Friday Miscellania - George Bush, Al Quaeda Reader

David Warren write about Russia's recent bullyish moves and our president : "We will miss George Bush":

"Like al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the many other adversaries America and the West must continue to face, the Russians are looking forward to the time after George Bush leaves office. It is assumed that the American electorate has by now tired of playing policeman to the world, and that the next president will be a liberal Democrat, eager to make unilateral concessions, slash military budgets to fund social programs, and cut-and-run from foreign battlefields."

"They may well be right. One of the things the non-U.S. West fails to appreciate is the frustration of even the rightwing Republican constituency, with allies who lack the will, and refuse to put up the money, for their own defence -- all the time assuming that the American taxpayer will pick up the slack and that the American military will be there to protect them should they ever really need it. And that includes not only protection from potential invaders, but policing the high seas from pirates, monitoring airspace for intruders, and providing an international rescue service after natural disasters."

New book out, The Al Quaeda Reader, edited and translated by Raymond Ibrahim.  The book is reveiwed at Victor Davis Hanson's website here.  It's divided into two sections, writings intended for fellow Muslims (where the war against the West is based on the "traditional Islamic doctrine of jihad"), and writings meant for Westerners (the war against the West is "a just response to the depredations of Western powers").  As Bruce Thornton (the reviewer) writes:

"...contrary to the deceptions of apologists and the naïve delusions of some Westerners, the bases of the jihadists’ actions lie squarely within Islamic tradition, not in the alleged Western crimes against Islam....History shows that bin Laden has the better understanding of Islam than do Western apologists..."

Read the whole thing, buy the book, get educated!

"The Al Qaeda Reader, simply by letting our enemies speak in their own voices, explodes the popular delusion that Western crimes and policies are responsible for the “distortion” of Islam that al Qaeda represents. As Ibrahim writes, 'This volume of translations, taken as whole, prove once and for all that, despite the propaganda of Al Qaeda and its sympathizers, Radical Islam’s war with the West is not finite and limited to political grievances — real or imagined — but is existential, transcending time and space and deeply rooted in faith.' This means that the fight will be long and hard, that leaving Iraq or creating a Palestinian state will not buy peace, and that the side that accurately understands its enemy and has confidence in its own beliefs will ultimately triumph."

Comments

[TorchofLiberty]

Hopefully professors of Middle Eastern studies put the Al Qaeda Reader on the syllabus for their classes.

Odds of that though. Pretty slim.

Those that do put it on the syllabus will probably face tons of criticism.

[Sissy Willis]

Are you trying to confuse people with facts again?

I do hope VDH is right when he says "the side that accurately understands its enemy and has confidence in its own beliefs will ultimately triumph."

Interesting related thoughts from John Derbyshire at Pajamas Media today:

"I see religious faith as an intensifier, a dispersive factor on the behavior bell curve, making good people better and bad people worse."

http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/08/derbyshire_v_spencer_round_3.php

[Mitch]

All we really need to understand is that they want to kill or subjugate us and our children.

Pass me some ammo, dear, and keep down.

[miss kelly]

Get your own ammo, Mitch!

We should all be prepared to defend self, family and home.

[tom]

While I intend to get The Al Quaeda Reader, I have already done something far more important--I read through the Qur'an--the ultimate authoritative baseline for understanding the mind, heart and agenda of Islam. I urge others to do the same. The sword passages are read all over the world with YOU in mind.