Monday, October 23, 2006
Wretchard at Belmont Club has a long post about the nature of the Islamist enemy's ideology, and why the West will have to rethink how it is dealing with the threat. Of particular interest to me was this excerpt, from an interview in The Guardian with British Army Major Jamie Loden, recently (and probably still) in Afghanistan on his second tour there, whose master's thesis is on "The Need For An Ideological Response To Islamic Extremism":
The west had to give more support and publicity to Muslims who were trying to reform Islam from within, he said. The implications of extremism spread way beyond the Middle East. He talked of the notion of "sacred space", the notion that land conquered by Muslims in God's name must remain Muslim and, if lost, recovered. "That means Spain, bits of France... all over the place." Loden said there was a more risky interpretation of the sacred space doctrine which said that land where Muslims had a political majority was actually Muslim land. "So when you have the debate in Leicester and Bradford about separate education, separate areas of the town, you know, communities being allowed to apply their own law - then you are in fact going down a fairly dangerous path."It will indeed be a long war, and to survive the West will indeed have to formulate an ideological response to Islamic extremism. As the saying goes, "You can't fight somethin' with nothin'."
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