One way for the West to win

Submitted by Sanchez (United States), Dec 26, 2006 at 15:48

There is another way, the best way in my opinion, in which the West could win this current war. It is an ideological war of ideas directed at Islam and muslims living all around the world. The West needs to mount an all out aggressive intellectual attack against mainstream Islam without engaging in deceptive politically expedient word play like "Islamists" or "Islamic extremists".

If Islam is truly such a great religion it has nothing to fear from anyone. At the same time the West should also allow itself to be vigorously criticized and examined in return by anybody. People who deny the holocaust should be freely allowed to do so because truth can defend itself. Not doing so only feeds the dark conspiracy theories in the uncivilized world and strengthens people like Ahmedinejad. As with the cartoon controversy that led to the loss of a few lives there will be a lot of short term violence when people dare to offend but the civilized world must not give in and be relentless and fair otherwise many more lives will be lost in countries like Iraq that have little to do with the main problem.

Consider: is it really that difficult to confront the abject lack of secularism and lack of freedoms in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan? It is not enough to just criticize these countries, but one must point out tirelessly that Islam is the main reason for their state of affairs. Without this, the criticism loses all its sting.

Dr Pipes, do you see a problem?

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