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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 01:12pm Sep 17, 2001 EST (#9297 of 9302)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

" The normal survival instinct is replaced with a pseudo- religious fantasy of a killer's self-martyrdom leading to eternity in paradise surrounded by adoring virgins. This perversion of one of the world's great faiths produces suicide bombers.

" How to build a defense against the theological brainwashing that creates these human missiles? That is the challenge to Muslim clerics everywhere, not to mention Arab governments fearful of radical takeover.

Comment: And a challenge to US, to, and to our intellectual and persuasive resources.

"In recent months, official Palestinian stations have been broadcasting sly evocations of suicidal martyrdom, and over the weekend, in a mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan, a radical cleric hailed America's black September as a victory for Islam.

"Mainstream Muslim clergy need to step up in their mosques and in public — as many surely are now doing — to give the lie to the fanatics' perversion of their faith. It is for them, far more effectively than for members of other religions, to cite teachings from the Koran that forbid the murder of innocents and to warn that such murderers will suffer for their sins.

Comment: We have to "meet them halfway" in ways that work for them if we are to have reasonable expectations for this to happen.

" For many vulnerable clerics, a reminder of Allah's wrath would require great courage. But every religion has its local communications networks. Such specific refutation, repeated with fervor and broadcast in every language throughout the world, would begin to plant the seeds of doubt in the misled minds of the suicidal. The potential of eternal punishment rather than bliss would encourage at least some life-saving defections from the ranks of radicals seeking to take over Islam and destroy all other religions.

Comment: Suggestions need to be better crafted than this, if they are to have any chance of working.

" Political leaders are weighing the wisdom of invading Afghanistan or plastering other havens of terrorist cells. It may be that a not-so-holy alliance of democracies determined to end this scourge and autocracies afraid of internal terrorist takeover will unite in uncomfortable military collaboration and rampant realpolitik.

" But if, at the same time, the great majority of peaceful Muslims can be helped to win their internal theological war, today's military solutions need not beget tomorrow's tragedies."

Comment: William Safire has identified a major challenge - - and to meet it, the West has to talk to many Muslims more effectively than it has done, and may have to consider the possibility that we have things that we also must change.

rshowalter - 02:17pm Sep 17, 2001 EST (#9298 of 9302)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

WHY THE TERRORISTS ATTACK AMERICA by SAMUEL FRANCIS http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/09/15/15262.html ... gives answers we may not like to hear. But it is another perspective, internally consistent, and evidence based. It expresses some of the same ideas almarst has on this forum.

http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/09/15/15262.html ... links to many other good articles, some quite sympathetic with the United States, and very concerned with terrorism, from a Russian and communist-sympathizing point of view.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense