Pakistan clerics explain 'jihad'

[gilliam]

Pakistan’s top Muslim clerics have said it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to preach the real concept of jihad, or holy war, to young Muslims.

“The situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine is radicalising young people,” says Mufti Rafi Usmani, one of Pakistan’s highest-ranking clerics.

“And an angry young man is in no-one’s control,” he said. Other high-ranking Islamic scholars have also endorsed these views.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4711003.stm

Yep, Afghanistan is part of the problem, according to the mainstream Muslem clerics. Guess the US should have just stood there and took 9/11 without doing anything about it. By the way, this is MODERATE Islam talking here.

%between%

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Pakistan’s top Muslim clerics have said it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to preach the real concept of jihad, or holy war, to young Muslims.

“The situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine is radicalising young people,” says Mufti Rafi Usmani, one of Pakistan’s highest-ranking clerics.

“And an angry young man is in no-one’s control,” he said. Other high-ranking Islamic scholars have also endorsed these views.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4711003.stm

Yep, Afghanistan is part of the problem, according to the mainstream Muslem clerics. Guess the US should have just stood there and took 9/11 without doing anything about it. By the way, this is MODERATE Islam talking here.

I have culture shock. I totally don’t get it. I can understand how spoiled, middle class kids might get into all this neurotic projective identification which blames foreign wars for their own adolescent failures in life. This fits OBL’s profile. But a lot of these folks are poor. One would expect them to be more insular, more worried about finding a healthy wife, snagging some bucks, and taking the kids to an amusement park once in a while. This just smacks of idle affluence to me. Some one talk me out of it.

 

[Philip_P]

What exactly is the pro-war side’s end-game here? Are we supposed to invade every Islamic country and remove their leaders and then, what occupy them hoping for a magically better government to form?

I’m just having trouble envisioning how this is supposed to work if Iraq is the model. We don’t have enough manpower to take on every country that harbors radical Islamists At the same time, there are a lot of very smart people who do think that Iraq is a good model (even if I do disagree with them). Since this seems a stupid strategy, they must have something else in mind. What exactly is the overall strategy, since clearly to follow the Iraq model with every country we have issue with is imposssible?

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Philip P:

What exactly is the pro-war side’s end-game here? Are we supposed to invade every Islamic country and remove their leaders and then, what occupy them hoping for a magically better government to form?

I’m just having trouble envisioning how this is supposed to work if Iraq is the model. We don’t have enough manpower to take on every country that harbors radical Islamists At the same time, there are a lot of very smart people who do think that Iraq is a good model (even if I do disagree with them). Since this seems a stupid strategy, they must have something else in mind. What exactly is the overall strategy, since clearly to follow the Iraq model with every country we have issue with is imposssible?

I think this is a rational question. I’ve been wondering and worried about the number of fronts which we might end up having to contend with. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be there. I just want to know what the strategy is and how we are going to win.

 

[KnightoftheRose]

What exactly is the pro-war side’s end-game here? Are we supposed to invade every Islamic country and remove their leaders and then, what occupy them hoping for a magically better government to form?

I’m just having trouble envisioning how this is supposed to work if Iraq is the model. We don’t have enough manpower to take on every country that harbors radical Islamists At the same time, there are a lot of very smart people who do think that Iraq is a good model (even if I do disagree with them). Since this seems a stupid strategy, they must have something else in mind. What exactly is the overall strategy, since clearly to follow the Iraq model with every country we have issue with is imposssible?

Do you know how America “won” the Cold War? It was as simple as this: Eastern European countries saw the standard of living in the West (the one good thing that ever came from television ), and they began to doubt their governments. Out of this doubt grew a form of passive resistance, and pretty soon the economy of the Communist bloc was in such bad shape that the Soviet Union couldn’t be sustained. The Communist people, seeing how great we had it, simply disdained their own ideology, which in turn led to apathy and passive resistance, which in turn led to economic collapse.

I suspect that if the democracy in Iraq succeeds, the same thing that happened with the Soviet Union will happen throughout the Middle East. People will see the Iraqis living free and prosperously, and they will want that, too. Governments will lose support, radical Muslim ideologies will lose support, and we will see change.

Well, that’s how I see it, anyways. I might be wrong. :shrugs: