Over the last several weeks I've been taking part in a symposium over at Frontpage Magazine on the future of terrorism with Dr. Rohan Gunaratna (whose work, as most readers are likely aware, I have a lot of respect for and repeatedly plug), Evan Kohlmann (of the extremely resouceful Global Terror Alert), Simon Reeve (of the New Jackals).
In any case, I think it's well-worth reading because all of these men are extremely well-regarded in the field and their opinions are worth paying attention to. I also kind of blow my cover for those who are interested what exactly my day job is ...
It would have been worth reading if the moderator had not insisted upon making the whole discussion about how bad the American left is.
The first two speakers presented a nuanced and insightful view of the situation, and were subjected to a stream of ideological crap from the moderator for their efforts.
This kind of crap
Bush could certainly do “much better” in handling the terror war, especially if the Left didn’t block his administration’s efforts at every turn. It might have helped if the Democrats, represented by the likes of Kerry, Kennedy, Gore and Carter, hadn’t turned the war into a partisan issue and consistently attempted to tie the administration’s hands behind its back.
is a flat out lie, and has no place whatsoever in any kind of serious discussion of the terrorist problem. The role of a moderator is to provide forum participants an opportunity to express and debate their ideas with each other, and maintain the focus of the discussion. It isn't to engage in long, ideologically driven rants every time a speaker with whom he disagrees presents their own perspective.
Its really a shame that the moderator --- who isn't an expert on terrorism, and whose "expertise" appears to be centered on developing methodologies for demonization of anyone who disagrees with the far-right wing agenda --- felt compelled to ignore the wisdom and insights of the three other experts on the panel whose observations were based on the practical considerations of dealing with the terrorist threat, rather than defining that threat within an ideological framework.
"all of these men are extremely well-regarded in the field"
except Glazov.
Context, prak. Context.
I don't think you needed to denigrate your own creds, Dan, because I was only middling pleased with the rest of the symposium. Another panel of terrorism experts, another rendition of the same old Danse Macabre:
The Muslims hate us and we don't know why and nobody is trying to find out why. Since we are democratic societies fighting terrorism, this might be achieved by public examination and debate about that hatred and the forms it takes, but outside of the partisan political journals and the blogs, that debate is just not allowed.
The very same people who tell us that we don't understand Muslim hate will tell us that we're making it worse just by talking about it. They want us to accept their own vague assumptions about it instead.
Of course, every person who pretends to ask "Why do they hate us?" is a person who thinks they already know the answer, and the number one answer is:
The Palestinians still don't have all the stuff they want. And I believe they will never get anything they want until they are made to understand that:
- Hamas, Hisb'allah and Fatah are our mortal enemies, not our "partners in the peace process".
- We can live forever without a Palestinian State, and so will Israel.
- Israel is not a pawn of the US (some terrorism experts need to learn that one, too) and a lasting peace must be under terms acceptable to Israel, not just the US.
- They cannot count on being the beneficiary of a terrorist war against the West.
- They cannot count on Europe (or the UN, or "The World Community") for anything except histrionics and welfare payments.
- It is now up to them to prove that they are capable of becoming a peaceful and viable state, because we are through pretending that they used to have one.
Iraq was a huge mistake, alas, alack. I think that one will be proven dead wrong in time, because for thirty years we have been impotently complaining about terrorist groups operating behind the opaque screen of terror-supporting states, all of whom have been smugly confident that the Great Satan will never dare to take up arms against them. This has gone on and on for year after year.
We punched a big hole in that assumption, and we are refusing to back out of it. That lesson is starting to sink in.
Glen
The other side basically agrees with the terrorists
When every last Jew is dead in the middle east, (and every christian and any other infidel) there will be peace.
Thats what it all boils down to, when you reduce down what they advocate to action and effect.
The world is learning this over time, the ruse, the masks, dont hide it any more.
Be they a school full of kids in Beslan, or a bus full of kids in Tel Aviv. after they do things like that, they have no cause any more, its a moral imperitve not to listen to them.
The duty is to protect the kids, and exterminate those that are attacking them without apology.
That they hide among the innocent makes it difficult to root them out, but those schools that are in your face killer training centers, as long as we allow those to continue.
Because you say so ?
After your bit about the pope, and other stuff that shows your so far out there one wonders if blog thru a straight jacket, it can be a bit amusing to consider just what your idea of a "serious discussion" would sound like.
It does make understanding of just how leftist form of our fellow humans created your mountain of 174 Million skulls rather easy however.
How dare we call a demon a demon ?
Evil exists, the proof is all around in this world and the reason the left act in ernest like liliputians to tie us down so we cant defend ourselves, is because they are little different than those attacking us.
Taking atvantage of our tolerance, and not using guns and bombs themselves, because they are cowards.