From time to time – optimally on a weekly basis – we would like to have point-counterpoint debate between two different contributors on timely topics. The questions will be written by a third contributor and the other two will have the opportunity to answer and respond to each other’s comments. Ideas for future questions and comments on the questions and answers provided are invited. Enjoy this week’s point-counterpoint between Pat and a new contributor called Grey Gambler:

1. Rep. Peter King’s hearings on homegrown terrorism in America have gotten a lot of media attention – much of it criticism directed at King and comparing the hearings to McCarthyism. What do you think of the hearings, both the need for the hearings and the potential for them turning into a witch hunt?

Pat: I respect the media’s role as a watchdog over the hearings; making sure the did not denigrate a specific segment of our population and tackle a serious issue, well, seriously. But I feel the way the word ‘McCarthyism’ has just been used to slander Rep. King and attempt to silence a debate this country needs to have. As I detailed in my post on Wednesday (link), this country faces a tangible threat from sources within that wish other Americans harm. The number one role of a country’s government is to keep its citizens safe and to argue that a Congressional hearing about homegrown terrorism is ‘inappropriate’ is baffling to me. We were one shoddy work of bomb making away from having Times Square look like a war zone. This isn’t hyperbole or Islamic demonization, this is the reality we face in 2011. I’ll end with a quote from the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus: ‘To ignore the religious nature of the terrorist threat is to succumb to politically correct delusion. To ignore the homegrown religious nature of the terrorist threat is to succumb even further.’

Grey Gambler: I have to admit that I haven’t read or seen anything about these hearings. I have no issue with hearings designed to keep America safe if that’s what they are. By the same taken, I have no tolerance for hearings designed just to score cheap political points. I haven’t seen anything about these hearings, so I can’t comment either way.

2. As the budget battle continues, NPR’s federal funding remains a big target of Republicans. Also recently a top NPR executive was caught on camera saying the station would be better off without federal funding. In this time where government spending far exceeds its revenue, is NPR a worthy target of budget-cutters? If not, what makes federal funding of public radio a worthwhile priority among competing interests?

Grey Gambler: Is NPR funding better for the American people than funding for education, infrastructure or defense? Of course not. By the same token, the small (in budget terms) amount we spend on NPR isn’t why we’re in trouble. 60% of the budget is mandatory spending that Congress doesn’t dictate year to year, another 20 or so is defense spending, 6 or 7 percent interest on the debt, and 13 or so on actual discretionary non-defense spending. That 13% is where NPR’s funding comes from. Are we better off as a country because we put some money into PBS and NPR absolutely? As we move more and more to a reality tv based culture (even the history channel doesn’t show history anymore), preserving a station on the airwaves of radio and tv that features educational programming benefits society at large. I don’t listen to NPR now, because living in a big city i have many other options available, but I can tell you that when I spent a good bit of time living in and driving through a rural part of the country where radio consisted of one or two country channels and several religious channels, NPR was a godsend that got me through many a long drive and made me consider what was going on in the US and around the globe.

Pat: The Gambler gives a worthy defense of NPR public funding. It is true that NPR does provide some worthwhile programming, particularly in rural locales where the choices are more minimal, and compared to our budget allocations, its slice is extremely small. That being said, I favor discontinuing public funding for NPR. The US will pay $200 million dollars this year in interest payments alone on our debt so anywhere we can cut without serious consequences we should. NPR has many popular stations and programs that will be just fine without public funding. Sesame Street is a big money maker. NPR’s audience includes many wealthy Americans who will gladly continue to donate to keep their favorite programs alive. Modern day media is inundated with news sources and the idea that we need the government to help provide this good is antiquated.

3. Libya remains in near civil war while America and the world sit on the sidelines. Discussions of imposing a no-fly zone have been going on the past week or so but doing so would likely mean a serious military commitment by the US. What do you think should be done given the military, budget and humanitarian concerns at stake?

Pat: Excellent question, that I honestly can answer, I’m not sure. Interestingly, the President of the United States seems to have the same response. It has been widely reported that President Obama is fine with Europe and other international actors to take the lead on this one. I think Qaddafi is a stain on this earth and the US should unequivocally back his removal. The problem is that I’m wary of getting ourselves militarily involved as there are consequences to bear. What if Qaddafi is likely to win even if we provide a no fly zone (DNI Clapper believes this)? What do the rebels stand for? Chances are strong that they would be better than Qaddafi, not a hard thing to do, but elements of the rebels come from a region of Libya that sent more foreign terrorists to fight the US in Iraq than any other country. That would give any US President pause. If I were President Obama, I would listen to my superb Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, and follow his lead.

