I just read about this.

Unbelievable isn't it.

I wonder how they feel about shariah law, about women, about Jews, about Christians, about homosexuals, as if I didn't know already.

Not to change the subject, but this somewhat related item might be of interest to you all.

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/186/story_18648_1.html

Junaid Afeef, a Muslim lawyer and a former President of the Muslim Bar Association of Chicago, has agreed to serve as legal counsel to Acton Gordon, the former editor of the Daily Illini newspaper at the University of Illinois at Urbana who was recently fired after he published the infamous cartoons in the paper.

I'm shocked.
</sarcasm>

That's a problem with overcontrolled people: they want to overcontrol everyone else.

Let's buy those flex cars, people, and find better ways to present ourselves than military interventionism (while preserving the power to hit any future Tora Bora's).

Isn't it time for another one of our periodic immigration tightenings?

David Warren summed up the situation well in his Tech Central Station column "the idea that Islam imagines itself in a fundamental, physical conflict with everything outside of itself, is an idea with which people in the contemporary West are morally and intellectually incapable of coming to terms." See The Heart of the Matter

pbswatcher,

I read David Warren's article and then I went and read your arguments for MAD as well. I think your proposal is valid enough to discuss. Before I enter comment on the specific MAD proposal I would just question you about a few other "non-topic" things. Namely your list of self defined supported "things" on the left of your website. When you say you support "the president, the policy, the mission, and Donald Rumsfeld" I just have to wonder what exactly do you mean. Are you just referring to Foreign Policy? Are you unconditionally embracing all of the above? Considering all the fraud and incompetence for example how could you unconditionally support those things? What exactly do you stand for?

Back to MAD. Ok so I think I get your point. The questions I would ask you though to start are :

a) Do you really think the Muslims think they can "destroy" the west? A nuke in a city or even a couple wouldn’t do it...
b) Don’t you think they already understand that a massive retaliation will occur if that happens? With that knowledge isn't it even more likely that such a tactic will be designed to serve other purposes?
c) While we would certainly retaliate massively(our navy/sub force is unparalleled) we can't "wipe them out with nukes" without suffering unacceptable environmental damage(to ourselves and our allies). Conventional strikes and sanctions that you suggest would be sufficient I would think though.
d) Didn’t the French make that threat to them already recently. The French!!


Your basic premise seems to be that if they all knew of such extortion the rational among them would find a way to control the irrational(Islamic fundies). Don't they already believe we wield this stick already and use this as justification for their hatred of us? Are you suggesting the mass of "them" just don't believe us and that having a president say it would change things?

Muslim extremists can destroy the West. Not with bombs, and not physically, but they can destroy it.

1) European governments Dhimmitizing themselves and rolling back freedom of expression, out of fear
2) American government destroying what there was of amity between the two civilizations, and rolling back freedom of expression, out of anger.

By increasing fear and anger in the West, Muslim extremists can slowly but surely bring down all that's good about the West. They still won't be happy, but neither will anyone else.

Upon reflection, what most upsets me about this is not what the Pakistan Bar Association, or any Muslim country, group or person says or does, but how we in the West react to it and, more importantly, doabout it. We can't directly control (as opposed to deter) the behavior of others; we can only control our behavior

FWIW, my advice is here:
The Only Appropriate Response to Honor Killings and Fatal Fatwas

I also believe Karl Popper's observation regarding the danger of tolerating the intolerant is important:
Karl Popper on Denmark, Iraq and Kurdistan

Although the above advice is ostensibly directed to Iraqi-Kurdistan, the frequent topic of my weblog as it has evolved, I've realized during my writing that it is most urgently directed to the West.

If this is the start of a trend, then maybe the ABA will put out a fatwa on Prof. Bernstein for criticizing its "diversity orthodoxy."

pbswatcher, thanks for your response. I guess I fear I don't know enough about our current relationships with our allies to advocate such a plan. I will say that I tend to think you are on to something though. Didn't Osama start calling us (USA) the "paper tiger" after Clinton pulled out of Somalia(black hawk down)? I am not commenting either way on the wisdom of that but just to say it does rather support your proposal. Does the Islam world really buy our "peaceful" intentions anyway?

JB, I think you make a good point. If we agree that WMD cannot really "bring down the west"(at least not without taking the whole world with it for the most part) then the "war" really is fought in....policy? principle? words? well in the minds of people at least. "Hearts and minds" blah, a catch phrase for failure considering the current policies. Still no less true perhaps.

That stuff about the Chinese playing Islam against the West to buy them time scares the hell out of me. I was thinking we should be playing the "godless commies" against Islam but it sounds like they beat us to the punch a long time ago.

I guess I would consider myself a soldier..no a warrior in the fight against "The Fifth Column". I have to spare enough energy to fight the Socialists(Collectivists) though.

Hey Charles Chapman,
Quoting Popper. Nice! I consider Hayek/Popper to be the best one/two punch of rational thought I have found so far. I started my amateur philosophy research many years ago mostly as a search away from metaphysics. My original degrees were in core natural science for this reason as well. Because of this I stayed away from politics/law/sociology in favor of physiology/basic science/psychology and then spent many years focused on ethics/values/morality and history/religion. It wasn't until fairly recently that I found my way to Hayek as a suggested read by someone who was one of his direct students in an argument over socialist medicine. Needless to say I found Hayek's economic liberalism convincing. Further when I delved into Popper(still delving :) I realized the wonderful synergy(?) between their principles. Popper has so many great contributions I wouldn't even know where to start praising him. The demarcation between metaphysics and science just to cite one example.
In any case I liked that essay you posted of his. I had not read that before.

Andy, I know exactly what you mean. I guess suicide is always an option just like denial. Once you get to the point of being honest with yourself and committing energy to that process it sure is hard to turn it off though. Especially when the internal overcoming is such empowering(and the process of self deception(and the overcoming of it)never really ends does it?). But yeah I get tired of it all too periodically. I have my "outs", though I won’t share them here heh.

"A Gulf Times article describes Bukhari as the head of a district, rather than national, bar association."

Oh, nevermind then. No problem.