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2006-10-20 Home Front: Culture Wars

How Reagan Would Handle Islamism - The Brussels Journal

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Posted by anonymous5089 2006-10-20 05:25|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 The real Reagan had a less than stellar record in confronting islamism (just recall his cut and run reaction to the bombings of the Marines barracks in Beyrouth). Now he had lived in a world where Communism was the main threat and could have failed to perceive the need to confront Islam. It is unfair to say as Robert crawford's homonyms seems to think he would have cut and run in a post 9/11 world when it became clear that we have a new deathly foe facing us.

However whatever what the real Reagan would have done we need to inject some Reaganim into the WOT:

- Proudly reassert our values and fight the self-haters who undermine our will to fight and add fuel to Islamist propaganda

- Take the offensive in the ideological field. Stiop this BS that Islam is areligion of peace. It isn't. We could tell that there are good peole between Muslims but that is because they are bad Muslims. The intrinsic ideology in Islam is evil (1). That is what we should be saying

-Tell that Jihad was never more that organuized staeling and Hadj the way for those riches not staying into second class Muslm hands but going to
Arabian (ie from Arabia) hands. Challenge that dirt poor Bangladesh finances that Saudi fat cats: where in Coran it is said that Hadj has to be the lucrative business it is presntly for Meccans?

-Play the fractures in the Mulim world. Encourage nationalist (not panarabist (2)) movements in the Muslim world: people who loathe the idea that their country's culture is inferior and that they should imitate Arabs, people who are tired of seeing their country's hard earned money going to fatten the Suadis through the hadj, people who see Islam as a factor of backwardness and poverty. Have a hundred Ataturks sprounting everywhere in the Muslim world.

-Challenge the Muslims to "Tear down that wall against apostasy" and suggest that only fear keeps people in Islam.

1) One of Reagan's main collaborators had a meeting with his staff and told them to picture how ould be life in Russia in the hypothesis that Russia's economy wasn't growing at 5% per year like claimied by the Soviet statistics
but was near stagnation. And the picture was remarkably like actual Russia: long lines even for basic products like toilet paper, low quality goods and so on.

Now let's imagine what would have happenned if Muhammad was merely a megalomaniac gangster who created a religion in order to enrich himself and get all the pussy he wanted. We could expect him asking for a percentage of the booty collected by his henchmen (Muhammad collected 20% of the fruits of jihad), we could expect all kinds of atrocities against opponents (cf the number of dissidents he had murdered by his henchmen), we could expect him breaking his word when suitable (cf how he wiped out a Jewish tribe after an oppotune "dream" told him Allah alowed him to break the treaty), we could expect him raping captives, we could expect him tailoring the rules specially for him (he allowed himself ten spouses instead of four and ruled he to repudiate them at his whim. Of course, as usual Allah sent him dreams giving him the authorization). Last but not least we could expect hios companions fight over the spoils at his death: only one of the five "enlightened Caliphs" (ie who had been Muhammad's companions) wasn't assasinated.

(2) Since the only big accomplishment the Arabs have ever done is the Islkamic conquests secular panarabism leads very easily to pride aboutn the islamic conquests and then to islamism. BTW one of Abdul Wahab's main ideas was the supremacy of Arabians over mere Arab-speakers and still more over non-Arab Muslims.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2006-10-20 08:44|| 2006-10-20 08:44|| Front Page Top

#2 I prefer the "Hoof and Mouth" solution, personally.

Posted by mojo">mojo 2006-10-20 10:23|| 2006-10-20 10:23|| Front Page Top

#3 "In dealing with Islamism in the present day, we make the very error that Reagan eschewed with the Communists."

But we repeat the very error that Reagan made with the Islamists. Do we win a prize?

Posted by Flea 2006-10-20 10:48|| 2006-10-20 10:48|| Front Page Top

#4 In short, Reagan prevailed over the Sovs because of their innate Western nature.

Whether I agree with Mr. crawford or not this sentence caught my eye.
Though we held differing beliefs in the righhtness of our political systems and differed on many things, in some way the russians and Americans saw the same future. Wanted thhe same type of egalitarian tech-fueled futuristic lifestyle and imagined a future of soaring greatness.
To this end, even during the height of the cold war we collaborated in space.
There is no such cultural, societal intersection with the forces of ISlam. What they want is iinimical to our vision of thhe future,
annd vice-versa.

Posted by J.D. Lux 2006-10-20 13:04|| 2006-10-20 13:04|| Front Page Top

#5 Plus, w/the commies, we were not dealing w/a tribal culture that went back 1,000 years.

Posted by Broadhead6 2006-10-20 13:51|| 2006-10-20 13:51|| Front Page Top

#6 As much as I hate to admit it, a part of why we won the cold war without a big hot nuke was that the Russians loved their children too.

Islamofascists on the other hand dress theirs up as suicide bombers.

Posted by Oldspook 2006-10-20 15:17|| 2006-10-20 15:17|| Front Page Top

#7 Oldspook nails it. Unfortunately, even the theory of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) worked with the USSR because they were sane. The islamofascists on the other hand, are not, so it doesn't even pay to "negotiate" with them, only exterminate them.

Posted by BA 2006-10-20 15:40|| 2006-10-20 15:40|| Front Page Top

#8 Shouldn't single out Reagan for critique on his handling of the muzzies.

Yes, pulling out after the Lebanon bombing was bad, in retrospect, but future historians will undoubtedly conclude that in historical context it was no better or worse than what American policy for two administrations prior to him and two after him. His actions fit into the prevailing wisdom and meme set at that time.

This isn't to let him off the hook from a practical standpoint. Certainly his actions contributed to the current confidence the Islamostalinists have. But the paradigm shift in the policy field would take another twenty years. (Kind of like presidents and Congresses doing nothing about slavery for decades until Reconstruction, even though in retrospect they blew several opportunities to end it prior to that.)

Posted by no mo uro 2006-10-20 18:40|| 2006-10-20 18:40|| Front Page Top

13:56 Anonymoose
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