Grey Gambler: Ditto as to the I don’t know remark. In a vacuum, we should absolutely toss this guy out. In a time where we have a $14 trillion debt and military commitments elsewhere though, I don’t know that we have the resources to spare, particularly if this investment would be paid for with additional cuts in spending at home.

4. Charlie Sheen is the talk of the town with his seemingly non-sensical rants about ‘winning,’ ‘tiger blood,’ and his super-human life. What do you make of it? Breakdown or publicity stunt?

Grey Gambler: I haven’t really followed this. I’ll just say that the focus the media seems to be putting on this story is one more reason why I’ll back NPR funding. Any alternative that actually provides real stories is worth keeping.

Pat: I find that if one wants to follow Charlie Sheen’s hi-jinks they can and if they they don’t, this is easy as well. I ignored the story for days until I finally watched a 3 minute best of clip that was utterly enjoyable. I didn’t need to tune into NPR to avoid Mr. Sheen’s ‘tiger blood’. The important thing to remember here is ‘winning,’ which I believe Charlie is doing quite a lot of lately. Though I deplore his morality and feel for his children, man oh man, is he entertaining. Not to mention that I could never dislike a guy who gave me Ricky Vaughn and Hot Shots: Part Duex.

There has been some push back coming against Congressman Peter King’s scheduled hearing on the threat of homegrown terrorism to American national security. A prime example comes from the New York Times editorial page, where Bob Herbert proclaims:

Representative Peter King, a Republican from Long Island, appears to harbor a fierce unhappiness with the Muslim community in the United States. As the chairman of the powerful Homeland Security Committee, Congressman King has all the clout he needs to act on his displeasure.

Despite this rather odious implication that King is a bigot and unfairly targeting Muslims, Herbert gives not one real piece of evidence of his claim. Do you know what there is actual evidence to support though? The fact that the United States does indeed face a troubling growth in homegrown terrorist activity, which sadly, but truthfully, mostly comes from those of Muslim backgrounds. According to Gregory Treverton of the RAND Corporation’s Center for Global Risk and Security, there were 46 publicly reported cases of radicalization and recruitment of jihadist terrorism, involving 125 individuals in the US between 9/11 and the beginning of 2010. Those numbers do not include Richard Reid, who plotted his attack outside the US, or Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber. In 2009, there were two fatal attacks from homegrown products targeting Americans: the Fort Hood massacre (13 killed, 31 wounded) and the murder of another American soldier at an Arkansas recruiting office. Lest we also forget Mohamed Mohamud, who last November pressed a button believing it would blow up hundreds of families watching the lighting of the downtown Portland Christmas tree. I could go on…

So to argue or even insinuate that homegrown terrorism, particularly of the Islamist variation, is not a serious national security is to ignore the reality of the past ten years. Rep. King’s hearing is not happening to put American Muslims in a poor light. If done correctly, it will just highlight a disturbing trend in the radicalization of a small segment of our population that poses a threat to all of our safety and well being. No one gives American Islam a worse name than those who seek to kill and maim in the religion’s name. To defeat an enemy, you have to know it. It does no one any good to hide behind political correctness and baseless claims of racism.

Charles Krauthammer chimes in on ‘Flight of the Intellectuals’ main theme:

The Pentagon review of the Fort Hood shooting runs 86 pages with not a single mention of Hasan’s Islamism. It contains such politically correct inanities as “religious fundamentalism alone is not a risk factor.”

Of course it is. Indeed, Islamist fundamentalism is not only a risk factor. It is the risk factor, the common denominator linking all the great terror attacks of this century — from 9/11 to Mumbai, from Fort Hood to Times Square, from London to Madrid to Bali. The attackers varied in nationality, education, age, social class, native tongue and race. The one thing that united them was the jihadist vision in whose name they acted.

