Mr Cohen is a little naïve about "liberation" movements. In Egypt we saw the demonstrations in Tahir Square, with young, intelligent photogenic people who genuinely believed in freedom and equality. So Mubarak is removed and we get an election which produces the Muslim Brotherhood as the government, which immediately starts to regress to the middle ages. They may not be as extreme as IS but would they have lifted a finger against them? Time to drop liberal delusions.
2
"I find the second view more persuasive."
I would hope so, given that you wrote the first view as a straw man.
I would hope so, given that you wrote the first view as a straw man.
3
Spot on.
2
The Atlantic's "What ISIS Really Wants" by Graeme Wood offers a view of a "dark ideology" that Mr. Cohen has issues with.
One analyst calls the likes of ISIS an 'apocolyptic death cult'. How else to explain those who thrive on generating powerful enemies against themselves?
During the 1950s US Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, while still a sitting justice, drove a Chevy stationwagon with only his wife and their woman friend from Karachi up through Pakistan, through the Khyber Pass and across Afghanistan, through Iran and into Iraq, down to Baghdad and up through (Iraqi) Kurdistan, into Turkey to Istanbul - all Muslim countries. Only one (Iraq) was an Arab country. Their adventure was featured in articles by Justice Douglas published in National Geographic magazine.
What's changed that would make such a trip unthinkable today? Arguably, Islam itself hasn't changed.
One analyst calls the likes of ISIS an 'apocolyptic death cult'. How else to explain those who thrive on generating powerful enemies against themselves?
During the 1950s US Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, while still a sitting justice, drove a Chevy stationwagon with only his wife and their woman friend from Karachi up through Pakistan, through the Khyber Pass and across Afghanistan, through Iran and into Iraq, down to Baghdad and up through (Iraqi) Kurdistan, into Turkey to Istanbul - all Muslim countries. Only one (Iraq) was an Arab country. Their adventure was featured in articles by Justice Douglas published in National Geographic magazine.
What's changed that would make such a trip unthinkable today? Arguably, Islam itself hasn't changed.
2
The author is completely incorrect. If the premise of this conflict and the argument was; as many also argue the fault of the US policies in the Middle East for the last 100 years . If that were true then the U.S. Navy would not have been founded based on the need to address Islamic terrorism on our shipping lanes, but it was founded to address the same problem we are experiencing today, read! About the first barbary wars for you that doubt. We have been here before ! In this same situation! For the same reasons. Number 2. That somehow, the poor, young, and disenfranchised have look to "radicalism" as a way to belong and a way to eat, and live. I never knew poor people resort to violence just because they don't have what to eat or a place to sleep; but if that were true then you wouldn't see educated, well off financially people helping this current trend of attacks all over the world. So here is my conclusion, what does al-quaeda, boko haram, 911, Boston bombers, and the attacks on Charlie Hebdo have in common? Islam !! Not wahabbi, Sunni or Shia islam, no plain old regular islam. The same regular Islam that agrees that an acceptable form of punishment for leaving the Islam should be death. Look at pew polls performed in Egypt, and others. This same Islam is the one that when a follower becomes devout enough compels him or her to perform acts of terrorism based on direct commandments found in the Quran and the Hadith. How do i know all this, i read, thank you.
3
Thank you, Mr. Cohen for speaking truth to the politically correct, though with their heads in the sand they will not hear, until it gets much, much worse.
9
Europe is not at war with the Muslim world. Only war mongers tries to perceive terror, violence and expressions of hate, in a Muslim vs Europe framework. Sorry you joined that band, mr Cohen. In Norway, we experienced a spectacular terror attack on our children in 2011. The terrorist was born in Norway, had a history in a rightwing political party, now part of government, and had published a diatribe with crusader message on the internet, minutes before the first explosion, in central Oslo. But nobody has perceived this terror to be a Christian attack against Norway. But it was, clearly, based on a "dark ideology", closely related to nazism, fascism and the twisted versions of Islam, that other terrorists use, to explain their actions. To declare war with the Muslim world, based on a reptile reaction to terror attacks from tiny groups of extremists, would really be conterproductive.
12
Cohen is very correct in his analysis. The west is to be blamed for the rise of radical Islam. In the early 20th century, every thing was nice in the Islamic world, until the west entered the scene in pursuit of energy security. The Muslim nations were exploited while the heads of those nations were pampered with royalties. Consequently the national wealth increased and there was affluence in the society. Simultaneously the west, knowingly or unknowingly, played one nation against another, which was akin to playing one Muslim sect with another( Shia and Sunnis ) There was an historical animosity between the sects. Because of the west's actions and the affluence the animosity developed into a conflict and now it is a virtual war. It has also turned the sects against the west. Basically Sunnis being a radical group has assumed centre stage in the war- the result is the ISIS. As Cohen says the conflict has to be solved by the Arabs themselves. If Israel is part of the Arabian peninsula it needs to find its own ways to survive. The West should disengage itself from the Muslim world so that within the next 5 to 10 years they would have found a common ground to live in peace with the other nations.
2
Mr. Cohen ignores the basic fact of "Islam and the West at War" is the almost thousand year war between Sunnis and Shiites, not the West. Until this is resolved there is little the West can or should do.
The West played the game of Good Dictator and Bad Dictator for many years. We supported Sadam Hussein and supplied his regime gases to use on our arch enemy Iran. The fact that he used these gases on Kurds was never brought up, nor was the cozy visit of the US Defense Minister, Donald Rumsfeld, during the Iran/Irak war.
The same game of Good Dictator was played with Assad, Mubarak and Gadafi when we sent arrested and sometimes innocent "terrorists" to them to be tortured.
We need not go back to the Crusades to see our hypocrisy, it is much more closer at hand.
The West played the game of Good Dictator and Bad Dictator for many years. We supported Sadam Hussein and supplied his regime gases to use on our arch enemy Iran. The fact that he used these gases on Kurds was never brought up, nor was the cozy visit of the US Defense Minister, Donald Rumsfeld, during the Iran/Irak war.
The same game of Good Dictator was played with Assad, Mubarak and Gadafi when we sent arrested and sometimes innocent "terrorists" to them to be tortured.
We need not go back to the Crusades to see our hypocrisy, it is much more closer at hand.
6
Islam is at war with itself more than it is at war with the West. Islam cannot win a "war" with the West. It can declare a "caliphate", but it cannot defend it against the West. No, radical Islam can only carry out guerrilla war, no matter who flocks to the Levant to join ISIS. Radical Islam beheads its captives because, at its heart, it is trapped in the Middle Ages. However, 2015 is not the age of Moors vs. Christians. The weapons and technology of the West, more deadly and more accurate in the digital age than at any time in history, would make dust and clouds of the pipe-dreams of radical Islam if unleashed in an all-out war. The West is a giant with feet of steel. If the West had the bloodthirsty mentality of ISIS, the "infected" areas of the Middle East would disappear overnight. Our restraint protects those caught in the middle; but it is not infinite.
13
One of the most popular comments here reads "There is a war, Islam has declared a war against the Jews". A few years ago I would have dismissed this as hyperbole. I do not any more. When a hate crime happens to Muslims or a act of verbal abuse is recorded towards a Muslim 99% of non-Muslims condemn it without any "but...." When these same acts happen to Jews I see very clearly that 99% of Muslims are apologists for it and immediately start ranting about "this is nothing compared to how Jews treat the Palestinians" even if the Jewish person has no affiliation to Israel. When the subject of Emett Till or James Byrd is brought up no one would think about excusing it because of how women are treated in Somalia, whites in Zimbabwe or gays in Uganda. When the 3 Jordanians were killed in NC no one brought up that Arabs are still enslaving Africans or that Christians are slaughtered by the dozen every day in Islamic countries.
The anti-Semitism imported by the Islamic world is not condoned by the left like other forms of bigotry. This is a threat and has made me very cynical and contemptuous of the left and not able to muster up much enthusiasm to "fight Islamaphobia". When are Muslims going to be expected to fight against their Juedophobia? They are in denial it exists. "We don't hate Jews we hate how they treat the Palestinians." Yet they think their ill treatment towards others doesn't cause ill will?
The anti-Semitism imported by the Islamic world is not condoned by the left like other forms of bigotry. This is a threat and has made me very cynical and contemptuous of the left and not able to muster up much enthusiasm to "fight Islamaphobia". When are Muslims going to be expected to fight against their Juedophobia? They are in denial it exists. "We don't hate Jews we hate how they treat the Palestinians." Yet they think their ill treatment towards others doesn't cause ill will?
8
Roger Cohen is to be credited for acknowledging his own error in misunderstanding the so-called 'Arab spring' and its consequences. He is also to be commended for speaking Truth to Power, and at last criticizing President Obama for his evasive, immoral failure to name and confront global Islamist terrorism especially Iranian Shiite terrorism. The Iranians now dominate Syria, Lebanon and are taking over Iraq.They have just taken over Yemen. President Obama is working to promote a nuclear deal with them which will leave them with nuclear breakout capacity.
This present U.S. administration is not wholly responsible or perhaps not even mainly responsible for the breakdown of the Middle East, the rise of Islamic terror Sunni and Shiite but it has certainly not prevented this.
Again Cohen is to be commended for the accuracy of description here.
This present U.S. administration is not wholly responsible or perhaps not even mainly responsible for the breakdown of the Middle East, the rise of Islamic terror Sunni and Shiite but it has certainly not prevented this.
Again Cohen is to be commended for the accuracy of description here.
5
With all respect I dare say that there is serious fault in foreign policy of US almost for previous many decades; ignore the entire public, as they are paper puppets with no emotion. From supporting and favoring of Mubarak regime in Egypt for more than forty years, Saudi Arab relation ( though bad marriage), previously supporting brutal dictator Saddam in Iraq ( in case of Iran Iraq war), Qaddafi's Libya, Asad's Syria and Zain's Tunis
In Asia favoring Military dictator Zia ( in case of Ex Soviet war) and than another dictator Musharraf in current war on terror.
Fully agreed that Muslim world has its own grave problems. Sticking to their Kingdoms with harsh power and injecting oil money to lure public.
This is not simple Mathematics simply this or this.Reaction of Human minds can't be measured so easily as Mr. Cohen says. However there should be good analysis.
In Asia favoring Military dictator Zia ( in case of Ex Soviet war) and than another dictator Musharraf in current war on terror.
Fully agreed that Muslim world has its own grave problems. Sticking to their Kingdoms with harsh power and injecting oil money to lure public.
This is not simple Mathematics simply this or this.Reaction of Human minds can't be measured so easily as Mr. Cohen says. However there should be good analysis.
The failure of President Obama and other world leaders, to name the enemy of Western civilization as radical Islam, severely inhibits our ability to fight this war and may even encourage more extremism. The PM of Denmark waffled with "dark ideology". President Obama called the deliberate killing of Jews at a kosher Paris market as "random violence" and Administration spokespeople called the Fort Hood massacre of 13 by Major Hassan yelling Allahu Akbar "workplace violence".
Roger Cohen points out that tens of millions of Muslims believe they are war with the West. A study by the research organization MEMRI found wall to wall support in Arab media reaching hundreds of millions of Arabs, for a woman named Tamimi, who became a media personality and bragged about her participation in the 2001 killing of 15 people, mostly children, and wounding of 145, at the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem.
Israel, which has been fighting Muslim terrorism for decades and calls it what it is, should be a model to us. Their understandable reluctance to allow the world's foremost terrorist state, Iran - who vows to destroy them - to acquire game changing nuclear weapons, should be heeded by the Administration. Had we followed Israel's lead in securing our cockpits and putting armed guards in our planes, 911 would have been prevented.
Roger Cohen points out that tens of millions of Muslims believe they are war with the West. A study by the research organization MEMRI found wall to wall support in Arab media reaching hundreds of millions of Arabs, for a woman named Tamimi, who became a media personality and bragged about her participation in the 2001 killing of 15 people, mostly children, and wounding of 145, at the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem.
Israel, which has been fighting Muslim terrorism for decades and calls it what it is, should be a model to us. Their understandable reluctance to allow the world's foremost terrorist state, Iran - who vows to destroy them - to acquire game changing nuclear weapons, should be heeded by the Administration. Had we followed Israel's lead in securing our cockpits and putting armed guards in our planes, 911 would have been prevented.
9
We need to recognize the elements on both sides who politicize the things. We share a common planet, we can't kick all members of a community out of the planet---the poor guys will fell down off the fast rotating planet. Things should be based on logic and deep understanding of the values of others' culture/religion.
1
Important point missed out is the continuous Arming, Training and Organizing of Arab nations including Pakistan and Afghanistan to fight Russia in cold war, own Dictators and wage pseudo wars with nations like Israel and India. What happens to these militant organizations when purpose is fulfilled or stays unfulfilled? They find new targets and new purpose of existence. Unless west doesn't stop arming them, unfortunately, militancy will continue.
1
We forget that Arabs including Afghans and Pakistan have been armed, trained and organised by West to fight Russia in cold war, dictators or wage pseudo wars with countries like India or Israel and others. What happens to these arms and the trained men when the purpose is over or not getting fulfilled. They find new purposes and reason for existence. This is one important reason contributing to Jihad.
1
It's a war bet. dark, criminal understandings of Islam on one side and basically with moderate, law abiding, others accepting, understandings of Islam on the other side, rather than with the West. In that sense Danish prime minister's analysis is more accurate and realistic than yours.
What we're dealing with here is not God's message to humanity through prophet Mohamed, Quoraan & Sunna that embodies Islam, but it's several and different understandings and
implantation. Of course the west practices in the Moslem world shared in creating such dark & sick understandings for Islam, however, out of honesty, before blaming the west or yourself for
an unfair judgement for Islam and a wrong analysis for the whole situation, I should blame my self and all moderate
Moslems for not doing more effort to spread moderate understanding for Islam.
A lot is still to mention regarding this matter, however,hopefully the above is enough as a start.
What we're dealing with here is not God's message to humanity through prophet Mohamed, Quoraan & Sunna that embodies Islam, but it's several and different understandings and
implantation. Of course the west practices in the Moslem world shared in creating such dark & sick understandings for Islam, however, out of honesty, before blaming the west or yourself for
an unfair judgement for Islam and a wrong analysis for the whole situation, I should blame my self and all moderate
Moslems for not doing more effort to spread moderate understanding for Islam.
A lot is still to mention regarding this matter, however,hopefully the above is enough as a start.
2
Islam today is the equivalent of Christianity before the Peace of Westphalia.
Unable to separate the spiritual realm and the civil realm.
And therefore incompatible--totally incompatible with the modern world.
Either Islam needs to enter the modern world, or Islam needs to be kept out of, and separate from, the modern world
Unable to separate the spiritual realm and the civil realm.
And therefore incompatible--totally incompatible with the modern world.
Either Islam needs to enter the modern world, or Islam needs to be kept out of, and separate from, the modern world
9
The war more is Muslims themselves rather than between them and the West. In Lebanon, Syria, Irak, Jordan and any of the Gulf States, the relationship between citizen and State was always unstable, because of a lack of a national narrative strong enough to supersede tribal, ethnic and religious allegiances. It is this fundamental fault line that is exploited so successfully by Islamists and other organized interests. The West can at best provide some band aid treatment, but the disease is so deep and ever festering that the new generations will be unfortunately even more dysfunctional. Sadly, for generations to come, only iron-fisted regimes will be able to survive and maintain a semblance of order in the ME.
1
Roger, thank you for mentioning the 3 Muslim students recently killed in America. A small contributing factor in all this mess is that the only way the faces and biographies of decent American Muslims can make it into the mainstream seems to be through such a tragedy. I'm not sure that I would frame their killer as driven by retaliation in the broad sense, but I take your point and appreciate your voice.
1
Relative to the conference on to how to address ISIS: How can it be so hard to create a real world grounded campaign that: Acknowledges the sanctity of Spiritual belief, and if there is a GOD, Omnipotent and Loving, and for anyone who believes that, how can they also accept that: They Know GOD's Will and that GOD Needs their help/actions to see his will done? It's Arrogant against the very notion of God, diminishes his power. Further arrogantly, it defines God as Abusive, Hateful, Disrespectful, and desires to see innocent families, women, children violence, suffering, abuse, destruction, the characteristics of sadistic Evil.
Right, its hard to counteract the ISIS "part of something big" appeal to "spiritually minded" ignorant young people by pointing out that: they believe in a GOD that desires painful death and suffering of innocent families. If they help cause lots of violent Evil there might even be a few innocent young virgins in it for them to abuse also, Really?
This is a war of ideas in the new Information Age. It requires understanding the new realities of ideas as power on par with hard power. Unabashedly calling out blatant Evil and supporting notions of Good--common to all world religious thought--is the most powerful means to change hearts and minds. It speaks to the heart of Humanity’s common Good, it is more powerful than the idea of instead committing to a life in the pursuit of Evil, violent, destructive deeds. It's the message, not just the bombs.
Right, its hard to counteract the ISIS "part of something big" appeal to "spiritually minded" ignorant young people by pointing out that: they believe in a GOD that desires painful death and suffering of innocent families. If they help cause lots of violent Evil there might even be a few innocent young virgins in it for them to abuse also, Really?
This is a war of ideas in the new Information Age. It requires understanding the new realities of ideas as power on par with hard power. Unabashedly calling out blatant Evil and supporting notions of Good--common to all world religious thought--is the most powerful means to change hearts and minds. It speaks to the heart of Humanity’s common Good, it is more powerful than the idea of instead committing to a life in the pursuit of Evil, violent, destructive deeds. It's the message, not just the bombs.
We need to paper the entire universe with so many non-worshipful images of Muhammad that there is no possibility of the terrorist branch of Islam effectively keeping track of where they come from.
5
Islam is at war with Islam and we get hurt by getting involved. Total withdrawal is indicated and material support for the King of Jordan and General Sisi is imperative. They are emerging as world leaders.
1
The fact that Mr. Cohen finds it easier to blame "Islam" for the emergence and strength of Islamic extremism is hardly surprising. It's always easier to blame the other guy.
However, it should be stated as forcefully as possible that much of the genesis of Islamic terrorism is because of the West. Both philosophically and operationally. The isolation of Muslims in Western societies, like the enforced isolation of other non-indigenous minorities in times past (e.g., Jews, Gypsies) is bound to alienate members of those groups.
But there's much more. The extensive arming of the Afghanistan rebels during the Soviet war in Afghanistan was the result of Reagan Administration's philosophy that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". It was the beginning of Al Qaeda.
Skipping ahead 20 years to the disastrous war in Iraq, which really empowered Iran (allowing its development of nuclear capability and its support of Hezbollah, e.g.) was the direct consequence of our invasion (is there any other word for it?) of Iraq, the product of Bush II.
Our hamhanded handling of so much in the Middle East and the Muslim world has both emboldened the radicals, promoted radicalization and handed the radicals with a precious gift: gold-plated evidence that the West is against them, that the rest of the world sees them as little more than pawns in some global struggle for domination and control of land, oil and people.
Yes, it's always easier to blame the other guys.
However, it should be stated as forcefully as possible that much of the genesis of Islamic terrorism is because of the West. Both philosophically and operationally. The isolation of Muslims in Western societies, like the enforced isolation of other non-indigenous minorities in times past (e.g., Jews, Gypsies) is bound to alienate members of those groups.
But there's much more. The extensive arming of the Afghanistan rebels during the Soviet war in Afghanistan was the result of Reagan Administration's philosophy that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". It was the beginning of Al Qaeda.
Skipping ahead 20 years to the disastrous war in Iraq, which really empowered Iran (allowing its development of nuclear capability and its support of Hezbollah, e.g.) was the direct consequence of our invasion (is there any other word for it?) of Iraq, the product of Bush II.
Our hamhanded handling of so much in the Middle East and the Muslim world has both emboldened the radicals, promoted radicalization and handed the radicals with a precious gift: gold-plated evidence that the West is against them, that the rest of the world sees them as little more than pawns in some global struggle for domination and control of land, oil and people.
Yes, it's always easier to blame the other guys.
1
Author distinguishes two "schools" of thought re. who to blame:
a) the West's support for repressive regimes in Middle East
b) Weak/unaccountable Arab leadership/governance
Then he chooses (b).
Has (b) nothing to do with (a)?
I mean, it's kind of obvious.
Stop pumping weapons out there.
Stop funding insurgents (don't support destabilization, even if you think it's a democratic "spring" - total revolution is no progression at all)
Stop supporting cheap puppet regimes for your dirty oil
a) the West's support for repressive regimes in Middle East
b) Weak/unaccountable Arab leadership/governance
Then he chooses (b).
Has (b) nothing to do with (a)?
I mean, it's kind of obvious.
Stop pumping weapons out there.
Stop funding insurgents (don't support destabilization, even if you think it's a democratic "spring" - total revolution is no progression at all)
Stop supporting cheap puppet regimes for your dirty oil
Teaching hate is wrong.
Teaching hate based on religion is very wrong.
One of America's most basic telnets is Freedom of Religion.
Muslims fought with us during the American Revolution.
Islam is an Alhambirc religion, as are Judaism and Christianity.
The individuals committing act of terror are criminals -- period.
Terrorists come in many nationalities, religions, sexes and religions.
Teaching hate based on religion is very wrong.
One of America's most basic telnets is Freedom of Religion.
Muslims fought with us during the American Revolution.
Islam is an Alhambirc religion, as are Judaism and Christianity.
The individuals committing act of terror are criminals -- period.
Terrorists come in many nationalities, religions, sexes and religions.
Mr. Cohen makes this an either-or situation. It isn't. Western mishandling of the Middle East, including the arbitrary creation of the state of Israel, and marginalization of Muslim communities have exacerbated the problems of autocratic leadership, corruption and religious fundamentalism in those same areas **and vice versa**.
The problem with making this an either-or problem is that it results in polarization, with each stakeholder picking a side. Instead, let the truth emerge that there is fault by, as well as injustice done to, both sides, and then the dialogue and healing can begin.
The problem with making this an either-or problem is that it results in polarization, with each stakeholder picking a side. Instead, let the truth emerge that there is fault by, as well as injustice done to, both sides, and then the dialogue and healing can begin.
This is not Fox News, it does not have to be either/or option 1 and 2.
There are shades of grey and all the points listed in both have some effect.
Trying to sell one simple solution that absolves the West of all blame is just propaganda.
There are shades of grey and all the points listed in both have some effect.
Trying to sell one simple solution that absolves the West of all blame is just propaganda.
1
One thing is clear to me from recent events. It's not that these groups hate Jewish people because of Israel. They hate Israel because it's full of Jewish people. Plus its mere existence upsets their historical narrative. But current events are not unprecedented within the Islamic world. We seem to be seeing a repeat appearance of the Almohades, who lived nearly 1000 years ago. They too demanded subservience, conversion, flight... or death.
2
Not mentioned within the article is the millions upon millions of dollars (some reports say billions) the House of Saud has spent spreading the strictest form of Islam, Wahhabism, throughout the Middle East. Yet, we hold hands with and kiss the King, and we sent a huge delegation of former Heads of State and politicians to the recent funeral. Wahhabism is the seed of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and now ISIS. Lest we forget, most of the hijackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia.
2
Racist equation of Christianity and the west. Christianity is of eastern roots though almost wiped out there. Then you have millions of Asians and africans. You have the polyethists. Islam is at war with infidels. The liberal west is hanging it self with its false moral noose.and sense of self importance. Let's see how the Russians Indians and Chinese react. Unlikely they will have the finesse of liberals.
The flaw in blaming outside meddling for the Arab world's problems is that meddling is ubiquitous. So the question necessarily becomes why is the Arab world unable to move past the same forces that afflict every corner of the planet? It's like one pro golfer blaming the weather for his lousy round without acknowledging that every other golfer in the field had to play in the same conditions. Australia, Poland and India, just to name three disparate countries off the top of my head, have suffered colonial, imperial and Cold War pressures at least as bad as anything most Arab states have experienced. You don't see Aussie terrorists running around shouting "Remember Gallipoli" before blowing themselves up in a London train station. How often do the Poles hold a Day of Rage to denounce their German and Russian enemies?
Modern Western civilization isn't perfect -- not by any stretch -- but it's pretty good all things being equal. And being founded on traditions of skepticism, reason and tolerance, it's simplynot something many devout Muslims are capable of accepting.
Modern Western civilization isn't perfect -- not by any stretch -- but it's pretty good all things being equal. And being founded on traditions of skepticism, reason and tolerance, it's simplynot something many devout Muslims are capable of accepting.
5
One can take the view that the extremists are simply the true believing fundamentalists of the Muslim religion, about which I and the vast majority of Americans have little or no knowledge. The hard core may be exploiting those without hope for their own devices, but I always wonder about the motivation of the suicide bombers. There seems to be no end to their numbers. If this is simply the extreme expression of religious beliefs, then what? This could go on for a very long time.
1
Most of those who choose to call themselves 'Muslims' are not Arabs, cannot speak, write or read Arabic, and can no more read the Koran in the Classical Arabic than most Westerners. They are citizens of Indonesia, one of the world's most populous nations, where around 87% (in the 2010 census) of the more than 250 million identify as Muslim, and where 99% of those follow the Sunni way.
The population of Egypt is around 84 million. The population of Pakistan is around 183 million. The population of Bangladesh is around 157 million. Few in Pakistan or Bangladesh are fluent in Classical Arabic, and few in Egypt are fluent in Classical Arabic, even though most Egyptian citizens speak Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA) along with understanding Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). The Berbers of North Africa are not Arabs, even though they like so many in North Africa and the Near East may have been arabized, and many Berbers are not Sunni nor Shia but Ibadi.
Christians are not for their part a homogeneous group, not now and never have been since the first split between the followers of James and the followers of Paul shortly after the death of the Nazarene. As well as the major difference between Sunnis and Shias, and between Sunnis, Shias and Ibadi, there are major differences within Sunni Islam and within Shiite Islam.
The population of Egypt is around 84 million. The population of Pakistan is around 183 million. The population of Bangladesh is around 157 million. Few in Pakistan or Bangladesh are fluent in Classical Arabic, and few in Egypt are fluent in Classical Arabic, even though most Egyptian citizens speak Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA) along with understanding Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). The Berbers of North Africa are not Arabs, even though they like so many in North Africa and the Near East may have been arabized, and many Berbers are not Sunni nor Shia but Ibadi.
Christians are not for their part a homogeneous group, not now and never have been since the first split between the followers of James and the followers of Paul shortly after the death of the Nazarene. As well as the major difference between Sunnis and Shias, and between Sunnis, Shias and Ibadi, there are major differences within Sunni Islam and within Shiite Islam.
1
Present fully interconnected civilization is facing a gravest survival challenge. Merely saying Islamic State, “dark ideology" is hardly enough.
High time to agree that the root cause of conflicts lies in "religious claims of absolute history because while a lot of one’s identity can be invested in them, such claims can be very unreliable. Historical accounts even at a mundane level frequently lack public consensus because of our limited abilities to perceive, interpret and record historical accounts, and the difficulty in separating the emotions, beliefs and vested interests of the observer/scribe. It is even more challenging to reach universal consensus on historical events that happened a long time ago.... The exclusivism built on history centrism tends to be non-pliable and frequently gets turned into a discourse of violence"
Hinduism shows a way out of the dilemma of reaching compromise on serious differences among religions. Its core tenet is Ahimsa (non-harming) a basis for Mutual Respect. This could be useful to "adopt in the global field of religious engagement. It can be the basis for making ground rules under which different faiths can co-exist in the public square. Mutual respect is, essentially, a certain kind of posture towards all those individuals or groups that are outside of one’s faith."
(Malhotra in http://www.speakingtree.in/public/spiritual-blogs/masters/philosophy/int...
High time to agree that the root cause of conflicts lies in "religious claims of absolute history because while a lot of one’s identity can be invested in them, such claims can be very unreliable. Historical accounts even at a mundane level frequently lack public consensus because of our limited abilities to perceive, interpret and record historical accounts, and the difficulty in separating the emotions, beliefs and vested interests of the observer/scribe. It is even more challenging to reach universal consensus on historical events that happened a long time ago.... The exclusivism built on history centrism tends to be non-pliable and frequently gets turned into a discourse of violence"
Hinduism shows a way out of the dilemma of reaching compromise on serious differences among religions. Its core tenet is Ahimsa (non-harming) a basis for Mutual Respect. This could be useful to "adopt in the global field of religious engagement. It can be the basis for making ground rules under which different faiths can co-exist in the public square. Mutual respect is, essentially, a certain kind of posture towards all those individuals or groups that are outside of one’s faith."
(Malhotra in http://www.speakingtree.in/public/spiritual-blogs/masters/philosophy/int...
"But history, I suspect, will not judge Obama kindly for having failed to foster the great liberation movement that rose up in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere."
Didn't you hear the news? Obama DID intervene in Libya. How's that working out?
Didn't you hear the news? Obama DID intervene in Libya. How's that working out?
2
I find the comments truly thought provoking and substantive. It is really refreshing to read comments that focus on the issues, provide a balanced perspective, and acknowledge that more than one group may exacerbate this deep rooted issue. I am not inclined to acknowledge that this is a war of the Muslims against the west. The terrorists, while many, do not represent the billion plus Muslims or persons of other religions. While many Muslims or believer of other faiths may disagree with western culture, most are respectful and recognize it is the west's right to acculturate as it desires. We should shun the idea that current terrorism is a prelude to Armageddon since such ideology encapsulates us in a crusade mentality which served neither religion very well. I appreciate the thoughtful posts.
1
Your 2 schools of thought is a false choice. It is not either/or. It is both.
It can be very convenient 'find it more persuasive' to blame oppressive governments elsewhere. It absolves us of our moral atrocities such as 'signature drone strikes' where we destroy lives and families without remorse or reason.
Let's also remember that the USA is the enabler of the Saudis who spread and finance ISIS and jihad. It is US arms that killed hundreds of innocent civilians I Gaza. We still send arms to Egypt.
The US started this mess with an invasion of Iraq and neo-con dreams of empire and glory.
The only way the "Arabs can find an answer to this crisis" is for the USA to get out of the way. ISIS is an Arab problem. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Emirates are all incredibly rich and well armed. They created this problem and have gotten the US to be a chump and fight their wars for them.
It is time to forget about 'American Exceptionalism' and continuing the Empire. As our middle class goes backwards, infant mortatlity is a disgrace and our infrastructure crumbles it is time to focus at home. All our wars and drone strikes do is create 5 radicals for each one we kill.
They say a sure sign of insanity is performing the same action, overr and over, expecting a different result. This is our policy concerning the Middle East and terrorism.
It can be very convenient 'find it more persuasive' to blame oppressive governments elsewhere. It absolves us of our moral atrocities such as 'signature drone strikes' where we destroy lives and families without remorse or reason.
Let's also remember that the USA is the enabler of the Saudis who spread and finance ISIS and jihad. It is US arms that killed hundreds of innocent civilians I Gaza. We still send arms to Egypt.
The US started this mess with an invasion of Iraq and neo-con dreams of empire and glory.
The only way the "Arabs can find an answer to this crisis" is for the USA to get out of the way. ISIS is an Arab problem. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Emirates are all incredibly rich and well armed. They created this problem and have gotten the US to be a chump and fight their wars for them.
It is time to forget about 'American Exceptionalism' and continuing the Empire. As our middle class goes backwards, infant mortatlity is a disgrace and our infrastructure crumbles it is time to focus at home. All our wars and drone strikes do is create 5 radicals for each one we kill.
They say a sure sign of insanity is performing the same action, overr and over, expecting a different result. This is our policy concerning the Middle East and terrorism.
Democratic governments and nonmuslims should be placing the onus of the Islamic extremism problem on the Muslim community, not on ourselves. Muslim leaders should be stepping forward and demonstrating that they are either for, or against, democracy and the separation of religion and the state. This needs not only be to be said but demonstrated. And the response, cooperative or aggressive, of democratic nations and nonmuslims ought to hinge on that. Either the Muslim community is with or against us. You should not be living in democratic countries if you condone extremism. Muslims, speak up.
1
We need an Eisenhower and a Patton with all that implies to preemptively deal with a looming Pearl Harbor which could go nuclear.
1
I agree with Mr. Cohen that America (Obama?) could have done more to foster the Arab Spring movements, and that failure to do so is partly responsible for increasing ISIL terrorism, also spawned by the Bashar Assad regime and by the American failure to rebuild Iraq. But is Mr. Cohen's comparison of Islamist terrorism to Nazism really helpful?---when Islamist fundamentalist theocracy and Nazi Neo-Pagan dictatorship are about as different as Wotan and Allah! Certainly there are elements of the Muslim scriptures---the Qu'ranic sword verses---which can be read to promote terrorism. But I invite readers to re-read the Book of Joshua, which provides Yaweh's God-given sanction for the Israelite armies to conquer and burn Canaanite cities and "utterly destroy them, men, women, and children, sheep, oxen, and goats," and "leave nothing breathing alive." This is certainly not to blame all Israelis for the three thousand years of misunderstanding and hatred that have been spawned by those scriptures. But the Israeli State also plays a big role in provoking terrorism by failing to settle "the Palestinian problem." Yes, Mr. Cohen is right that it's the carnage in the Muslim world that spawns terrorism. But a great portion of that carnage was caused by the war on terror, which, after 14 years, is an abysmal failure. And until there's dialog between the West and Muslims, the war on terror will keep escalating. And Mr. Cohen's stereotyping of the Muslim world doesn't help.
