Why jihadism is different from communism
I would like to know why our government never thought through the exit process, nor have they been honest as to why we were there in the first place. My opinion is he wanted to finish what his father started at any cost. I was amazed to learn that back when Bush Sr was in office the dealings over there were astounding, they actually sold artillery to Iran and Iraq, claiming to both that we wanted to help them defeat the other. What a realization when Saddam saw that his enemy had the same US artillery. Still we seem to wonder why we are so hated over there. On top of that we invade another country and are currently under the delusion that these people are going to embrace democracy and being like us Americans. How amazingly arrogant of us. I read an article in the magazine 'The Week' which I subscribe to. In the 09/16/05 issue a New York Times Magazine journalist, David Rieff, wrote the article titled above. It is the closest thing that I have ever read that really spells out why we should not be in Iraq. Here it is: "President Bush likes to compare the fight against Islamic jihadism to the struggle against communism. Eventually, he believes, the Islamic world will come around, and choose an American-style, liberal democracy over the mullah-dominated theocracy offered by the Islamic fundamentalist-just as the Russians eventually chose capitalism and freedom over communism. But the analogy doesn't necessarily hold. Our clash with communism was a competition between two systems "that shared certain fundamental presuppositions" such as a belief in science, progress, modernity, gender equality, and the value of material happiness. In the end, communism's "rank inferiority" in achieving these goals was its undoing. "But the conflict with jihadism is a contest between modernity and anti-modernity," with two sharply contrasting sets of values and goals. To tens of millions of Islamic believers, modernity itself is a curse, ad the kind of freedom and tolerance we practice in the West is not only undesirable, but an insult to their God. This shouldn't shock us. History shows that people often choose to live under extreme ideologies and charismatic rulers even at the cost of their own freedom. If we are to have any chance of winning the war of ideas, we must understand the powerful appeal that fundamentalism and anti-modernity hold to nations such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and Iraq. Sorry to break the news, but "the assumption that everyone in the world will gravitate toward a variation of American democracy if given half a chance is based on wishful thinking."" –David Rieff
-posted by Kimberly Brown @ 10/13/2005 01:49:00 AM
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