I just finished Paul Berman’s ‘Flight of the Intellectuals‘ and while not a tour de force like its prequel, ‘Terror and Liberalism’, was a phenomenal read. I will give a full length review after my vacation (warning GPP is going on a two week travel break), but right now I will highlight to key part of the book’s conclusion. This section features Berman building his theme of Western intellectuals failing to stand up to the Islamist’s ideology, which he clearly lays out was partly fathered by European fascism, while at the same time spitting venom at actual liberal people with Muslim backgrounds, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The following sections immediately follow a listing of Western intellectuals (some with Muslim backgrounds) who require bodyguards to protect them from Islamist violent radicals. The list is sadly long. Enough of me, here’s Berman:

‘And so, Salman Rushdie has metastasized into into an entire social class. It is a subset of the European intelligentsia-its Muslims free-thinking and liberal wing especially, but including other people, too, who survive only because of bodyguards and police investigations and because of their own precautions. This is unprecedented in Western Europe since the fall of the Axis. Fear-mortal fear, the fear of getting murdered by fanatics in the grip a bizarre ideology-has become, for a significant number of intellectuals and artists, a simple fact of modern life. And yet, if someone like Pascal Bruckner intones a few words about the need for courage under these circumstances, the sneers begin-”Now where have we heard that kind of thing before?”- and onward to the litany about fascism. In the New York Times Magazine Ian Buruma held back from hinting even obliquely at the genuinely fascist influences on [Tariq] Ramadan’s grandfather, the founder of the modern cult of artistic death-Hassan al-Banna, who spoke highly of Adolf Hitler and helped the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem escape from getting tried at Nuremburg. Yet Pascal Bruckner, the liberal-here is somebody, Buruma would have us think, on the brink of fascism!’….[Pg. 296]

‘The Rushdies of today find themselves under criticism, contrasted unfavorably in the very best of magazines with Tariq Ramadan, who is celebrated as a bridge between cultures-Ramadan, an alumnus of the anti-Rushdie Islamic Foundation in Britain. Ramadan, who, even in 2009, managed to commend in a single sentence of his book Radical Reform both Sheikh Qaradawi, the theologian of the human bomb, and the Egyptian sheikh Muhammad al-Ghazali, who publicly defended the assassination of Foda. And yet, if there is a menace to society, nowadays it is said to come from Hirsi Ali or some other vocal and articulate opponent of the violent sheikhs-the European intellectuals from Muslim backgrounds who, in their unforgivable departure from the child-like image of how Muslims are supposed to behave, have arrogated to themselves the right to update a few ideas from John  Locke or John Stuart Mill or Bertrand Russell. During the Rushdie affair, liberals who called for courage were applauded. Liberals from Muslim backgrounds were positively celebrated. But not today.’ [pg. 298]

Hopefully, you were able to follow Berman’s thinking in these paragraphs. If so, please give GPP your thoughts. If not, please give GPP your confused thoughts.

First off, I want to acknowledge the sacrifice of all those who fought and died on France’s Normandy shores 65 years ago so I could sit on a comfy couch, in a beautiful city, and in a country where I can safely say and write whatever I want.  Thank you.  While I’m at I would like to thank those who are this very moment protecting our freedom and way of life in Afghanistan, Iraq, South Korea, and beyond.

'I have a fruit basket, Is there someone named Islam here?'

Now let’s get to Obama’s Cairo speech.  I read the whole speech very early on Thursday morning and took copious notes (all of which I left at work) and my first impression was very positive.  The various topics covered and the audience were far from easy or simple, but President Obama did a serviceable job with a near impossible task, opening a more constructive, fair dialogue between Americans and many Muslims, specifically Arab Muslims.

Obama made quite the effort to show connection between Islam and the United States (sometimes too loosely) and praised Islamic culture and history throughout the speech.  Thankfully within this praise he was able to bring up faults (mainly violent extremism, lack of human rights, and opportunity) and highlight America’s history of progress and promise.  Referring to the latter, Obama had one of his best lines:

Much has been made of the fact that an African-American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected President. But my personal story is not so unique. The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America but its promise exists for all who come to our shores.

This was an effective way to connect Obama’s personal life story (Obama in poll after poll is more popular abroad than the US as a country) to the country that helped him become who he is today.

Though there has been criticism that Obama did not use the word ‘terrorism’ in his speech, I thought he did a bang up job defining the enemy and stating that it was a problem that needs to be combatted head on by both the United States, Muslim states, Muslim people, and Islamic faith.  He forcefully stated that 9/11 was the work of Al Qaeda (in other words not one of the many 9/11 conspiracy theories that are sadly passed around the Middle East and beyond) and went on to unequivocally state that the US would do whatever was needed to defeat this threat.  However, he was a bit to politically correct and playing to his audience when he finished off this subject with this line, ‘Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism – it is an important part of promoting peace.’  I’m sorry, but the large majority of violent extremists in the world and those especially targeting the US are Islamic and base their reason for their acts on Islam.  So though Islam itself may not be the complete problem, interpretations and factions of it are.  To deny this would be not calling the enemy what it is.