1
Though Mr. Cohen finds his "second view more persuasive", he ignores the fact that the dictators of these "blocked societies" in the Arab world have been and are being supported by the West and in particular by the United States thus leading logically back to his "first" school that "it is the West that is to blame."
1
Mr. Cohen seems to have forgotten history. The role played by the West in destabilizing the Middle East - with its wars, support for tyrants and the true sponsor of extremism, Saudi Arabia - is surely a dark, cynical ideology, by any standards. All for oil, corporate profits, for mammon... with a few words like "democracy" and "freedom" thrown in to anesthetize the American public, to trick them into supporting vile causes. Of course, this policy has bred terrorists by the tens of thousands, and created hatred. Now Mr, Cohen wants Obama to "liberate" the Middle East, and sponsor freedom movements... that is mind boggling, coming from someone who is actually intelligent!
1
I really get tired of reading articles/op-eds written by people who don't really get the point. ISIS has nothing to do with Islam. They identify with misinterpretations of the Koran. They are extremists and I know Westerners don't like to hear this but every religion has its extremists. I don't have time to go into the specifics but with the internet anyone who cares to find out the truth of religious extremism throughout human history can do so. You can't just blame one religion. All religions need to learn to play nice with one another just as all nations and all peoples need to do so and spreading lies and hatred for anything or anyone different than you is not going to extinguish the fire. Finger-pointing and baseless hatred is incendiary and merely fuels conflagrations. It's not about religion. It's about bad people and they come in every spiritual belief system.
This column is wrong on many fronts. The nihilistic, cult-like presence of ISIS is all about some kind of apocalyptic vision of " End of Days". They remind me more of the Branch Davidians down in Waco battling it out against federal authorities and not caring a bit what the rest of the world thought of them.
You should be talking about a tiny fraction of the 1.6 B Muslims living in our world. instead, to conflate the extreme with the 99.99 % of Muslims who only want to live in peace.
You should be talking about a tiny fraction of the 1.6 B Muslims living in our world. instead, to conflate the extreme with the 99.99 % of Muslims who only want to live in peace.
There are fearful journalists in the American news media that have tried, tried, tried to use fear to stampede the American people into the middle east crevice.
ISIS fighters have no economy, no air force, no navy, no army, no food, no water, no beds, no infrastructure etc. America must concentrate on the big stuff: China, India, Russia, and Europe,
ISIS cleanup must be left to the local governments. It's their garbage.
ISIS fighters have no economy, no air force, no navy, no army, no food, no water, no beds, no infrastructure etc. America must concentrate on the big stuff: China, India, Russia, and Europe,
ISIS cleanup must be left to the local governments. It's their garbage.
Generalizations, generalizations! They have become the bane of human existence.Parties on either side of the divide are guilty of this crime. Unless we break this dangerous cycle it is a Catch-22. But then the problem is who will take the first step. And so the stalemate continues.
“We are not in the middle of a battle between Islam and the West. It’s not a battle between Muslim..” is statement of astounding lack of understanding fundamentals.
Islam and Christianity are two branches of Abrahamic monotheistic faiths, emphasizing and tracing their common origin to Abraham.
Both religions are monotheistic, worshiping an exclusive God, though known by different names. Both religions believe that God creates, is one, rules, reveals, loves, judges, punishes, and forgives.
Islam considers Christianity to be idolatrous.
On the other hand to quote Prof. Sardar"Western images of Islam and Muslims have been frozen in history and are recycled with mundane regularity. These ‘freeze frames’ emerged at the beginning of Islam and have, over centuries, acquired certain key elements and descriptors. Association of Islam with promiscuity and licentiousness was common during eight and tenth centuries. The Crusades added war-like violence to the picture, and embedded Islam within the concept of evil. Two further elements, barbarism and despotism, were supplied by the humanist movement of the fourteenth century and the Enlightenment"
I believe present clash of the faiths can be understood as said by Wilhelm Halbfass, Indologist of U-Penn under different context “In the modern planetary situation Eastern and Western ‘cultures’ can no longer meet one another as equal partners. They meet in a westernized world, under conditions shaped by western ways of thinking.”
Islam and Christianity are two branches of Abrahamic monotheistic faiths, emphasizing and tracing their common origin to Abraham.
Both religions are monotheistic, worshiping an exclusive God, though known by different names. Both religions believe that God creates, is one, rules, reveals, loves, judges, punishes, and forgives.
Islam considers Christianity to be idolatrous.
On the other hand to quote Prof. Sardar"Western images of Islam and Muslims have been frozen in history and are recycled with mundane regularity. These ‘freeze frames’ emerged at the beginning of Islam and have, over centuries, acquired certain key elements and descriptors. Association of Islam with promiscuity and licentiousness was common during eight and tenth centuries. The Crusades added war-like violence to the picture, and embedded Islam within the concept of evil. Two further elements, barbarism and despotism, were supplied by the humanist movement of the fourteenth century and the Enlightenment"
I believe present clash of the faiths can be understood as said by Wilhelm Halbfass, Indologist of U-Penn under different context “In the modern planetary situation Eastern and Western ‘cultures’ can no longer meet one another as equal partners. They meet in a westernized world, under conditions shaped by western ways of thinking.”
Islam and the West are not at war with each other. The majority of Muslims do not subscribe to ISIS's/Boko Haram's interpretation of Islam. Muslims in certain Western countries, like France, pose a challenge to secularism and free speech but this phenomena is not widespread. Muslims in the United States and Canada, for instance, handle criticisms of their religion rather well.
As the Muslim population in the West continues to increase, we should expect varying levels of opposition to Western values. We understandably get furious when Western values are being attacked but ignore our own provocations. We focus on the actions of a few but forget to praise the millions of Muslims around the world who accept both justifiable and bigoted criticisms with maturity and stoicism.
As the Muslim population in the West continues to increase, we should expect varying levels of opposition to Western values. We understandably get furious when Western values are being attacked but ignore our own provocations. We focus on the actions of a few but forget to praise the millions of Muslims around the world who accept both justifiable and bigoted criticisms with maturity and stoicism.
1
The West - and the Obama administration - have been greatly remiss in not supporting major efforts by popular movements in the Arab Middle East to bring about in their societies political freedom we have enjoyed for long now. The failure to recognize and support those efforts that underlay the Arab Spring has been a tragic mistake, as Roger Cohen says.
However, surely, the mistake has been far worse than that? Western governments for decades have allied themselves with repressive dictatorships (from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Bahrain and many Gulf states) that feed hopelessness and extremism across the Middle East.
Even the fight against ISIS strongly demonstrates this. Faced with the option of undertaking a humanitarian military effort to protect millions of Syrian civilians from their own government - by establishing "no-fly" zones north and south in Syria, the West did nothing. Once ISIS appeared and tens of thousands of Iraqis and Syrians were butchered, still they did nothing. Only once three or four Westerners were graphically and brutally beheaded, did they act. And that action is once again purely repressive - siding with the autocrats of the Middle East to stamp out ISIS, without offering any positive alternative.
This struggle is not about religion. It's about politics. To demonize Islam and Muslims, while aiding their repression in the Middle East, is to prolong this sad history. Stop blaming Islam, start supporting democracy!
However, surely, the mistake has been far worse than that? Western governments for decades have allied themselves with repressive dictatorships (from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Bahrain and many Gulf states) that feed hopelessness and extremism across the Middle East.
Even the fight against ISIS strongly demonstrates this. Faced with the option of undertaking a humanitarian military effort to protect millions of Syrian civilians from their own government - by establishing "no-fly" zones north and south in Syria, the West did nothing. Once ISIS appeared and tens of thousands of Iraqis and Syrians were butchered, still they did nothing. Only once three or four Westerners were graphically and brutally beheaded, did they act. And that action is once again purely repressive - siding with the autocrats of the Middle East to stamp out ISIS, without offering any positive alternative.
This struggle is not about religion. It's about politics. To demonize Islam and Muslims, while aiding their repression in the Middle East, is to prolong this sad history. Stop blaming Islam, start supporting democracy!
This article seems like I am reading on something foxnews. Very un-thoughtful and shallow opinion.
What is "West": Separation of Church and State and a democratic system?.
Certainly we are a big failure on the first but I am still hopeful on the second. Probably some European countries can be considered as "west" as they have tried to separate church from politics.
I am sure that we don't understand Muslim's and their culture, I am at least certain for myself. There are uprising in these communities/countries because of poverty and helplessness, and we are certainly a very big contributor to their plight. We indeed support all the worst players in this game: Saudis, Pakistanis, Israel etc.
There seems to be a covert agenda of the military industrial complex (MIC) to keep the wars intact as that's their bloodline. So MIC gains most from the war operations and the cost is paid by "poor Americans" who don't have enough money to enroll in colleges and so have to enlist in military services. There is no glory in killing another human being, it only corrupts and destroys our souls. But MIC has no soul. Maybe MIC and right wing republicans are using Israel as a proxy state to wage a war against Muslims states: its seems more like a crusade. That's one reason they want to nuke all the possibilities of peace talks with Iran. Remember we are biggest danger to anyone as we have money and weapons, and we believe in GOD.
What is "West": Separation of Church and State and a democratic system?.
Certainly we are a big failure on the first but I am still hopeful on the second. Probably some European countries can be considered as "west" as they have tried to separate church from politics.
I am sure that we don't understand Muslim's and their culture, I am at least certain for myself. There are uprising in these communities/countries because of poverty and helplessness, and we are certainly a very big contributor to their plight. We indeed support all the worst players in this game: Saudis, Pakistanis, Israel etc.
There seems to be a covert agenda of the military industrial complex (MIC) to keep the wars intact as that's their bloodline. So MIC gains most from the war operations and the cost is paid by "poor Americans" who don't have enough money to enroll in colleges and so have to enlist in military services. There is no glory in killing another human being, it only corrupts and destroys our souls. But MIC has no soul. Maybe MIC and right wing republicans are using Israel as a proxy state to wage a war against Muslims states: its seems more like a crusade. That's one reason they want to nuke all the possibilities of peace talks with Iran. Remember we are biggest danger to anyone as we have money and weapons, and we believe in GOD.
Maniacal Islamic extremism does not preclude cowardly bungling western overreaction and blowback. They are feedbacking co-enablers.
1
It is also and mainly a war between arabs and between muslims. So far western casualties are far less than what the arabs and muslims have suffered.
Seems to me there are large swaths of people whose limited education, life experience, and economic opportunity make them susceptible to demagoguery. Fundamental religions with their command and control structures give demagogues a tool to exploit such people and offer them a chance to be part of a something they perceive to be doing important work. The antidote is communication that entertains, educates and sows healthy skepticism. Let's resurrect a "Radio Free Europe" approach to the Middle East as part of introducing a better way.
Is Cohen going off the rails? This is little more than a diatribe, as was his recent rant against the Russians. Yes, there's a long-simmering rage among Muslims, especially those in the Middle East. It is a rage of humiliation and frustration, directed as much at themselves, as toward the West.
And certainly there's enough blame to go around. The West is complicit through its policies, and the Muslims through their failure to adapt to the modern world.
To talk of a culture war is simplistic, dangerous and counter-productive. We should be trying to lower tensions, while supporting a moderate ground-swell against ISIS among Middle East Muslims.
And certainly there's enough blame to go around. The West is complicit through its policies, and the Muslims through their failure to adapt to the modern world.
To talk of a culture war is simplistic, dangerous and counter-productive. We should be trying to lower tensions, while supporting a moderate ground-swell against ISIS among Middle East Muslims.
19
Why don't we treat gang members this way? Why does it matter that violence is committed in the name of a structured belief system? Why not focus on bringing down the level of violence and anger and worry less about the terms in which it is couched? That's how I wish we had responded to 9/11. I think we escalate a situation when we politicize violence. That's my version of Hillary Clinton's "What difference does it make?"
9
I agree that it's ridiculous to refer to the enemy as a "dark ideology", as if that means anything. But I found Mr. Cohen's analysis equally confused. First he says we are at war with the Muslim world. O really? Are any Muslim countries attacking Europe or America? Are hordes of Muslims massing at the borders? And how many Christian soldiers are in Muslim countries compared to the number of Muslim soldiers in Christian countries? A little later he narrows it down to Islamists, which is not synonymous with the "Muslim world". That's a little better.
But then he sets up a false binary choice--it's either our fault or theirs. Why not both? Muslim countries have lagged far behind the rest of the world in terms of providing opportunities for their citizens. On the other hand, our hands are not entirely clean either. The Arab countries were colonized and then bequeathed arbitrary borders that didn't conform to reality on the ground, and they also got a raw deal in Palestine.
Finally, I wonder what he means by criticizing Obama for having "failed to foster the great liberation movement". Is he suggesting a return to the colonial era? Fostering the overthrow of Gaddafi has by all accounts made things immeasurably worse.
I really don't know what Mr. Cohen is thinking.
But then he sets up a false binary choice--it's either our fault or theirs. Why not both? Muslim countries have lagged far behind the rest of the world in terms of providing opportunities for their citizens. On the other hand, our hands are not entirely clean either. The Arab countries were colonized and then bequeathed arbitrary borders that didn't conform to reality on the ground, and they also got a raw deal in Palestine.
Finally, I wonder what he means by criticizing Obama for having "failed to foster the great liberation movement". Is he suggesting a return to the colonial era? Fostering the overthrow of Gaddafi has by all accounts made things immeasurably worse.
I really don't know what Mr. Cohen is thinking.
82
Blaming Obama seems symptomatic with Mr Cohen's feeble attempt to blame millions of peaceful Muslims for the ignorance, fanaticism and barbarism of disgracefully misguided militaristic sects. What good alternatives did Obama have faced with an Arab Spring coopted by extremists such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and ISIS in Syria? Granted there has been a failure of Muslims to appropriately express their disgust with these groups. But Christians in this country have been noticeably missing in attacking right-wing sects like those of Pat Roberts and his ilk.
Colonial powers also ruled Singapore, India, Southeast Asia, Polynesia, much of Africa, and exploited China for centuries. Any Singaporeans beheading journalists on video? Any Maoris or Tahitians crashing jet planes into office buildings. Any Laotians or Vietnamese killing cartoonists or Jews on their way to synagogue. Hmm?
And as for a raw deal over Palestine. Yes, definitely. The Jews were supposed to get most of British Mandate Palestine to revive what was and still is their historical homeland after being screwed for centuries by the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Turks and the British. Instead, the British gave 75% of the land to the Hashemites to be renamed "Jordan" after they were booted out of Mecca and Medina by the Saudi tribe. And the rest was to be partitioned between the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs on the remaining 25%, with the Palestinian Arabs getting most of the arable land and the Jews getting mostly desert except for Haifa and the Jewish capitol of Jerusalem internationalized. The Jews accepted the deal; the Arabs refused and launched a war instead with the hope of doing the same to the Jews as Islamic State just did to 21 Coptic Christians. They lost. Tough!
And as for a raw deal over Palestine. Yes, definitely. The Jews were supposed to get most of British Mandate Palestine to revive what was and still is their historical homeland after being screwed for centuries by the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Turks and the British. Instead, the British gave 75% of the land to the Hashemites to be renamed "Jordan" after they were booted out of Mecca and Medina by the Saudi tribe. And the rest was to be partitioned between the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs on the remaining 25%, with the Palestinian Arabs getting most of the arable land and the Jews getting mostly desert except for Haifa and the Jewish capitol of Jerusalem internationalized. The Jews accepted the deal; the Arabs refused and launched a war instead with the hope of doing the same to the Jews as Islamic State just did to 21 Coptic Christians. They lost. Tough!
2
It seems there are no shortage of foot soldiers willing to fight in europe , and some other places, for the jihadi view of Islam.
A certain prophet beheaded hundreds of surrendered people, peace be upon him, so who is to say that the jihadi view of Islam isn't correct?
If the jihadi view if Islam is the correct historical view, substantiated by the life of the beheader, maybe we should not welcome such problems to the shores upon which we live.
A certain prophet beheaded hundreds of surrendered people, peace be upon him, so who is to say that the jihadi view of Islam isn't correct?
If the jihadi view if Islam is the correct historical view, substantiated by the life of the beheader, maybe we should not welcome such problems to the shores upon which we live.
2
What we need to do is bring back the draft so ALL Americans will have a stake in this battle. As a first step, draft the children of congress persons instead of the middle-class and poor, as is usually the case. It's too easy to vote to send other folks' kids to war: let's turn the tables on the privileged few!
26
As a Vietnam vet, I could not agree more. If the sons and daughters of our worthless Senators and Congressmen had to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, we probably would never had invaded Iraq and we would have been out of Afghanistan several years ago. More to the point, it is not our responsibility or our right to impose our version of a government on any nation. We are arrogant and full of self righteousness to believe that our form of government will work in nations where tribe, religion and sects within religion are of paramount importance. It took centuries for the concept of representative government to take hold in Europe. Nations that are culturally in the 16th or 17th Century do not want democratic institutions to take root in their country and deeply resent our meddling in their affairs.
What we need, is Billy Sherman in charge of 3 divisions turned loose in Mesopotamia.
So true,but not only draft children of congressmen,but also draft 10% of the members of congress and put them in front line units,not some cushy staff job far from the combat.
I am a viet nam vet,retired careerAir Force officer,and proud of my duty and the duty and sacrifice everyone in the military performers day in and day out,twenty four seven.,year in year out
I am a viet nam vet,retired careerAir Force officer,and proud of my duty and the duty and sacrifice everyone in the military performers day in and day out,twenty four seven.,year in year out
1
Let's be a little fair. The article makes it sound as though the "Islamist's war" is unprovoked and arises from some defect in Islam. But on the occasion of King Abdullah's death recently, there was a column here reporting how Abdullah exported terror, brutally repressed his people, and had fostered massive corruption. The article concludes blithely that the US and Saudi Arabia are just in a 'bad marriage' - neither can leave the other. That lightness of heart - Ah well, just another bad marriage - must be bitter to the average Saudi and to many other inhabitants of the near east, as they watch their wealth being sucked dry by companies that are clients of the states that prop up their corrupt rulers. Unprovoked? Unfortunately not. Suddenly arisen from some defect in Islam? Don't think so. There's a long history behind our current problems.
30
Those companies showed the Arabs how to extract that oil wealth in the first place, which they then nationalized. If it had't been for those Western companies, the Saudis and the Arabs of the Gulf states would still be goat herding and pearl diving, and Bugatti and Lamborghini would have to look elsewhere for their best customers.
2
It seems as if you're attempting to justify the attacks on the basis that the average Saudi is bitter. What would, to any other people, simply be bitterness and dislike, is proliferated by the very religion that promotes murder, genocide, and rape as acceptable forms of punishment. The slavery of the Indians, which resulted in the death of 80 million up to the point of British withdrawal, hasn't caused Indians to carry out a campaign of terror against Britain and its supporters; the abject humiliation of the Chinese people during British occupation is not met with hatred and mass executions of British citizens. It only ever seems to be Islam that is retaliating against Western oppressors, until you realise that largest number of victims of Islamic violence lie OUTSIDE of the West.
We're quick to criticise men for the culture of violence that they uphold against women, and have have active campaigns to reduce them by chanting slogans that say "Teach men not to rape women/ Teach men to respect women". Yet, you conveniently ignore the culture of violence that exists within Islam and promote is being admirable because YOU to do so would be seen as xenophobic. I don't suffer from such hypocrisy because I came directly from such a culture. Does this absolve the West's crimes in the Middle East? Nope. But to suggest that this bitterness provoked the attack is to justify it as a reason. There are actions to getting the West out of the Middle East, shooting Danes is not one of them
We're quick to criticise men for the culture of violence that they uphold against women, and have have active campaigns to reduce them by chanting slogans that say "Teach men not to rape women/ Teach men to respect women". Yet, you conveniently ignore the culture of violence that exists within Islam and promote is being admirable because YOU to do so would be seen as xenophobic. I don't suffer from such hypocrisy because I came directly from such a culture. Does this absolve the West's crimes in the Middle East? Nope. But to suggest that this bitterness provoked the attack is to justify it as a reason. There are actions to getting the West out of the Middle East, shooting Danes is not one of them
1
Dear Mr Cohen,
I would like to ask a simple question to which future columns could perhaps be devoted: Who benefits from the Arab Spring's failure?
I would like to ask a simple question to which future columns could perhaps be devoted: Who benefits from the Arab Spring's failure?
10
We are not mind readers, and the columnist you address in your note is unlikely to post a response to your query. What is it you are suggesting and what are you trying to say?
Everyone.
Especially women and children.
Especially women and children.
There is no rationale in blaming President Obama for any of the emergence of ISIS. The Iraq invasion is the real beginning of Radical Islam to come out of the box and unto the world stage. We won't be able to put it back so now what? The fundamentals of the three Abramaic religious branches are now going at each other, but primarily Islam and Judiasm with Christianity tryimg to play referee. The problem however is that the moderate forces in the two former groups are having less and less influence over their Radical factions and it is very doubtful that the referee will be able to stay on the sideline for much longer. All three must be having a cautious eye on the old prophecy of Armageddon since the area, the religions, and the hatred are all converging on a survival ending.
Beyond the fairy tale part of course is the very real prospect of an horrific war, with nuclear weapons still part of the dialog. The prospect of something to diffusing the rachetting up violence seems impossible to forsee at this point. The huge division of partisan hatred here in the United States isn't helping anything. In fact it may be just the catalyst that inspires the Middle East to begin an end game of millions of deaths. It canmot be overstated that the Iraq invasion is prelude, born just out of this American feud from the 2000 Supreme Court's poorly thought out appointment
Beyond the fairy tale part of course is the very real prospect of an horrific war, with nuclear weapons still part of the dialog. The prospect of something to diffusing the rachetting up violence seems impossible to forsee at this point. The huge division of partisan hatred here in the United States isn't helping anything. In fact it may be just the catalyst that inspires the Middle East to begin an end game of millions of deaths. It canmot be overstated that the Iraq invasion is prelude, born just out of this American feud from the 2000 Supreme Court's poorly thought out appointment
26
What can one do to have a discussion with a person, blinded by hatred of George Bush, who writes: "The Iraq invasion is the real beginning of Radical Islam to come out of the box and unto the world stage."
Ah, forget about 9/11 and the killing of 3,000 Americans. That has no relation to today's troubles. George Bush started it all. End of story. Very sad.
Ah, forget about 9/11 and the killing of 3,000 Americans. That has no relation to today's troubles. George Bush started it all. End of story. Very sad.
1
Between Judaism and Islam? No way! Many Muslims, perhaps the majority, suffer under a brutally repressive, anti-child, anti-female, and above all anti-sexual ideology. They will require many generations, at best, to liberate themselves from this agony. The hatred arising from their inner conflicts finds a rationalization in the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation, which troubles one small corner of the vast Islamic world.
1
JUdaism is not "going at" Islam or Muslims. In this century, I can think of exactly one hate crime committed by Jews against Arabs, the horrific murder of an Arab teen following the horrific murders of 3 Jewish teens in Israel. Jews are not shooting up halal markets, rioting outside mosques, killing Muslims praying or attending family celebrations.
All of which suggests that you are conflating the State of Israel with Judaism, which is simply not true, any more than the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are a product of Christianity. To the extent that any states can be accused of attacking others for religious reasons, this is only true of non-democratic regimes that claim to be operating not out of national security concerns but under the banner of Islam.
All of which suggests that you are conflating the State of Israel with Judaism, which is simply not true, any more than the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are a product of Christianity. To the extent that any states can be accused of attacking others for religious reasons, this is only true of non-democratic regimes that claim to be operating not out of national security concerns but under the banner of Islam.
1
Actually, it's a battle between Arab cultures and Western cultures.
13
Not Arab cultures, it's much broader than that. The Afghanis, Pakistanis, and Iranians are not Arabs, for instance. This is a battle between reactionary (not radical, that's a misnomer) Islam and Western culture.
“In the modern planetary situation Eastern and Western ‘cultures’ can no longer meet one another as equal partners. They meet in a westernized world, under conditions shaped by western ways of thinking.” The quote of Late Wilhelm Halbfass, Indologist of U-Penn talking of misrepresentation of India, suits here perfectly.
From Sykes-Picot to the current crisis Western intervention has been the curse of the Middle East.
Bible quote: - Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
From Sykes-Picot to the current crisis Western intervention has been the curse of the Middle East.
Bible quote: - Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Keep a perspective -- both sides are at fault. There is more than enough barbarism to go around.
Clearly the West started the current warfare, bombing, invading, and corrupting Muslim nations for their oil. The West and its proxies have killed countless times more people. And most of the war has been fought in Muslim homes and homelands.
Both sides have done terrible wrongs. And neither offers a decent and compelling vision for a human future.
Clearly the West started the current warfare, bombing, invading, and corrupting Muslim nations for their oil. The West and its proxies have killed countless times more people. And most of the war has been fought in Muslim homes and homelands.
Both sides have done terrible wrongs. And neither offers a decent and compelling vision for a human future.
25
Both sides are at fault, but the culture of violence that is central to Islam also affects countries that are outside of the West. Those who bear the brunt of the attacks are non-whites who don't live in Europe or North America, and Islam seems to be the fundamental problem there. What is interesting to note is that the Danes haven't been involved in any bombing, invading and corrupting Muslim nations - why were they made a target? More importantly, why a free speech gathering? Could it have something to do with hatred for anything that deviates from Islamic rule?
Uh, let's get specific. Only Muslims can defeat the terrorists, you say. But Obama is to blame for not pointing clearly enough to the fact that this is a West against Islam battle. I'm confused. Just what do you suggest we do to get the Muslim world to take care of their radicals? And what do you suggest that the U.S. should do, more than it is doing to defeat the terrorists?
Inaction, you say, is a policy. No doubt but what action would you have taken in Syria to guarantee a different outcome than that which we now see? It is easy to write columns but much harder to assume responsibility for actions. I hear your frustration and I share it. But I'm not eager to send my grandsons to defeat terrorists in the Middle East. Are you?
Inaction, you say, is a policy. No doubt but what action would you have taken in Syria to guarantee a different outcome than that which we now see? It is easy to write columns but much harder to assume responsibility for actions. I hear your frustration and I share it. But I'm not eager to send my grandsons to defeat terrorists in the Middle East. Are you?
39
Much of this could have been avoided in the first place if the NeoCons and Jr. had just left secular Iraq alone. Afghanistan's Taliban had been defeated and contained. The balance of Radicals would have been largely maintained. What good does it do us now to go back and find the starting point? I'm not sure but if anything good can be learned from history, even as recent as this is, we must seek it out now. Tomorrow's coming disaster is otherwise unstoppable. Perhaps we can carve up the already divided Iraq into their separate ethnicities, while impressing a benefit to Iran's abandonment of a nuclear weapons future whilst unifying to end the real threat of ISIS. Options are limited.
10
In other words, better to have kept a genocidal dictator Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq. At least he kept the lid on things. Well, we learned out lesson, and decided to do nothing when another genocidal dictator Bashir Assad in Syria held power. How'd that work out, C?
1
Garbage, piled higher and deeper.
This is not a West against Islam war.
This is a war against criminals. Actors led by people hardly different than those which ruled Germany in WW II.
This is not a West against Islam war.
This is a war against criminals. Actors led by people hardly different than those which ruled Germany in WW II.
As seen in the PBS show, "Islam," last July, Mohammed was a mass-murderer from the get-go. He slaughtered the people of the very town that first gave him refuge, from where he built up a lucrative criminal enterprise as a raider of desert caravans. He invented 2 things to kill his opponent more quickly: the stirrup, making his mounted troops much more effective, and the scimitar, to decapitate persons more easily. Most tellingly, he ordered that all women and children of his enemies be murdered. Right from the outset, he was genocidal. BTW: the word "Jerusalem" is never mentioned in the Koran. Mohammed had no reason of "Religion" to provoke the Crusades, he simply wanted the wealth of the residents and pilgrims of Jerusalem. In the final years before the first crusade became necessary, about 40% of European pilgrims making their way to Jerusalem were murdered by Mohammed's troops while going and coming back to the Mediterranean ports. He was no different than Blackbeard the pirate.
65
Congratulations on speaking the truth..a truth that the politically correct dare not speak.
33
Thanks for speaking the truth. Thanks for NYT for allowing this truth to publish it.
3
Also, lost in all the Jew-hate ... uh, I mean Israel-hate these days. Mohammed seized and ethnically cleansed the Jewish city of Medina -- now the second holiest city in Islam. Then he slaughtered a Jewish force defending its land in the battle of Kaybar -- a battle Muslim fanatics celebrate to this day. Something to keep in mind the next time an Arab (or just as a likely a half-baked British leftist) shakes his/her fist at supposed Israeli oppression and seizure of "Palestine".
Oh, and before the Crusades (and all of Obama's guilt trip regarding) it is worth recalling Muslim armies tried to conquer Europe first. They succeeded in conquering Iberia (the future Spain and Portugal), and seized part of western France until their army was stopped at the battle of Tours by Frankish leader Charles Martel in 732.
Oh, and before the Crusades (and all of Obama's guilt trip regarding) it is worth recalling Muslim armies tried to conquer Europe first. They succeeded in conquering Iberia (the future Spain and Portugal), and seized part of western France until their army was stopped at the battle of Tours by Frankish leader Charles Martel in 732.
2
"Islam and the West at War
The Danish prime minister speaks of a "dark ideology." This vagueness undermines the Muslims fighting the Islamist scourge."
Perhaps Mr. Cohen will expand on his implicit belief that there are, indeed, Muslims fighting the Islamist scourge" If the silent majority publivcly and frequently disavowed the black sheep in their midst, those who survived retribution would be perceived as world-class citizens.
Until the daily news is replete with reports on act ions being taken by the peaceful Muslim community against the jihadists in their midst, it seems likely that the former and the latter, erroneously albeit understandably, will be tarred with the same brush
The Danish prime minister speaks of a "dark ideology." This vagueness undermines the Muslims fighting the Islamist scourge."
Perhaps Mr. Cohen will expand on his implicit belief that there are, indeed, Muslims fighting the Islamist scourge" If the silent majority publivcly and frequently disavowed the black sheep in their midst, those who survived retribution would be perceived as world-class citizens.
Until the daily news is replete with reports on act ions being taken by the peaceful Muslim community against the jihadists in their midst, it seems likely that the former and the latter, erroneously albeit understandably, will be tarred with the same brush
11
Roger Cohen misses the target when he says that it is either dictatorial (blocked) Arab and Middle Eastern Societies or a violent and hypocritical west. It is both, and our major allies such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt who are contemptuous of democracy and us as well as our double standard that applauds democracy at home and totalitarian dictatorship and theocracy abroad.
15
It is clear this article just about embarrassed Mr. Cohen.
But I like to make few observations:
What would be US intervention goal be like?
Why would not US change its foreign policy? What would that look like? Isolation versus intervention versus train the trainee and stay out of the limelight?
Why is that Iran has been under so much economic restrictions by US but still manage to manipulate and control the region and build nuclear weapons? Does not this prove US cannot even squeeze the life out of this region?
Why is it hard for westerners to believe that the borders of Middle East (ME) were never the real ones? Why do we underestimate the impact of Sykes–Picot Agreement? Why do we need ME?
Why cannot we get other countries (China, Russia, Japan etc) to take the helm for once? Is it because we have something at stake here?
It is disingenuous to write this article and conclude the problem has nothing to do with the West.
As matter of fact, the Arab Spring was an awakening and our moment (that passed) would have been let them fight out to victory!
There is no time than today to have US go through a fundamental foreign policy changes. I think we will see what 2016 brings.
But I like to make few observations:
What would be US intervention goal be like?
Why would not US change its foreign policy? What would that look like? Isolation versus intervention versus train the trainee and stay out of the limelight?
Why is that Iran has been under so much economic restrictions by US but still manage to manipulate and control the region and build nuclear weapons? Does not this prove US cannot even squeeze the life out of this region?
Why is it hard for westerners to believe that the borders of Middle East (ME) were never the real ones? Why do we underestimate the impact of Sykes–Picot Agreement? Why do we need ME?
Why cannot we get other countries (China, Russia, Japan etc) to take the helm for once? Is it because we have something at stake here?
It is disingenuous to write this article and conclude the problem has nothing to do with the West.
