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Sat. Aug 03, 2002

QuoteLog, 8/03

QuoteLog, 8/03 – "Islamist militancy is a self-confessed threat to the values not merely of the US but also of the European Enlightenment: to the preference for life over death, to peace, rationality, science and the humane treatment of our fellow men, not to mention fellow women. It is a reassertion of blind, cruel faith over reason. One does not have to be a scholar of Islam to say this. Evil men can find what they seek in most of the religious or philosophical texts of the world. In the Middle Ages it was the Christian Crusaders who represented intolerance, the murder of those of different faiths – or even different variants of one’s own faith – and international pillage in the name of religion. Today the roles are reversed; and I leave it to theologians to decide which side has been truer at which time to the supposedly sacred texts."

Samuel Brittan, Financial Times

"The extremists wish a return to the glory of Islamic dominance of the world, because it is what God told them would happen. And every year that passes makes this seem less and less likely, as the Islamic nations fall further and further behind the west in nearly every way that can be measured [...] They’re being buried, and we don’t even seem to be doing it deliberately. We are so much more powerful, and our culture so much more vital and vibrant, that we don’t even notice theirs. They call us devils, because they truly see us as evil. We are the embodiment of the forces fighting against God and Islam, and we’re winning. We win in terms of economic might; in terms of military power; in all forms of temporal power in fact. And we’re winning the fight for minds and souls; our ideas are infecting the Arabs even in Holy Saudi Arabia, the very core of Islam, home of the two Mosques. We profane their faith just by breathing [...] In actuality, they attacked us out of self defense, as they viewed it. They were attempting to defend their faith against the heretical influence of our culture, and the slow but sure way that it is destroying what they see as the true practice of Islam. And as long as we believe in things like freedom of expression, and freedom of behavior, then to a greater or lesser extent we will continue to eat away at the roots of Islamic culture simply by existing. Their culture has been thrown into competition with ours and it is losing. They only way they can win is by destroying us. Their actual demand was that all traces of influence by us be removed from contact with their culture, so that it will stop seducing their own people away from devout practice of the true faith, and that isn’t possible as long as we exist."

Steven Den Beste

"It is time to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world, or even that they occupy the same world [...] Europe is turning away from power, or to put it a little differently, it is moving beyond power into a self-contained world of laws and rules and transnational negotiation and cooperation. It is entering a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity, the realization of Kant’s ’Perpetual Peace.’ The United States, meanwhile, remains mired in history, exercising power in the anarchic Hobbesian world where international laws and rules are unreliable and where true security and the defense and promotion of a liberal order still depend on the possession and use of military might. That is why on major strategic and international questions today, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus: They agree on little and understand one another less and less. And this state of affairs is not transitory the product of one American election or one catastrophic event. The reasons for the transatlantic divide are deep, long in development, and likely to endure. When it comes to setting national priorities, determining threats, defining challenges, and fashioning and implementing foreign and defense policies, the United States and Europe have parted ways."

Robert Kagan

"Will such a war really be worth the cost? Possibly. No one can predict today whether the butcher’s bill for such a war will be astoundingly low or all too high. The only thing that is predictable is that Iraq will become a steadily more dangerous proliferator so long as Saddam is alive. There is, however, one thing of which we can be certain. There will be no true victory unless we make a firm national commitment to rebuild a moderate Iraq of the kind that Iraqis inside Iraq want, rather than simply defeat Saddam. If we go to war, it will be out of morally ambiguous strategic calculations that involve serious uncertainties. We cannot change this reality. It is clear we can win if we are willing to commit decisive force, and probably with limited U.S., allied and Iraqi losses. However, military victory is not enough. Ultimately, we be judged and judge ourselves by our commitment to helping the Iraqi people win the peace."

Anthony Cordesman, Washington Times