Moving on.  I was disappointed by the near complete pass Iran’s nuclear program received during the speech.  Here was a sympathetic audience (at least the Arab state leaders) and Obama pretty much made clear that the issue was not a high priority for his administration, as the short Iran section seemed almost like filler and quickly turned to ‘ending the world of nukes’.  I think Obama may have been scared to be the seen as the American President giving demands or saying an Islamic state ‘can’t have nukes’.   This however, does not make good policy.  If you were Iran’s mullahs and you heard that part, you would think, ‘okay, we’re cool’.

I was also not a fan of the continual moral equivalencies (US women’s rights and Middle Eastern women’s rights really have nothing in common, and CIA assistance of the coup of Mosaddeq equals the Islamic Republics bad behavior for thirty ongoing years), but Max Boot discussed this better than I ever could.

Regarding Israel-Palestine, I was largely in agreement with Obama.  Israel does need to stop their settlements (though this is extremely complicated, much more than Obama lets on) and I thought Obama clearly laid out how Palestinian use of violence was unacceptable; ‘It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.’

On to Iraq, which was really short changed by Obama.  He mainly just talked about the US getting the hell out of there, but what about regional stability of the situation or about how the Iraqis were actually having REAL ELECTIONS to an audience that has never experienced such a thing.  I felt that they could have been a great seque into democracy promotion, but Obama faild to do so.  Many have died to make those elections come about and it would have been nice if the President of the United States at least acknowledged what was going on only a few hundred miles away.

That being said, Obama did finish up his speech with some nice words for universal human rights and democracy, but he did so without really using the D-word specifically.  Here’s his best line regarding what people yearn for:

…the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.

It is interesting compare Obama’s democracy descriptions with former President Bush (“We know what works: Freedom works. We know what’s right: Freedom is right.”).  Different for sure, but really arguing the same point; democracy is da bomb.

I’m sure my notes had much more insight and hilarious jokes, but that’s all I got.  Overall, a nicely toned speech well-delivered.  The hard part of course is seeing real progress follow the words.

As could be expected, the media has been saturated with Obama’s speech tomorrow in Cairo, and for good reason.  Though I am skeptical how much rhetoric and popularity can have an impact on real foreign policy issues in the region and within the ‘Islamic World’ (Peace Process, Iraq, Iran’s nukes, Afghanistan, Islamic terrorism, embedded Arab dictatorships, etc.), I can’t help but think tomorrow will be an important day.  I just keep thinking about it, in fact, I’m a bit nervous.  Not sure why.  Maybe because it’s possible Obama will strike a cord that could actually begin a process where incipient or would be Jihadists decide that ‘America ain’t so bad’ and lay down their arms.  Unfortunately, as Osama’s video released today showcases, that is not likely to happen.

I think I’m also nervous because Obama, my president as an American citizen, may once again disparage his home country to score points with people abroad, some of whom have American blood on their hands.  When is Saudi King Abdullah going to New York to apologize for fomenting Islamic radicalism that helped lead to 9/11 or the Ayatollah Khamanei coming to voice his regrets over Iran’s taking of US hostages and for helping the Taliban and Shia extremists kill Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq?  This will not happen and I really wouldn’t want it to happen, as what good would it do?  I’m not saying that the United States has not done wrong, we have, but A. We’ve done a lot more right (65th anniversary of Normandy is in a couple days in case you need a reminder of one) B. The apologies don’t really get us anything or change the minds and policies of many people, especially those in power.  We must remember that problems facing the United States and the world go much deeper than an ‘unpopular’ America.  Christian Whiton states this well:

“The president is smart to use his own popularity to try to improve America’s image in the region. However, to prevail comprehensively over terrorists, we must realize the limits of this strategy. All too often, what is called public diplomacy or strategic communications is believed to consist entirely of decreasing anti-American opinions abroad. The theory goes that this will translate to more allies and reduce support for terrorists. It is a strategy that is based on hope and self-appreciation but fails to tackle the driving force of those who commit acts of terror: the Islamist ideology… [O]ur primary task is not to go out into the world and win a popularity contest. Rather, we must help bring about the decline of an ideology.”

