Bin Laden, Extremism, and Jihad

Articles

Craig Chamberlain

Bin Laden, Extremism, and Jihad
Aug 25, 2003

One of the criticisms of the war on terror is that Osama Bin Laden escaped us and is still plotting terror attacks on the United States. For liberals this is an article of faith, proof that Bush is a total failure, even some conservatives make the argument that we missed bin Laden. I must disagree.

What is my proof? Nothing conclusive, but then again those that say he is alive in Pakistan have no proof either. But consider this. Osama bin Laden is a showman, a braggart, as well as a terrorist. If the worlds sole super power launched a military operation to root him out and it failed he would have put his face on every television screen in the muslim world. Yet have we seen him since the campaign in Afghanistan? No. All we have are written statements and audio tapes. Which intelligence has not been able to conclusively identify, and considering the level of our intelligence agencies the fact that they say he is alive makes me suspect that he is dead. Bernard Lewis, probably the biggest expert on Islam in the U.S. agrees with the Bin Laden is dead hypothesis saying " Bin Laden is a great stylist in the Arabic language and all of the statements purporting to come from him are dull and drab. That's the most convincing evidence we have to date that he died in the American bombing campaign in Afghanistan."No doubt the al qeada network is still active and plotting but it looks like it does so without its leader.

Lanny Grant is correct in his assesment of Islam. It is a militaristic religion. One that was spread by the sword. Christianty spread through the Roman Empire through missionary efforts. The middle east and North Africa were made Muslim by advancing armies. Now I can here the liberals saying with half contained glee that the Muslim civilization surpassed the Christian civilization in Europe.Really? The knowledge that the arabs possesed that supposedly made them superior to the Christian west was not from them. Their mathmatics came from who? The Assyrians(middle east Christians) and their philosophical knowledge came from the Greeks.Much of their literature came from the Persians. Their greatness was looted from the knowledge of the west.Knowledge of any kind in the muslim lands was on tolerated when the Muslim rulers were not observant Muslims. I can hear the liberals again. This is profiling not all Muslims are terrorists. True. Not all nazis were running the furnaces at the concentration camps either. But that doesn't stop us from calling national socialism what it is, evil.It is unnacceptable to say these things. Silvio Berlusconi, Italian PM, was practically crucified for saying that Islamic culture was inferior to the west, and Pim Fortyun, a Dutch political novice, who was sure to win and become PM was gunned down for saying the Netherlands had too many muslims in it.

I have nothing to add to the debate on abortion. However, we need to remember that when we get called extremists we are winning the debate. They can't win on facts so they go ad homien and attack the person. Even things as mild as tax cutting are denounced as the worst type of extremism.

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