Calling All Terrorists

Who knows what Russian President Vladimir Putin really said to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, if anything. The important thing is today's terror conflicts have dozens of angles and inflection points.

And that makes the binary clash of civilizations framework seem even more flimsy. Or do the Eastern Orthodox and Hindus comprise a single culture?

Comments

[R C Dean]

I dunno if "Islam v. the infidels" counts as a binary clash of civilizations, but that seems to be how the Islamists see it.

[Todd Fletcher]

Islamic terrorists outnumber the rest by something 2,000,000 to 1. But there's no pattern there, nope.

[Bill]

Has anyone actually read The Clash of Civilizations? I have. It's a brilliant piece of work. That does not mean that it's perfect--no work ever is--but it makes one think, and gives some good background for the current state of things. One thing's for sure, Islam has "bloody borders". This is a fact that is impossible to deny.

[joe]

My only problem with "TCoC" is that idiots read it as a "how-to" guide, rather than a warning.

[Jack]

Sneer all you want but this IS a clash of civilizations. Sometimes the clash is "soft" - porn, jeans and rock 'n roll. Some is "hard" - shooting kids in the back. But in the end one will dominate ("win"). And there's no doubt which civilization will be on top. Need proof - check the histories of the Polynesians, Aleuts, Japanese, Chinese, Africans et al. Which means everyone outside of old Europe and America. Yes, Russia too!

[joe]

Jack, "Islamic Civilization" is not shooting kids in the back and blowing up pizza places. Specific groups with political agendas are doing those things. Behaving as if "Islamic Civilization" is the enemy will only serve to dilute our response, and make those groups larger.

[Bill]

Okay, Joe, how do you explain that of the 26 military conflicts around the world, Muslims are involved in all 26? It seems to me to be a problem with "Islamic Civilization". Of course, there are good Muslim folks. There were good Germans, too, during WWII. That doesn't mean that their cultures are not or were not horribly ill. Though, I do not think that Islamic culture is irredeemable.

[Malak,]

joe: To further amplify Bill's comments, and paraphrasing an article whose author escapes me at the moment, how do you explain the fact that, unlike every other independence or nationalist movement dating back to the American Revolution, only Muslim fundamentalist terror groups are targetting women and children? Do you not think the IRA, or the Basques, etc. could have targetted schools, day cares, or the like? They (in the overwhelming majority of cases) did not do so, out of fear for the revulsion it would cause in their own constituencies. Where is this revulsion in Islamic circles?