As matter of fact, the Arab Spring was an awakening and our moment (that passed) would have been let them fight out to victory!
There is no time than today to have US go through a fundamental foreign policy changes. I think we will see what 2016 brings.
7
What I take away from this article is the same if you are not with us you are against us diatribe that permeates discussion on this matter and does nothing but perpetuate a western-centric view of the world, which is specifically what many states argue they are fighting against.
Not all American action is virtuous and not all muslim action is villainous. What the Arab Spring and the resulting civil wars have so well described is the total lack of political and social infrastructure that is necessary to support democracy and the advancement of human rights, with a particular focus on minority rights.
A lot of the unrest in Europe can be attributed to unnecessarily racist and insensitive policies that disproportionately affect and oppress muslims. I am confident that if more effort was put in shoring up our own human rights record, we would be in a better position to fight the false ideologies advanced by those seeking power in the name of some higher power.
Not all American action is virtuous and not all muslim action is villainous. What the Arab Spring and the resulting civil wars have so well described is the total lack of political and social infrastructure that is necessary to support democracy and the advancement of human rights, with a particular focus on minority rights.
A lot of the unrest in Europe can be attributed to unnecessarily racist and insensitive policies that disproportionately affect and oppress muslims. I am confident that if more effort was put in shoring up our own human rights record, we would be in a better position to fight the false ideologies advanced by those seeking power in the name of some higher power.
9
Why do we have to intervene? Why not pull back and concentrate our efforts on a really effective defensive strategy?
I would suggest, first, changing prisons so that they do not become breeding grounds for extremism. This may not be easy, but is clearly absolutely necessary.
Second, do not participate in the war in the middle east by sending anything other than humanitarian aid for refugees. If, as in Libya, it appears that a dictator is about to commit mass murder, it would not expensive for us to prevent or at least degrade it with air power. But why put our ambassadors in harm's way by having such extensive and poorly protected facilities in Muslim countries? There is really no logical reason for putting an American facility in Bengazi-- an embassy in the putative capital would be more than enough.
The point is that we need to go into a defensive, rather than aggressive posture. We already control all the land we need to live on, and there is no need to project ourselves into places where we clearly are not wanted by a majority of the populace.
Third, a really comprehensive social welfare system is needed, even more so than in Denmark. ISIS claims that its "government" is committed to providing free housing, food, clothing, and medical care to all its subjects. How can we beat an offer like that with our dog eat dog type of capitalism? Provide a firm base for people so they can't suffer needlessly, and then let those who will make all the money they want.
I would suggest, first, changing prisons so that they do not become breeding grounds for extremism. This may not be easy, but is clearly absolutely necessary.
Second, do not participate in the war in the middle east by sending anything other than humanitarian aid for refugees. If, as in Libya, it appears that a dictator is about to commit mass murder, it would not expensive for us to prevent or at least degrade it with air power. But why put our ambassadors in harm's way by having such extensive and poorly protected facilities in Muslim countries? There is really no logical reason for putting an American facility in Bengazi-- an embassy in the putative capital would be more than enough.
The point is that we need to go into a defensive, rather than aggressive posture. We already control all the land we need to live on, and there is no need to project ourselves into places where we clearly are not wanted by a majority of the populace.
Third, a really comprehensive social welfare system is needed, even more so than in Denmark. ISIS claims that its "government" is committed to providing free housing, food, clothing, and medical care to all its subjects. How can we beat an offer like that with our dog eat dog type of capitalism? Provide a firm base for people so they can't suffer needlessly, and then let those who will make all the money they want.
5
Policies oppressing Muslims in the West could be escaped by Muslims if the places to which they could conceivably escape weren't places with less opportunity as well as more oppression.
You mean the same policies that allow me to critise your man-made religion? Islam is a choice you make, much like your choice for music, or choice of clothes, or colour of hair. But due to the nature of religion and the immense privilege it enjoys, it is often considered out of bounds for criticism. Why should my right to criticise you take a lesser priority than your right to be offended? There is nothing remotely "racist" about criticising a religion that has no basis in reality, has a history of cultural hijacking, and doesn't represent race.
Those who are subjected to Islamic rule in the Middle East and dare oppose it often find themselves in the same position as those in the West who dare to criticise Islam - execution in public. Christianity enjoyed the benefit of secularism slapping it into place, Islam is yet to encounter it. There have been many attempts to bring about a secular movement in the Middle East, to which my own mother responded by trying to cut off my head for deconverting from Islam.
The question has to be asked over and over again, why a Free Speech corner? Why the jail the bloggers (Badawi) that dare insult Islam? Why behead those who insult Islam?
Are you going to blame "unnecessarily racist and insensitive policies" for the majority of Islamic violence, which lie OUTSIDE of the West?
Those who are subjected to Islamic rule in the Middle East and dare oppose it often find themselves in the same position as those in the West who dare to criticise Islam - execution in public. Christianity enjoyed the benefit of secularism slapping it into place, Islam is yet to encounter it. There have been many attempts to bring about a secular movement in the Middle East, to which my own mother responded by trying to cut off my head for deconverting from Islam.
The question has to be asked over and over again, why a Free Speech corner? Why the jail the bloggers (Badawi) that dare insult Islam? Why behead those who insult Islam?
Are you going to blame "unnecessarily racist and insensitive policies" for the majority of Islamic violence, which lie OUTSIDE of the West?
1
We are at war with a shadowy phantom of "terrorism" and it looks as if the phantom is winning. Lining up innocent human beings to cut off their heads is simply criminal. It's not religious. It's pure evil. But we will never deal with it by fighting "terrorism". And the perpetrators should not be allowed to hide behind a mask of "religion". There is nothing religious about killing innocent people who have never harmed you. So let us get on with fighting wanton crime and put all our efforts to stamping out this form of international crime which preys on the civilized world. But when we get these misguided killers sentenced and put away, let us deal with the problems that give rise to them. Let us start meeting with leaders around the globe to deal with jobs for young people, with education for women as well as men, with exploitation by greedy entrepreneurs, and all the other miseries that we allow to exist. Then we may be justified in claiming to be fighting the real specter of terrorism rather than its phantom.
15
Oh Roger, have you considered the possibility that you "find the second view more persuasive" because you have never been directly affected by Western imperialism in the Levant? Or been on the receiving end of the awesome power of the US military? Perhaps watched your neighbors (or your own family!) buried under the rubble of their homes in the aftermath of a US bombing run or drone missile strike? Because we never experience it, we grossly underestimate the degree to which this sort of "collateral damage" radicalizes otherwise reasonable people and drives them into the camps of extremists and tyrants.
15
It's very hard for us time-constricted humans to see large historical movements as they happen. Empires have risen and fallen over hundreds of years in each phase, while those within lived maybe 20-50 years. Too much tree, too little forest.
I believe that when people look back 200 or 500 years from now, this will be a very important series of events. Will it lead to global religious wars? Will it be the end of the enlightenment principles democracies hold dear? Will the bulk of Muslims choose to clean their own house?
Many things are possible, only our great grandchildren will know the outcome.
I believe that when people look back 200 or 500 years from now, this will be a very important series of events. Will it lead to global religious wars? Will it be the end of the enlightenment principles democracies hold dear? Will the bulk of Muslims choose to clean their own house?
Many things are possible, only our great grandchildren will know the outcome.
5
The third school is blame for the faith itself, one that calls for violence at every turn. These are the worst ideas humanity has come up with and should be treated with contempt. Our liberal paralysis to repudiate these ideas which run totally counter to the ideal of a free and democratic society, is dangerous. Indeed, Christianity promotes horrible ideas as well, but to hear the common defense that Christians burned witches for hundreds of years across Europe, is laughable. A rather marked difference, is we are currently in the 21st century, and simply don't have the time for a slow and steady Islamic reformation.
31
Thank you for your clarity of thought and courage to speak them.
11
Believers of a mass-murdering prophet should be shamed and cast out. It should become like Nazism, subject to ridicule when claims of "peace" and "prophet" are combined, or even used.
Hit them with the truth: murderer.
Hit them with the truth: murderer.
1
Mr. Cohen, I always appreciate your articles -except in times of crisis. You emotions seem to have the upper hand. I can understand your fear. People in the West are afraid, atheists are afraid, Christians are afraid, Jews are afraid. But who suffers most? More than a billion people are terrified and live in total uncertainty about their future and the future of their children. Muslims are the ones who are paying the high price of the folly of some, the selfishness of their rulers and opportunistic and neo colonial aspirations of others (look at the recent reports about swissleaks and about illicit financial flow from Africa http://www.uneca.org/publications/illicit-financial-flow). Muslims are dying in hundreds of thousands and the surviving are carrying scars which will takes decades and generations to heal.
Of course we are all afraid and we will all suffer if we continue to point fingers at communities and continue to do business as usual.
We are all afraid and we have to use all the elements we have in hand and find solutions together. Our destinies are ultimately linked and it 's useless to try to build wall around communities to protect them and get away from them. Globalisation has finished with this.
This persistence at dehumanising and feeling superior to the other is the real culprit. If we valued human life whatever its colour, origin, or creed, the world would be safer for us all. Now we have to extinguish the fire of the Middle East!!
Of course we are all afraid and we will all suffer if we continue to point fingers at communities and continue to do business as usual.
We are all afraid and we have to use all the elements we have in hand and find solutions together. Our destinies are ultimately linked and it 's useless to try to build wall around communities to protect them and get away from them. Globalisation has finished with this.
This persistence at dehumanising and feeling superior to the other is the real culprit. If we valued human life whatever its colour, origin, or creed, the world would be safer for us all. Now we have to extinguish the fire of the Middle East!!
7
I have seriously asked myself, "What do the radical Islamists (as embodied by ISIS) want from us? They hate us; OK, I get that, but what do they want us to do? Just leave them alone? Can we not do that? Can we leave it to the less militaristic/less fanatic majority in any country or region to settle their disputes? Or are we truly facing a war of cultures, where disagreements can't exist and the other side must simply be subjugated/killed? If this happens in the Middle East, then is it far-fetched to envision it spreading to the cities of Europe? Then what? Maybe it is fallacious to say the West is at war with "Islam," but are we at war with the culture of radical Islam? If we are, then is there any way to disengage, or must we continue an endless effort at defending ourselves?
1
Helle Thorning-Schmidt gets it exactly right and Roger Cohen gets it wrong (to the extent one can extract a coherent argument from his internally contradictory column).
In his piece, Cohen repeatedly -- and correctly -- makes reference to a "metastasizing Islamist movement", i.e., a movement and an ideology WITHIN the Muslim world but far from the ENTIRE Muslim world or even a majority of that world. Cohen also notes that, in the long run, the antidote to Islamist extremism must come from within the Muslim world itself. He cites with approval a Muslim activist who was a vocal opponent of Islamist barbarism.
None of this supports Cohen's emotional declaration that the West is at war with Islam itself. To the contrary, as Cohen himself makes clear, the West and non-Islamist Muslims share a common stake in opposing this medieval, oppressive movement that purports to speak for all Muslims.
For the Danish Prime Minister or the American President to declare that the West is at war with Islam itself, as Cohen suggests they do, would grant to this "metastasizing Islamist movement" a legitimacy it does not possess. Such a declaration would thus further the goals of the extremists and serve to undermine their many opponents in the Muslim world.
In his piece, Cohen repeatedly -- and correctly -- makes reference to a "metastasizing Islamist movement", i.e., a movement and an ideology WITHIN the Muslim world but far from the ENTIRE Muslim world or even a majority of that world. Cohen also notes that, in the long run, the antidote to Islamist extremism must come from within the Muslim world itself. He cites with approval a Muslim activist who was a vocal opponent of Islamist barbarism.
None of this supports Cohen's emotional declaration that the West is at war with Islam itself. To the contrary, as Cohen himself makes clear, the West and non-Islamist Muslims share a common stake in opposing this medieval, oppressive movement that purports to speak for all Muslims.
For the Danish Prime Minister or the American President to declare that the West is at war with Islam itself, as Cohen suggests they do, would grant to this "metastasizing Islamist movement" a legitimacy it does not possess. Such a declaration would thus further the goals of the extremists and serve to undermine their many opponents in the Muslim world.
73
This comment is absolutely correct! For the Peesident of the United States to declare a war against Islam would be to marginalize and endanger the millions of loyal, peaceful and patriotic American Muslims, many of whom are in our armed forces and fighting violent extremists who rationalize their barbaric behavior with religion. For the President to insult Muslim Americans as Cohen suggests would be sheer madness!
12
Exactly,
And not to mention that the United States, France, Israel, Denmark, and other nations whose leaders have made comments are countries with foreign policies and citizens and everything else... while radical, terrorist Islam is, if anything, a religion, not a country.
And not to mention that the United States, France, Israel, Denmark, and other nations whose leaders have made comments are countries with foreign policies and citizens and everything else... while radical, terrorist Islam is, if anything, a religion, not a country.
1
Some acts of Daesh are certainly barbaric but considering what Daesh is versus the USA with Mai Lai, Abu Ghraib, Haditha , Guantanamo etc etc the USA certainly excels in its refined and civilid barbarism.
The real irony is that the USA projects itself as a paragon, and advocate, of morality while Daesh makes no such pretensions which adds Hypocracy to USA attributes.
The real irony is that the USA projects itself as a paragon, and advocate, of morality while Daesh makes no such pretensions which adds Hypocracy to USA attributes.
As working class I share the sufferings of others of my class who in all nations have a right to expect the protection, defense of their property and beings. We can be certain that the majority of men do not believe in fairy tales, or expect a perfect world.
If their nation will not provide enough security for them to go about their business, then it was supposed to be up to the UN to wheedle out of the member nations, police?
But the US wants to be the government of governments, so commits to strategies its enemies see as bloodletting that will eventually get to be so much as to cause the US collapse.
If their nation will not provide enough security for them to go about their business, then it was supposed to be up to the UN to wheedle out of the member nations, police?
But the US wants to be the government of governments, so commits to strategies its enemies see as bloodletting that will eventually get to be so much as to cause the US collapse.
2
YOU expect those things from a government, Russell, and perhaps I do, too. But Islamists don't, they don't even recognize national governments. They expect a batallion of virgins to be awaiting them in heaven and live their short, brutal lives accordingly, meanwhile keeping their wives and daughters hidden in bags.
There is very little common ground. We don't even think the same way.
There is very little common ground. We don't even think the same way.
1
This is remarkably incoherent "analysis." First, a faith tradition cannot in the abstract "go to war." Cohen wants to say that some Arabs are at war with the West, yet lapses into saying it's "Islam" doing the warring. Is Christianity at the other end ? Judaism ? Second, I try and get my freshmen political science students not to fall into the trap of offering binary answers (i.e. black and white) to every complex issue. Cohen does exactly that: one side is all good, the other all evil, and smart people know the difference. Has the NYT fallen this low in the analytical IQ of its contributors ?
12
No Mr. Cohen, the West is not at war with Islam it is at war with ISIS and for you to conflate the two is a gross inaccuracy.
You ask "what was the provocation of Dan Uzan, the Jewish security guard?" You're right; there was none. He was an innocent victim. There is however the possibility that the 22 year old Dane who shot him was inspired by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's brutal treatment of the Palestinian people, including the killing of some 2100 Gazans last summer. This is the elephant in the room that Western politicians and journalists don't want to talk about.
You ask "what was the provocation of Dan Uzan, the Jewish security guard?" You're right; there was none. He was an innocent victim. There is however the possibility that the 22 year old Dane who shot him was inspired by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's brutal treatment of the Palestinian people, including the killing of some 2100 Gazans last summer. This is the elephant in the room that Western politicians and journalists don't want to talk about.
22
If every other motive for islamic violence was removed there would still be the ideology of Mohammed, that ISIS is doing its best to follow. You can be at war with an ideology, but if you are not allowed to name or define the ideology how can you effectively fight it? The soldiers of ISIS believe and follow Mohammed's Islam. It is their main motivation.
17
For those of you placing (most of the blame) on the West's meddling in the Middle East for the upheaval taking place there, here are two simple and perhaps a naive questions for you. We meddled badly in Southeast Asia, specifically in Vietnam. Now, 40 or so years later, Vietnam is (as far as I know) a stable unified country that the US has substantial trade with. How did that come about? What's the difference between Vietnam (and South Korea as a second example) and the Middle East states? I have my own ideas as to how and why, but would like to hear yours.
18
The ideology of Islam.
14
Oil
Excellent column from Mr. Cohen. I agree 100%.
8
What was the provocation of the security guard who was killed?
The same could be said of any of the 5,000 good American soldiers killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan disasters.
Soldiers die, and they don't deserve it. The same happens to cops, and armed security of all kinds.
We don't solve this by focus on the undeserving dead. We solve this by ending the war. That means make peace with enemies we are now killing, who are now killing us, with lots of hate on both sides, endless distrust on both side.
Given the numbers of people involved, the numbers of nations involved, the killing cannot come to an end with victory by killing all of one side or destroying all of one group of nations. Peace must be made with people with whom many among us want no peace.
The innocent will die until we do that. No matter how long we put it off, we can't avoid it, only increase the suffering and death before we do it.
And don't tell me we can't. We will. If not now, then whenever, we will.
The same could be said of any of the 5,000 good American soldiers killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan disasters.
Soldiers die, and they don't deserve it. The same happens to cops, and armed security of all kinds.
We don't solve this by focus on the undeserving dead. We solve this by ending the war. That means make peace with enemies we are now killing, who are now killing us, with lots of hate on both sides, endless distrust on both side.
Given the numbers of people involved, the numbers of nations involved, the killing cannot come to an end with victory by killing all of one side or destroying all of one group of nations. Peace must be made with people with whom many among us want no peace.
The innocent will die until we do that. No matter how long we put it off, we can't avoid it, only increase the suffering and death before we do it.
And don't tell me we can't. We will. If not now, then whenever, we will.
11
Never any hostilities between Muslims and Christians in the past 400 to 700 years!! Well here goes:
1453 Ottoman Empire (OE) captures Constantinople; 1521 OE captures Belgrad; 1532 OE besieges Vienna; 1571 OE defeated at Lepanto;1593-1606 OE Long War against the Habsburg; 1804-1815 Serbian Revolt against the OE 1853-1856 Crimean war against the OE.
And your accusations against "The Zionists Among Us," are as accurate as your knowledge of history. It is NOT the stated policy of Israel to drag the USA into direct confrontations with Muslim nations. George Bush invaded Iraq for reasons of his own that had nothing to do with Israel.
1453 Ottoman Empire (OE) captures Constantinople; 1521 OE captures Belgrad; 1532 OE besieges Vienna; 1571 OE defeated at Lepanto;1593-1606 OE Long War against the Habsburg; 1804-1815 Serbian Revolt against the OE 1853-1856 Crimean war against the OE.
And your accusations against "The Zionists Among Us," are as accurate as your knowledge of history. It is NOT the stated policy of Israel to drag the USA into direct confrontations with Muslim nations. George Bush invaded Iraq for reasons of his own that had nothing to do with Israel.
15
"George Bush invaded Iraq for reasons of his own that had nothing to do with Israel."
!
Seriously!
The audacity to blame George Bush solely for Iraq invasion is preposterous, to say the least
Last time I checked, Wolfowitz was calling for Iraq invasion less than 2 hrs after first WTC tower was hit. Or maybe you believe Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Edward Luttwak, Dov Zakheim, Ken Adelman,Lewis Libby, Michael Chertoff, Michael Ledeen, Paul Bremer, and Ari Fleischer were just a bunch of gofers and paper pushers.
!
Seriously!
The audacity to blame George Bush solely for Iraq invasion is preposterous, to say the least
Last time I checked, Wolfowitz was calling for Iraq invasion less than 2 hrs after first WTC tower was hit. Or maybe you believe Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Edward Luttwak, Dov Zakheim, Ken Adelman,Lewis Libby, Michael Chertoff, Michael Ledeen, Paul Bremer, and Ari Fleischer were just a bunch of gofers and paper pushers.
2
Islam and the west were inevitably going to conflict.
The "prophet" was a jihadi, beheading innocent folks.
The lies about the nature of the religion were intended to cover up essential facts, to keep them from the uninformed.
Jewish people were looking for a safe home after the ten million person genocide occurred, and the UN approved it.
Sunni Islam's yearly body count far exceeds anything perpetrated by Israel. Just look at Book Haram, one source.
The "prophet" was a jihadi, beheading innocent folks.
The lies about the nature of the religion were intended to cover up essential facts, to keep them from the uninformed.
Jewish people were looking for a safe home after the ten million person genocide occurred, and the UN approved it.
Sunni Islam's yearly body count far exceeds anything perpetrated by Israel. Just look at Book Haram, one source.
1
The assumption seems that if Obama jumped into what some now label as great liberation movements, all would have led smoothly to something we in the West would recognise as normal.
Normality to us normality would include:
-sanitation
-full stomachs
-basic medical care
-good basic, secular education
-civil harmony
-democracy
-growing productivity
Quite a shopping list. Countries that rose up had NO organization, NO plan to follow if organized, No idea what to do but run into the streets to make a racket, to destroy property, and to initiate feeble armed resistance.
Mr Cohen, however, got one point right. From the start, those countries expected the US soon to pull their chestnuts from the fire.
No matter how loudly our leaders and sentimentalists blather about democracy and freedom for all,
1. Blatherers should note, after three very costly major foreign adventures fizzled that the US cannot take on more.
2. Wild-eyed tribesmen seeking to turn the tables on other in-power tribes, should note Americans' growing distaste for such fights, and the USA's mounting debts.
Our times could be recorded as The US's Lord Bountiful Era.
Normality to us normality would include:
-sanitation
-full stomachs
-basic medical care
-good basic, secular education
-civil harmony
-democracy
-growing productivity
Quite a shopping list. Countries that rose up had NO organization, NO plan to follow if organized, No idea what to do but run into the streets to make a racket, to destroy property, and to initiate feeble armed resistance.
Mr Cohen, however, got one point right. From the start, those countries expected the US soon to pull their chestnuts from the fire.
No matter how loudly our leaders and sentimentalists blather about democracy and freedom for all,
1. Blatherers should note, after three very costly major foreign adventures fizzled that the US cannot take on more.
2. Wild-eyed tribesmen seeking to turn the tables on other in-power tribes, should note Americans' growing distaste for such fights, and the USA's mounting debts.
Our times could be recorded as The US's Lord Bountiful Era.
2
I have to wonder if our presence in the Middle East, driven solely by our pursuit of oil, is not much of the root cause. As long as "infidels" are present to "disrespect" Islam, and armed troops are sent to protect them, we are forever a thumb in the eye of Muslim world. Stay home, learn to live without their oil and quit giving them reasons to hate us. Otherwise the only choice is to kill all 1.6 billion of them, but I don't see that happening.
3
Part of the problem is that people who are Muslim are brought up to believe, because Islam is both a religious and a governmental structure, that Islam will bring a just, ordered society. The problem is that the Muslim world has not been a place of justice or of equality, and this is not all the fault of the west, because those who led the various aspects of society there used their power to create enormous wealth for themselves, while leaving many poor, and that has kept up to the present day. Muslims are brought up to believe that Islam and its teachings leads to a just society, yet they see the contradiction to that in their daily lives, and it causes dissonance. If Islam brings a just society, and the overwhelming majority of people in the country are of the faith, then how could they be poor and powerless? What this leads to is that, kind of like the Germans after WWI, that someone outside must be to blame, and the west is an easy scapegoat. Isis and the like take advantage of that, they say attack the west, get them out of the middle east, and the honey will flow, and it is attractive.
Studs terkel once interviewed an ex Klan member turned labor/civil rights activist, and he said that they blamed blacks and jews and others because they saw the misery in their lives, and rather than blame the system of little education and exploitive use of labor, blames the 'others', because they couldn't believe the system itself was broken.
Studs terkel once interviewed an ex Klan member turned labor/civil rights activist, and he said that they blamed blacks and jews and others because they saw the misery in their lives, and rather than blame the system of little education and exploitive use of labor, blames the 'others', because they couldn't believe the system itself was broken.
24
The fault is not with the text or the teaching of Islam. It squarely falls on the corrupt thugs who "rule" in the name of Islam. You are 100% correct about the dissonance in Muslim societies. Even in Saudi Arabia, the wealth disparity between Al Saud royals and the citizen is nauseating.
1
Simple but often forgotten analogy: just as there are many kinds of Christianity, including extremists, the same is true of Muslims and Islam. But religion has been co-opted by ISIS/Al Queda/etc. who cynically use it and do not deserve to considered acting in the faith of Islam or any religion but terror.
Also true, to Mr. Cohen's point: intervention by the US and other Western countries has repeatedly failed and there is no model for successful Western intervention. Finally, after the tragic death of the Jordanian pilot, Muslim countries have finally joined to condemn and actively fight ISIS. It is their fight. Let the Islamic countries slay their enemy. Their leadership and action are overdue.
Also true, to Mr. Cohen's point: intervention by the US and other Western countries has repeatedly failed and there is no model for successful Western intervention. Finally, after the tragic death of the Jordanian pilot, Muslim countries have finally joined to condemn and actively fight ISIS. It is their fight. Let the Islamic countries slay their enemy. Their leadership and action are overdue.
1
The real problem is that there are a lot of people assigning blame, as if that is an answer to the problem, rather than finding a way to deal with the problem. Did the US and the west have a role in what happens in the Middle East? Yes. Are they the only reason? No. What this leaves out is the idea that somehow the Middle East had been this garden spot, where oppression and the like only happened with colonialism and the like, and that isn't true, Islam in more than a bit was forged out of the conflicts, Mohammad didn't exactly have an easy time of it, and the persecution he saw informed concepts of Jihad and so forth that are being used to justify things like terrorism.
The real problem is that in a middle east where economic inequality and downright repression have been the norm, Islam because it is both a moral and a political system, is seen as the answer. When the Arab Spring happened, governments were elected that were Islamic, and their first order of business seemed to be oppressing those who didn't believe as they did, rather than creating an open society. ISIS and the Taliban and Al Qaeda are doing the same thing, only on a more extreme scale, and like the Islamist governments, they use the Q'Ran to justify what they do. In the long term, if the Arab/Muslim world doesn't wake up and realize that Islamic states are no miracle worker (Iran, anyone, or Saudi, where W'Habbi rules and the people are oppressed), and that the solutions are economic, not religious.
The real problem is that in a middle east where economic inequality and downright repression have been the norm, Islam because it is both a moral and a political system, is seen as the answer. When the Arab Spring happened, governments were elected that were Islamic, and their first order of business seemed to be oppressing those who didn't believe as they did, rather than creating an open society. ISIS and the Taliban and Al Qaeda are doing the same thing, only on a more extreme scale, and like the Islamist governments, they use the Q'Ran to justify what they do. In the long term, if the Arab/Muslim world doesn't wake up and realize that Islamic states are no miracle worker (Iran, anyone, or Saudi, where W'Habbi rules and the people are oppressed), and that the solutions are economic, not religious.
2
"I find the second view more persuasive." I agree dysfunctional and repressive regimes have always been the major problem. But you seem to want everyone to say that the religion called `Islam' is the problem. Why? Don't you think it's a bit counterproductive to provoke a billion adherents based on the actions of a few thousand?
6
It is interesting how this mentions the uprisings against western military in the middle east, and how the west is fighting these folks in the middle east, and goes into the attacks in western nations by folks from the middle east, but doesn't mention the one thing that I suspect any person from the middle east would be happy to tell you: Western intervention there.
The US, along with England and France and Russia, have been meddling, invading, and generally sticking their noses/armies/politicians/colonizers/missionaries into the middle east since the early 1800s. We've set up schools to save them from the ignorance of their own education systems, governments to save them from the brutality of their own cultures, and religions to save their souls from the pits of hell that their own religions would condemn them to.
And now we wonder that they hate us? I'm frankly amazed any of them tolerates us. The Saudis do because they need our money. The rest? Not so much.
ISIS is a gang of ideologically driven rabble, poorly armed, operating on terror and surprise. If the nations of the Middle East wanted to crush it, they could -- Egypt alone has 4,000 tank,s 18,000 armored combat vehicles and 1.2 million men in the armed forces and active reserves.
Egypt was fully capable of invading Israel twice. Why is ISIS so hard?
The US, along with England and France and Russia, have been meddling, invading, and generally sticking their noses/armies/politicians/colonizers/missionaries into the middle east since the early 1800s. We've set up schools to save them from the ignorance of their own education systems, governments to save them from the brutality of their own cultures, and religions to save their souls from the pits of hell that their own religions would condemn them to.
And now we wonder that they hate us? I'm frankly amazed any of them tolerates us. The Saudis do because they need our money. The rest? Not so much.
ISIS is a gang of ideologically driven rabble, poorly armed, operating on terror and surprise. If the nations of the Middle East wanted to crush it, they could -- Egypt alone has 4,000 tank,s 18,000 armored combat vehicles and 1.2 million men in the armed forces and active reserves.
Egypt was fully capable of invading Israel twice. Why is ISIS so hard?
5
If Egypt was "fully capable of invading Israel twice" as you asserted, why didn't? You need to think of the actual forces shaping the Middle East.
Of interest also to note, ISIS are committing terror acts everywhere and against everyone except Israel. Is there an unannounced alliance?
Israel is capable of conducting air raids and demolish ISIS headquarters, similar to the successful airstrikes against Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza --with massive destruction to civilians as well as military targets. Israel is threatening to attack Iran too!
Of interest also to note, ISIS are committing terror acts everywhere and against everyone except Israel. Is there an unannounced alliance?
Israel is capable of conducting air raids and demolish ISIS headquarters, similar to the successful airstrikes against Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza --with massive destruction to civilians as well as military targets. Israel is threatening to attack Iran too!
1
I think a lot of us are tired of blaming an evil America for every problem in the world. America has been a force for good all over the world. Most often we are faced multiple bad options each with its own set of consequences. No matter which option we pick we end up the bad guy. We forget that if we had chosen another option the consequences would have been even worse. Hatred of America is a Fad that has run its course. Besides its so selfrighteous. As if we WE were in charge everything would have worked out great. That's immature.
4
Cohen is unable to spot his contradictions and blatant ironies, which entails his complete inability to properly form his opinions.
He harbors a romantic view of the Arab Spring, like Obama was supposed to guide it to strong institutions, democracy, and enlightenment. This was never an option for Obama. He's an elected leader of US, not puppet master and director of global events.
Egypt's spring produced a democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood, a non-Western-friendly govt overthrown by the military to make way Mubarak 2.0 (Sisi). Libya, a recipient of Cohen's intervention, is currently a failed state. To suggest intervention in Syria would have changed dynamics greatly is a gross overstatement, if not disingenuous.
In Cohen's inability to spot irony, he fails to see that the conditions of his second school of thought were set by the first school of thought.
If Mr. Cohen is so fired up to fight an Islam vs. West war, please seek out Erik Prince, and join ranks in whatever iteration of mercenary group he is operating.
If Mr. Cohen wants to join ranks of a rational policy discussion he should reevaluate his understanding of recent history, and rethink a different path forward. Because his brand of thought here was ubiquitous 13 years ago, and the results of that thinking led to his writing of this article.
Let me spell it out for you: the ideas in this article are radical, circular, violent politics and will reproduce itself if it is followed. It's silly.
He harbors a romantic view of the Arab Spring, like Obama was supposed to guide it to strong institutions, democracy, and enlightenment. This was never an option for Obama. He's an elected leader of US, not puppet master and director of global events.
Egypt's spring produced a democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood, a non-Western-friendly govt overthrown by the military to make way Mubarak 2.0 (Sisi). Libya, a recipient of Cohen's intervention, is currently a failed state. To suggest intervention in Syria would have changed dynamics greatly is a gross overstatement, if not disingenuous.
In Cohen's inability to spot irony, he fails to see that the conditions of his second school of thought were set by the first school of thought.
If Mr. Cohen is so fired up to fight an Islam vs. West war, please seek out Erik Prince, and join ranks in whatever iteration of mercenary group he is operating.
If Mr. Cohen wants to join ranks of a rational policy discussion he should reevaluate his understanding of recent history, and rethink a different path forward. Because his brand of thought here was ubiquitous 13 years ago, and the results of that thinking led to his writing of this article.
Let me spell it out for you: the ideas in this article are radical, circular, violent politics and will reproduce itself if it is followed. It's silly.
20
The Muslim Brotherhood regarded winning a narrow victory as a mandate to impose an Islamic State upon the Egyptians who did not vote for them. That degree of hubris led to their downfall.
Roger, you cannot have it both ways...
"Only Arabs can find the answer to this crisis. But history, I suspect, will not judge Obama kindly for having failed to foster the great liberation movement... Inaction is also a policy: Nonintervention produced Syria today.'
This plea for US interventionism has has been the default go-to by power mongers-both honest as well as unscrupulous...and we have a lousy record of telling them apart.
