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Friday, March 03, 2006

Churchillian Anyone?

The Moose has a word for Hillary, Evan, Joe, Tom, Bill, Russ, Wes, Mark, John and John and all other Democrats who seek to become the President of the United States.

What are your thoughts about the world-wide Jihadist offensive against the West? If you want to be the leader of the West, what do you think about the latest attempt to intimidate freedom loving people by the cartoon jihad? Some of you have spoken out against Iranian nukes, but no one has done it in the context of a comprehensive war against the Islamists.

The Moose demands (non-negotiable) that all of you read in the latest New Republic, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen' s article, "The New Threat - The Radical Politics of Islamic Fundamentalism". (alas, subscribers only)" Goldhagen provides a comprehensive assessment of the totalitarian Islamist threat. He writes,

"Within a blink of the political eye, we have witnessed political Islam's most widespread social mobilization--from Europe, through the Middle East, and into Asia--in response to the cartoons; political Islam's most significant assumption of political power since the Iranian Revolution a quarter-century ago, in the Palestinian community; and political Islam's most threatening military development since Saddam Hussein's attempt to put a stranglehold on the Gulf (and thereby the world), with his invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and contemporaneous nuclear weapons program...

"It is a conviction that the modern world is fundamentally corrupt and must be reshaped, often through the annihilation of others. Therein, political Islam resembles the international communist movement in its heyday."

Goldhagen astutely explains that the Iranian nuclear threat is the central challenge of the Islamist ideology of death. Like previous totalitarians, the Iranian's threats to Israel and the West are not taken serious by many "deep thinkers." But Goldhagen points out,

"Hitler, too, prophesied the annihilation of the Jews, saying that a world war would result in the "annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." Most treated this as empty bluster. The history of genocide in the modern era is that, in the rare instances that political leaders publicly threaten to annihilate enemy peoples, they mean it."

Goldhagen is more optimistic than the Moose that the Europeans are awakening to the threat posed by Political Islam. He posits that since the cartoon jihad is not related to Israel or America, Europe is recognizing that it is a target of the Islamists. Perhaps so - but the instinct to appease runs strong among the Europeans - note the haste by which the E.U is moving to fund the Palestinians despite their choice of terrorist rule.

Goldhagen argues that a united West is critical to defeating the Islamists. However, although the American political class is verbally committed to waging a generic "war on terror", few specifically address the actual foe of radical Islam. It is not politically correct.

Lately, Democrats are having a fine old time bashing the Dubai deal. Fine enough. And they are relishing positioning themselves "to the right" of the Republicans on a national security issue. But, soon the Dubai controversy will fade, and then will Democrats turn to the central issue of our time - defeating a totalitarian movement that threatens the West?

From the Moose's experience schmoozing with Democrats around the country, they are far more concerned about Christian fundamentalists than Islamic fundamentalists - or they see them through the lens of moral equivalence. At worse, conservative Christians seek to restore the moral verities of the 1950's while the Islamists seek to restore the caliphate of the seventh century.

The Moose has yet to hear a Democratic wannabee offer a comprehensive strategy to defeat Jihadism. In fact, it is unlikely that any of them have uttered that term or even addressed the issue of the Islamist offensive. Which one of them wakes up each morning seized with the imperative of this issue?

Do any of them have a Churchillian instinct? What say you - Hillary, Evan, Joe, Tom, Bill, Russ, Wes, Mark, John and John? Is there a Churchill in your ranks?
-- Posted at 8:22 AM | Link to this post | Email this post