Blah, Blah, Blah.  I hope, and predict, that Obama will make this point relatively mute by this time tomorrow. What do you hope to hear tomorrow?  If you were a Muslim Arab, Persian, Turk, etc., what would you want to hear?  I’ll leave you with some of the more interesting op-eds about the Cairo speech:

1. Obama pushes Middle East Thaw – well-rounded overview of speech and whole overseas trip by the WSJ.
2. Former Sec of State Madeleine Albright takes a stab at what Obama should say.
3. Fawaz A. Gerges tells Obama to speak to the young Muslims.
4. Michael Gerson of the Washington Post urges Obama not to forget about all the political prisoners and oppressed throughout Egypt and Arab world for they will be listening closely.
5. Thomas Freidman of the New York Times takes words Obama has already spoken to make a pretty good darn speech. (Someone tell Freidman to get a new headshot though, geesh!)
6. Nile Gardiner tells Obama to stop apologizing for America in the Daily Telegraph.

Oh yeah, here are two solid gold, GPP locks for the speech: 1. It will be centered around the Peace Process between Israel and Palestine 2. For the one millionth time a US president will walk the fine line between realism and liberalism.

Rashid, a highly touted Pakistani journalist, begins the final chapter of his 2000 ‘Taliban’ by calling the country one of world’s ‘orphaned conflict’s’.  The country would quickly change from being orphaned to a month after 9/11 being the center of global politics, as the United States uprooted the Taliban government and sent them packing, unfortunately for only a short-term vacation.

Rashid’s valuable book walks its readers through a rather dense social, religious, military, and even psychological history of the group of radicalized Pashtuns, known as the Taliban.  He provides a solid regional historical overview and does not forget the many geopolitical actors involved in the fragmented country (Iran, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia, etc.).  A solid half of the book details the violent rise to power of the Taliban as they battled first fellow Pashtun groups, than the government in Kabul, and finally the Northern Alliance actors, which would never relinquish their autonomy to Taliban-ruled Kabul and Kandahar.  This book is worth reading just for those who don’t know just how fractious the Afghan society can be with many various ethnicities and sects, all with foreign partners, that have had to violently attempt to protect themselves and further their own people’s positions.  This book, just like Afghanistan today, is full of conflict and violence that shows no real sign of ebbing.

Rashid provides a telling description of the early members of the Taliban (around 1994) as Afghans born in Pakistan and raised mainly by madrassas as their parents, especially mothers, may have been lost in the years of fighting during and after the Soviet invasion and withdrawal.  These young men had ‘no memories of the past, no plans for the future’ and knew of nothing else but their Taliban leaders.  Like we have heard many times in reference to terrorist and gang groups, the Taliban offered these men, and boys, a meaning to their lives that they could embrace and fight for.

This type of camaraderie of course becomes dangerous when it is based on ignorant, stubborn, violent, yet a strong ideology and form of Islam, as they, the Taliban, surely had.  The Taliban, which by 1996 controlled large swaths of Afghan territory, including Kabul, ruled with a fundamental Islamic iron fist that showed no accommodation, not even towards UN aid providers.  The Taliban was controlling a large population and recruiting members with a version of Islam that ‘divested’ it of nearly all of its positive legacies, including Islamic philosophy, science, arts, civil society, etc.  It was the Taliban’s way or the knife.  One has never read about a more oppressive society.

The Taliban did not become the Taliban, or rule, in a vacuum.  They were of course incubated and constantly nourished by the Pakistani government and ISI.  When the Taliban needed more troops in their battles with Masud and what would become the Northern Alliance, Pakistan would just close some of their madrassas in FATA or the Northwest Provinces and send the men over the border.  Rashid, who also spends time on Osama bin Ladin’s terrorist network in Afghanistan, accurately predicted that the Pakistani state and military were creating their own nightmare with their support of the Taliban, instead of the ‘strategic depth’ they aimed for.  The author stated that the Islamic fundamentalism, drugs, weapons, and social breakdown that the Pakistani government was assisting the Taliban in performing or using, was making Islamabad ‘ripe for a Taliban-style Islamic revolution.’  While what is occurring today in Pakistan is so far, thankfully, not this extreme, it is too close for comfort.

Rashid’s ‘Taliban’ also details the human and women right’s abuses by the Taliban in great detail.  In addition, Rashid spends several chapters describing the ‘great game’ of pipeline politics in the Central Asia region and not surprisingly was correct in his assessment that Afghanistan, and the region as a whole, was just too unstable for Western groups to come in and build major gas and oil pipelines, no matter how much they wanted too.  Though these pipeline chapters were well researched, they can be passed over by most readers.