While we continue to align ourselves more often than not with despots and totalitarians who have only their self-interests in mind, the usual hype by our arms manufacturers...you know the ones...the guys who employ most of our legislators...whip up a frenzy to bomb...send weaponry...get in the fight...
Yep...only those in their 'hood need apply. With their own skin in the game, it will have to sort itself out, sadly at the expense of their own who got the governments they deserved and who'll have learned the hard lessons of relinquishing hands-on accountability to madmen and churls.
"Only Arabs can find the answer to this crisis. But history, I suspect, will not judge Obama kindly for having failed to foster the great liberation movement... Inaction is also a policy: Nonintervention produced Syria today.'
This plea for US interventionism has has been the default go-to by power mongers-both honest as well as unscrupulous...and we have a lousy record of telling them apart.
While we continue to align ourselves more often than not with despots and totalitarians who have only their self-interests in mind, the usual hype by our arms manufacturers...you know the ones...the guys who employ most of our legislators...whip up a frenzy to bomb...send weaponry...get in the fight...
Yep...only those in their 'hood need apply. With their own skin in the game, it will have to sort itself out, sadly at the expense of their own who got the governments they deserved and who'll have learned the hard lessons of relinquishing hands-on accountability to madmen and churls.
8
Mr. Cohen rights "Nonintervention produced Syria today." Intervention produced Libya today.
2
Roger,
You make sweeping statements about Islam being at war with the west and use only examples from the Arab world. You totally ignore the third largest democracy in the world, the country with the largest number of Muslims, a country that tries hard to support religious tolerance: Indonesia. I've never visited any of the Arab countries, but I have spent over 400 days in Indonesia during the past 20 years. Yes, they have their fanatic Muslim terrorists, and they have their fanatic Christians, just as we do in the United States. But, I have met thousands of Indonesians, rich and poor. They are little different from my friends in the United States. They want to live in a democracy and be able to eat, laugh, love, have fun and make money. None of them ever tried to convert me, an American Christian, or hurt me or insult me. Their actions refute most of what you wrote.
You make sweeping statements about Islam being at war with the west and use only examples from the Arab world. You totally ignore the third largest democracy in the world, the country with the largest number of Muslims, a country that tries hard to support religious tolerance: Indonesia. I've never visited any of the Arab countries, but I have spent over 400 days in Indonesia during the past 20 years. Yes, they have their fanatic Muslim terrorists, and they have their fanatic Christians, just as we do in the United States. But, I have met thousands of Indonesians, rich and poor. They are little different from my friends in the United States. They want to live in a democracy and be able to eat, laugh, love, have fun and make money. None of them ever tried to convert me, an American Christian, or hurt me or insult me. Their actions refute most of what you wrote.
16
For the record our "fanatic Christians," whomever they may be, have aqs much in common with "Muslim terrorists" as you do. There is no equivalency between peaceful people who work through the political process and those who seek change through murder.
5
"There is little point in Western politicians rehearsing lines about there being no battle between Islam and the West, when in all the above-mentioned countries tens of millions of Muslims, with much carnage as evidence, believe the contrary."
There is a giant and vital point to that rhetoric that Mr Cohen is very intentionally glossing over: Most of our allies against the "dark ideology" are Muslims. Most of the people killed by the bad guys are Muslims who weren't extreme enough.
Any statement that the West is at war with Islam is playing into the hands of groups like ISIS, because it tells Muslims around the world "Join up with us who is fighting the western invader, or you'll be killed". The bad guys would love to break the US's alliance with UAE, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kurdistan, and Iraq against ISIS. Heck, in the strange bedfellows department, Iran is on the same side as the US on this one, and I for one suspect that's a reason we're making progress on the nuclear talks with them.
Thinking the way Mr Cohen is advocating is the path to either World War III or genocide.
There is a giant and vital point to that rhetoric that Mr Cohen is very intentionally glossing over: Most of our allies against the "dark ideology" are Muslims. Most of the people killed by the bad guys are Muslims who weren't extreme enough.
Any statement that the West is at war with Islam is playing into the hands of groups like ISIS, because it tells Muslims around the world "Join up with us who is fighting the western invader, or you'll be killed". The bad guys would love to break the US's alliance with UAE, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kurdistan, and Iraq against ISIS. Heck, in the strange bedfellows department, Iran is on the same side as the US on this one, and I for one suspect that's a reason we're making progress on the nuclear talks with them.
Thinking the way Mr Cohen is advocating is the path to either World War III or genocide.
23
And thinking your way isn't thinking, it's wishing the truth were other than it is.
When you talk about the US's alliance with Saudi Arabia, you seem blissfully unaware of the form of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia.
And blissfully unaware that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, as did OBL himself. OBL declared war against the US in 1996 because of the presence of infidels (i.e. US soldiers) in Mecca and Medina in Gulf War I.
When you talk about the US's alliance with Saudi Arabia, you seem blissfully unaware of the form of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia.
And blissfully unaware that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, as did OBL himself. OBL declared war against the US in 1996 because of the presence of infidels (i.e. US soldiers) in Mecca and Medina in Gulf War I.
6
There were no US soldiers in Mecca or Medina.
OBL objected to US presence anywhere in Saudi Arabia. More generally, the existence of liberal democracies poses a long-term threat to Wahhabi Islam because it offers a visible alternative to ignorance, poverty, and blatant sexism.
Sadly, the closest analogy is to the antebellum South. The proximity of free states and free blacks posed a long-term existential threat to slavery. It took a terrible war to resolve the issue.
OBL objected to US presence anywhere in Saudi Arabia. More generally, the existence of liberal democracies poses a long-term threat to Wahhabi Islam because it offers a visible alternative to ignorance, poverty, and blatant sexism.
Sadly, the closest analogy is to the antebellum South. The proximity of free states and free blacks posed a long-term existential threat to slavery. It took a terrible war to resolve the issue.
2
You can trace the rise of extreme and evangelical religious sentiment around the world, led by the U.S from Ronal Reagan forward. The Bush's and their cronies made a fine art of it, getting us into this horrendous fight in the Middle East to further pad their pockets. Not only has it been in this generation but for several..even since WWI. Why these guys are still in power is beyond me..Secretaries of State, Presidents and on and on. Read "American Dynasty" by Kevin PHillips. It's a real eye opener.
6
"You can trace the rise of extreme and evangelical religious sentiment around the world, led by the U.S from Ronal Reagan forward. "
Equating evangelical christians to ISIS or associating them with the rise of radical Islam is patently ridiculous. I'm not really a fan of the evangelical crowd but really?
Equating evangelical christians to ISIS or associating them with the rise of radical Islam is patently ridiculous. I'm not really a fan of the evangelical crowd but really?
8
Ms. Egeli: Please read Mr. Susman's comments on this article. His analysis is correct based on my studies as a historian and what I experienced as veteran of two conflicts in the Middle East. We cannot change the past and yes the United States exasperated many of these conflicts by poor foreign policy decisions. However, you did not provide any recommended solutions on how to resolve this conflict today and in the future. It is easy to blame past political leaders since hindsight is 20/20.
"Islam is a religion that has spawned multifaceted political movements whose goal is power."
Yes, and Fanatical Evangelism have the goal of power, the Catholic Church wants and for centuries has had, sought power over our societies. Organised religions wanting power over us and our lives is nothing new. Period. That this one is currently the ugliest of these manifestations (along with Boko Haram, etc), is not that notable. Crusades? Inquisition?
So much pain has been wrought in the name of one 'God' or another, that it quite makes Atheism very attractive.
Yes, and Fanatical Evangelism have the goal of power, the Catholic Church wants and for centuries has had, sought power over our societies. Organised religions wanting power over us and our lives is nothing new. Period. That this one is currently the ugliest of these manifestations (along with Boko Haram, etc), is not that notable. Crusades? Inquisition?
So much pain has been wrought in the name of one 'God' or another, that it quite makes Atheism very attractive.
2
Who wrote this? I read lines re Jews like "Israel calls them home" and about the nature of Arab societies as related to their own problems. The latter is actually reality vs political correctness.
But I must comment on the European violence, especially Denmark. That is the result of exclusion, based on ethnicity. Now that the NYT and its columnist are prepared to admit that Arab societies have their own characteristics and problems, will they acknowledge that Europe is not a value based society like the US but societies based on ethnicity?
You can't be a useful voice as a media outlet in solving problems if you won't acknowledge reality. Europe is not multicultural where within the bosom of one nation, there are various cultural communities. The countries have a dominant culture and ethnic group and others may live and not face persecution but never be included in the prosperity and nationhood.
But I must comment on the European violence, especially Denmark. That is the result of exclusion, based on ethnicity. Now that the NYT and its columnist are prepared to admit that Arab societies have their own characteristics and problems, will they acknowledge that Europe is not a value based society like the US but societies based on ethnicity?
You can't be a useful voice as a media outlet in solving problems if you won't acknowledge reality. Europe is not multicultural where within the bosom of one nation, there are various cultural communities. The countries have a dominant culture and ethnic group and others may live and not face persecution but never be included in the prosperity and nationhood.
1
You don't know Europe... I have a French spouse and lived in Paris for 8 years. Race is not recorded, nor recognized. There is no such thing as "affrimative action" which is contrary to merit and equality... The social net is VERY strong. School is free and open to any who pass the exam. Some people blame others for their problems. But there are real cultural differences between peoples. (importance of education, etc.) It is not the nation, but families' traditions that make the difference.
So, is Israel at war with Islam?
2
You betcha!
Let’s touch on the crux of the matter – the two schools of thought you bring to the table. First, Israel’s mere existence and the U.S. - backed support it has steadfastly had since it came to be in May, 1948. Lest we obviate the terror attacks on September 11th, there is little credence to the argument the jihadists’ response is to Guantanamo and Abu-Ghraib as al-Qaeda animatedly took responsibility and foretold of many more.
The second, “…it is rather the abject failure of the Arab world, its blocked societies where dictators face off against political Islam, its repression, its feeble institutions, its sectarianism precluding the practice of participatory citizenship, its wild conspiracy theories, its inability to provide jobs or hope for its youth, that gives the Islamic State its appeal…”. To the extreme, this juxtaposes religion and blind faith against complete government rule and lack of personal freedom/s.
Remove Israel from the equation, the sectarian violence will persist; both hate and envy for the freedoms the West enjoys will continue.
The second, “…it is rather the abject failure of the Arab world, its blocked societies where dictators face off against political Islam, its repression, its feeble institutions, its sectarianism precluding the practice of participatory citizenship, its wild conspiracy theories, its inability to provide jobs or hope for its youth, that gives the Islamic State its appeal…”. To the extreme, this juxtaposes religion and blind faith against complete government rule and lack of personal freedom/s.
Remove Israel from the equation, the sectarian violence will persist; both hate and envy for the freedoms the West enjoys will continue.
6
Mr. Cohen and every one else needs to read "What ISIS Really Wants" by Graeme Wood.
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wan...
What is clear is that ISIS, currently the most aggressive group in the Muslim world, represents a challenge first and foremost to Muslims who do not subscribe to the ISIS Caliphate, and only secondarily challenges the West. Westerners can choose whether and how to be in The Middle East and North Africa. Middle Easterners and North Africans cannot choose not to be there.
But despite Mr. Cohen and others bemoaning what just happened in Denmark, in Paris, on 9/11, the London metro bombings, the Spanish train bombings, every direct attack in the West perpetrated by Muslim extremists, all of that is as nothing compared to what the West has perpetrated on The Middle East and North Africa since at least the destruction of The Ottoman Empire. Non-Muslims have been the external aggressors. Muslims have been on the receiving end.
"Who or what is to blame?" is a false dichotomy. There is no either/or here.
Mr. Cohen's "second school" choice is an unpersuasive tautology.He does nothing to critically reason his conclusion. The Arab Spring was largely Occupy Wall Street: A protest, not a practical alternative. Hysteria, not history, will hold President Obama, at least trying to not do more stupid stuff, accountable.
ISIS is a Muslim issue. The West must stop making war on Islam, and back up from bad choices and actions.
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wan...
What is clear is that ISIS, currently the most aggressive group in the Muslim world, represents a challenge first and foremost to Muslims who do not subscribe to the ISIS Caliphate, and only secondarily challenges the West. Westerners can choose whether and how to be in The Middle East and North Africa. Middle Easterners and North Africans cannot choose not to be there.
But despite Mr. Cohen and others bemoaning what just happened in Denmark, in Paris, on 9/11, the London metro bombings, the Spanish train bombings, every direct attack in the West perpetrated by Muslim extremists, all of that is as nothing compared to what the West has perpetrated on The Middle East and North Africa since at least the destruction of The Ottoman Empire. Non-Muslims have been the external aggressors. Muslims have been on the receiving end.
"Who or what is to blame?" is a false dichotomy. There is no either/or here.
Mr. Cohen's "second school" choice is an unpersuasive tautology.He does nothing to critically reason his conclusion. The Arab Spring was largely Occupy Wall Street: A protest, not a practical alternative. Hysteria, not history, will hold President Obama, at least trying to not do more stupid stuff, accountable.
ISIS is a Muslim issue. The West must stop making war on Islam, and back up from bad choices and actions.
7
The United States does not have to be "at war" with anything that it does not want to be at war with. Isolated incidents of terror by small numbers of lunatics should not be able to significantly redirect the policy of a superpower; especially into insane acts that violate its own constitution, eliminate long standing rights of its citizens, devastate its discretionary budget, or created even more terror throughout the world.
Who benefits by characterizing our current situation as a "war on terror"? only corrupt actors with a fascist bent who would alter the balance of power between the government and it citizens. Rather than following the course that Dick Cheney and a spineless Congress put us on, we should be working with all effort to reverse their actions.
Who benefits by characterizing our current situation as a "war on terror"? only corrupt actors with a fascist bent who would alter the balance of power between the government and it citizens. Rather than following the course that Dick Cheney and a spineless Congress put us on, we should be working with all effort to reverse their actions.
5
"The United States does not have to be "at war" with anything that it does not want to be at war with"
Can there be a more naïve statement here than this? Did the US HAVE to be at war with Japan in WWII?
Can there be a more naïve statement here than this? Did the US HAVE to be at war with Japan in WWII?
4
Finally, a member of the media gets it - most of it. The President of the United States certainly doesn't. The Obama Administration suffers from a weak-in-the-knees fear of saying anything that could be called anti-Islamic, even if it happens to be the truth.
I differ instantly with Mr. Cohen partly blaming Israel. Who started the 1967 War? Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt's tyrant leader who hated Jews as much as Heinrich Himmler. What about the Yom Kippur War? Again, started by Arabs surrounding Israel. Then, one of the darkest days in 2oth Century history alongside the Holocaust - the infamous 1972 Munich Summer Olympics. Black September murdered 11 Israeli athletes, and was a prelude to the rise of another Arab demagogue who hated anything and everything Israeli, Jewish, American, and western democracies. He was Yassir Arafat.
When will the western world ever learn? As the columnist wrote, this is a real war. Islam is hell-bent on the complete destruction of western democracies and the Judeo-Christian world.
I differ instantly with Mr. Cohen partly blaming Israel. Who started the 1967 War? Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt's tyrant leader who hated Jews as much as Heinrich Himmler. What about the Yom Kippur War? Again, started by Arabs surrounding Israel. Then, one of the darkest days in 2oth Century history alongside the Holocaust - the infamous 1972 Munich Summer Olympics. Black September murdered 11 Israeli athletes, and was a prelude to the rise of another Arab demagogue who hated anything and everything Israeli, Jewish, American, and western democracies. He was Yassir Arafat.
When will the western world ever learn? As the columnist wrote, this is a real war. Islam is hell-bent on the complete destruction of western democracies and the Judeo-Christian world.
21
Two words answer your questions about how this blew up. Bussh and Cheney!!!
Also please remember that Islam is not a religion it is political.
Also please remember that Islam is not a religion it is political.
1
It's both. I strongly suggest you don't get into a discussion of Islam not being a religion with the wrong people.
2
I agree with this 100percent.It is true that other religions have their own fault-all of them- BUT THIS IS SOMETHING ELSE
8
I agree that of the two choices provided by Mr. Cohen the second is the most palatable as at least it does not fall into the category of blaming the victim. However, even the second alternative misses the root cause of the problem...that Islam has not gone through its moderating phase. All three of the Western religions started off from fundamentalist roots. Fundamentalist Judaisim of the written law of the Torah was moderated by Rabbinic Judaisim and the oral law. Christianity as correctly pointed out by President Obama was fundamentalist through the periods of the Crusades and Inquisition and was only moderated by the Enlightenment in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As of now Islam is still waiting for its moderating force. As such there is no softer theological ideology to compete with the fundamentalist one being espoused around the world. I am afraid we will be at war with Islam until the moderate version of Islam emerges.
13
ISIS is Islam's version of Catholicism's 17th century Jesuits who orchestrated the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people in Europe. Europe managed to save itself by recognizing the danger of granting political power to those who claim religious authority, a wariness embraced by our own founders. Islam is 300 years behind in that respect. It is true that only the Muslims can save their civilizations. The question is whether enough Muslims have the insight, courage and commitment to confront and overcome the Jihadists, and whether they will receive the support they will need from the rest of the world. Either way, I think the Islamic world is just beginning many years of open, sectarian warfare that will decide the fate of their civilizations and their faith.
2
Edward, perhaps you know the true definition of "fundamentalists" and are just glossing over it to make your point, but what we are talking about in ISIS is not really fundamentalism but a radical and violent ideology that one could almost argue departs from Islam in most fundamental respects. And Christianity did not begin as a fundamentalist movement but rather as a liberator and equalizer of all who ascribed to it. Once it became a political power it became repressive, not because of fundamentalist ideas but because of a desire to retain power. The greatest threat to the purity of any religious movement is either the gun or political office.
1
Islam would require a lot more moderation; a beheading general-prophet is a tough legacy to moderate from.
The whole of Islam at war with the West? Roger Cohen is either delusional or wants to create buzz so the Times will continue to paying him to write columns. Does he want a war against 50,000 lunatics or a war against 1.6 billion Muslims?
Also, the West's media power has influenced some marginal young men to see a heroic image of the anti-Russian jihadist from the 1980's. The image is of a young man staring off into the distance in Afgan garb with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder with mountainous brush in the background. To some young men this is the equivalent of the Marlborough man in cigarette ads. If that young man has a high opinion of himself that the rest of the world rejects, that jihadist image becomes a recruiting tool for a heroic movement. That young man can finally be somebody.
Add to that picture an ancient religion & that therefore God is on their side & you have a volatile mixture. So we should understand that every time that western media plays even a portion of a beheading video, it recruits hundreds of disenfranchised young men.
And let's not forget that American troops in an Arab land, is even a more powerful recruiting tool. The secular dictators are a better alternative.
Also, the West's media power has influenced some marginal young men to see a heroic image of the anti-Russian jihadist from the 1980's. The image is of a young man staring off into the distance in Afgan garb with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder with mountainous brush in the background. To some young men this is the equivalent of the Marlborough man in cigarette ads. If that young man has a high opinion of himself that the rest of the world rejects, that jihadist image becomes a recruiting tool for a heroic movement. That young man can finally be somebody.
Add to that picture an ancient religion & that therefore God is on their side & you have a volatile mixture. So we should understand that every time that western media plays even a portion of a beheading video, it recruits hundreds of disenfranchised young men.
And let's not forget that American troops in an Arab land, is even a more powerful recruiting tool. The secular dictators are a better alternative.
3
Don't forget our actual reason for being in the middle east - their oil.
This is one differentiator between the sensible on the left and the sensible on the right: Mr. Obama's unwillingness to engage in Arab Spring, leading to its inevitable demise as its proponents broke against the impenetrable walls of dictators, guns and repressive political and social frameworks. He rightfully concluded that one cannot Europeanize a culture and economy to equalize life outcomes while also defending a stable world of markets and suppliers whose people are really only looking for a few extra calories per day. Europe itself didn't even try: they simply disengaged, long ago, focused on creating their all-consuming nanny states.
Dubya's administration would have engaged -- everywhere but Saudi Arabia, which was a lost cause for Arab Spring anyway. If Arab youth had been less patient and begun their seismic shifts a few years earlier, they might have enjoyed decisive support from us, and the world would be a better place today.
Could'a, would'a, should'a. Too late now, and ISIS is building bridgeheads where we should have been entrenched.
When and how is this to end? Or even dramatically moderate? It's plain that some Muslims are open to diversity of views, which presupposes energetic disagreement; and just as plain that the vast majority of them are not, and accept as offered Islamic absolutes. It might end with riotous reaction against Muslims in Europe and a sequestration of the Middle East by the West; but it can't be suffered to persist interminably.
Dubya's administration would have engaged -- everywhere but Saudi Arabia, which was a lost cause for Arab Spring anyway. If Arab youth had been less patient and begun their seismic shifts a few years earlier, they might have enjoyed decisive support from us, and the world would be a better place today.
Could'a, would'a, should'a. Too late now, and ISIS is building bridgeheads where we should have been entrenched.
When and how is this to end? Or even dramatically moderate? It's plain that some Muslims are open to diversity of views, which presupposes energetic disagreement; and just as plain that the vast majority of them are not, and accept as offered Islamic absolutes. It might end with riotous reaction against Muslims in Europe and a sequestration of the Middle East by the West; but it can't be suffered to persist interminably.
Agreed. Obama could have done many things differently, if
-Americans were not already sick of fizzled foreign adventures, and if
-we had not already spent ourselves into a hole pursuing them
As was, Obama realized both truths, that despite SOCOM we have never won anybody's hearts and don't know how, we will not transform benighted nations, and that we do not know how to play a coherent, effective chess game with various kinds of power. Successfully pursuing such activity takes subtlety we will never know. It also has a strong colonialist whiff.
Hillary seems lacking all such awareness. Brace for impact!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Despite a string of losses, SOCOM does quality work. Why can't its people suggest what special warriors can ably do in today's disturbed world, and declare winning the hearts and ----, a lost battle?
-Americans were not already sick of fizzled foreign adventures, and if
-we had not already spent ourselves into a hole pursuing them
As was, Obama realized both truths, that despite SOCOM we have never won anybody's hearts and don't know how, we will not transform benighted nations, and that we do not know how to play a coherent, effective chess game with various kinds of power. Successfully pursuing such activity takes subtlety we will never know. It also has a strong colonialist whiff.
Hillary seems lacking all such awareness. Brace for impact!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Despite a string of losses, SOCOM does quality work. Why can't its people suggest what special warriors can ably do in today's disturbed world, and declare winning the hearts and ----, a lost battle?
1
I believe that when history is written 100 years from now, the US war against
Iraq will be seen as just one serious mistake. Another is calling jihadists "terrorists". Going back to 1945, the U.S. is the only country to have used nuclear weapons against civilians. There can be no real progress in world peace until the pot stops calling the kettle "black".
Iraq will be seen as just one serious mistake. Another is calling jihadists "terrorists". Going back to 1945, the U.S. is the only country to have used nuclear weapons against civilians. There can be no real progress in world peace until the pot stops calling the kettle "black".
3
So what's new here? Fanatics exist in all cultures, religions, nations, political parties and organizations. Everyone is looking to be the leader, or at least have the leader's favor, in order to gain sexual access to as many females as possible (worked for Bill Clinton). So long as a person has limited opportunity, limited education, doesn't want the work of doing critical thinking and can easily buy a gun, the killing will go on and on. Every time I'm disappointed with human behavior, which is frequently, I'm comforted by the thought that we are afterall only human. And if there is a god assigned to run our universe, as gods go, it must be one of the lesser ones to have populated this world with such a failed species. Or perhaps we are just an early failed attempt by our god to create an intelligent life form. Or, more likely to me, there is no god as natural selection and evolution easily explains why we are such natural born killers!
6
Mr. Cohen writes "Only Arabs can find the answers to this crisis", and "(brave moderate Muslims are the only people, ultimately, who can defeat the black-flagged jihadi death merchants." Yes! Everything the west has done in the Middle East, probably since the Balfour Declaration, has aggravated the situation. This is Islam's 30 Year War, as many have said. Is it too late for a hands-off policy to empower moderate Islam? Wnen they ask us for help, they weaken themselves. And our "help" has been either futile or counter-producvtive. If it is indeed too late, we are indeed at war with Islam.
I seem to be evolving on this matter as they say today because I agree with much of what Mr. Cohen opined. Kind of scares me. We could end this war in thirty days by taking out their ability to resupply with oil/gas, heavy weapons and cash. Much like we could have finished off North Vietnam by taking out its dikes and other infrastructure easy peasy--- but for the possibility of a super power conflict. A pretty big "but." In our present conflict ISIL cannot resupply with millions of gallons of gas, heavy weapons and burn tens of millions of dollars monthly without the US knowing where everything comes from. It is not like hiding a terrorist in a town with an AK or RPG and lunch money. But I suppose there are considerations with our "allies" that stop us from doing that. I just hope we do not get into another ground war where we self limit our power and burn through good troops until we declare victory like in Vietnam and more recently in Iraq and Afgan and trundle on home with the "war" essentially lost.....
3
Working in the Middle East for the last 20 odd years, I have struggled to understand the culture. Reading the book Inside the Kingdom by Robert Lacey, gave a fascinating insight into Saudi Arabia and the impact of Islam, more so than anything else I had read. It is the conflict between the secular West that has broken free of the ties between State and Church and the Islamist states where the ties exist in a bond as strong as that which sent the Crusaders into Jerusalem in the 11th century onwards. The Jihadists of today are simply the Catholic church's Crusaders of 10 centuries ago. They are as murderous and barbaric today as people were in the Dark Ages. They have regressed backwards as Winston Churchill commented in 1899 in his book after doing battle with Islamists in the Sudan. In Riyadh I experienced the strong religious influence on daily life, and on young men full of energy. To dish up a simple soup from such a complex cauldron of issues is to subscribe to the simple ideology - install western democracy everywhere and the world's problems will be solved. When the West intervened in the Middle East, ignoring the difference between secular and religious rule and the impact of tribal allegiance, the problems worsened.
Failing to understand that this is not a political issue but a cultural one, we cannot contain radical Islam. It is NOT simply a battle between Islam and the West, it is a battle between tribal religious Islam and the secular West. A subtle difference.
Failing to understand that this is not a political issue but a cultural one, we cannot contain radical Islam. It is NOT simply a battle between Islam and the West, it is a battle between tribal religious Islam and the secular West. A subtle difference.
5
"We cannot contain radical Islam." So can we contain "tribal religious Islam?" What am I missing?
What everyone seems to forget is that most of the Moslem world was at one or another under a western colonial administration which extracted every once of wealth it could from the that world. The result is that today the Moslem world is dirt poor and run by local extractive political elites leaving the average person with little hope of a better future. Western aid is wasted as it floes to the elites who sent it to personal bank accounts in the west. I fear the solutions will be very difficult and lengthy.
India was once ruled by the British under similar conditions. Yet it does not create or export religious terror groups.
The problem lies with Islam, plain and simple.
The problem lies with Islam, plain and simple.
5
Good column, and I agreed strongly with most of it, until I got to "nonintervention produced Syria today". Huh? The Arab Spring produced Syria today. Years of brutal repression and institutionalized terror by the Assad regimes produced Syria today. And Cohen seems to be inferring that Syria would somehow be a less messy situation today had we intervened. I'll give you Irag and Afghanistan as counter-arguments to that theory.
I must admit that this is the first time I have seen an argument by Mr. Cohen that leaves me completely unconvinced.
So the "West" is at war with "Islam"? In all I have ever heard or seen pertaining to war, the belligerents were defined quite a bit more precisely. To the extent that you have not, or cannot, give such a more precise definition of the belligerents, you have already undermined your argument, Mr. Cohen.
Perhaps there is a war against terrorism, instead. In that case, how is it that one can have war against a militant tactic? I have never seen how it could make sense to muster an entire war campaign against a tactic. Again, who (besides yourselves) are the belligerents?
Perhaps it is just a band of criminals with a message. In that case how is any kind of military campaign, as you appear to advocate, superior to simple, thorough detective work and a well-designed counter-propaganda campaign?
So the "West" is at war with "Islam"? In all I have ever heard or seen pertaining to war, the belligerents were defined quite a bit more precisely. To the extent that you have not, or cannot, give such a more precise definition of the belligerents, you have already undermined your argument, Mr. Cohen.
Perhaps there is a war against terrorism, instead. In that case, how is it that one can have war against a militant tactic? I have never seen how it could make sense to muster an entire war campaign against a tactic. Again, who (besides yourselves) are the belligerents?
Perhaps it is just a band of criminals with a message. In that case how is any kind of military campaign, as you appear to advocate, superior to simple, thorough detective work and a well-designed counter-propaganda campaign?
1
The two schools of thought that Mr. Cohen presents to us are nothing more than a modern iteration of the decades-old chasm between Left and Right.
How do we explain the world's ills? How do we explain the presence of evil in the world?
For the Left, the blame was always attributed to structural, larger forces. Why are young Muslims fighting for ISIS? Well, because over the course of recent decades, many Arabs have felt that the West, via its unconditional support of Israel, has subjugated the Arab people. So of course this would set up the ripe preconditions for radicalizing Arab populations.
For the Right, individuals are to blame. Sure, many people in Arab countries live in conditions of destitution and destruction. But then again, many parts of the world are destitute, and still do not harbor the rise of violent religious warriors. In essence, ISIS fighters have free will, and it was only out of their own free will, that they decided to take up Jihad.
These two schools of thought certainly seem to be at odds with one another, but they are both correct. Both need to be addressed.
How do we explain the world's ills? How do we explain the presence of evil in the world?
For the Left, the blame was always attributed to structural, larger forces. Why are young Muslims fighting for ISIS? Well, because over the course of recent decades, many Arabs have felt that the West, via its unconditional support of Israel, has subjugated the Arab people. So of course this would set up the ripe preconditions for radicalizing Arab populations.
For the Right, individuals are to blame. Sure, many people in Arab countries live in conditions of destitution and destruction. But then again, many parts of the world are destitute, and still do not harbor the rise of violent religious warriors. In essence, ISIS fighters have free will, and it was only out of their own free will, that they decided to take up Jihad.
These two schools of thought certainly seem to be at odds with one another, but they are both correct. Both need to be addressed.
2
Just to be clear, the West's support of Israel is not responsible for the subjugation of the Arab people. Their culture (Islam) and their leaders are responsible for their subjugation. The existence of a successful Israel is only a scapegoat for their failure. One tiny country on their borders has nothing to do with the colossal failure of their societies and it is ludicrous to even think it.
9
Of course Mr. Cohen is right. This is largely about religion. Islam is in the year 1436. Remember Christendom when it was still that young? Islam is a newer religion at the height of its radical phase, and there still is no such thing as being a "cultural Muslim," just like there was no such thing as a "cultural Christian" in our 15th century.
Islam has not undergone any Reform movement, in contrast to the two other Abrahamic religious, Judaism and Christianity. And no Islamic society has gone through anything like the Enlightenment or Age of Reason, historical periods that forced Christianity to bend to science and emerging notions of liberalism and democracy.
For those who want to put the blame entirely on US policy, pay attention to how the US has historically behaved in Latin America. We've toppled governments and supported brutal dictatorships and done a host of unsavory things there. And yet those societies do not turn out brutal religious fanatics who wage a global jihad against civilians, murder cartoonists, behead aid workers, and organize themselves across national borders with a call for setting up medieval theocracies.
Islam has not undergone any Reform movement, in contrast to the two other Abrahamic religious, Judaism and Christianity. And no Islamic society has gone through anything like the Enlightenment or Age of Reason, historical periods that forced Christianity to bend to science and emerging notions of liberalism and democracy.
For those who want to put the blame entirely on US policy, pay attention to how the US has historically behaved in Latin America. We've toppled governments and supported brutal dictatorships and done a host of unsavory things there. And yet those societies do not turn out brutal religious fanatics who wage a global jihad against civilians, murder cartoonists, behead aid workers, and organize themselves across national borders with a call for setting up medieval theocracies.
1
Agree this is largely about religion. Unfortunately, Islam is not just another delusional primitive religion. Unlike Christianity and Judaism it is also a very aggressive world-wide political movement including a truly abhorrent legal system (Sharia). We are so lucky in the US to enjoy the legacy of the English legal system. I often wonder how Western Europe will deal with all of this once its Muslim population reaches the tipping point.
