"The network grows organically, like the Internet. We couldn�t have identified the Madrid culprits, because we wouldn�t have known of them until the first bomb exploded."

See, this is what bothers me about relying on terror watch lists at the airport and refusing to profile young Arab men. These guys aren't going to be on a list!

Wot's Richard Clark to do?

The parallels between Islamofacism and Communism are truly extraordinary. Think of it: with Communism, you had very talented middle- and upper-class intellectuals facing the death of God and spirituality, and sweeping social changes. They turned to a new faith, the God that failed, in a bid to seize power and save the Occident.

The Islamofacists are similarly faced with a dying God and sweeping changes. The philosophy driving the response seems different, but the results are startling similar: very talented middle- and upper-class intellectuals (e.g., Osama and all 19 of the 9/11 hijackers) bidding to seize power to save the Islamic realm.

Seven:

That is a huge stretch, although you seem to be cooking the argument by using the term "Islamofascism". Who are you talking about exactly?

Communism was not a distortion or extreme variant of anything. It captured the fidelity of a lot more than just idle, rootless students. If anything, it was an expression of European utopianism. The whole point of this article is how feeble and isolated Al Qaeda might be and how nebulous and transient is its support. Seen much action from the Arab street lately?

However you want to characterize Al Qeda, it's clearly a form of utopianism derivative of Islamic civilization.

Qutb = Marx
bin Laden = Lenin (This is an EASY one.)
There are millions of Arab fellow travelers.

The parallels are obvious.

"There are millions of Arab fellow travelers."

If you mean people willing to do the terrorists' bidding out of conviction rather than fear, I suggest you don't know that is true anymore than I know it isn't.

Fine. There are thousands of Arab fellow travelers.

I'll give you a million. That's exactly 0.1% of the world's Muslim population.

Islam is a warrior religion. It divides the world into the parts ruled by Islam(dar al-Islam) and the parts that need to be conquered by the sword.(dar al-Harb)

This is not a war we have chosen but is instead one our enemies have. In our best WT Sherman mode, we should give them full measure. Whether it is Sudanese Masai herdsmen, Timorese Christian subsistence farmers, Papuan pagan hunter gatherers, unescorted teenage girls in France, Norway or Australia, or people of all faiths working in office buildings in lower Manhattan, the Muslims see us all as targets. We should simply return the favor.

Blasting every Muslim population center from Dearborn Michigan to the Ceinture Rouge to Casablanca to Jakarta to beautiful downtown Mecca would save us a lot of money, time and grief. We can do it now or we will have to do it later when the forces of the diabolism that is Islam will be that much stronger, will have that much greater a presence in the citadels of civilization from Sydney to London to NYC. Those who encourage co-existence or appeasement of the Muslim subhumans are no better than Chamberlain or Daladier.

When confronted with pure evil, no compromise is possible. And make no mistake, we are faced with that confrontation today.

Bart:

Awfully clever of them to have laid so low for fifteen hundred years, no?

P.S. How do you "blast" the Muslim population of Dearborn? Daisycutters or door-to-door?

The invasions of Europe, conquest of Spain, the Moors, the Seljuks, Ottomans, Moguls, Tatars and all their various predations just blew by you then. Not much on World History in the Great White North, eh?

As far as Dearborn is concerned, you round them up and ship them out, or you simply go the Daisy cutter route if need be. Nothing of value would be lost.

Oh, damn. The Seljuks and the Tartars. I completely forgot the Seljuks and the Tartars. You're right, Bart, let's waste them all--each and every one of them.

That's Tatars, of course. Let's waste them too.

So the destruction of Kievan Rus and the near-destruction of the Byzantine Empire don't matter to you? Do you have some kind of problem with Orthodox Christians?

If you do not understand the shiver that the term 'Tatar Yoke' gives to the spine of every ethnic Russian, then you cannot hope to understand Russian policy making, and that is a dire mistake as Russia still has the world's 2d largest nuclear arsenal.

The simple fact is that wherever and whenever the Muslims have gotten their act together they have set about to conquering others, imposing their will on other peoples, leaving destroyed cultures in their wake. You may not see Canada as having a culture worth defending, and in a nation that gave the world Margaret Atwood that is certainly understandable. However, there are people who do believe that Western Civilization has produced something of value and that it should be preserved at all costs.

Bart:

You are correct in noting the Quran has some particularly vicious elements. One could say the same of the Bible, or virtually any other Divinely Inspired text.

Fortunately, secularism has instilled sufficient doubt in Christianity to render the worst parts of the Bible "inoperative."

I suspect that for the vast majority of Muslims, parts of the Quran are equally "inoperative."

It simply isn't worth the damage to Western Civilization that would inevitably follow in train with the very anti-Western slaughter or deportation of that vast majority in the quest to eliminate the tiny minority.

Particularly since that minority can't hope to do any truly significant damage to the West.

Also, keep in mind that there is no hope that Muslims can get their act together in such a way as to counter the virulent life form that modernity has become.

Bart:

"...there are people who do believe that Western Civilization has produced something of value and that it should be preserved at all costs."

Agreed. How about you run off and tackle the Tatars and I'll stay here and "blast" the libertarians?

Jeff:

"...the virulent life form that modernity has become."

I guess that's one way of putting it.

Bart: In the last 22 years, Muslims qua Muslims have killed, what, less than 5000 Americans. Americans have killed, well, nobody really knows, but probably more than 100,000 Muslims.

Peter:

Graphic, perhaps. But even if, on the whole, you find modernity to be a good thing (I do), it would be a challenge to find a place on the planet it hasn't infected.