" the silliest initiative in foreign policy in the history of the world."

[donsu]

US attempts to engineer an Islamic reformation may be the silliest initiative in foreign policy in the history of the world. Muslims will not be persuaded to loosen their grasp on the living presence of Allah on Earth. In its tragic encounter with Islam, the West cannot help but inflict humiliation, just as happened at Guantanamo.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GF07Aa01.html

-snip-

Under the rubric Muslim anguish and Western hypocrisy (Nov 23, 2004), I observed that Christianity once killed apostates as a matter of routine, an action defended in retrospect by Catholic theologians such as Michael Novak as appropriate to the times. Western commentators condemn the guards of the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for desecrating the Koran, while regarding Pakistani or Afghan Koran rioters as primitives. Condescending Westerners should look more closely at their own history. <1>

Host-desecration riots by Christians in 1298 led to an estimated 100,000 deaths in Germany and Austria, starting with the execution by fire of the entire Jewish community of Rottingen. Enraged Christians killed 3,000 Jews in Prague after a priest carrying a consecrated Host wafer was sprayed by sand. Other killings took place in Rome in 1021, Strasbourg in 1308, Posen in 1399, Silesia in 1451, and so forth. Medieval Jews, to be sure, were less likely to have tortured a consecrated Host than Marine guards were to have flushed a Koran down the toilet, and historians agree that the charge was a fabrication. <2> Christian sensitivities, nonetheless, were just as bloodthirsty as in today's Pakistan.

-snip-

Two things explain the effectiveness of Koran desecration as a means of breaking Muslim morale. The first is that the Koran hosts Allah's incarnate presence, so to speak. The second is the peculiar importance of success to Islam. Unlike Christianity or Judaism, worldly success is the ultimate testimony of Islam; the muezzin calls, "Come to prayer. Come to success!", and its emblem is the crescent, a symbol of secular growth, as opposed to the cross, a symbol of renunciation of worldly things. As I wrote in Horror and humiliation in Fallujah (April 27, 2004),

-snip-

Attempting to engineer an Islamic reformation may be the silliest initiative in foreign policy in the history of the world. The theological department of the Central Intelligence Agency will not persuade Muslims to loosen their grasp on the living presence of Allah on this Earth. In its tragic encounter with Islam, the West cannot help but inflict humiliation.
-snip-
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the criminal bushgang could care less. whatever gets in the way of the gang making money off oil and gas is expendable, period.

[ReaderSushi]

1. What a loop.

We all knew Bush was going to set up a theocracy but WOW who expected this...

[Doctor_J]

2. Pure propaganda

this article says the people who DESCECRATED the Koran were responsible for inspiring the Muslims. Everyone knows it was Newsweak, who PUBLICIZES the desecration, that's responsible.

:sarcasm:

[Internut]

3. Let me see if I understand you correctly -

"they are hopelessly stuck in the middle ages and there is no way we can bring them forward to modernity".

Is this the correct statement of your thesis? I mean, how else can excusing 21st century Islam's bloodthirst by comparing it to medieval Christianity be interpreted?

[Jacobin]

4. Christianity had its Reformation 500 years ago

Neither Buddhists, nor Muslims nor Druids imposed it on Christians from the outside.

Martin Luther started it.

I think the author's point is that for an army of infidels to invade a muslim country on the pretext of WMDs (oops no), "Saddam is a bad man" (oops, no), GIVING THEM DEMOCRACY (yeah, that's the ticket), is a silly, obscene, naive, policy which is doomed to failure.

I suspect it's success would be similar to Communist China invading the United States and attempting to convert an occupied America to a communist form of government for our 'benefit'. I have a feeling that would go over just as 'successfully' as IraqNam.

I don't think the author suggests that we should not attempt to defend ourselves from attacks. I think he suggests that the reformation of a billion people practicing a religion will need to come from within, not imposed from without.

Or, I could be wrong

[Internut]

5. Was Christianity of the Middle Ages, with its

bloodthirst and xenophobia, murderous excesses etc. corrupt and "wrong"? If so, and today's Islam is (according to the OP author) comparable to the medieval Christianity, would it be correct to consider Islam of today corrupt and "wrong"?