5
This is the worst possible time to write an article like this. Muslims all over the world are denouncing the extremists actions of of Boko Haram and ISIS. Their insane actions are so brutal, and so completely disconnected from even the worst interpretations of the Koran and the Hadith, that even Iran and Al Qaeda are denouncing them. And now you want to say " This isn't a war with Boko Haram and ISIS. This is a war with Islam." , then schizophrenically add that of course most Muslims are against what they are doing. Not only does this make no sense, It gives aid and comfort to the Islamophobic extremists who think that Mehmet Oz and the Guy who owns the local 7/11 are part of a fifth column that want to destroy America. At this stage, it is absolutely essential to know who is the enemy and who isn't. Labeling them all Muslims, and insisting that no further distinctions be made, makes it even harder to do this.
http://muslimbuddhist.blogspot.com/search/label/Muslimoutrage
http://muslimbuddhist.blogspot.com/search/label/Muslimoutrage
2
The Middle east has been a place of violence for years. It was usually shii to sunnis or Jews to Arabs. Then the Muslims invaded the West and same problems. Then we invaded under the popes instructions during the Crusades, and for 200 years did crusades that killed thousands on both sides. Then the colonial powers went back, for the Suez canal building and OIL. We destroyed their cultures, restricted the religions, created minority rule, installed dictators, became rich and they mostly became poor. We killed the elected leader in Iran and installed a puppet dictator so we had control of the oil and oppressed the people with our CIA.
Then we displaced millions of Arabs to allow Western Jews to take a whole country and occupy the remainder of the area. The final insult was invading Iraq, and Afghanistan and allowing the seething anger and unrest to finally boil over. They resent us, they hate us and they don't trust us and they have good reasons.
Then we displaced millions of Arabs to allow Western Jews to take a whole country and occupy the remainder of the area. The final insult was invading Iraq, and Afghanistan and allowing the seething anger and unrest to finally boil over. They resent us, they hate us and they don't trust us and they have good reasons.
1
Very poor and dangerous analysis and tille. - Roger Cohen hides the fact that this war is first within Islam and has been for a while between extremists and the majority of Muslims. Unfortunately he does an excellent telling our American Muslims children that their country is at war with them. Islamophobia+ reaches the NYT.
8
Mr. Cohen says that "Islam is a religion that has spawned multifaceted political movements whose goal is power." Gee wiz, how is this not equally "true" of other religions, although equally simplistic and unproductive? Take "Christianity," for example, and go on a brief stroll down history, please. There is no unitary "Islam," any more than there is a unitary "Christianity." The Muslim world is huge, and diverse in space, time, and culture. Viewing religions as definable "things" is an uninformed mistake. Dr. Cohen's column is embarrassing.
6
His point was that because it sought power, it was fair game for analysis, debate, ridicule, caricatures, etc.
"It" is overly simplistic, just like the article. Yet the facts are that Mo beheaded many, many people. Peace be upon him? What's your opinion on that last part?
"It" is overly simplistic, just like the article. Yet the facts are that Mo beheaded many, many people. Peace be upon him? What's your opinion on that last part?
The very fact that this column implicitly equates Arab nationalism, the disaffection and alienation of Arab youth, and the failure of Arabian political systems with "Islam" illustrates starkly the problem at the heart of claiming that "the West and Islam are at war." "Islam" is not the problem. Making blanket statements that elide the distinction between the problems of Middle Eastern political systems and Islam is the problem.
5
There are a few wisps of hope in the Jordanian reaction to the immolation of one of their pilots. The Jordanians rightly saw what ISIS is about. Power and control through brutal acts of barbarity. There is no higher value that is being sought. Let's hope that more Muslims realize the true threat to their belief and when their voices join other Muslims, commend them for their bravery. I believe that Christians, Jews, Atheists openly supporting them in THEIR quest to take back their faith would not only begin some rapproachment with the west it wold be a finger in the eye of ISIS>
I do not think "the West" is applicable in this opinion. It is Israel who pulled us, and consequently, slowly and unavoidably, "the West", into the conflict.
Obama's "empty talk"? Obama has been called The First Jewish President, and still author wants more US involvement? Is he oblivious to the thousands of young, needed, gullible American kids' lives that our involvement costs us? What else does he want from us.
Roger Cohen trying insistently to pull us more in, is becoming seditious to our US of America (and to "the West") national security.
My conviction is that if we really want to stop this inhumane carnage, we should disengage of the conflict and stop helping economically and providing weaponry to Israel. That certainly would sober things up.
Obama's "empty talk"? Obama has been called The First Jewish President, and still author wants more US involvement? Is he oblivious to the thousands of young, needed, gullible American kids' lives that our involvement costs us? What else does he want from us.
Roger Cohen trying insistently to pull us more in, is becoming seditious to our US of America (and to "the West") national security.
My conviction is that if we really want to stop this inhumane carnage, we should disengage of the conflict and stop helping economically and providing weaponry to Israel. That certainly would sober things up.
1
Cohen implies the dictatorships, which dominate the Muslim and Arab worlds, were imposed. Dictatorships are not the West’s failure, but a natural outgrowth of the sectarianism and clan cultures of Muslim society.
The sources of the problems are the people themselves. Shiites hate and kill Sunnis. Sunnis hate and kill Shiites. They each deny legitimacy to one another and to Kurds, Christians and Jews. Each maintains that it represents the only true Islam and that Islam is the only true religion. In that environment respect and dignity of others cannot survive. It is easy in all religions to go from “mine is the only true religion” to intolerance to hate to terrorism, witness Christian pogroms and the Holocaust.
Muslims accept and support dictatorships as a way to protect themselves from the majorities and minorities in their countries. Witness Libya, Syria, Egypt before Sisi and Iraq with Saddam Hussein. Kaddafi was a tyrant, but Libya is worse off today. Assad the elder killed 25,000 in one city but today 200,000 are dead under the weaker hand of Assad the younger. Sisi is a dictator, but under Morsi Egypt was far more dangerous to all, particularly Christians. Hussein was a despot and Shiites did not fair well, but other minorities survived and today it is worse for all.
People prefer security over democracy. Until Islam becomes tolerant of others, believers and non-believers you will not find Islamic democracies and you will not see the end to Islamic terrorism of the West.
The sources of the problems are the people themselves. Shiites hate and kill Sunnis. Sunnis hate and kill Shiites. They each deny legitimacy to one another and to Kurds, Christians and Jews. Each maintains that it represents the only true Islam and that Islam is the only true religion. In that environment respect and dignity of others cannot survive. It is easy in all religions to go from “mine is the only true religion” to intolerance to hate to terrorism, witness Christian pogroms and the Holocaust.
Muslims accept and support dictatorships as a way to protect themselves from the majorities and minorities in their countries. Witness Libya, Syria, Egypt before Sisi and Iraq with Saddam Hussein. Kaddafi was a tyrant, but Libya is worse off today. Assad the elder killed 25,000 in one city but today 200,000 are dead under the weaker hand of Assad the younger. Sisi is a dictator, but under Morsi Egypt was far more dangerous to all, particularly Christians. Hussein was a despot and Shiites did not fair well, but other minorities survived and today it is worse for all.
People prefer security over democracy. Until Islam becomes tolerant of others, believers and non-believers you will not find Islamic democracies and you will not see the end to Islamic terrorism of the West.
6
Shall we call Judaism a dark and violent religion too? In the last conflict with Hamas, 1 Israeli civilian was killed for every 1000 Palestinian civilians killed.
2
Roger , you are selective in memory. Osama Ladin was armed & financed by U.S. to drive Soviets out of Afghanistan. Criminals now known as ISIS were armed & financed by U.S. to topple Bashar Al Assad. Outlaws who now occupy Libya were armed & financed by U.S. to topple Ghaddafi. The U.S. Also took a full circle in Egypt and now in bed with a Military dictator much to everyone's relief & thanks to Israeli interest in Egypt's stability. The U.S. led crippling sanctions on Iran. The endless repression & brutal occupation of Palestine by Israel are few among many reasons for the region's conflict with west.
Coloring it to Islamic or Jihadi movement is a total distortion of reality. I can understand your bias but the world you are addressing is neither Jewish nor selective in memory like you are. You mention about mis rule & socio economic injustice in the Arab and world, the only correct part of your diagnosis but again who propped and protected the regimes that are responsible to push their people to brink. Remember Roger, one who has nothing, fears none & this is what's happening in the Arab world . There are only 300 Million Muslims in Arab world. The rest of 1.6 billion are non Arab. Islam and Jihad are covers under which these criminals operate who are essentially American creation.
Coloring it to Islamic or Jihadi movement is a total distortion of reality. I can understand your bias but the world you are addressing is neither Jewish nor selective in memory like you are. You mention about mis rule & socio economic injustice in the Arab and world, the only correct part of your diagnosis but again who propped and protected the regimes that are responsible to push their people to brink. Remember Roger, one who has nothing, fears none & this is what's happening in the Arab world . There are only 300 Million Muslims in Arab world. The rest of 1.6 billion are non Arab. Islam and Jihad are covers under which these criminals operate who are essentially American creation.
6
The best New York Times op-ed in years. It is unfortunate that truth telling offends so many.
5
On a visceral level your essay appeals to this writer, but the basic premise is wrong. The West is not at war with the Muslim world to "eradicate a metastasizing Islamist movement." We are at war with a small group of ultra-conservative Islamists whose message to the disaffected, of which there will be millions more, resonates greater than the so-called advantages of democracy, pluralism, and free enterprise pushed by the West.
Assuming that the vast Muslim majority, by their silence, is complicit is tantamount to assuming most Americans are supportive of the rise of Christian Evangelicals. It isn't so, but how do you frame the argument against without appearing godless to the fanatics? You can't...and the "tide of retaliatory menace rises..."
Assuming that the vast Muslim majority, by their silence, is complicit is tantamount to assuming most Americans are supportive of the rise of Christian Evangelicals. It isn't so, but how do you frame the argument against without appearing godless to the fanatics? You can't...and the "tide of retaliatory menace rises..."
1
I am glad Mr. Cohen has the courage to tell it like it is.
I notice that many people who insist this is not about Islam have no problem saying that the anti-abortion far right is about religion. Somehow, when it's about Christianity, it's fine to underscore the religious aspects of the far right. When some Tea Party politician comes out against gay marriage or whatever else, I never hear people say "this is not about Christianity." On the contrary, most of my friends will label a wide spectrum of such individuals as "religious nutbars" and will lament the prevalence of religion in political thinking. I agree. But I apply my judgment equally to all religious fanaticism.
Somehow, when it's about Islam, those same people say "this is not about religion" and chastise those who "unfairly stereotype" Muslims, who are apparently innocent victims in all this.
I notice that many people who insist this is not about Islam have no problem saying that the anti-abortion far right is about religion. Somehow, when it's about Christianity, it's fine to underscore the religious aspects of the far right. When some Tea Party politician comes out against gay marriage or whatever else, I never hear people say "this is not about Christianity." On the contrary, most of my friends will label a wide spectrum of such individuals as "religious nutbars" and will lament the prevalence of religion in political thinking. I agree. But I apply my judgment equally to all religious fanaticism.
Somehow, when it's about Islam, those same people say "this is not about religion" and chastise those who "unfairly stereotype" Muslims, who are apparently innocent victims in all this.
4
Wow! Roger, I am disappointed in you! I believe you to be the most intelligent and most well-reasoning columnist I have ever read, but I think you are off the mark on this one. Before the Iraq invasion there was no ISIS. And support of Israel has been out of all proportion to the equities of the situation: we wring out hands and lamely tell Netanyahu "it is not helpful" as Israel appropriates more and more land and continues to humiliate the Palestinians, now going on 50 years. And our interference in Middle East affairs is constant, from overthrowing the Mozadek regime to invading Iraq. As to Obama's failure to facilitate matters in the Arab Spring uprisings, what are we to do? Why hang that on the US? where were the other Arab states? where were the European states. Surely they have as much to gain from stable democracies, or at least stable quasi-democracies, as we do, and we just got finished with two war. Can't we take a break from war for a while?
6
The point should be made again: Arabs are living in nation-states that they themselves did not create nor asked for. All of their political and national state boundaries were created and maintained by foreign armies. This is an example of total interference in their development. The last attempt at their own democracy - the Mohammed Mossadegh government of then-Persia - was toppled in a CIA coup in the 1950s and replaced with a US-friendly brutal dictator, setting the stage for the Iranian Revolution. It is fine to point out that the Islamic State and jihadism are barbaric - it is not fine to simply place the blame on Arabs and Persians and their religion. Weve hardly allowed them to develop, weve forced them into nation-states weve created, and weve backed brutal tyrannies across that region that oporess those people, use religious fundamentism as a tool *against* those people - jihadist leaders are political and socioeconomic elites - and done nothing for them.
Certainly jihadism must be stopped, but the reality is that it must be replaced with something Muslims create, not another Western-imposed tyranny.
Certainly jihadism must be stopped, but the reality is that it must be replaced with something Muslims create, not another Western-imposed tyranny.
7
The leaders of Al Qaeda and ISIS must be delighted that Mr. Cohen has confirmed their conviction that the West is "at war" with all of Islam. By conflating, as they do, Islamist terrorism with the religion of 1.6 billion people, Cohen would seem to impose an impossible task on Western policy-makers. How to fight this "war" against billions? He seems to recommend that we somehow "foster" liberation efforts among adherents of the very religion he so broadly condemns. Appalling.
6
Mr Cohen has it right this time. The cause against the 'jihadi death merchants' should be taken up by the Arab States in the Middle East and North Africa and not the United States. Egypt should clean up the mess in Libya and Saudi Arabia and company in Syria , Yemen and Iraq. Since most in Iraq are Shiites why does not Iran send troops to defeat Isis there.? They prefer rather that American blood should be spilled there. Iraq and Syria have ceased to exist as we knew them. They should be divided up. America should pick up the Sunni cause and push and support a new Sunni entity in the areas now controlled by Isis . That would be accepted by the Arab and other Sunni states. Iran will control most of Iraq and a new Kurdistan to be established in cooperation with Turkey.
That's as myopic an analysis of the situation as can be, which would have been fine had it not been a big part of the problem. Take a backseat and think for a second about how would someone from the other side rationalize the situation - more specifically, an uneducated, jobless, politically disenfranchised Arab Muslim who, for decades, has seen the West support the despots who rule over him or her and indiscriminately kill and maim thousands upon thousand of other Arab Muslims? Statistically (and thankfully) that Arab Muslim would be far much less inclined to think in as generalized terms as you just did in your piece — less than 0.01% (30 thousands ISIS members) of the 380 million Arab Muslims in the World think and act according to the terms you just laid out - of course, folds less if I am using your denominator, Islam/Muslim (1.6 billion) instead of Arab Muslim.
And, you're not uneducated, you're not jobless, you're not politically disenfranchised, and no country is willy-nilly bombing our country.
And, you're not uneducated, you're not jobless, you're not politically disenfranchised, and no country is willy-nilly bombing our country.
7
When will the west own up to the massive destruction wrought by Colonialism who's consequences haunt us still today... Please read about Algeria... Iraq... Afghanistan... And their experiences liberating themselves from the evil western boot... And yes, Israel is a big part of this... A state funded by western tax payers to this day built on the land of Arabs... Look at western evil before you blame the noble religion of billions... And stigmatize an entire sector of humanity..
2
everything is a mess everywhere...we shouldn't be throwing stones cause there's lots in the USA that needs afixin.
I don't understand ISIS/IL but for sure there are many in the Islamic tribes that agree with there philosophies enough to join the cause. We should stay out of this chaos and let the tribes that encompass Islam get-it together on their own. If we do help it should be in the form of diplomacy (let's talk our way thru this not fight our way thru this) We should not be arming or helping any one particular side.
I don't understand ISIS/IL but for sure there are many in the Islamic tribes that agree with there philosophies enough to join the cause. We should stay out of this chaos and let the tribes that encompass Islam get-it together on their own. If we do help it should be in the form of diplomacy (let's talk our way thru this not fight our way thru this) We should not be arming or helping any one particular side.
A lot of thoughts here.
Any movement that routinely cuts off heads and burns people alive is doomed. Don't know how yet, don't know when, but they can't last.
John McCain's efforts at finding "friendly" Muslim groups for us to back, financially and militarily, are doomed. We don't know the players, the players switch sides, and they certainly have their own agendas.
We feel the need to do something, but if this becomes a 21st century crusade, the west vs a billion Muslims, I can't see a good ending. The locals need to sort it out. We can try to find the most reasonable players and back them, knowing the outcome may not be what we want.
How does Saudi Arabia manage to exist? They have all the money and latest military technology, but are smack dab in the middle of all the chaos. What is their role in the current proceedings? Can/will they do more to try and create some order?
Any movement that routinely cuts off heads and burns people alive is doomed. Don't know how yet, don't know when, but they can't last.
John McCain's efforts at finding "friendly" Muslim groups for us to back, financially and militarily, are doomed. We don't know the players, the players switch sides, and they certainly have their own agendas.
We feel the need to do something, but if this becomes a 21st century crusade, the west vs a billion Muslims, I can't see a good ending. The locals need to sort it out. We can try to find the most reasonable players and back them, knowing the outcome may not be what we want.
How does Saudi Arabia manage to exist? They have all the money and latest military technology, but are smack dab in the middle of all the chaos. What is their role in the current proceedings? Can/will they do more to try and create some order?
3
Difference of opinion is ok.
Just think for the last 50 years
How much Muslim people were killed by the hand of west.
people in Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan killed by USA, by Israel in Palestain by India in Kashmir .
Compare to that how many Western people were killed by the hand of Muslim . Every where Muslims were attacted , there reaction is not comparable to wester killing mission. Be honest with your mirror. You will get the answer Mr. Author of this article.
Just think for the last 50 years
How much Muslim people were killed by the hand of west.
people in Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan killed by USA, by Israel in Palestain by India in Kashmir .
Compare to that how many Western people were killed by the hand of Muslim . Every where Muslims were attacted , there reaction is not comparable to wester killing mission. Be honest with your mirror. You will get the answer Mr. Author of this article.
1
Evangelistic religious dogma evolved from warrior religions -- Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, and sadly, Christianity -- will inspire war and terror in many of its followers. You cannot promote a caliphate or subdue continents without this warrior mindset. Even the Buddha's teachings have been debased by those who destroyed and killed in his name. But above all the others, Islam's newness troubles me the most -- we learned nothing from those religions that came before. The prophet fought and killed to establish Mecca. Those who came after continue to fight among themselves over which sect is truly the "one," I have no respect for any religion -- they are all murderous. "Thou shalt not kill " means you do not kill members of your tribe, but killing members not of your tribe is okay. As we used to say "Kill the Buddha." Destroy the dogma inside.
9
There is no glory in techno-war.
Are we really born to be cannon-fodder?
Are we really born to be cannon-fodder?
Lisa, you clearly have not read The New Testament.
Within it, you will find Jesus' teachings of "turning the other cheek".
Within it, you will find Jesus' teachings of "turning the other cheek".
Judaism is a warrior religion?
Not a chance. Judaism does not seek converts, nor did Jews seek to rule the world.
Not a chance. Judaism does not seek converts, nor did Jews seek to rule the world.
4
You are probably right about your premise. But it begs the question of how to respond to this movement. Was this a clear result of the Iraq war and its bungled aftermath? Can injured parties be made whole? I don't think there is any global approach to these problems. Do you? In any case the brutality of beheadings and the like will not and cannot go unanswered. We are going to have to pay the price for that eventually. After that, we will need to get some kind of brokered agreement in Syria and Iraq and address the grievances of those directly injured by deBathification and backing a Sunni government in Iraq.
Another one whose memory doesn't go back to the 1970s. Black September, Munich Olympic Massacre, Achille Lauro, PLO attacks on the Rome and Vienna airports, etc etc etc
2
The root cause of the WAR ON TERROR and birth of ISIS is the declaration of unwanted, unjust and inhumane WAR on Iraq and forceful and untimely removal of the well established dictators, Saddam, Gaddafi and Assad who were controlling the Islamic and non-Islamic goons in their empires. The war on terror started on wrong footings by BUSH-CHENEY and continued by Obama-Hillary advancing in to Libya, Syria and Africa. Wrongly, day by day, it is becoming war on Muslims and Islam all over the world, and that is the worst outcome, any one can imagine. We must stop marginalizing Muslims majority by blaming them for the mistakes of the White House!!!!
6
Your position on this is understandable and somewhat valid. But perhaps you could look at this from another angle. One could argue that if the U.S. does absolutely nothing else in the World except eliminate brutal dictators who are killing and torturing people, then we have done something great. From a purely humane perspective, this could be the highest and best use of our military power. But, then again if you don't care about the tens of thousands being murdered or tortured, because they are not Americans, then we should do nothing.
1
"We must stop marginalizing Muslims majority by blaming them for the mistakes of the White House!!!! "
...and, somehow 'marginalizing Muslims' is the result of the White House not supporting brutal dictators? Perhaps we need to re-write the definition of 'marginalizing'.
...and, somehow 'marginalizing Muslims' is the result of the White House not supporting brutal dictators? Perhaps we need to re-write the definition of 'marginalizing'.
1
You are very wrong. Perhaps you just weren't paying attention 20-25 years ago.
OBL issued his 1996 Fatwa against the US because of the presence of US troops in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina during Gulf War I.
And going further back, perhaps you'd like to look up Black September and the Munich Olympic Massacre.
OBL issued his 1996 Fatwa against the US because of the presence of US troops in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina during Gulf War I.
And going further back, perhaps you'd like to look up Black September and the Munich Olympic Massacre.
1
I agree with the assessment here. And while many readers like, daily, to denigrate the US and the west as having somehow caused this terror and violence, they ignore 1000s of years of history. If we don't stop referring to 'dark ideology' and instead call it what the terrorists call it - jihad, then we are lying to ourselves. a reference to Jihad or Jihad terrorists doesn't attack the Muslim religion, it attacks the concept of killing non-believers in cold blood.
The West is no more guilty of wrong-doing than the East, north, or south. History shows that all civilizations have had their brutal moments. But in 2015, that spot light goes to the Islamic State (ISIS), Boko Haram, Hamas, and a few other 'groups' that seek nothing more than violence itself.
The West is no more guilty of wrong-doing than the East, north, or south. History shows that all civilizations have had their brutal moments. But in 2015, that spot light goes to the Islamic State (ISIS), Boko Haram, Hamas, and a few other 'groups' that seek nothing more than violence itself.
34
"Jihad" is in the mind.
I think you're the one ignoring history, and lying to yourself, if you can't acknowledge our own government's culpability in creating some of the problems we are dealing with today.
1
Jim Jones, David Koresh, Randy Weaver and Timothy McVeigh were evangelical Christian American terrorists.
Where and who were/are the Muslim Arab nation state counterparts to the evangelical Christian American crusader inquisitors POTUS George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama?
Neither al Qaeda, Boko Haram, ISIL/ISIS. al Nusrah, Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban are nation states.
Where and who were/are the Muslim Arab nation state counterparts to the evangelical Christian American crusader inquisitors POTUS George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama?
Neither al Qaeda, Boko Haram, ISIL/ISIS. al Nusrah, Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban are nation states.
"What, pray, was the provocation of Dan Uzan, the Jewish security guard outside the Copenhagen synagogue?" Well, Roger, let me answer your hypothetical question. Mr. Uzan was Jewish and he was guarding a Copenhagen Synagogue. That's provocation enough for jihadi terrorists. Jews are such easy targets for jihadi terrorists to vent their wrath on.
16
We are in another 100 year war with no clear solutions in sight. It is difficult to eradicate evil sponsored by the likes of an Ayatollah and Putin and those advocating for a boycott of Israel. The fight for freedom and the eradication of hatreds is an ongoing battle. Islam needs a self correction and the courage to change instead of the anger, resentment and rage being expressed against co-religionist, the West and Israel. Islamic self awareness, education about empathy for the other and equality for woman will not be happening any time soon. So regrettably the violence will continue.
4
Cohen plays the all-too-familiar game of starting the historical clock at a near and convenient point in time. Reading his piece, its as if the West discovered Arabs and Islam about 20 years ago and the entire history is just lost. He neglects the entire history of Western interference in the Middle East: arguably, the Islamic State is only the latest and worst version of blowback against the West. Some coukd argue that the US is to blame for the Islamic State existing.
Further he descends into blamestorming - never looking for a good solution but instead just pointing fingers and picking sides.
His commentary is neither informatve, nor helpful.
Further he descends into blamestorming - never looking for a good solution but instead just pointing fingers and picking sides.
His commentary is neither informatve, nor helpful.
16
We may be past the point of waiting for someone to offer 'a good solution'. It's hardly fair to say that Cohen, or other commentators, have a duty to solve this within an op-ed piece if they wish to speak of mistakes made by others..
I really enjoyed your suggestions and ideas, I found them to be helpful and informative.
This seems to be a trend among some NYT columnists that I use to regard with some respect. They appear to have gotten lazy and instead of some considered thought on a subject, they indulge in the easy finger pointing.
At the same time, Europeans have been withdrawing from practicing Christianity. Is that good or bad? In the history of mankind, no one was ever murdered over a question of theology by a rampaging atheist.
7
Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Lenin...
1
Hitler was an atheist.
Stalin was an atheist.
Time to bone-up on your history.
Stalin was an atheist.
Time to bone-up on your history.
1
Not all comments are meant to be taken literally.
1
The clash of Civilizations is simplistic to lay at the feet of President Obama, or any one else for that matter. What we see and read and in some instances experience is far more of world that lives inn difderentj centuries. It seemed somewhat self contained in the various borders pre 9-11, and might have stayed at least localized to the Taliban in Afghanistan. It should and probably could have had some containment.Even the Gulf War in '91 kept the lid firmly closed until Jr. and the NeoCons were unwisely appointed to the Presidency who'd harbored an obsessive desire to strike out at the Tar-Baby that even Bush Sr. had the good sense to avoid.
No, the singular event was not the provocation of destroying the Twin Towers, but the Narcissistic stupidity of thinking that America was so omnipotent that it could wage limited, unprovoked war on Sadaam's Iraq without severe consequence. History will certainly point a bony, long, accusatory finger at the NeoCon power structure that emerged from the Supreme Court's partisan blunder into an election that should have played itself out lawfully. Unfortunately it gave false and an unwarranted sense of power to the Republican leadership at the time to believe itself invincible and apart from the normal world of humanity. Appaerntly it still does have this delusional tick in its DNA as evidenced by an unending disregard for our safety and well being by the radical fringe in complete refusal to accept any part of President Obama period.
No, the singular event was not the provocation of destroying the Twin Towers, but the Narcissistic stupidity of thinking that America was so omnipotent that it could wage limited, unprovoked war on Sadaam's Iraq without severe consequence. History will certainly point a bony, long, accusatory finger at the NeoCon power structure that emerged from the Supreme Court's partisan blunder into an election that should have played itself out lawfully. Unfortunately it gave false and an unwarranted sense of power to the Republican leadership at the time to believe itself invincible and apart from the normal world of humanity. Appaerntly it still does have this delusional tick in its DNA as evidenced by an unending disregard for our safety and well being by the radical fringe in complete refusal to accept any part of President Obama period.
5
I am a bit surprised the NYT printed this opinion. This is almost like real journalism. Over the last few years, the NYT has been more like a liberal newsletter than a fact-seeking and reporting newspaper. I believe the readers would like to see more of this honest reporting instead of Krugman et. al. and their far left spin.
8
Far-left? Give me a break. This paper is as corporate-centrist as they come.
2
I've noticed that the NY Times writes very little about ISIS. There will usually be a news story by itself, and op-eds about it are rare. It's treated more as a criminal issue in the region. Far more space is devoted to the economy, domestic issues, etc. Not sure why that is. A civilization clash is very real, already underway, and threatening to engulf the wider world. Also, another thing I noticed is that US politicians on "Meet the Press" are very reticent to say specifically how they're going to stop ISIS violence. They fall back on cliches such as "it will take years" and never discuss any real specifics.
2
"It's treated more as a criminal issue in the region."
That's because that's precisely what it is. That's because al Qaeda, ISIS and their ilk are all criminals. No one has been able to show me convincingly and clearly how declaration of war, deployment of entire military divisions, together with all their equipment and materiel, proves superior to plain, old-fashioned, thorough detective work, as a response to the attacks in 2001. Arguably, if detection, apprehension of, and holding the persons responsible to public account, together with a properly organized campaign of counter-propaganda, would have long since brought this entire affair to a lasting, peaceful settlement. Instead what we have now is a slow-boil, perpetual war.
There isn't any "clash of civilizations" going on here. It might be a war of ideas, but that is best prosecuted with better ideas, than with armies.
No politician (or anyone else) can be more specific, because no one can say how ISIS and their ilk are different from what it would have been if, say, Matthew Hale had been allowed to carry out his intent to their full fruition. Or even how they are different from the Mafia.
Make no mistake about it. Al Qaeda, ISIS, and their ilk are criminals, and not much else.
That's because that's precisely what it is. That's because al Qaeda, ISIS and their ilk are all criminals. No one has been able to show me convincingly and clearly how declaration of war, deployment of entire military divisions, together with all their equipment and materiel, proves superior to plain, old-fashioned, thorough detective work, as a response to the attacks in 2001. Arguably, if detection, apprehension of, and holding the persons responsible to public account, together with a properly organized campaign of counter-propaganda, would have long since brought this entire affair to a lasting, peaceful settlement. Instead what we have now is a slow-boil, perpetual war.
There isn't any "clash of civilizations" going on here. It might be a war of ideas, but that is best prosecuted with better ideas, than with armies.
No politician (or anyone else) can be more specific, because no one can say how ISIS and their ilk are different from what it would have been if, say, Matthew Hale had been allowed to carry out his intent to their full fruition. Or even how they are different from the Mafia.
Make no mistake about it. Al Qaeda, ISIS, and their ilk are criminals, and not much else.
Hooray! Thank you for your piece. Finally, someone from left of center has the courage and honesty to speak the truth: the West is indeed at war with Islam. Maybe not all Muslims, maybe not even a majority, but a war nonetheless with a highly developed, organized, growing and passionate political ideology that is embracing millions outside and inside our borders. This is a real threat, much like the early days of Nazism, when people finally started realizing the threat they faced. I hope more people like you, including our President, begin speaking what needs to be said.
8
Mr. Cohen, your laying the blame on Obama for the failure of Arab Spring (what, you thought AS would change the world immediately?) is rather silly. I expect better of you. No mention of Bush and his invasion and occupation of Iraq? Mostly, though, I take issue with your failure to acknowledge, let alone mention, the European colonization of the Middle East. I find the absence of this most salient fact to reflect either you cherry picking facts to support your view of Islam or woeful ignorance of historical context.
11
Mr. Cohen contradicts himself in his one-sentence last paragraph. He speaks of the "reality" of the war between the West and Islam and then turns to Muslims, like Mr. Belaid, to defeat the "jihadi death merchants." I am no fan of any religion, but clearly the West is not at war against all of Islam. Mr. Cohen's thesis is wrong, but his conclusion, that Muslims need to defeat the "dark ideology" being advanced in their name, is correct.
2
The Carter Doctrine, which placed the middle east firmly within the US sphere of influence, modified and expanded by every President since, is a very long standing policy directive. The "Arab Spring" was the result of our incursion into Iraq, nation building by exporting democracy and assassinating Saddam and his tribe. ISIS knows its strategy, do unspeakable things, get attacked, die for the Cause, build the ranks, the victim is irrelevant. Jew, Muslim, Christian, Muslim all are grist for their mill. If they are singlng their version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, we should not be suckered into joining with our version. This is not a holy war, it is not about faith or salvation, it is, as John Wayne said in Sands of Iwo Jima, "all about real estate. The redrawn lines, the territory captured and held, is blood feud ground. The sacrosanct Zionist or Evangelical or Wahabi interpretation is a convenience for the sake of response. To my mind, we should rethink the Carter Doctrine, and perhaps not jump in so eagerly to bring on the Apocalypse. ISIS has read our text. Maybe we should read theirs. They are playing the WEST like a cheap fiddle, and we are dancing to their tune.
6
"The rise of the Islamic State, and Obama’s new war, are a direct result of the failure of the Arab Spring,"
The rise of the Islamic State is a result of Obama pulling all of our troops out of Iraq. Yes he Iraq war was a mess but that doesn't change the fact that if we left 20,000 troops there ISIS would not have been able to become what it is. We have 50,000 each in Japan and Germany we could easily have moved some of those troops to Iraq and it would have cost us no more that is does now. And please don't give me the Iraqis wouldn't agree to our terms nonsense. Obama wanted them out and that is why they are out. History will judge this as one of the greatest failures of any American President even if his lackeys in the media gloss it over.
The rise of the Islamic State is a result of Obama pulling all of our troops out of Iraq. Yes he Iraq war was a mess but that doesn't change the fact that if we left 20,000 troops there ISIS would not have been able to become what it is. We have 50,000 each in Japan and Germany we could easily have moved some of those troops to Iraq and it would have cost us no more that is does now. And please don't give me the Iraqis wouldn't agree to our terms nonsense. Obama wanted them out and that is why they are out. History will judge this as one of the greatest failures of any American President even if his lackeys in the media gloss it over.
