Giving in to any terrorism induced demands, let alone the demands of terrorists in general, is bad policy and no one is likely to argue that point. To imply that the alternative is to agree with George Bush’s approach is a false dichotomy. Stooping to your enemy’s level and treating all your citizens as potential terrorists unless they are card carrying members of the RNC and even then eavesdrop and intrude on their personal lives is not an alternative any free democratic society should seek to emulate. Fortunately enough Americans have finally seen that light as well and now there is some hope we can move towards a more balances approach.
That said, your straightforward summary of events was refreshing.

Really? Only 2 diammetrically opposed options?

Well then, should we invade another country or prepare Osama bin Laden’s welcome party.

Yes, Tom, there are fundamentally only two options - fight or capitulate. How we fight - if we choose to do so - as well as when and where are all vectors that should be carefully analyzed. Given publicly available information, Iraq seems to have been an incorrect choice, as I think you suggest. Likewise the relative abandoning of Afghanistan.

Fighting doesn’t always mean military action. For instance, creating safe, *secure*, secular or even Christian schools and educating the populace of troubled regions in Afghanistan is a good long-term mechanism to attack the root problem of radical Islam.

Radical Islam reminds me of all of the worst evils of the 20th century; Mass movements such as Fascism, communism, nationalism or whatever. These movements always appear in a deceptive romantic guise as something good and positive, yet all they offer is death and destruction on a massive scale. Unfortunately the human mind is quite susceptible to romantic fantasies and therefore these movements were able to get a lot of support despite their violence and bloodshed.

When it comes to the battle against radical Islam, a very large percentage of the population of the west buy into the Islamist romanticism. Analyses of Islamism tend to focus on the Islamists’ grievances rather than on their actions. Look at the Mumbai attacks; how many Jews are there in India? Very few, yet one of the biggest targets of the Islamists is the tiny Jewish community.

Unfortunately western liberals are incapable of dealing with Islamism because they just do not go in for the idea of evil any more. Evil, if it exists, is something that is confined to neo-Nazis, evil coming from any other source is simply invisible to the western liberal mindset.

I think that a useful exercise in fighting Islamists would be to focus on the activities of the Islamists, especially their large scale killing of innocents which is currently airbrushed out by looking at their grievances.

It seems kind of like a broad definition of “fight”, to include the building of schools, but OK…but doesn’t that kind of reduce your suggestion to “do something, or capitulate”, which strikes me as kind of obvious….

…if you don’t think western liberals believe in evil, you should see what they have to say about George Bush. Or get beyond the stereotypes of liberals as extreme moral relativists. Or explain why if so many in the West have a romantic notion of Islam, Obama felt the need to strongly deny that he was a Muslim.

Tom, fair point. Western Liberals find it difficult to see evil that does not come from the political right. I accept your criticism on that point.

On the romanticism, on re-reading my comment I didn’t express myself that well. I do not believe that western romanticism is with Islam at all, but with revolutionary movements, politically motivated (non-right wing) violence and utopian political solutions. Somehow violence that comes from a non-right wing political source it is taken as evidence that the perpetrators are really oppressed or have no other options etc.

Also I am writing from Europe, not the US. I think that the political class in the US is in general more robust. The sort of people that usually only become academics in the US get to run political parties and sometimes even states here.

Here in Europe the difference in approach between Islamist and neo-nazi violence is very striking. When Islamists carry out an attack there is a lot of hand wringing and a lot of emphasis on how these people have real grievances etc. etc.

When neo-Nazis carry out an attack nobody starts wondering if this is due to excessive immigration or the excessive influence of Jews on government policy. In other words neo-Nazis are isolated, while Islamists are appeased.

I am not criticising the isolation of neo-nazis because I think this is the correct approach. In countries like Britain this has led to neo-nazis trying to become more “respectable” by ditching some of their most unpleasant ideas. It is not a perfect process and it is far from complete, but isolation seems to be driving them towards reform.

The appeasement of the Islamists has the exact opposite effect. By conceding their self-claimed grievances, grievances that often have little or no basis in reality, Islamists are encouraged and strengthened. While neo-nazi violence is still present, Islamists are far more active.

When it comes to the moral relativist point, I think that this is probably the key to the whole thing. I agree that all liberals are not moral relativists, but moral relativism is becoming a stronger force in the West in general; some of it is liberal, some is conservative and some is centrist. This is the real rot that is causing our collapse.

Why is this? Because someone who doesn’t really believe in anything will not have any bottom line when dealing with a bully. If enough pressure is put on the moral relativist will surrender. I am a conservative, I dislike most of what an old style (pre 1980) liberal believes in, but because he/she believes in something he/she won’t just give in. New style “politically correct” liberalism does not believe in anything much, so it will surrender.