Comment on Your Article on Your Gloom

Submitted by Ray Exley (United States), Dec 21, 2005 at 06:30

Dear Mr. D. Pipes,

I agree with all of your observations, and it is a rather depressing picture of the West's behavior since 9-11.. However, there are a couple of bright points.

1. the winner of the struggle between the West and the Islamists only has to be be better than the opposition, not as good as he or they might were they preforming up to their potential

2. Listen to the latest lament from Al Zawahari, (Bin Laudin's) number 2. He is filled with frustration at their losses, and the lack of entheusiam on the Muslim side for the fight against the "west". And the West has only been fighting with minor resources, for a couple of years.

Read "Catch 22" and you will wonder how we won WWII. It was partly because the Nazi's lost many advantages of their side. And part of that was because their philosopy was one that destroyed some of their best thinkers, and best ideas, etc.,etc. Did we cause the Soviet System to self destruct, or was that built into that system??? I think we helped a little by showing them how poorly their system was working, but in the end, it failed because it was a philosophy with the seeds of it own destruction in it.

The Islamist philosophy is a backward looking anti science, anti anthing progressive. They could not even feed themselves if were it not for the funds we send them for the oil, which they did not create, did not create the uses for it, did not create the techniques of extraction, etc. And mostly are not using the largess in anything that approaches a constructive plan for the future.

The best solution, is to cut the use of petrolium as much as possible as soon as possible, and that is by all of the techniques of increased energy efficiency in use, and new sources of energy production, etc. etc. And, this was going to happen within the next 100 years, regardless because at the current rates of oil use, and oil discovery, the industrialized world is facing the following simple choices. Not because I say so, but because there is no other choice, except the massive reduction in numbers of people alive, and massive lowering of the quality of life for those remaining. And, in addition to doing everything to slow the hemorrage of wealth to the Islamist, is to of course to kill and otherwise resist the Islamist's as much as the rest of the Western "know nothings' will allow, to hasten their destruction.

And, to prevent or minimizing the destruction of mordern society, and the death of most of the people on earth from occuring because the bank of cheap fossil energy is running out, the parts of the world that will succeed will be forced, to accept Nuclear fission power to replace as much fossil fuels as possible, or revert to a very much lowered quality of life, and stop and reverse population growth. And, to improve quality of life for those who remain it will be necessary to lower total world population even more, at least it can not double again in the next 40 years, as it has in the last 50 years, all of which was accomplished with Western technology.

The west, with all of the inadequacies of understanding, governance, etc, which you lament, will always be ahead of the Islamists in dealing with the problems of the future, because they are always trying to go backward, while being a pain in the backside, with their bombs, to those who they see as preventing their attempts to go backward. Their philosophy is one pursing of cultural, and eventually physical suicide, lead by a committed by a leadership unable to see the actual choices in front of them. They even claim they will be successful (in world domination) because they are not afraid to die. I think they will just die, but unfortunately not without causing the West too much trouble before they do.

And, the more trouble the Islamists cause, the more they will focus the West to deal with them more effectively. Thus, as I see it, the more success they have with their bombs, and other trouble making, the more they hasten their own destruction either by direct military, or indirect because their philosophy is one of goat herders, and it does not adapt well to the demands of the problems of a modern world, running out of fossil fuels, etc. etc.

This is not to say that what you are concerned about is not important, it is extremely important, because there are so many deadheads in the West, who are also unwilling to understand and deal with the problems of the world. But, the power of the Islamists will be gone with the oil, and that will be gone in about 100 years, probably effectively gone in 50 years. Only, Western science and technology can replace it with a newer source of energy, the Islamist's won't even try.

So, keep trying to alert the deadheads in the West, even though they seem to be everywhere, there are a few people who understand and appreciate your efforts, and as the pressure rises to find solutions, you will find more support for your ideas.

I can not remember the exact phrase, but I think you may know it better than I, so I will give it a try, "Li igetimi, non carburondum est." Perhaps you can correct my very poor existant latin.

Ray Exley

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