3
"The rise of the Islamic State is a result of Obama pulling all of our troops out of Iraq."
Utter rubbish.
What is now known as ISIS had its beginnings long prior to the beginnings of Mr. Obama's administration. Even during the times when American forces in Iraq were near their peak, it was already clear that 1: a civil war was on in Iraq; 2: Iraq had already become an attractive pool for recruitment to al Qaeda; 3: Marginalization of the Sunnis in Iraq had already produced a cadre of men who emulated the exploits of al Qaeda.
At the time nothing was being done to recognize let alone mitigate the metastasizing cancer in Iraq and Syria. By the time Mr. Obama took office, it had already become a full-on disaster.
In Iraq, Mr. Obama could at worst be blamed for initially abetting the corrupt administration of al-Maliki that fostered the growing cancer.
The circumstances during the "Arab Spring" were a whole lot more murky than people of your ilk would like to make believe. To date, no one has proposed Mr. Obama do anything that he hadn't already done by then, nor could they specify which of the belligerents he should have supported in Syria.
Utter rubbish.
What is now known as ISIS had its beginnings long prior to the beginnings of Mr. Obama's administration. Even during the times when American forces in Iraq were near their peak, it was already clear that 1: a civil war was on in Iraq; 2: Iraq had already become an attractive pool for recruitment to al Qaeda; 3: Marginalization of the Sunnis in Iraq had already produced a cadre of men who emulated the exploits of al Qaeda.
At the time nothing was being done to recognize let alone mitigate the metastasizing cancer in Iraq and Syria. By the time Mr. Obama took office, it had already become a full-on disaster.
In Iraq, Mr. Obama could at worst be blamed for initially abetting the corrupt administration of al-Maliki that fostered the growing cancer.
The circumstances during the "Arab Spring" were a whole lot more murky than people of your ilk would like to make believe. To date, no one has proposed Mr. Obama do anything that he hadn't already done by then, nor could they specify which of the belligerents he should have supported in Syria.
1
Perhaps this president was intent on helping the radical Islamics to succeed?
Did you ever consider that possibility?
Did you ever consider that possibility?
The great blunder that led to the chaos Iraq was the disbanding of the Iraqi Army.
A retired (Republican) Army lieutenant colonel who spent several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan made that quite clear to me. The game was over before Obama got his turn at bat.
A retired (Republican) Army lieutenant colonel who spent several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan made that quite clear to me. The game was over before Obama got his turn at bat.
3
History, I suspect, will not judge Roger Cohen kindly for pinning the blame on President Obama "for having failed to foster the great liberation movement... in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere."
Mr Cohen overlooks and dismisses that it was George Bush and Dick Cheney who unnecessarily invaded the Middle East which had a blow back effect of resentment of infidels in Muslin lands.
Mr Cohen overlooks and dismisses that it was George Bush and Dick Cheney who unnecessarily invaded the Middle East which had a blow back effect of resentment of infidels in Muslin lands.
23
Who knows what Roger Cohen means by "having failed to foster the great liberation movement"? It's intentionally vague phrasing, because of course there was no clear way of responding to the sectarian tensions unleashed by "the great liberation movement." For example, Mubarak was overthrown in Egypt. As a result, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood becomes Egypt's first democratically elected president. The great liberation movement results in an election result that the US doesn't like. If he can, Mr. Cohen should tell us how the Obama administration should have "fostered" a preferred outcome. My guess is, "fostering," as Roger Cohen sees it, would have involved a sustained military effort--which just goes to show how quickly some people forget.
It's still the same old story: boots on the ground.
2
Media mavens telling us that we have nothing in common with foreigners need to show us how because often the showing part contradicts them. We have vital economic ties to Muslim countries, but unlike our NATO alliance and a tacit alliance with Israel, we have no dynamic cultural engagement beyond strategic patronage involving business and military security. Americans do not embrace the culture of the Arab world the way they do that of Europe and the British isles. There are no "Go Saudi Arabia" programs, for example, for American youth similar to "Go Israel" or "Year Abroad college exchange programs," no Kuwait or Oman type of Rhodes Scholar program in the USA. So the vast cultural diversity of the Muslim world, much moreso its sharp political divisions, in the American media, amount to whether one focuses on Shi'a or Sunni religious versions of Islam. Given the American media's disinterested cultural attention to Islamic societies, little wonder that the equivalent of American gun rampage shooters , i.e., Islamic terrorists, seem to define Muslims in news opinions like Roger Cohen's. But from time to time when Americans view Islamic cultural and artistic innovations, many of which challenge Islamic traditions, we see that there is no clash of visions or warring values against the West. On the contrary.
2
On the contrary, we have lots of " attention to Islamic societies" here in the U.S. Go to almost any university or college and you'll find a department of Medieval Studies.
2
And yet you excoriate the presumably non-grown ups leading Israel in your previous column for not wanting to end up with another Gaza to Israel's east in the West Bank. You remember Gaza, Rog? Where Palestinian Arabs for the first time had a free election, and they chose Hamas -- another in a long line now of dysfunctional Islamic terror groups. Why the disconnect? What do you suggest to end the "occupation" of the West Bank? Unilaterally withdraw with no preconditions as Israel did from Gaza in 2005? So Israel can find itself surrounded by - take your pick - Shiite fanatics controlled by Iran like Hezbollah or Sunni jihadi fanatics controlled by all sorts of low-lifes.
10
Mr. Cohen has produced a dense, inflammatory essay, almost every sentence of which cries out for rebuttal.
"Inaction and Nonintervention produced Syria today."
Really? Well, there was no Islamist army in Iraq prior to the second Gulf War. Action and Intervention produced Iraq today, and secondarily spawned the Islamic State, which has quite a bit to do with the no-win situation we are facing in Syria right now.
And how would Mr. Cohen have had us intervene in Syria? Had Obama assassinated Assad, would the resulting power vacuum have led to any less of a bloodbath, or would the Islamic State now be in charge in Damascus? Would the country have rallied behind Obama? When Obama was moving towards an attack on Assad for the use of chemical weapons, Congress made it clear that they were unwilling to support him and he was forced to back peddle. Even now Congress is balking on authorizing Obama's air strikes against the Islamic State.
We tried training and supplying "moderate" Syrians. Islamic State and Al Nusra fighters overran them and took their weapons. Air strikes? Boots on the ground? It's one thing to say that "something must be done", it's quite another to come up with a course of action that has a decent probability of improving the situation at an acceptable cost.
By the way, so far Inaction and Nonintervention have worked out reasonably well in Tunisia.
As a physician, I have learned that I can't always make things better, but I can always make them worse.
"Inaction and Nonintervention produced Syria today."
Really? Well, there was no Islamist army in Iraq prior to the second Gulf War. Action and Intervention produced Iraq today, and secondarily spawned the Islamic State, which has quite a bit to do with the no-win situation we are facing in Syria right now.
And how would Mr. Cohen have had us intervene in Syria? Had Obama assassinated Assad, would the resulting power vacuum have led to any less of a bloodbath, or would the Islamic State now be in charge in Damascus? Would the country have rallied behind Obama? When Obama was moving towards an attack on Assad for the use of chemical weapons, Congress made it clear that they were unwilling to support him and he was forced to back peddle. Even now Congress is balking on authorizing Obama's air strikes against the Islamic State.
We tried training and supplying "moderate" Syrians. Islamic State and Al Nusra fighters overran them and took their weapons. Air strikes? Boots on the ground? It's one thing to say that "something must be done", it's quite another to come up with a course of action that has a decent probability of improving the situation at an acceptable cost.
By the way, so far Inaction and Nonintervention have worked out reasonably well in Tunisia.
As a physician, I have learned that I can't always make things better, but I can always make them worse.
18
Obama's speech in Cairo gave the green light to jihadists. It showed either how little he understood the truth, or was willing to look the other way:
"America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles - principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings."
Seriously? America and Islam share "principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings?"
Progress? Tolerance? The dignity of all human beings?
"America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles - principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings."
Seriously? America and Islam share "principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings?"
Progress? Tolerance? The dignity of all human beings?
2
The always exceptional US of A for the last 62 years has been waging war in the Middle East.
Everything we've done has made it worse.
Depose Mossadecq, install the Shah, we get 36 years of the rule of the ayatollahs.
Arm Afghan fundamentalists, they change their name to Taliban, give bin Laden sanctuary, AQ an entire country to train.
The Charge of The Fools Brigade into Iraq triggers fractricide and gives AQ fertile fields to plow.
Hosni Mubarak, of Egypt, had it right in 2002, when he said,
"If you invade Iraq, you will create 10,000 bin Ladens".
Et Voila
Everything we've done has made it worse.
Depose Mossadecq, install the Shah, we get 36 years of the rule of the ayatollahs.
Arm Afghan fundamentalists, they change their name to Taliban, give bin Laden sanctuary, AQ an entire country to train.
The Charge of The Fools Brigade into Iraq triggers fractricide and gives AQ fertile fields to plow.
Hosni Mubarak, of Egypt, had it right in 2002, when he said,
"If you invade Iraq, you will create 10,000 bin Ladens".
Et Voila
46
As Marie Harf of the State Dept. recently said,
'we need to send money so they (ISIS) can get jobs'
Surely with this type of forward thinking peace in the Middle East is certainly at hand.
'we need to send money so they (ISIS) can get jobs'
Surely with this type of forward thinking peace in the Middle East is certainly at hand.
6
I don't know if you are being sarcastic, but really, if those folks joining ISIS and al Qaeda were busy making money, they would have had little time or energy to do what they currently find themselves doing, not so?
"Islam and the West at War" ... I can't believe you wrote this Column... Cohen ...You are sounding like a "NeoCon" instead of a "Liberal"... and you don't subscribe to the
'First School of Thought' that ISRAEL is to BLAME ?? ... You must be losing today's Liberal 'politically correct' attitude that Israel ( and the Jews...and Netanyahu ) are to blame for all the wrongs in today's World, especially in the Middle East.
... And talk about Iran - Since you adhere to the "Trust Iran" group... Wait until Iran gets Nuclear Weapons... and the Terrorists have a Nuclear "Umbrella" to rely upon...
'First School of Thought' that ISRAEL is to BLAME ?? ... You must be losing today's Liberal 'politically correct' attitude that Israel ( and the Jews...and Netanyahu ) are to blame for all the wrongs in today's World, especially in the Middle East.
... And talk about Iran - Since you adhere to the "Trust Iran" group... Wait until Iran gets Nuclear Weapons... and the Terrorists have a Nuclear "Umbrella" to rely upon...
6
Henry, I think you are part of the problem. you have no point of discussion here, only finger pointing at the Liberals and Muslims, while Netanyahu is a saint.
Henry, the politically correct attitude isn't that the Jews are to blame, EVERYBODY loves the Jews they just vociferously oppose Israel's state policies and coincidentally there are a lot of Jews in Israel.
What is surprising is seeing someone at the NYT willing to speak the truth about the relationship between radical Islam and the religion itself.
What is not surprising is to see how little interest it generates compared to any NYT article that denigrates and attempts to delegitimize Israel.
What is not surprising is to see how little interest it generates compared to any NYT article that denigrates and attempts to delegitimize Israel.
6
As an Iraqi-American Jew, whose family long ago fled to America from our home in Baghdad, and as a man who is intimate with Iraqi-Arab culture, allow me to give my point of view. The Arab culture, which is mostly but not wholly Muslim, was once the leader of the world, and many Arabs cannot give up those dreams of glory. (Imagine if America suddenly became a third rate power). In the view of many, a Caliphate would be a restoration of this glory.
At the same time, a huge sense of self pity resides in that world. This translates into a resignation to "fate" - or "inshallah" in Arabic, "as Allah (God) wills it." This is the stance of people who have largely given up, who are resigned to poverty/illiteracy/lack of opportunity.
In the U.S., such people often become deranged gunment, "getting even" via mass murder. In the Arab world, these same types become "martyrs" and jihadists, bringing "honor" to their families through "revenge."
If this analysis is true, one of the best ways to stem Islamic radicalism is to provide real alternative opportunities for self-advancement. This includes education, business opportunities, the right to express ideas freely and to realisitically dream of a better future for women as well as men. Just how to do this is open to debate, but we - and rulers in the Arab world - need to address the real challenge and open doors. Otherwise, the radical Islamic pot will continue to boil over, with increasingly disastrous results.
At the same time, a huge sense of self pity resides in that world. This translates into a resignation to "fate" - or "inshallah" in Arabic, "as Allah (God) wills it." This is the stance of people who have largely given up, who are resigned to poverty/illiteracy/lack of opportunity.
In the U.S., such people often become deranged gunment, "getting even" via mass murder. In the Arab world, these same types become "martyrs" and jihadists, bringing "honor" to their families through "revenge."
If this analysis is true, one of the best ways to stem Islamic radicalism is to provide real alternative opportunities for self-advancement. This includes education, business opportunities, the right to express ideas freely and to realisitically dream of a better future for women as well as men. Just how to do this is open to debate, but we - and rulers in the Arab world - need to address the real challenge and open doors. Otherwise, the radical Islamic pot will continue to boil over, with increasingly disastrous results.
27
I'm surprised at the simplistic "either the West or Islam" formulation of what is a much more complex issue. Also to cite the Arab Spring as a failure is equally disingenuous. Historians continue to debate why the Arab renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries that created great poetry, architecture, literature and science devolved into backward autocratic states that never permitted the true fruit of Islam to flower.
But one need not be an expert to see that a society that lacks independence, free expression, social and ethnic integration, universal education and an independent civic infrastructure cannot overnight transform itself into a modern liberal democratic state. To be sure Muslims the world over must ask both how and why their religion has come to be used to rationalize atrocities such as these terrorist attacks.
But they also ask why the geo-political nature of this conflict has been manipulated by the west for its only interest in the region which is energy resources, not democracy. Remember, the Arab states did not create a list of "regime change" states, nor did the Arab Spring.
When any rigid authoritarian political structure is suddenly broken the effects are usually far reaching, including social chaos, ethnic and religious tensions, opportunism, corruption and yes even violence. The fact that this violence has spilled over into the west is sadly predictable. The correct response is to seek stability in the region, not to demonization of Islam.
But one need not be an expert to see that a society that lacks independence, free expression, social and ethnic integration, universal education and an independent civic infrastructure cannot overnight transform itself into a modern liberal democratic state. To be sure Muslims the world over must ask both how and why their religion has come to be used to rationalize atrocities such as these terrorist attacks.
But they also ask why the geo-political nature of this conflict has been manipulated by the west for its only interest in the region which is energy resources, not democracy. Remember, the Arab states did not create a list of "regime change" states, nor did the Arab Spring.
When any rigid authoritarian political structure is suddenly broken the effects are usually far reaching, including social chaos, ethnic and religious tensions, opportunism, corruption and yes even violence. The fact that this violence has spilled over into the west is sadly predictable. The correct response is to seek stability in the region, not to demonization of Islam.
8
A very good analysis - with one little flaw: instead of speaking about a "dark ideology" Roger Cohen ist speaking of a "failure of the Arab world". But this has nothing to do with the Arab world, it has to do with the idea that Islam is the religion to supersede all other religions and will finally conquer the world - one of the Muslim dogma from the beginning on.
12
"To call this movement ... the Islamic State, a “dark ideology” is like calling Nazism a reaction to German humiliation in World War I: true but wholly inadequate."
This demeans truth, preferring more virulent rhetoric--"adequate" for what purpose?--making the entire Islamic world the enemy? This seems Bibby's strategy.
The Danish "Dark Ideology" and Obama's "extremist" are much more politically adequate--politics having a fundamental educational function--aimed at dispute resolution, short and long run. It's an olive branch to the silent Muslim majority to enjoy peace, order, and democratic pluralism. What % of Muslims are militarized or worse barbaric--despite the breadth of anti West sentiment in that world ?
After all the "Muslim world" is hardly ideologically unified--theologically or politically. Just as Christianity climbed out of it's barbaric past, so too can Islam. With a little wise help, its Enlightenment might not take as long--a millennium.
See today's Times report on the Danish shootings: “This wasn’t an intellectual Islamist with a long beard,” Mr. Soei said. “This was a loser man from the ghetto who is very, very angry at Danish society.”
Some men expect social/economic privilege (including the deference of women) to be handed on a silver platter. They hate the West for demanding that they earn their place by education and work, and their lovablity by personal virtue and charm. The "losers" dark ideology lets them blame and hate the West.
This demeans truth, preferring more virulent rhetoric--"adequate" for what purpose?--making the entire Islamic world the enemy? This seems Bibby's strategy.
The Danish "Dark Ideology" and Obama's "extremist" are much more politically adequate--politics having a fundamental educational function--aimed at dispute resolution, short and long run. It's an olive branch to the silent Muslim majority to enjoy peace, order, and democratic pluralism. What % of Muslims are militarized or worse barbaric--despite the breadth of anti West sentiment in that world ?
After all the "Muslim world" is hardly ideologically unified--theologically or politically. Just as Christianity climbed out of it's barbaric past, so too can Islam. With a little wise help, its Enlightenment might not take as long--a millennium.
See today's Times report on the Danish shootings: “This wasn’t an intellectual Islamist with a long beard,” Mr. Soei said. “This was a loser man from the ghetto who is very, very angry at Danish society.”
Some men expect social/economic privilege (including the deference of women) to be handed on a silver platter. They hate the West for demanding that they earn their place by education and work, and their lovablity by personal virtue and charm. The "losers" dark ideology lets them blame and hate the West.
4
I agree. The Danish prime minister appeared not to want to express an actual opinion about ongoing terrorist attacks. Zippo credibility, as far as I'm concerned.
3
1. Liberals are people who believe that if you shut your eyes and pretend you don't have any enemies,
then you don't.
2. Hitler began with just a few disgruntled guys in beer halls. You don't need many of them to get started.
3. For anybody who still hasn't figured it out yet, this is why there is Israel.
then you don't.
2. Hitler began with just a few disgruntled guys in beer halls. You don't need many of them to get started.
3. For anybody who still hasn't figured it out yet, this is why there is Israel.
12
Israel was twice born by ethnic sectarian violent terrorism. There has never been a land without people nor a people without land.
First by Abram of Ur, Sumer (modern Iraq) and his heirs. Deuteronomy 20:16-18. And Abraham led to Jesus and his New Testament crusaders and inquisitors and Muhammad and his Quran jihadist conquerors.
The Nakba birth of Israel was led by terrorist organizations- Haganah, Irgun, Stern Gang, LEHI- terrorist acts- Deir Yassin, King David Hotel, Count Folke Bernadotte, Sergeant's Affair and terrorist leaders- every European Zionist Jew.
The Christian Muslim Arab Palestinian Israelis are paying for the crimes of European nation states and faiths. That is neither just nor moral. And any delusion to the contrary misjudges and misunderstands the basis for their opponents actions. Neither Hitler nor Stalin nor the Pope were Muslims or Arabs.
First by Abram of Ur, Sumer (modern Iraq) and his heirs. Deuteronomy 20:16-18. And Abraham led to Jesus and his New Testament crusaders and inquisitors and Muhammad and his Quran jihadist conquerors.
The Nakba birth of Israel was led by terrorist organizations- Haganah, Irgun, Stern Gang, LEHI- terrorist acts- Deir Yassin, King David Hotel, Count Folke Bernadotte, Sergeant's Affair and terrorist leaders- every European Zionist Jew.
The Christian Muslim Arab Palestinian Israelis are paying for the crimes of European nation states and faiths. That is neither just nor moral. And any delusion to the contrary misjudges and misunderstands the basis for their opponents actions. Neither Hitler nor Stalin nor the Pope were Muslims or Arabs.
Apply that to the conservative right and you will be correct.
1
You could just as easily replace word Liberals with the word Conservatives and it would ring just as true. There are blind idiots in both camps. Your last two comments I agree with though.
1
There is no question in my mind that the US war on Iraq is the major factor that blew the lid off the Middle East. That ill-conceived, disastruosly conducted escapade enraged a generation of young people and gave them real reason to feel justified in acting out their deep anger and sense of abuse. That is no justification, but neither was this an unforseen consequence.
10
I would say that, "... the abject failure of the Arab world..." [cited, from above] is due to, "the failure of [selected] Arab states to define and enforce the separation of mosque and state." [my caption].
Strong central governments that promote a secular versus a religious ideology, as in Egypt and Turkey, seem to maintain at least a semblance of law and order. For practical purposes, monarchial rule [government by one man, labeled "dictatorship", today] has usually proved to be an effective antidote to internecine strife. If there is to be war, then war between nation states [think, "Arab states ruled by dictators"] is always more manageable than the tribal conflict that has come to dominate the Middle East in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.
... It took five hundred to a thousand years for Europe, along with its colonial empires, to complete the transition from feudalism to democracy, and in every case, religious extremism had to be dealt with [harshly in most cases] by the several emerging states. Why should one expect more from the Arab world...?
Postscript: The state that is most successful by far in it's management of relations "between synagogue-church-mosque and state", is the nation of Israel.
Strong central governments that promote a secular versus a religious ideology, as in Egypt and Turkey, seem to maintain at least a semblance of law and order. For practical purposes, monarchial rule [government by one man, labeled "dictatorship", today] has usually proved to be an effective antidote to internecine strife. If there is to be war, then war between nation states [think, "Arab states ruled by dictators"] is always more manageable than the tribal conflict that has come to dominate the Middle East in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.
... It took five hundred to a thousand years for Europe, along with its colonial empires, to complete the transition from feudalism to democracy, and in every case, religious extremism had to be dealt with [harshly in most cases] by the several emerging states. Why should one expect more from the Arab world...?
Postscript: The state that is most successful by far in it's management of relations "between synagogue-church-mosque and state", is the nation of Israel.
1
Mr. Cohen writes: "Inaction is also a policy: Nonintervention produced Syria today."
So Syria is our fault?
Why must the US always be held responsible for the degeneration of other societies?
So Syria is our fault?
Why must the US always be held responsible for the degeneration of other societies?
4
I am concerned now that even you will be targeted for attempting to address this complex issue the politicians have adroitly sidestepped.
Cohen: "To call this movement... a “dark ideology” is like calling Nazism a reaction to German humiliation in World War I..."
This is an analogy that needs to be developed in a little more detail. Think Cohen is getting this right.
This is an analogy that needs to be developed in a little more detail. Think Cohen is getting this right.
4
A core claim of anti-semites, indeed, bigots of all stripes, is that the actions of a few are the responsibility of their ethnic/religious/racial group.
Bernie Madoff was an a-moral money-grubber, ergo, The Jews are . . .
How is this very erudite column any different, Roger?
Bernie Madoff was an a-moral money-grubber, ergo, The Jews are . . .
How is this very erudite column any different, Roger?
6
Finally, an opinion piece by Cohen which is rooted in Reality.Unlike his Israel-bashing which reflects the delusion specific to the Liberal-lefties.
2
why is it that Israel should never, ever be criticized?
1
The Iranian militias of Hamas, Hezbollah and all the other Islamic fundamentalists and Islamic'nation's' who's charters and constitutions mirror that of ISIS regarding non Islamic religions don't appreciate the overt tactics used by ISIS against non believers. These groups would prefer if ISIS banished and murdered non believers in a less public manner.
Just yesterday, Hezbollah and Hamas declared that it was unacceptable to kill Coptic Christians, however, killing Jews is ok according to their charters and constitutions.
Haven't we heard this message before in the history of civilization? Remember, whenever in history they come for the Jews, the targeting ans slaughter of other non Islamic religions follows. Thus is the silence of the non fundamentalist Islamic masses, the Catholic Church, developed nations, United Nations and the World Court.
Just yesterday, Hezbollah and Hamas declared that it was unacceptable to kill Coptic Christians, however, killing Jews is ok according to their charters and constitutions.
Haven't we heard this message before in the history of civilization? Remember, whenever in history they come for the Jews, the targeting ans slaughter of other non Islamic religions follows. Thus is the silence of the non fundamentalist Islamic masses, the Catholic Church, developed nations, United Nations and the World Court.
2
The point of drawing a distinction between the extremists and the rest of Islam is to make it clear that "we"; western, liberal, democratic, i.e., still children of the Enlightment; are not "at war" with the significant part of the Muslim world that is much more aligned with the modern world than any imaginary "caliphate". It is important that "we" take control of defining "us" and "them" rather than acquiesce in their definitions and accept as enemies hundreds of millions of people who share much more of our world view than they do with the extremists. Accepting "their" definition acts to cut off desperately needed dialog between what should be reasonable people by effectively declaring our lack of reason.
Many Muslims have differences with the "West", sometimes profound ones. Many in the West, though, also have differences with Israel, some as profound as to question the whole concept of Zionism. These difference can be the basis for dialog and negotiation, if we approach each other as people with differences. If we equate all Israelis, and even worse all Jews, with Yigal Amir and Baruch Goldstein, though, we exclude ourselves from the dialog. Abu al Baghdadi and Ayman al-Zawahiri no more represent all of Islam than Amir and Goldstein represent all of Judaism.
Many Muslims have differences with the "West", sometimes profound ones. Many in the West, though, also have differences with Israel, some as profound as to question the whole concept of Zionism. These difference can be the basis for dialog and negotiation, if we approach each other as people with differences. If we equate all Israelis, and even worse all Jews, with Yigal Amir and Baruch Goldstein, though, we exclude ourselves from the dialog. Abu al Baghdadi and Ayman al-Zawahiri no more represent all of Islam than Amir and Goldstein represent all of Judaism.
2
No one, particularly a liberal or secular humanist, should have any hesitation in denouncing the ideology of Islam. Or, in other words, no one should have a problem in denouncing an agenda of misogyny, homophobia, spectacular intolerance, union of Church and State and the entire medieval package that is Islam. It is refreshing to read something in the NYT that shows the courage and intelligence to admit that we are indeed at war with this awful system that is inimical to all of our core values. Interesting to note that wherever Islam predominates there is no democracy. And it's not because of poverty or a history of colonialism (contrast India and Pakistan).
10
India, yes. Pakistan, no.
1
Evidently the need for a global transition to reduced family size is the most unspeakable issue on this planet.
1
If indiscriminate slaughter really is their purpose and objective, they must subliminally feel like too many rats stuffed into too small a cage.
1
Fundamentalist Christianity is bad. Fundamentalist Islam. today, is much, much worse. Our previous conflicts have been based on race (Fascism), then class (Communism) and now religion (a huge chunk of Islam). I realize W and now Obama are worried that they might needlessly antagonize a billion Muslims, but we also need to be honest with ourselves and the rest of the world. Calling it The War on Terror is like calling World War II The War on Blitzkrieg. We sugarcoat things for religious adherents all the time and the more fanatical they are , the more we rhetorically placate them Let's begin by drawing the line at words and then go on to deeds. Stop babying theocratic fanatics.
4
The normally astute Roger Cohen perpetuates the right-wing fantasy that American intervention in Syria would have produced a better outcome. One might think that after Iraq and Afghanistan we would be cured of this kind of magical thinking.
12
America started the war in Iraq, which was a country at peace in 2002 - the violence unleashed in Baghdad was completely America's fault. Syria imploded into war on its own and America could have played some kind of active role and a strong mediator and been seen as a constructive force as opposed to the perpetrator. That moment has long passed though.
1
Indeed, every national boundary found in this part of the world today was imposed by westerners - not one was drawn by anyone living there.
The existing complexities do not bode well for a peaceful outcome given this circumstance.
The existing complexities do not bode well for a peaceful outcome given this circumstance.
3
So God or Allah is the problem ?
1
There's truth in both the schools of thought that Roger describes. So 'strengthen the moderates and oppose the extremists' should be our strategy. 'Oppose the extremists' - we've got that covered I think.
'Strengthen the moderates' - that's tougher to do, as casualties rise and opinions polarise. But if we can do it we will over time isolate, marginalise and weaken our opponents. Some start points - maintain a balanced, thoughtful viewpoint; don't write off whole groups, ensure we use force in a responsible way. Minimise civilian casualties, abstain from torturing prisoners. don't confuse brutality with strength. Of the western militaries, the IDF in particular needs to be made to understand that killing over 97 children under the age of 5 as they did during last summer's bombardment of Gaza is not acceptable (B'tselem's figures).
'Strengthen the moderates' - that's tougher to do, as casualties rise and opinions polarise. But if we can do it we will over time isolate, marginalise and weaken our opponents. Some start points - maintain a balanced, thoughtful viewpoint; don't write off whole groups, ensure we use force in a responsible way. Minimise civilian casualties, abstain from torturing prisoners. don't confuse brutality with strength. Of the western militaries, the IDF in particular needs to be made to understand that killing over 97 children under the age of 5 as they did during last summer's bombardment of Gaza is not acceptable (B'tselem's figures).
2
This is pure drivel, and it is self-contradictory. There is no "Islamic World," nor is there an "Arab World." They are just easy labels to connect a very diverse set of societies, cultures and beliefs. Mr. Cohen is simply pandering the simple-minded and frightened in the US and elsewhere. He is seeking the lowest possible denominator, fear, and exploiting it. This, in its own way,the deliberate dehumanization and gross misrepresentation of other societies and their peoples, is far more dangerous to free, democratic society than a 1,000 self-proclaimed jihadists. Yes, Al Queda is a vicious group of extremists, but their real talent is finding alienated young men who have nothing to lose, and convincing them that violence is the answer. But to paint 1.5 million Muslims with the same brush is utterly preposterous. This is not a "Liberal" analysis--outside of the US, it is simply considered common sense. The only appropriate and effective response to those who employ fear and violence is to respond with courage and resolve. If we tear ourselves apart, turn on those in our midst, or, out of fear and ignorance, sacrifice the very ideas we claim to represent (diversity, freedom of religion, self-determination, the dignity of the individual) in mad frenzy to stamp out "extremism," we will simply create more enemies, and lose ourselves in the process. To act ignobly is unforgivable.
11
There is a tone of deeply felt bitterness hovering throughout Mr. Cohen's remarks. I've noted this in previous comments he has made recently.
His carefully chosen examples to support his case against Islam can hardly be doubted (full disclosure: I am not a Muslim). However, he has also provided the best answer to his own harangue, concluding an also carefully chosen example as "true but wholly inadequate."
Mr. Cohen provides the reader with two, highly generalized, sources of blame for what is happening in the Middle East: The West or the current state (one might add the long standing history) of political and social failure in the region itself.
Mr. Cohen chooses the second. Doing so may satisfy his bitterness and probably many of his readers as well. "True but wholly inadequate," to quote him again. He is astute enough and knowledgeable enough to recognize this himself. Why then, I ask, should he, a man of superior intellect, take the easy way about a subject that demands more of him and his readers.
His carefully chosen examples to support his case against Islam can hardly be doubted (full disclosure: I am not a Muslim). However, he has also provided the best answer to his own harangue, concluding an also carefully chosen example as "true but wholly inadequate."
Mr. Cohen provides the reader with two, highly generalized, sources of blame for what is happening in the Middle East: The West or the current state (one might add the long standing history) of political and social failure in the region itself.
Mr. Cohen chooses the second. Doing so may satisfy his bitterness and probably many of his readers as well. "True but wholly inadequate," to quote him again. He is astute enough and knowledgeable enough to recognize this himself. Why then, I ask, should he, a man of superior intellect, take the easy way about a subject that demands more of him and his readers.
12
Mr. Cohen, your "two schools" of thought on the cause of violent disorder occupy the same campus with a single set of administrators. Framing them as separate supplies your argument but ignores the West's (who you are less inclined to blame) role in creating and enabling Arab institutions to whom you apportion the bulk of responsibility. And how does one decide to blame President Obama for non-intervention in Syria without acknowledging the abject failures we've achieved with our various actual and proxy interventions in neighboring countries?
What more can we do? Start by considering that, just maybe, the problem isn't that we have not yet bombed the right people. How many trillions of dollars less than our military failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, would it cost to give every Arab a daily shower and school - let them decide which - for their kids?
And nice job steering the conversation away from our regionally destructive unconditional support of one cynical, belligerent theocracy in particular that doesn't happen to be Muslim.
What more can we do? Start by considering that, just maybe, the problem isn't that we have not yet bombed the right people. How many trillions of dollars less than our military failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, would it cost to give every Arab a daily shower and school - let them decide which - for their kids?
And nice job steering the conversation away from our regionally destructive unconditional support of one cynical, belligerent theocracy in particular that doesn't happen to be Muslim.
29
How about the folly of taking seriously a destructive ignorant person who obviously is too blinded by hate to know what a theocracy actually is (study Iran or Saudi Arabia if you'd like to learn) and wouldn't know a vibrant democratic society in the Mideast "that doesn't happen to be Muslim" if it bit him in his rear end.
4
Just to be factual, Israel is not a "theocracy". It is a (the) Jewish state but that refers to ethnicity and not religion. It also has a sizable Musliim population all of whom "won the lottery" in getting to live in Israel instead of any of the neighboring Islamic countries.
