to generate poverty. Further, Islam itself is
fundamentally a religion of poverty - poor people choose Islam, and Islam keeps
them poor. Modern wars are about technological and
industrial capacity, hence a frontal assault on a united West will never be an
option for them. However an abundance of scarce natural resources (yes, it's about oil), mixed with capitalism, incompetence
and corruption generates
surpluses which can be used to generate Weapons of Mass
Destruction (WMDs), which make fundamentalist Islam much harder to contain. Eventually oil market will contract, either through shortages in supply (it
runs out) or shortages in demand (a substitute is used), and the Islamic
economies will contract to Taliban-Afghan levels. But this is
still decades away. In the meantime, the West has allowed fundamentalist Islam within their
borders - as proven by the WTC attacks, so total
containment is no longer possible. Hence the West's priority in stopping
fundamentalist Islam gain control of WMDs. It's going to be a long messy war, mate.
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