In my opinion, most of [the prisoners] are sincere in their belief they will win for the following reasons:

a. They are told they are assured of victory by their religion. They are raised with the belief that Islam is destined to become the dominant way of life for this planet. No matter how long it takes, it is inevitable. Once Islam is supreme, there will be no war, crime, poverty, or need. These are frequent talking points every Friday in the mosques.

…

c. They believe they are more committed to victory at any cost because it is all in God’s name and is the Will of God. …

We start out hardly able to imagine what’s involved in taking on and destroying a religious faith, because to us, both the aim and the techniques seem enormously wicked. We ourselves have this creed: We believe everyone should be allowed to have his own creed, and we believe it’s good to insist that everyone have precisely that creed. Islam, however, is such a hard case that it’s destroyed my belief. I no longer share our creed that everyone should be allowed his own creed. “Your move,” I say, to no one in particular.

We have to attack Islam in some combination of these three ways: (1) destroy the faith in Allah, (2) transform it into an essentially different religion, or (3) convert most muslims to a different faith. (There’s a fourth way; however, we in our decency don’t want to take that path. In any case, my topic here is “spiritual” warfare that doesn’t kill the body.)

It may seem unnecessarily roundabout, but I think in order to be best able to destroy or transform muslim belief, one should read Augustine’s City of God and learn to admire the many lies he told about traditional Roman religion. One should read Marsilius’s Defensor Pacis in order to learn how to argue for depriving priests (imams and ayatollahs) of their property and political power. One should read Machiavelli in order to learn how to “use religion well.” Then one should read Bacon in order to see how to promise heaven on earth, Spinoza to see how to destroy scriptures, and Hobbes to see how to preach from scriptures in which you don’t believe.

There’s still that fourth option, of course, but we seem determined to take the high road.

Kralizec on October 3, 2006 at 11:05 AM

There’s still that fourth option, of course, but we seem determined to take the high road.

The problem is, the high road eventually leads to a dead end (or, more likely, a dead West).

Kid from Brooklyn on October 3, 2006 at 11:21 AM

We have to attack Islam in some combination of these three ways: (1) destroy the faith in Allah, (2) transform it into an essentially different religion, or (3) convert most muslims to a different faith. (There’s a fourth way; however, we in our decency don’t want to take that path. In any case, my topic here is “spiritual” warfare that doesn’t kill the body.)

It seems to me that both the Nazis and the Japanese had very similar mass cultural delusions of divine destiny, differing from each other, but still both having the same level of muslim-like brainwashing toward a predetermined divine destiny. (though had the allies lost WWII, Germany and Japan would certainly have gone to war against each other eventually.)

The ONLY way such a deep-seated cultural delusions created by Hitler and Hirohito could ever have been defeated was the fourth option - all-out destruction, humilation and utter, complete defeat.

I am resigned to the opinion we, as a planet, are much too far down the road of appeasement for any other option at this point. Islam is much like a societal cancer that has metastisized, requiring chemo (options 1-3) AND surgery (option 4).

Benthoven on October 3, 2006 at 11:49 AM

Kralizec,

Couple points:

1) Roman religion was on its way out before Augustine. Athanasius relied on its decline as one of his chief arguments.

2) The “everyone has their own creed” creed is in fact very similar to the Roman approach to religion: Tolerate everything so long as the state is given priority.

Today we have the ACLU enforcing the same rules. And to be sure, all religion is equally valuable to a group of atheists (i.e. it’s an amorphous lump, all of which is bad news). Thus, in the middle of a war with insane, head-chopping jihadists we have a rash of books warning us about the coming evangelical theocracy in America. They can’t be scared of one without being scared of all.

When Sam Harris took a week off from Christian bashing and focused on Islam, liberals were shocked. How could he suggest Islam is a worse danger than evangelicalism? That’s tantamount to saying Christianity is…gulp…better. In the “everyone has their own creed” creed, making any such distinction is anathema.

John on October 3, 2006 at 12:57 PM

“They see our compassion as weakness and our integrity as blindness to reality.”

So do I.

Kevin M on October 3, 2006 at 2:06 PM

The Muslim world is poor and disoraganized. I’m not saying it solves all our problems, I’m not saying we don’t pursue counterterrorism operations, but Mohammed can’t do much to me if we don’t give him a visa. If he had an army comparable to ours it’d be a different story. He doesn’t.

Alex K on October 3, 2006 at 2:51 PM