5
It is possible, indeed probable, that both schools are to blame. When looked at from the sole perspective of American interests and values they are not mutually exclusive nor even contradictory. They are complementary and related in only one school.
American support for the Israeli occupation, blockade/siege, exile colonial apartheid Jim Crow nuclear terror hurts America. Hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded and injured Iraqis along with millions of displaced and refugee Iraqis is damaging to Uncle Sam. Kidnapping, torture and indefinite detention and civilians killed by drones stain our banner. The theocratic royal oil tyrants and the secular military dictators breed more terrorist ethnic sectarian civil conflict.
The Arabs in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Turk Empire and the reformation of the Middle East by the French and British Empires after two World Wars have denied that their people were divinely naturally created equal with certain unalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. None of the states are currently civil secular plural egalitarian democracies.
The Arabs are torn by faith schisms within Islam (Sunni and Shia), Christianity ( Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant) and Judaism ( Orthodox, Reform). Not to mention the ethnic divide among Arabs, Turks, Kurds and Persians. Neither Zionists nor Islamists nor evangelicals believe in plural secular equal democracy. Cloaking action in any faith is an appeal to nihilism.
American support for the Israeli occupation, blockade/siege, exile colonial apartheid Jim Crow nuclear terror hurts America. Hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded and injured Iraqis along with millions of displaced and refugee Iraqis is damaging to Uncle Sam. Kidnapping, torture and indefinite detention and civilians killed by drones stain our banner. The theocratic royal oil tyrants and the secular military dictators breed more terrorist ethnic sectarian civil conflict.
The Arabs in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Turk Empire and the reformation of the Middle East by the French and British Empires after two World Wars have denied that their people were divinely naturally created equal with certain unalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. None of the states are currently civil secular plural egalitarian democracies.
The Arabs are torn by faith schisms within Islam (Sunni and Shia), Christianity ( Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant) and Judaism ( Orthodox, Reform). Not to mention the ethnic divide among Arabs, Turks, Kurds and Persians. Neither Zionists nor Islamists nor evangelicals believe in plural secular equal democracy. Cloaking action in any faith is an appeal to nihilism.
19
I'm not sure what you mean by "Zionist" but Israel is a "plural secular equal democracy", unlike every Muslim dominated country. The only reason that the Israelis are "occupying" parts of the West Bank and Gaza is that people there are trying to kill them. In fact, that is the stated policy of those so- called governments (which are assuredly not plural secular equal democracies).
8
Excellent post. A pox on all their houses.
Mr. Cohen, Taking President Obama to task for failing to "foster great liberation" movements is folly and grossly unfair to the man. Congress has acted the part of a terrorist organization by thwarting the President every time they can and they have been quite successful.
Where I agree with you wholeheartedly is your claim that the Arabs need to take firm steps to contain ISIL and any other jihadist organizations that are springing up. They need to show us they want us there.
It will take very little to return thousands of American soldiers to fight for Arab countries that are unwilling to attack the terrorist organization springing up, and I reject that solution completely.
One last comment, let us stop talking about "boots on the ground" and speak out as it really is: young Americans being sent to fight and die.
Where I agree with you wholeheartedly is your claim that the Arabs need to take firm steps to contain ISIL and any other jihadist organizations that are springing up. They need to show us they want us there.
It will take very little to return thousands of American soldiers to fight for Arab countries that are unwilling to attack the terrorist organization springing up, and I reject that solution completely.
One last comment, let us stop talking about "boots on the ground" and speak out as it really is: young Americans being sent to fight and die.
36
War is like religion. It arises from our primitive instincts that are incompatible with our intellect, which is in fact a very recent human development. Sadly, we are just half a chromosome removed from a chimpanzee. No matter how horrible war is, no matter the moral or physical injuries that will result, no matter how many cities and villages are destroyed in order to 'save' them, no matter that the seeds of the next war are sown in each victory, we are unable to extricate ourselves from its grip. Only when we mature enough as a species, we may outgrow our need for war. Until then, soldiers will have to suffer for the moral failings of their leaders.
9
War is the only thing left to limit population in the absence of plagues and famines.
2
Zoological research has found that that war between different bands of chimpanzees is fairly common.
3
.....and common sense...
Dan Uzan was a volunteer security guard and he paid with his life to prevent the assailant from entering the synagogue in which 80 people were celebrating a bat mitzva. That was the target.
Mr. Cohen is absolutely right (something I do not think that I have ever written or thought).
Only the Arabs, as he writes (better would be Muslims), can find the answer to this crisis and indeed President Obama's actions and/or inaction, as well as politically correct verbal acrobatics will not be judged kindly by history.
Mr. Cohen is absolutely right (something I do not think that I have ever written or thought).
Only the Arabs, as he writes (better would be Muslims), can find the answer to this crisis and indeed President Obama's actions and/or inaction, as well as politically correct verbal acrobatics will not be judged kindly by history.
2
Yes. And let us not forget that the Israelites are Arabs as well.
Israelites (sic!) are Arabs as well??
If you meant to say that (Jewish) Israelis are Semites as are Arabs then fine, although the comment is totally irrelevant to anything.
If you meant to say that (Jewish) Israelis are Semites as are Arabs then fine, although the comment is totally irrelevant to anything.
7
Generally, a strong, clear-minded analysis that cuts through the fog of political correctness. I'm troubled, however, by this:
"But history, I suspect, will not judge Obama kindly for having failed to foster the great liberation movement that rose up in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere. Inaction is also a policy: Nonintervention produced Syria today."
Does Mr. Cohen truly believe there is any reasonably reliable way to "foster the great liberation movement"? We tried that by supplying arms to the mujahideen during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan -- and we ended up arming Osama bin-Laden and Al Qaeda.
And who would Mr. Cohen say are the bearers of the "great liberation" torch in, say, Egypt, the Arab world's largest country? Sisi, the leader of the military coup? Or Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood who, months after the election, were jailing journalists, suppressing protest, and moving briskly toward sharia law.
"But history, I suspect, will not judge Obama kindly for having failed to foster the great liberation movement that rose up in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere. Inaction is also a policy: Nonintervention produced Syria today."
Does Mr. Cohen truly believe there is any reasonably reliable way to "foster the great liberation movement"? We tried that by supplying arms to the mujahideen during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan -- and we ended up arming Osama bin-Laden and Al Qaeda.
And who would Mr. Cohen say are the bearers of the "great liberation" torch in, say, Egypt, the Arab world's largest country? Sisi, the leader of the military coup? Or Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood who, months after the election, were jailing journalists, suppressing protest, and moving briskly toward sharia law.
3
Fill in the blank: "....is a religion that has spawned multifaceted political movements whose goal is power." Is it really just Islam? Take your pick! Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, paganism in Classical Greece and Aztec Central America, etc...
1
Amen! What we need to make war on is the superstitious nonsense called religion, in all it's manifestations. All of them require us to ignore science, intellect, and freedom of thought. Every one of them stands across the road that leads to enlightenment. It isn't going to happen in any of the fundamentalist societies like Israel or Saudi Arabia, but here in the West our media could make the case and every time some hypocritical clown gets up to tell us how god is on our side or that we should be praying for our salvation, should be called out as a child-like idiot who still believes in Santa Claus. We need an intellectual reformation that will finally cast the stone that is religion from around our necks and into the sea. But so long as people anywhere believe that some magical being up in the sky somewhere rules their lives, we might just as well remain chimpanzees.
Mr. Cohen I always admired your articles but forgive me for this one I am not sure! The collapse of the communism gave away to old fashion Capitalism where rich get richer and the poor get poorer and the one in the middle gets squeezed. In the US president Reagan actions has direct cause of widening the inequality in the US as there were no more fear that people will long to failed socialist or communist regimes. The West followed US and my god the oppressive regimes in MEA and other part of the world wiped out of existence the notion of middle class all together. Handful of people in Egypt, Libya, Syria owns the vast majority of their countries resources while 99.99% are below poverty. The severe inequality lack of hope, lack of education combined with anger toward the US & the West blind support toward Israel gave room for Jihadist to rise. So I would argue that President Reagan actions has direct effect on the jihadist movement not President Obama inaction.
3
Ironic that Cohen would decry "empty talk" and then offer his own: "Only Arabs can find the answer to this crisis." Great. Where's that leave us? He says Obama should have done more but doesn't say what.
I feel the best policy would be to back away from the antagonistic an dysfunctional Moslem states. Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and others like them don't produce anything we need, especially now that we have enough oil of our own. Our meddling seems only to antagonize, while never producing lasting improvements. Eventually, radical Islam will fail for the same reason communism did: it's a terrible way to organize an economy and will not compete in today's world. A disengagement and containment policy will be tough on the people in these countries, but our past failures show there's not much to do to help them. Also, modern history shows how effective an insurgency can be, so let us leave people living under oppressive regimes to take on the problem themselves.
The U.S. should promise to come to Israel's aid in an invasion but otherwise let Israel look after itself, without our military aid. Allowing our support to be taken for granted and let Israel resist the need to end the occupation.
I feel the best policy would be to back away from the antagonistic an dysfunctional Moslem states. Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and others like them don't produce anything we need, especially now that we have enough oil of our own. Our meddling seems only to antagonize, while never producing lasting improvements. Eventually, radical Islam will fail for the same reason communism did: it's a terrible way to organize an economy and will not compete in today's world. A disengagement and containment policy will be tough on the people in these countries, but our past failures show there's not much to do to help them. Also, modern history shows how effective an insurgency can be, so let us leave people living under oppressive regimes to take on the problem themselves.
The U.S. should promise to come to Israel's aid in an invasion but otherwise let Israel look after itself, without our military aid. Allowing our support to be taken for granted and let Israel resist the need to end the occupation.
7
In answer to your own question about who is to blame, although you cite the West, you then specify just how it is we are responsible without really touching on the most substantive cause. I find it hard to believe that you or any other student of the region can omit mention of the enormous, perhaps most significant damage done to the region during the cold war. Starting with the CIA's egregious attacks on Mossadeqh in Iran and continuing up until the present day, the casting of secular leaders as closet communists and the notion that the enemy of my enemy is my friend has given us the political landscape we are currently dealing with. And we have learned nothing from this history, still pursuing double and triple agenda-policies. When we now, just to cite one obvious example, go after ISIS in Syria, are we actually focusing on ISIS or Syria's Assad?
"...non-intervention produced Syria today".
Well - I would rather say that intervention in Iraq produced Syria today. George W. Bush rolled the dice in the Middle East, in the words of Thomas Friedman, and this is what we got. 10's of thousands of disenfranchised Sunnis fled to Syria and Jordan, and not surprisingly, many of them ended up in Sunni resistance movements.
The Danish Prime Minister is all too aware of the dark ideologies that REALLY are a threat to Europe: the incipient Nazis, neo- and otherwise, who would take power want a war between Muslims and non-Muslims. This is not the time to be making new enemies among Muslims, lumping ISIS in with Kurds, Houtis, Uighurs and Iranians. The biggest single terroist act in Europe in modern times was committed by a self-professed Christian incensed by his country's immigration policy.
Well - I would rather say that intervention in Iraq produced Syria today. George W. Bush rolled the dice in the Middle East, in the words of Thomas Friedman, and this is what we got. 10's of thousands of disenfranchised Sunnis fled to Syria and Jordan, and not surprisingly, many of them ended up in Sunni resistance movements.
The Danish Prime Minister is all too aware of the dark ideologies that REALLY are a threat to Europe: the incipient Nazis, neo- and otherwise, who would take power want a war between Muslims and non-Muslims. This is not the time to be making new enemies among Muslims, lumping ISIS in with Kurds, Houtis, Uighurs and Iranians. The biggest single terroist act in Europe in modern times was committed by a self-professed Christian incensed by his country's immigration policy.
4
Well, let's see now. The US certainly intervened in Vietnam. Any Vietnamese suicide bombers lately? The US intervened in Panama. Any Panamanians beheading journalists on video? The British intervened in post-WW II Greece. Any Greek jihadis crashing jet planes into office buildings? Hmm? Wonder if there's a pattern here.
2
Islamic extremists are sowing terror all over the world. Their barbarity and suicidal impulses are an expression of nihilism that is difficult or impossible for those from Western democracies to understand. Yet the appeal extends even to certain young people that grew up in the West, and shouldn't suffer from the kind of hopelessness that is frequently cited as leading to extremism among the young living under repressive Arab regimes. Islamic extremism is forged in the crucible of powerful, and what appears to be infinitely cynical, religious influences. It seems to me that going after those influences, if possible, is the way to proceed.
Mr. Cohen's article is excellent except for one major error: specifically, he writes that the rise of ISIS is "a direct result of the failure of the Arab Spring." Samuel Huntington, In "The Clash of Civilizations," a brilliant treatise published in 1996, gave a detailed explanation for and predicted an enduring fight between the Wes and Islam.
Cohen recognizes this "clash of civilizations" when he states that the "West has been at war, or near-war, with the Muslim world, ... to eradicate a metastasizing Islamist movement of murderous hatred toward Western civilization." His major error is that this clash started almost two decades prior to the Arab Spring.
Cohen recognizes this "clash of civilizations" when he states that the "West has been at war, or near-war, with the Muslim world, ... to eradicate a metastasizing Islamist movement of murderous hatred toward Western civilization." His major error is that this clash started almost two decades prior to the Arab Spring.
2
This column is the most egregious violation of political correctness imaginable.
In order to maintain the highest standards of that exalted ideal for which the Times has often become synonymous, I hereby demand Cohen be immediately dismissed. And that he be replaced by someone incapable of conceiving of the West as worthy of defense against the imposition of seventh century moral standards by intolerant fanatics.
In order to maintain the highest standards of that exalted ideal for which the Times has often become synonymous, I hereby demand Cohen be immediately dismissed. And that he be replaced by someone incapable of conceiving of the West as worthy of defense against the imposition of seventh century moral standards by intolerant fanatics.
8
I think, the first and second explanations are intertwined. They can not be easily separated. However, at the moment the depravity we are witnessing calls for addressing the second first without losing sight of the first.
1
That's all true and more, much more is true as for example the fact that France is reaping a bitter harvest from its 100 plus years of occupation of Arab countries, notably Algeria but also French Morocco. The same is true in Britain, paying a different price for 300 years of rule in its Raj and Holland for its colonial adventures in its East Indies, now Indonesia, the largest by population Muslim nation in the world.
European colonialism is one of the poisoned roots of the ever branching tree of mistrust, hate and terror spreading over Europe, though what the Danes and Denmark, an eminently decent and fair nation compared to almost all others, have done to deserve this is hard to comprehend.
Still the boiling stew of hate in the Mideast, seasoned by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Lebanon's endless fracture, boiling over on 9/11 and radically over-seasoned by Guantanamo has a base and it isn't chicken stock. It was and is the stupid American invasion of Iraq that replaced a despot with chaos and anarchy. That is the model our invasion and occupation created and that is the model that has taken hold throughout North Africa and the Middle East everywhere where the despots have lost control.
And there is no exit and there will not be until it has runs its course over the next 30, 40 or 50 years.
European colonialism is one of the poisoned roots of the ever branching tree of mistrust, hate and terror spreading over Europe, though what the Danes and Denmark, an eminently decent and fair nation compared to almost all others, have done to deserve this is hard to comprehend.
Still the boiling stew of hate in the Mideast, seasoned by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Lebanon's endless fracture, boiling over on 9/11 and radically over-seasoned by Guantanamo has a base and it isn't chicken stock. It was and is the stupid American invasion of Iraq that replaced a despot with chaos and anarchy. That is the model our invasion and occupation created and that is the model that has taken hold throughout North Africa and the Middle East everywhere where the despots have lost control.
And there is no exit and there will not be until it has runs its course over the next 30, 40 or 50 years.
11
You are right about inaction; it is a policy. And the Obama Administration has been right to stay out of Syria. What more can we do in Syria that won't make the situation worse? As you say, the Islamic State problem must be solved by the Arab nations. If they take the lead and ask for our help as trainers and air support, we'll be there.
We should stay out of Libya, too. As for Egypt, we did support the election after Mubarak was deposed, but the Egyptians elected the Muslim Brotherhood into office. And they, in turn, tried to change the country into a fundamentalist Muslim state. So much for our getting involved. Tunisia has always wanted us to stay away.
Finally, I strongly disagree with your statement that our "nonintervention produced Syria today." The Islamic State exists as an aftermath of the George W. Bush Administration's war on Iraq, shia-sunni sectarianism, and the ruthless dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. We can tamp down terrorism by occupying territory — and see thousands of American soldiers lose their lives in the process — but as soon as we leave, the terror resumes. How does this improve matters? Or we can give arms to a particular faction we deem moderate only to have them turn on us in the end. Great accomplishment!
We should stay out of Libya, too. As for Egypt, we did support the election after Mubarak was deposed, but the Egyptians elected the Muslim Brotherhood into office. And they, in turn, tried to change the country into a fundamentalist Muslim state. So much for our getting involved. Tunisia has always wanted us to stay away.
Finally, I strongly disagree with your statement that our "nonintervention produced Syria today." The Islamic State exists as an aftermath of the George W. Bush Administration's war on Iraq, shia-sunni sectarianism, and the ruthless dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. We can tamp down terrorism by occupying territory — and see thousands of American soldiers lose their lives in the process — but as soon as we leave, the terror resumes. How does this improve matters? Or we can give arms to a particular faction we deem moderate only to have them turn on us in the end. Great accomplishment!
39
Reverse two paragraphs and Mr Cohen goes from an observation that two murders separated by more than a decade somehow illustrates a more than "dark ideology," requiring a reference to the rise of Nazism.
Is this a war that can be won with boots on the ground? Or will that further metastasize into vile splinter groups eager to perform heinous acts. To examine the reasons the hate of the West matured into the unconscionable, wanton killing of innocents, is not to justify the unjustifiable, but to give us a handle on how to denature it, and remove incentives for more recruitment . Yet, when dealing with the current monstrous madmen, that is too late, and the reasons too multifaceted and diffuse. In the meantime IS needs to be neutralized, but not by the US, but by the Muslims threatened by this horror. A two pronged approach is needed: education, a Marshall Plan, along with the strong arm of Muslim armies. Ending the civil war in Syria should be first on the agenda.
1
They will respond to techno-war from the sky with more decapitations of civilians on the ground.
Who started that "war"?
Did the Muslims army marched up the Mediterranean and invade Europe?
Did the Muslims air force shock and awe London, Paris, or New York?
Did any Muslims paper printed cartoons denigrating Moses or Jesus?
Did any Muslims clergy called for a new crusade like the German Pope Benedict XVI said in 2007?
Did the Muslims army marched up the Mediterranean and invade Europe?
Did the Muslims air force shock and awe London, Paris, or New York?
Did any Muslims paper printed cartoons denigrating Moses or Jesus?
Did any Muslims clergy called for a new crusade like the German Pope Benedict XVI said in 2007?
3
Arab-language news media all over the world print anti-Jewish cartoons on a daily basis . When did you hear about a rogue Jew targeting the media source/artist/his/her family?
7
Is the present situation a "conflict between the West and Islam?" Or is it a civil war inside the Middle East and the wider Muslim world, a civil war somewhat brought on by over a century of Western intervention?
If it is a civil war inside the Middle East, then the U.S. should disengage to the extent possible inside the region, promote stability where it can, and work to contain the export of jihadi terrorism. Intervention becomes an unwise step to forestall historical forces not well understood by outsiders.
If it is the West versus Islam, then should the U.S. take the lead in what promises to be a large war lasting a long time? If you take this view, then history "will not judge Obama kindly for having failed..." and inaction and nonintervention are sins of failed leadership, markers of weak leadership by the American president on the road to indecision and fecklessness.
I suspect that American voters next year are not going to support the view that this is a war between the West and Islam, but rather that it is more about "them." And it is unlikely American voters are going to vote that the U.S. should assume the mantle of leader of yet another western crusade in the Middle East.
If it is a civil war inside the Middle East, then the U.S. should disengage to the extent possible inside the region, promote stability where it can, and work to contain the export of jihadi terrorism. Intervention becomes an unwise step to forestall historical forces not well understood by outsiders.
If it is the West versus Islam, then should the U.S. take the lead in what promises to be a large war lasting a long time? If you take this view, then history "will not judge Obama kindly for having failed..." and inaction and nonintervention are sins of failed leadership, markers of weak leadership by the American president on the road to indecision and fecklessness.
I suspect that American voters next year are not going to support the view that this is a war between the West and Islam, but rather that it is more about "them." And it is unlikely American voters are going to vote that the U.S. should assume the mantle of leader of yet another western crusade in the Middle East.
1
Muhammad was alive in the period of written history. Take a look at the words written about his life and read the Koran, then tell me if that seventh century avatar/ so called prophet is emulated accurately by the killers. The first thirteen years of his prophet-hood were peaceful, that last ten years not so much.
3
To understand the source of the vicious means which Islamists use against others you need to revisit the history of the original Islamist 7th century conquering of the Middle East and North Africa and read some of the Prophet's thoughts about how to bring about a world ruled by God and God's "law." There is nothing new about these methods.
But this is also a battle for the soul of Islam, in a way not dissimilar to the 15th century war between the Catholic Church and the Protestants. The question is what will Muslim gov'ts and Muslim clerics do to reduce the heroic appeal of IS to its own disenfranchised youth? The people of Europe can make additional efforts to root out their own bias: provide more jobs, better housing etc. for their Muslim populations, but the main battle remains among the vast Muslim populated nations.
Within Islam there is a tendency to accept what happens as "God's will" that will have to be altered if Muslims are to save themselves and everyone else from the endless and vicious murder of innocents by Islamists trying to bring about an Armageddon and a "return" to God's law.
This is not primarily a fight against "the West," it is a battle against what IS sees as the Ungodly; to miss that is to misunderstand your enemy. Bullets and bombs will not destroy the desire of young men to join a movement that promises them Glory. To destroy that you must also offer an alternative that is achievable and that includes honorable work, love and family.
But this is also a battle for the soul of Islam, in a way not dissimilar to the 15th century war between the Catholic Church and the Protestants. The question is what will Muslim gov'ts and Muslim clerics do to reduce the heroic appeal of IS to its own disenfranchised youth? The people of Europe can make additional efforts to root out their own bias: provide more jobs, better housing etc. for their Muslim populations, but the main battle remains among the vast Muslim populated nations.
Within Islam there is a tendency to accept what happens as "God's will" that will have to be altered if Muslims are to save themselves and everyone else from the endless and vicious murder of innocents by Islamists trying to bring about an Armageddon and a "return" to God's law.
This is not primarily a fight against "the West," it is a battle against what IS sees as the Ungodly; to miss that is to misunderstand your enemy. Bullets and bombs will not destroy the desire of young men to join a movement that promises them Glory. To destroy that you must also offer an alternative that is achievable and that includes honorable work, love and family.
72
Obviously the size of families become contentious when overpopulation threatens the planet.
2
THIS. The hackneyed old narrative about a clash of civilizations entirely misses the point and makes this about us; how many Westerners have actually died in this war, whose casualties are overwhelmingly Muslim? An article in The Atlantic titled "What ISIS Really Wants" provides a far fuller and more accurate picture.
2
Offer another religion, perhaps?
1
Cohen points to two possible causes of the current problems - the West, and the Arab states. But Pakistan is not Arab (nor is Iran, if you consider it to be a contributor to the current problems.) Nor are the steady stream of people in the West and in Asia that are drawn to ISIS.
Our inability to face up to a complex truth is one of the problems. The West did not hesitate in unleashing jihad to defeat the Soviets. Israel initially supported Hamas to break the secular PLO. Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Assad of Syria were secular, not Islamic brutes. The strain of Islamic ideology that has state support (including our allied states, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan) with its simple puritanical nihilism and a seemingly wide appeal among the discontents of the world is another problem. The eclipse of Islamic traditions that are capable of facing the challenges of modernity are yet another problem. There is more, but this comment space is too short.
Our inability to face up to a complex truth is one of the problems. The West did not hesitate in unleashing jihad to defeat the Soviets. Israel initially supported Hamas to break the secular PLO. Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Assad of Syria were secular, not Islamic brutes. The strain of Islamic ideology that has state support (including our allied states, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan) with its simple puritanical nihilism and a seemingly wide appeal among the discontents of the world is another problem. The eclipse of Islamic traditions that are capable of facing the challenges of modernity are yet another problem. There is more, but this comment space is too short.
82
Arun, You state, "Cohen points to two possible causes of the current problems - the West, and the Arab states. But Pakistan is not Arab (nor is Iran)." But you either entirely miss the point or you are inserting your own bias. The title and the first few paragraphs all focus on Islam, NOT the Arab States. Whether or not you agree with Cohen's arguments, you have no right to falsify what he wrote.
1
If you think the West is responsible for violence by Muslims, you are completely ignorant of history.
Far more millions have been killed because of the Sunni Shia split than anything that involves the West. Islam has been a violent political force almost since its very beginning.
Far more millions have been killed because of the Sunni Shia split than anything that involves the West. Islam has been a violent political force almost since its very beginning.
2
Individuals in Denmark and France were killed by Danish and French citizens. These countries are at war with their own underclass.
31
The only thing Danish and French about these muslim killers is the technicality of their citizenship. Their loyalty is to the worldwide Ummah and the terror groups which are seeking to establish the Caliphate.
5
Mr.Cohen's remedy: Forgive the imperialists for their invasions and the conflicts they have spawned but let the victims alone figure out the problems. Now this argument could possibly work if the occupations and invasions were to stop and the right kind of help was provided by the West for the oppressed.
3
Maybe you are right. But I think it more likely that they are at war with a certain religion that is embraced by some members of their underclass.
Pakistan, the epicenter of global terrorism, and Saudi Arabia, the funder, backer of the extreme form of Islam infecting the world are our allies, so no, we are not in a war with the root cause of the current disorders. Our government won't even release the pages of the 9/11 Commission report that might embarrass the Saudis.
99
Obama is allied with ISIS by failing to support the Kurds, Jordan, and Egypt with the necessary armaments to mount an effective campaign .
Why does Cohen do two things he must know are wrong?
The false dichotomy.
On the day Egypt is bombing Libya, years into a Syrian civil war, decades after Lebanon fell apart, days after three young Muslims are shot in the head in the US, while Mexico has daily assignations and executions and Americans are warned not to go into Cali or to Venezuela, days before Bibi comes to town in his campaign for war against Iran and little concern for Daesh,
Cohen says it is Islam vs. the West.
Maybe it is nasty Abrahamic extremist nuts against decent people everywhere. Those Sri Lankan suicide bomb founders having recently calmed down.
The false dichotomy.
On the day Egypt is bombing Libya, years into a Syrian civil war, decades after Lebanon fell apart, days after three young Muslims are shot in the head in the US, while Mexico has daily assignations and executions and Americans are warned not to go into Cali or to Venezuela, days before Bibi comes to town in his campaign for war against Iran and little concern for Daesh,
Cohen says it is Islam vs. the West.
Maybe it is nasty Abrahamic extremist nuts against decent people everywhere. Those Sri Lankan suicide bomb founders having recently calmed down.
8
Mr. Cohen, what would fostering the great liberation movement look like in Syria? So far, all of our "fosterlings" in the middle east have broken bad, very bad. I praise the President for his reluctance to be drawn into another middle east fiasco. We continue not to learn the lesson that it is one thing to invade a country and a very different thing to invade a culture. So far our disruptions of middle east cultures has not gone well, in fact, it has been disastrous -- would ISIS be around if we had stayed out of Iraq? I would add, that I am certain that the President spent countless hours with the military and intelligence branches analyzing and discussing Syria and rightly concluded that every option we pursued would be bad. Now that same analysis did not stop the former president---but so appreciative that it stopped this one.
175
Agreed & also in answer to your question about staying out of Iraq:
- ISIS would have been crushed if Saddam Hussein were still in power.
- ISIS would have been crushed if Saddam Hussein were still in power.
4
Thank you for calling it like it is.
9
You will be shouted down by many of the progressive readers of this paper for writing this hard truth. But I thank you fiercely. It is time to say that Islam is the problem. Sure, millions of Muslims don't join the jihad, but a significant portion do. And those that don't remain silent. Sadly, President Obama is not only not the right leader at this moment, he is the wrong one. We need a strong uniting voice whose words mean something and who speaks the hard truths with conviction. Obama as the leader of the free world has failed.
19
"Obama as the leader of the free world has failed."
Yeah, but at least he attended the "Prayer Breakfast" where the keynote speaker, a former NASCAR driver, reminded some 5 billion of us who reject Jesus as our savior that we will suffer unimaginably for eternity.
Yeah, but at least he attended the "Prayer Breakfast" where the keynote speaker, a former NASCAR driver, reminded some 5 billion of us who reject Jesus as our savior that we will suffer unimaginably for eternity.
The ideological underpinning of their murderous acts, as the jihadists themselves never tire explaining to the world, is a version of Islam itself. It is a direct offshoot of the Wahhabism long exported by Saudi Arabia and financed by petro-dollars. It is an ideology that can only be combatted by Muslims. A Muslim Reformation is unlikely as it would require overturning a millenia and a half of exegesis to defang the aggressive verses on which jihadists rely. There is at least one current alternative, the Salafist doctrine that the individual must perfect himself before any jihad can happen. Were this view (or some equivalent) to take root throught the Muslim world, it would cast Islam's supremacist and imperialist tendencies into some remote future similar to the Christian expectation of Jesus' return or the Jewish hope for the coming of the Messiah. All we can do is encourage that process to begin, and we can start as does Roger Cohen (at long last!) by calling things by their correct names. Israel, Western imperialism in the Levant (which only dates from 1918 - the area was under Ottoman control for the most part until it lost WWI) and the rest are but excuses or distractions from facing the problem - intractable as it may currently seem. However, the ideological battle to rescue Islam from itself is for Muslims exclusively.
13
And sooner than I thought Roger Cohen joins the Thomas Friedman's sect of liberal chicken Hawks who see marginalizing 1.5 billion Muslims by declaring their religion an enemy of the universe.
Most Muslims see Daaesh-ISIS for what it is; a criminal enterprise of mercenaries on the payroll of competing geopolitical powers who value the seemingly high return in carbon energy, and key strategic locations that can easily control world trade and toss history back a century or two. But as Roger's two schools theorize Most Muslims are powerless against the tide of new animalistic cult of blood thirsty hired hands. Some Muslims admittedly are are struggling whether the new monsters are defending their religion based on ignorance in one's own faith and contrasted with and their mere knowledge that the practices of Daaesh defy every aspect of religion that they lived their lives believing. This is the real irony for a vast number of people who accept Islam as their faith and destiny.
My gut feeling is that the war Hawks will succeed in dragging the entire planet into a vicious cycle of never ending wars, crime, and loss of purpose for the human existence. I hope that I'm wrong about this.
Most Muslims see Daaesh-ISIS for what it is; a criminal enterprise of mercenaries on the payroll of competing geopolitical powers who value the seemingly high return in carbon energy, and key strategic locations that can easily control world trade and toss history back a century or two. But as Roger's two schools theorize Most Muslims are powerless against the tide of new animalistic cult of blood thirsty hired hands. Some Muslims admittedly are are struggling whether the new monsters are defending their religion based on ignorance in one's own faith and contrasted with and their mere knowledge that the practices of Daaesh defy every aspect of religion that they lived their lives believing. This is the real irony for a vast number of people who accept Islam as their faith and destiny.
My gut feeling is that the war Hawks will succeed in dragging the entire planet into a vicious cycle of never ending wars, crime, and loss of purpose for the human existence. I hope that I'm wrong about this.
54
Islam began with a dedication to war, that is, violent jihad. Tell us, how we move forward without the Islamists continuously dragging the world back to the eighth century?
1
Sadly, you are not wrong.
I find it incredibly fascinating that the dinosaurs, with their tiny brains and massive bodies, ruled the planet for 200 million years. Our species, with our over-sized brains and relatively tiny bodies have been here a mere 200,000 years. We will be lucky if we make it another hundred years, the shortest time any species has survived.
There will be no one left to record our demise.
I find it incredibly fascinating that the dinosaurs, with their tiny brains and massive bodies, ruled the planet for 200 million years. Our species, with our over-sized brains and relatively tiny bodies have been here a mere 200,000 years. We will be lucky if we make it another hundred years, the shortest time any species has survived.
There will be no one left to record our demise.
Mohammed already did that. The war has been on for 1400 years.
2
Well. Finally. Someone on the Left calls out the liberal relativity of diversity as a shield against reality. Or perhaps, the cowardice of playing dodge ball with reality so as not to be hit by it. Never mind those who are. We are repeating the horrors of denial in the 30s that allowed mass murder to commence: not our problem, stay out of it, they don't really mean it, it doesn't concern us and besides, it's over-hyped. This from the president and the press. From what passes and fails as leadership. Leading from behind will get a whole lot of people killed. And it will set back civilization for decades if not centuries. The victims and targets for this butchery are being denied legitimacy and a voice. The new America? History will condemn us because this time we didn't just fail, we didn't even try. All to protect what? Diversity - or a cowering ideology? And a cover up for total inadequacy.
19
what would you have the US do? I hear all of you right wing neo-cons screaming about Obama's cowardice, but what would you say to convince Americans-- with a crumbling infrastructure, shrinking personal prosperity, and who are totally exhausted by GW's folly-- that going to another war is a good idea?
4
Speaking of the 30's; apologists for Islamists seem quite adept at using the doublespeak of Goebbels, while wrapping their rhetoric in monotheistic platitudes.
For example, Jihadi militants are only the result of Western interference in muslim society. The West has only itself to blame for the actions of Islamist fighters. Change a few words and the statements would be interchangeable with the late Reich Minister's.
For example, Jihadi militants are only the result of Western interference in muslim society. The West has only itself to blame for the actions of Islamist fighters. Change a few words and the statements would be interchangeable with the late Reich Minister's.
We tried with George Bush-the younger; with his insane war on Iraq based on false information. We must NOT involve ourselves in Arab vs Arab fight with American or Western ground troops. The ISIL gang are evil people who want to set the world back 1,000 years. Who is funding them? Follow the money, especially the early money. We likely will find our frenemies- the Saudis- involved.
We should reduce our use of Oil and develop uber weapons with the Israelis and be prepared for Arab extermination time. We also need to make a deal with the Iranians; they have little use for Arabs except those they dominate like Iraq where we killed way too many Americans & Arabs for naught.
We should reduce our use of Oil and develop uber weapons with the Israelis and be prepared for Arab extermination time. We also need to make a deal with the Iranians; they have little use for Arabs except those they dominate like Iraq where we killed way too many Americans & Arabs for naught.
There is a war, Islam has declared a war against the Jews. There are 53 self-declared Islamic countries in the OIC, all of them practice Anti-Semitism as a national policy. Most of them have driven out their Jewish populations, some Jewish communities predated the founding of Islam. There is no counter declaration of war from the Jews against the Muslims. The existence of Israel is the focus of Islamic hate of Jews, but only the focus.
The problem is that the Muslim world is a disaster, economically (except for Singapore and some oil countries), technologically, socially, etc. This is in contrast to their Muslim ideology which tells them that they are superior to everyone else. Especially the Jews whom they defeated 13 centuries ago. The Muslim population looks at the success of the Jews and they can't understand why their 'inferiors' are prospering while the 'superior' Muslims are struggling. They see tiny Israel defeat hundreds of millions of Muslims in battle, and the Muslim manhood is challenged. They see technologically advanced Israel in contrast to their own backward societies, and they get angry. There is a war, the vast majority, though not all, of the Muslims want to win a war against the Jews, don't blame us if we don't go quietly.
The problem is that the Muslim world is a disaster, economically (except for Singapore and some oil countries), technologically, socially, etc. This is in contrast to their Muslim ideology which tells them that they are superior to everyone else. Especially the Jews whom they defeated 13 centuries ago. The Muslim population looks at the success of the Jews and they can't understand why their 'inferiors' are prospering while the 'superior' Muslims are struggling. They see tiny Israel defeat hundreds of millions of Muslims in battle, and the Muslim manhood is challenged. They see technologically advanced Israel in contrast to their own backward societies, and they get angry. There is a war, the vast majority, though not all, of the Muslims want to win a war against the Jews, don't blame us if we don't go quietly.
143
Just a correction.... Singapore is a very religiously diverse country- not a Muslim country. There is no majority religion. Buddhists account for about 30% of the population whereas only 14% say they are Muslims.
4
You are right Chazak and you are wrong. There is a counter declaration of war in Israel against the Palestinian people living there. The illegal settlements, the expansion of those settlements, the call to have Jews leave Europe and come to Israel - which will intensify the need for space - the lopsided war in Gaza - where, all one has to do is look at photos and statistics, Israel punished the Palestinian men, women and children - over 2000 dead and the city flattened while losing 67 soldiers and 6 (i believe) civilians - who technically, if Israeli - are soldiers and a few walls.
There will never be a peace in the middle east she you have 2 opposing sides unwilling to give anything to the other while occupying a land.
There will never be a peace in the middle east she you have 2 opposing sides unwilling to give anything to the other while occupying a land.
3
Singapore, which is majority Chinese, is not a Muslim country at all. Get your facts straight.
1
You blame West, Obama and others for failing to impart democracy to the Islamic world. This shows arrogance on your part that you can change an established culture overnight with your values with force, bribes or foreign policies. Until you recognize that the moderates and reformers in Islam have no chance when West continues to interfere, you will never have democracy in Islam.
84
The historical fact is that Islam came along hundreds of years after Christianity. And yet Christianity had a major reformation hundreds of years ago, while Islam is still struggling with its fundamentalist doctrine of violent jihad to this day. A doctrine which considers all non-muslims to be interfering with the religious imperative to conquer the world in the name of Islamic dogma.
3
He's blaming Obama for the wrong thing. Obama's faults lie in denying the relationship Cohen points to, and Obama's perceived weakness.
On this basis, the Arab world sees a green light to proceed as they wish.
On this basis, the Arab world sees a green light to proceed as they wish.
Don't blame Western interference when the crazies fail to listen to their moderate Arab brothers and sisters. I don't see Americans dancing in the streets when Muslim terrorists die in bombing raids.
1
thank you Roger Cohen for stating the obvious, which so many of our politicians and media outlets have failed to do. . .
44
What's up with Roger Cohen?
He provides a fairly respectable and straightforward description of the "two schools" of "who is to blame" for the nihilistic, atavistic insanity infecting certain adherents to Islam (and, more critically, to POWER). And, then, he feels the need to decide between the two...
Roger, isn't it possible that BOTH schools offer some "truth." Failing to recognize that possibility means that the tools one might use to reduce the insanity will, necessarily, be inadequate.
C'mon, Roger, it's not a this or that world. It's and this AND that world.
He provides a fairly respectable and straightforward description of the "two schools" of "who is to blame" for the nihilistic, atavistic insanity infecting certain adherents to Islam (and, more critically, to POWER). And, then, he feels the need to decide between the two...
Roger, isn't it possible that BOTH schools offer some "truth." Failing to recognize that possibility means that the tools one might use to reduce the insanity will, necessarily, be inadequate.
C'mon, Roger, it's not a this or that world. It's and this AND that world.
134
Between the West and fundamentalist Islam there is only the modern world, versus the world of antiquity. There is only liberal education versus religious dogma. One is a school, and one is totalitarianism blind to anything but the conquest of intolerance over tolerance.
And between the two, the only universal truth is that the winners write the histories.
And between the two, the only universal truth is that the winners write the histories.
1
Exactly. Both are the problem !
1
Cohen's point is that one interpretation comes closer to the truth than the other. There must be a root cause, and he is taking a position on the root cause: the problem is not mainly Western imperialism, etc. It's mainly something inherent to Islamic societies.
The two interpretations he cites are not wholly compatible, which is why he is choosing one over the other. It can't both be true that this is not about religion AND it is about religion. We can't both continue to draw caricatures of the Prophet and at the same time NOT draw them because we don't want to offend Muslims. We either continue to draw them or we don't.
If US policy changed, would those societies become reasonable and modern? Would they stop stoning women to death, hanging gay people, imprisoning dissenters? Would they introduce freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech? Would they try to banish Hamas and stop their conspiracy-theory based anti-Semitism? Cohen clearly believes the answer to these questions is 'no.'
The two interpretations he cites are not wholly compatible, which is why he is choosing one over the other. It can't both be true that this is not about religion AND it is about religion. We can't both continue to draw caricatures of the Prophet and at the same time NOT draw them because we don't want to offend Muslims. We either continue to draw them or we don't.
If US policy changed, would those societies become reasonable and modern? Would they stop stoning women to death, hanging gay people, imprisoning dissenters? Would they introduce freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech? Would they try to banish Hamas and stop their conspiracy-theory based anti-Semitism? Cohen clearly believes the answer to these questions is 'no.'
3
If you step back from the facts of today's news, you see the same theme of good verses evil played out in yet another scenario of trying to stop those who have no understanding of atonement or restitution for harm done to others. It is Christianity's downfall simply because it is not what Jesus (Christ) taught. If you think you will get a fair hearing in a Christian society, you are not hearing.
All wars are fought over power and control. Usually over economically valuable land or resources. The war against Muslim Jihadist could be the first fought over political ideology.
This war, if it comes, will be a battle pitting the freedom and rights of the individual, valued and protected by democratic nations, versus the restrictive and prescriptive autocratic rule favored by theocrats.
It would be a mistake to view this conflict as a religious war because all religions seek to control the people. This conflict is about individual rights and freedoms, including the right to follow any religion one chooses without fear of reprisal.
This war, if it comes, will be a battle pitting the freedom and rights of the individual, valued and protected by democratic nations, versus the restrictive and prescriptive autocratic rule favored by theocrats.
It would be a mistake to view this conflict as a religious war because all religions seek to control the people. This conflict is about individual rights and freedoms, including the right to follow any religion one chooses without fear of reprisal.
5
Thank you for this fine column. However, reconciliation must come from both sides as does war. Truth about the roots of this conflict lie not only with Jihad's atrocities. The roots of European success are five hundred years old as the great Western Enlightenment, Artistic Bloom, Prosperity, Science and even the Reformation are post 1492 when the gold and silver from the murder of 98 million Indios in the Americas made prosperity a reality and the agricultural roots of Europe turned to technology. The great Khans turned their backs on an agrarian provincial Europe tied to an authoritarian, brutal religion. Not worth their trouble. After 1492 that would have been a whole different matter. Europe would have been "America" (remember William Blake's "America"?) for the great Mongolian Empire. When we look at the present we need to always remember the roots and foundations of the current nightmare with more than a little humility. Ray Evans Harrell, NYCity Performing Arts Teacher.
1
100% correct. there is a war between the west, whether Christian or not and Islam, or at least between the west and separatist Islam. Separatist Islam tells Mulsims to imitate Arabs by wearing Dishdash, or cloaking their women. Separatist Islam means ghetto living. Moderate Muslims do not speak out emphatically why? Because their funds from Saudi will be cut off? Roger is correct in seeing a backlash from rightists whether in Europe or The US. and a growth of discord, that Islam will not win. The signs are there as in the thirties in Europe, or the twenties in Japan. Do we learn nothing from history anymore.
4
Mr. Cohen writes, “But history, I suspect, will not judge Obama kindly for having failed to foster the great liberation movement that rose up in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere.”
What did Mr. Cohen expect him to do? President Obama was already dealing with two wars, including our disastrous military intervention in Iraq; so even more military forays into any more of these Arab spring nations would have been very ill advised. As it is western bombing of Libya in 2011 has turned out to be another disaster in the making – we got rid off Qaddafi, but instead of democracy, it looks like we are going to get a further expansion of the Islamic State.
If Mr. Cohen finds his own “second view more persuasive” that “it is rather the abject failure of the Arab world, …” how can he expect a western, non-Islamic solution to this very complex problem? There is no long-term western military solution to the challenge posed by the Islamic State, as Mr. Cohen himself concludes, “…Muslims are the only people, ultimately, who can defeat the black-flagged jihadi death merchants.”
It would help if western foreign policy analysts stopped speaking from both sides of their mouth.
What did Mr. Cohen expect him to do? President Obama was already dealing with two wars, including our disastrous military intervention in Iraq; so even more military forays into any more of these Arab spring nations would have been very ill advised. As it is western bombing of Libya in 2011 has turned out to be another disaster in the making – we got rid off Qaddafi, but instead of democracy, it looks like we are going to get a further expansion of the Islamic State.
If Mr. Cohen finds his own “second view more persuasive” that “it is rather the abject failure of the Arab world, …” how can he expect a western, non-Islamic solution to this very complex problem? There is no long-term western military solution to the challenge posed by the Islamic State, as Mr. Cohen himself concludes, “…Muslims are the only people, ultimately, who can defeat the black-flagged jihadi death merchants.”
It would help if western foreign policy analysts stopped speaking from both sides of their mouth.
57
Yes there are very bad elements in the Islamic community. Still, you don't make a persuasive case to me as to why we should be saying we are at odds with Islam more generally. I know many in the conservative, often Christian and Jewish community say this, but our leaders--even George Bush--go out of the way to say otherwise. And purely on a numbers level they would seem to be right. What is your data or are you speculating that all Muslims are at odds with us or are you saying that fundamentally the religion is corrupt?
6
Religious adherents are delusional. All of them. Look up the definition of delusion.
7
Roger Cohen is right. We should be supporting civil liberties and the freedoms we take for granted. In our failure to do so we end up supporting the social vacuum that has led to the dark ideology of ISIS.
In our own country the intelligence aristocracy pummeled the Occupy Wall Street people instead of watching the Tsarnaev brothers who could have should have been stopped when they left their houses with bomb loaded back packs.
How long before an ISIS maniacs blows themselves up on the White House lawn?
http://michaelslevinson.com
In our own country the intelligence aristocracy pummeled the Occupy Wall Street people instead of watching the Tsarnaev brothers who could have should have been stopped when they left their houses with bomb loaded back packs.
How long before an ISIS maniacs blows themselves up on the White House lawn?
http://michaelslevinson.com
1
I dare say the ISIS regime is similar to Saddam Hussein's regime. Saddam just didn't put his atrocities on Youtube to televise around the world. We captured and killed Saddam and Osama and that fixed the Muslim fundamentalist problem--not. The West has never had a positive influence in the Middle East in terms of producing peace and a U.S led coalition will not fix the turmoil there. Muslims must fix it themselves. Our cozy relationship with Saudi Arabia is inhibiting their anti ISIS involvment. The U.S. is supposed to protect Saudi Arabia, the biggest exporter of jihadi in the world. The answer is not clear but it is NOT more miitary involvment by the West.
25
Mr. Cohen blithely assigns blame for the problems in the Arab world to "the abject failure of the Arab world, its blocked societies where dictators face off against political Islam, its repression, its feeble institutions, its sectarianism precluding the practice of participatory citizenship, its wild conspiracy theories, its inability to provide jobs or hope for its youth, that gives the Islamic State its appeal." Equally as blithely, Mr. Cohen cast aside any blame to western intervention, mentioning in passing only some of the west's interventions.
Mr. Cohen is wrong to do this. Western intervention has caused major instability in the Arab and Islamic world. For example, after 1979, when the then USSR invaded Afghanistan, the United States entered into a partnership with Saudi Arabia that effectively created the Taliban and radicalized much of Pakistan. More specifically, in 1979, there were a few radical madrasas in Pakistan; by the time of the Russian withdrawal, there were an astounding approximately 25,000 madrasas in Pakistan. The west completely destroyed Iraq, a functioning (although repressive) country. Israel, a creation of the West, has destabilized the region. Going back further, the creation of artificial boundaries for states in the Middle East after WWI was a recipe for disaster. Mr. Cohen would do well to acknowledge the egregious impacts of such western interventions on the region, rather to so lightly dismiss them.
Mr. Cohen is wrong to do this. Western intervention has caused major instability in the Arab and Islamic world. For example, after 1979, when the then USSR invaded Afghanistan, the United States entered into a partnership with Saudi Arabia that effectively created the Taliban and radicalized much of Pakistan. More specifically, in 1979, there were a few radical madrasas in Pakistan; by the time of the Russian withdrawal, there were an astounding approximately 25,000 madrasas in Pakistan. The west completely destroyed Iraq, a functioning (although repressive) country. Israel, a creation of the West, has destabilized the region. Going back further, the creation of artificial boundaries for states in the Middle East after WWI was a recipe for disaster. Mr. Cohen would do well to acknowledge the egregious impacts of such western interventions on the region, rather to so lightly dismiss them.
117
It is pitiful to see grown men blame their fathers much less long dead strangers for their failures.
5
Both reasons Cohen gives are responsible for the jihadist extremism in the Islamic world. It is the first reason: the West's actions. And it is the second reason: the failures in the Arab world and the Arab spring.
3
Yeah, but Mr. Cohen is not comfortable with the first, as it points the finger directly at Israel and America. Arguably, the second also points its finger directly at America, especially as a consequence of the global-war-on-a-tactic that prompted the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Roger Cohen writes: "Islam is a religion that has spawned multifaceted political movements whose goal is power....Jews killed in France and Belgium and now Denmark. This is not the work of a 'dark ideology' but of jihadi terror."
Those words make me once again think of words I have remembered quite often lately, Martin Niemoller's famous comment about another movement "whose goal (was) power": "Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me...."
Incredible as it may sound at this moment, if we're not careful, they will one day come for us all. That is their goal.
Those words make me once again think of words I have remembered quite often lately, Martin Niemoller's famous comment about another movement "whose goal (was) power": "Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me...."
Incredible as it may sound at this moment, if we're not careful, they will one day come for us all. That is their goal.
20
Mr. Cohen, I am disappointed. I was with you until more than halfway through when you wrote: "Europe’s Jews are on edge, with cause. Israel calls them home."
Angela Merkel, David Cameron, François Hollande and Manuel Valls have made passionate statements declaring that Jews are at home in Europe. Valls particularly has said that France is not France without the Jews. Which in the context of French and European history is very powerful, and also very true.
Netanyahou on the other hand has been crudely pushing his own cynical political agenda (finally achieving demographic superiority over the native Palestinian population in Israel and its occupied territories).
Israel is NOT home. Anyway, I would say that with the violence endemic to Israeli society and the perpetual war which that society wages and from which it suffers, Jews are truly better off almost anywhere else.
Angela Merkel, David Cameron, François Hollande and Manuel Valls have made passionate statements declaring that Jews are at home in Europe. Valls particularly has said that France is not France without the Jews. Which in the context of French and European history is very powerful, and also very true.
Netanyahou on the other hand has been crudely pushing his own cynical political agenda (finally achieving demographic superiority over the native Palestinian population in Israel and its occupied territories).
Israel is NOT home. Anyway, I would say that with the violence endemic to Israeli society and the perpetual war which that society wages and from which it suffers, Jews are truly better off almost anywhere else.
16
"...violence endemic to Israeli society"??. Have you heard about Israeli school students shooting each other, or Israeli policemen choke-holding people? Both, Arab and Jewish neighborhoods in Haifa are safer for all citizen of that city, than certain neighborhoods in Paris for Parisians.
Israeli prison population (including convicted terrorists) is much lower, on percent basis, than that in the US.
Israel is not waging perpetual war, that war is waged against Israel.
Don't write about things you don't know, Emily!
Israeli prison population (including convicted terrorists) is much lower, on percent basis, than that in the US.
Israel is not waging perpetual war, that war is waged against Israel.
Don't write about things you don't know, Emily!
5
A more misleading and dubious cliché is that of "the Muslim world." There are an estimated 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and nearly two-thirds live in the Asia-Pacific region. More Muslims live in India-Pakistan than the combined area of the Middle East and North Africa. Yes, there is a violent and radical Islamist movement trying to take over the region from Iraq to Syria, and yes there are crazed terrorists who think of themselves as Muslim in Nigeria who declare death to western education, but ultimately they are a tiny minority of their world's Muslim population.
It's also questionable what is meant by "the West." Why can't we be both western and Muslim, just like we can be both Jewish or Christian or Hindu or Buddhist and western? Don't forget that all three of the major Abrahamic religions trace their roots to the "Middle East." What's so "western" about "the West" if it derives its thinking from ancient Hebrews, middle-Eastern Christians, and pagan Greeks and Romans?
And who are "we," anyway? If "we" are so peaceful and just, than why did "we" Americans invade Iraq in the first place, ultimately causing the current crisis, while continuing to torture human beings (some innocent civilians) in Guantanamo Bay? Why did "we" French colonize much of Muslim North Africa? Why can't "we" also be Asian, Middle-Eastern, African, or indigenous to the Americas?
As Theodore Adorno once said, "To say 'we' and mean 'I' is one of the most recondite insults."
It's also questionable what is meant by "the West." Why can't we be both western and Muslim, just like we can be both Jewish or Christian or Hindu or Buddhist and western? Don't forget that all three of the major Abrahamic religions trace their roots to the "Middle East." What's so "western" about "the West" if it derives its thinking from ancient Hebrews, middle-Eastern Christians, and pagan Greeks and Romans?
And who are "we," anyway? If "we" are so peaceful and just, than why did "we" Americans invade Iraq in the first place, ultimately causing the current crisis, while continuing to torture human beings (some innocent civilians) in Guantanamo Bay? Why did "we" French colonize much of Muslim North Africa? Why can't "we" also be Asian, Middle-Eastern, African, or indigenous to the Americas?
As Theodore Adorno once said, "To say 'we' and mean 'I' is one of the most recondite insults."
95
The pluralism you appear to be championing doesn't exist in any nation with a Muslim majority. Muslims can practice their religion in India and Israel but Christians and Jews are being murdered or exiled from Islamic states.
6
" but ultimately they are a tiny minority of their world's Muslim population. "
Yet another NYT reader in denial. On what do you base this statement, other than wishful thinking.
A Pew poll of Muslims around the world found, to their great relief, that "only" 21% of Muslims believe suicide bombings can be justified. The bad news is, that's 350 million Muslims.
http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/07/01/concerns-about-islamic-extremism-on-...
That includes 49% in Bangladesh, in the part of the world where you groundlessly speculate radical Islam is not an issue. And if you don't know that radical Islam is a serious issue in Pakistan and Afghanistan, there's really no hope for you.
Yet another NYT reader in denial. On what do you base this statement, other than wishful thinking.
A Pew poll of Muslims around the world found, to their great relief, that "only" 21% of Muslims believe suicide bombings can be justified. The bad news is, that's 350 million Muslims.
http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/07/01/concerns-about-islamic-extremism-on-...
That includes 49% in Bangladesh, in the part of the world where you groundlessly speculate radical Islam is not an issue. And if you don't know that radical Islam is a serious issue in Pakistan and Afghanistan, there's really no hope for you.
11
When we have Freedom From Religion, everywhere, then everybody gets to go about their lives in peace.
3
"Only Arabs can find the answer to this crisis. But history, I suspect, will not judge Obama kindly for having failed to foster the great liberation movement that rose up in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere. Inaction is also a policy: Nonintervention produced Syria today."
The problem the West faces is that all previous interventions in the Middle East have led to disaster. Non-intervention (leaving them alone), also leads to disaster for the West. Basically, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. The Muslim world despises the West when we intervene and when we don't intervene. We can't win.
The problem the West faces is that all previous interventions in the Middle East have led to disaster. Non-intervention (leaving them alone), also leads to disaster for the West. Basically, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. The Muslim world despises the West when we intervene and when we don't intervene. We can't win.
56
"But history, I suspect, will not judge Obama kindly for having failed to foster the great liberation movement that rose up in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere."
I'm not too sure about that. An honest recall of the circumstances during the "Arab Spring" would show that even in the case of Libya and Egypt (as is now patently clear), it was not clear who were the "good guys" and who were the "bad guys". With the exception of Tunisia, the remaining Arab states look to me like they are all in a half-cooked state of civil war. How, precisely, should any intervention be made?
I'm not too sure about that. An honest recall of the circumstances during the "Arab Spring" would show that even in the case of Libya and Egypt (as is now patently clear), it was not clear who were the "good guys" and who were the "bad guys". With the exception of Tunisia, the remaining Arab states look to me like they are all in a half-cooked state of civil war. How, precisely, should any intervention be made?
1
My impression is that non-intervention in Syria was a very calculated move - had we intervened in Syria, there's a good chance Russia would have as well, leading to a direct confrontation between the US and Russia which would definitely not end well. Obama wisely chose the lesser evil.
And Syria is our best defense against ISIL today....
Imagine if we would have dismantled Syria...how much more powerful ISIS would have been.
Imagine if we would have dismantled Syria...how much more powerful ISIS would have been.
Mr. Cohen
I usually find your articles much more reasoning and was shocked to see something has happened to you since your last post.
The notion that Islam is at war with the West will never sell because every war must have few strategic goals:
What is the goal of having a war with 1.6 billion people of all cultures/nations etc? If Islam is at war with the West is the chosen path. Putting all Islam in the same category is dangerous...it is akin to calling War with Christianity (in Nazi war)...there are more Muslims fighting ISIS than the west. How can you discount in words of course and in thoughts of all those Arabs and other muslim countries fighting fanatics...that is what ISIS, ISIL, Levants, Al QAeda and etal are...Not acknowledging they are ideological fringes will be the west's Achilles heels.
We beat the Nazis because we did not bundled up all Europeans (some were also at war with the Nazis...same in the Middle East)...we beat them because we recognized they wanted power and were driven by ideology....These crazies in ME are no different.
What will not work is bundling up all Arabs, all Muslims into one corner! They are every where...they are as different as nations, cultures, races and socioeconomic. They are not homogeneous society. This is the main problem in the media!
Islamic person from East Europe has absolutely no connection to the ME! ME are themselves fighting off The Fanatics...
If there is no interference from the west, why are they fighting us?
I usually find your articles much more reasoning and was shocked to see something has happened to you since your last post.
The notion that Islam is at war with the West will never sell because every war must have few strategic goals:
What is the goal of having a war with 1.6 billion people of all cultures/nations etc? If Islam is at war with the West is the chosen path. Putting all Islam in the same category is dangerous...it is akin to calling War with Christianity (in Nazi war)...there are more Muslims fighting ISIS than the west. How can you discount in words of course and in thoughts of all those Arabs and other muslim countries fighting fanatics...that is what ISIS, ISIL, Levants, Al QAeda and etal are...Not acknowledging they are ideological fringes will be the west's Achilles heels.
We beat the Nazis because we did not bundled up all Europeans (some were also at war with the Nazis...same in the Middle East)...we beat them because we recognized they wanted power and were driven by ideology....These crazies in ME are no different.
What will not work is bundling up all Arabs, all Muslims into one corner! They are every where...they are as different as nations, cultures, races and socioeconomic. They are not homogeneous society. This is the main problem in the media!
Islamic person from East Europe has absolutely no connection to the ME! ME are themselves fighting off The Fanatics...
If there is no interference from the west, why are they fighting us?
17
Thank you for a clear and sensible picture of what appears to most of us, I suspect, an ugly tangle. You point out two views of the cause of the conflict. I believe both are at work here, and I agree that the solution lies in the hands of the Muslims. I believe it will be a long time in coming, alas. I also believe that all the fostering in the West of the Arab Spring movements would have failed.
9
Mostly I agree with Roger about his analysis regarding the cause of the uprising of the Jihadi extremist in ISIL and now spreading all across the Arab lands. He identified correctly it was the failure of the Arab Spring and other political grievances in the Arab lands for the past century that fueling this rage. But I disagree with the heading of the article, this is not a war between West and Islam rather look around the Muslim world where you have the democracy and good governance in place, we don't see the extremism stemming there. It is an Arab world's political issue and we need to address this politically not ideologically.
41
Let's think about your comment in terms of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia ...
Excuse me but....exactly where in the Muslim world is a place where "the democracy and good governance" is in place?
Aside from smaller "emirates" (hardly democracies), what remains includeTurkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, and ???? ... are those the ones you're referring to?
Excuse me but....exactly where in the Muslim world is a place where "the democracy and good governance" is in place?
Aside from smaller "emirates" (hardly democracies), what remains includeTurkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, and ???? ... are those the ones you're referring to?
3
Where in the Muslim world does this writer see? Indonesian Muslims killed many Australians and have a dubious government with a decent new president. Pakistan???--like the Arabs. Africa??
2
"where you have the democracy and good governance in place"
you have the exception, which you imply is the rule. In two dozen Muslim countries around the world, leaving Islam is a state crime punishable by death.
you have the exception, which you imply is the rule. In two dozen Muslim countries around the world, leaving Islam is a state crime punishable by death.
3
I like the article but I'm not sure I agree with it all. At which point are nations in Europe allowed to simply exists as the nations they have evolved to become, to be right in their reaction to barbaric Islam in their midst? Have they a right to resist the evolution towards fascism as well, though in this case it is from non white Europeans as opposed to homegrown fascism that sprang up after WWI? There is no real "birth" in the muslim world no matter how many journalists say there is. Journalists may get to see these nations and their people up close, unlike most of us in the civilized world, but they are also living in an invitation only existence of intellectuals and statesmen until they are not and all of a sudden end up beheaded and slaughtered. Then small town youngsters from all over civilization must gear up and fight the wars against this "dark ideology." Just the way it is, regardless of what journalists write.
4
As with a lot of opinion pieces, I see more criticism than proposed solutions. I agree, there is a world war going on right now, and Islam is at the heart of it. But for our leaders to say publicly that we are at war with Islam would be the best recruiting tool we could give to our enemies. Toward the end of his essay, Mr. Cohen speaks vaguely of our failure to "support" more moderate factions in certain countries. Give me some specifics, armchair-General Cohen.
10
There is, sadly, a third view --that the hatred against the west is simply the minor extension of the sectarian violence and hatred. Moslemv extremists kill so many more moslems in islamic countries than they kill non-moslems in "western" societies that it entirely beggars reality to focus on isolated terrorism against the west.
The islamic countries of the middle-east are collapsing into sectarian, religious, and war-lord violence, fueled by exportable oil.
Analogies to eras of terrible sectarian violence in the west (Europe's wars in the name of Catholicism/Protestantism e.g.) are weak because there was no easy resource to extract.
The radicalism of Islam is created by too many people living on an extractive resource which can be captured. It's just the latest chapter in "The Prize."
The islamic countries of the middle-east are collapsing into sectarian, religious, and war-lord violence, fueled by exportable oil.
Analogies to eras of terrible sectarian violence in the west (Europe's wars in the name of Catholicism/Protestantism e.g.) are weak because there was no easy resource to extract.
The radicalism of Islam is created by too many people living on an extractive resource which can be captured. It's just the latest chapter in "The Prize."
3
Thank you, Mr. Cohen. Just this morning, I was listening to NPR, struck over and over again by the insistence on calling it "the self-proclaimed Islamic State." No. They are the Islamic State, because that is what they call themselves and believe. Politicians and news-media must be willing to call this what it is. We never called it the "self-proclaimed Christian Coalition" or the "self-proclaimed Religious Right." Those things are what they are (even if they are not) because they call themselves so - and because too few from their own faith would call them otherwise.
4
Finally Mr Cohen gets it right. The Muslims terrorize with one hand and display outrage and sympathy with the other. They claim that the two hands aren't connected.
2
I don't believe this is what Mr Cohen meant or wrote. He ends his column with praise for "Chokri Belaid, the brave Tunisan lawyer...gunned down by Islamist fanatics" who stood for civil disobedience, peace and democracy.
While they're cutting off heads, we pussyfoot around what we can even call their movement. Our politicians are so enthralled to voters who insist that they at least pretend to be religious that we can't be honest about what we're fighting--backward religious nut jobs.
9
Sometimes I agree with you Roger, sometimes not, today I agree 100%. The politically correct contortions of the Danish officials about the almost non existent connections of Islam to the murders there are surreal.
11
As a correspondent here in the US for one of the Danish newspaper I have to respectfully disagree with the views expressed by Roger Cohen. I am sure you remember Rote Armé Fraktion in Germany and Red Brigades in Italy, both of which I reported on. They called themselves marxists but theirs was a distortion of communism as is the Islamists of Mohammed's learnings. The leaders of RF and BR subscribed, indeed, to a dark ideology. In the 1970's no one claimed extreme leftwing terrorism represented a worldwide Communist war against Europe. But your claim that the West is at war with the Muslim world risks becoming a self fulfilling prophecy - it feeds into the extremists image of themselves as defenders of a great civilization and religion. The more people pick up your line of reasoning the closer we get to a real war. In any case, El-Hussein was a violent extremist - a disturbed young Dane with an uncontrollable temper and an inclination to violence - also directed toward his young Muslim brothers. Nothing in his bio indicates that he was an IS warrior. Lone wolfs like him are no serious threats to Danish democracy, unless we all chose to believe they are part of a worldwide Muslim plot to bring down Western civilization. But he was not, and there is no such plot, only in our imagination. Our democracy and cherished liberties are far too strong to be rattled by extremists like him.
5
Whether one agrees or disagrees, I do not think it is using one's freedom of speech responsibly to purposely defame the religious leader of any group of people and expect impunity. If nothing else, if we believe that words are inconsequential, then we do not quite understand the need for freedom of speech. No, terrorist attacks or murder should not be the consequence of such speech or blatant decisions to defame the beliefs or religions of others. However, there are limits to the freedom of speech and there are consequences. However, it should be remembered that in the west and around the world, people kill everyday because of words. It appears that the terrorists are reminding us of this albeit in an extremely evil and global kind of way.