Rashid’s book provides much more than the history and make-up of a group that the powerful United States military is having a hell of a time defeating, it brings to life the challenging modern history of a people who have only known violence in their lives.  It is sad to think that one cannot imagine this changing in the near or even long-term future.  Though Rashid’s work is far from perfect, too many assumptions presented as facts (he is a journalist by trade), it brings light on a dangerous and important group, geopolitical actors and actions in a key region of the world, and on the suffering of millions.

I don’t think I have ever mentioned this, but I Love Tony Blair. While, I love what he stands for at least (and his accent too!). My fiance would probably have a problem if I really ‘loved’ him. The former British Prime Minister made one of the most remarkable and inspiring speeches about the role of the US and West in the world and the challenges they face, this past weekend for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. In this speech Blair doubles down on his interventionist, liberal world view that the West should be have an active agenda when it comes to bringing freedom and opportunity to countries and peoples who are suppressed. In this he argues that both soft power and hard power will be required and useful. Blair convincingly details the continuing troubles with certain followers of an extreme form of Islam and rightly argues against the idea that the US/West are in anyway responsible for the terrorism brought against them. To Blair, terrorism and violence against civilians is wrong, period. I strongly urge everyone to listen to this speech. Here is the transcript. Below I will have several key sections of his talk without comments, but would love to discuss them in the comment section.

The West Must Stand Firm (Audio)

Blair’s rejection of going back to a realist foreign policy:

So: should we now revert to a more traditional foreign policy, less bold, more cautious; less idealistic, more pragmatic, more willing to tolerate the intolerable because of fear of the unpredictable consequences that intervention can bring?

My argument is that the case for the doctrine I advocated ten years ago, remains as strong now as it was then; and that what has really changed is the context in which the doctrine has to be applied. The struggle in which we are joined today is profound in its danger; requires engagement of a different and more comprehensive kind; and can only be won by the long haul. The context therefore is much tougher. But the principle is the same.

Better to intervene than to leave well alone. Be bold, adventurous even in what we can achieve.

Blair defining the trouble with and within Islam:

Of course, each arena of conflict has its own particular characteristics, its own origins in political or territorial disputes, its own claims and counter-claims of injustice. Of course the solution in each case will be in many respects different. But it is time to wrench ourselves out of a state of denial. There is one major factor in common. In each conflict there are those deeply engaged in it, who argue that they are fighting in the true name of Islam.

And here is the crucial point. This didn’t start on 11th September 2001, or shortly before it. The roots aren’t near the surface. It was in the 1970s that Pakistan’s leadership decided to re-define itself through religious conviction. The storming of the Holy Mosque in Mecca took place years ago. Al Qaida began in earnest in the 1980s. In many Arab and Muslim nations, there was more tolerance and less religiosity in the 1960s, than today. The doctrinal roots of this growing movement can be traced even further back to the period in the late 19th and early 20th century where modernising and moderate clerics and thinkers were slowly but surely pushed aside by the hard-line dogma of those, whose cultural and theological credentials were often dubious, but whose appeal lay in the simplicity of the message : Islam, they say, lost its way; the reason was its departure from the true faith as stated immutably in the 7th century ; and the answer is to return to it and in doing so, vanquish Islam’s foes, in the West and most especially within the ruling parties of the Islamic world itself.

Blair’s one sentence description of who’s responsible for terrorism:

The responsibility for terrorism lies with the terrorist and no-one else.

Blair discussing the positives, as well, as limitations of engagement and diplomacy:

President Obama’s reaching out to the Muslim world at the start of a new American administration, is welcome, smart, and can play a big part in defeating the threat we face. It disarms those who want to say we made these enemies, that if we had been less confrontational they would have been different. It pulls potential moderates away from extremism.

But it will expose, too, the delusion of believing that there is any alternative to waging this struggle to its conclusion. The ideology we are fighting is not based on justice. That is a cause we can understand. And world-wide these groups are adept, certainly, at using causes that indeed are about justice, like Palestine. Their cause, at its core, however, is not about the pursuit of values that we can relate to; but in pursuit of values that directly contradict our way of life. They don’t believe in democracy, equality or freedom. They will espouse, tactically, any of these values if necessary. But at heart what they want is a society and state run on their view of Islam. They are not pluralists. They are the antithesis of pluralism. And they don’t think that only their own community or state should be like that. They think the world should be governed like that.

In other words, there may well be groups, or even Governments, that can be treated with, and with whom we can reach an accommodation. Negotiation and persuasion can work and should be our first resort. If they do, that’s great, which is why if Hamas were to accept the principle of a peaceful two state solution, they could be part of the process agreeing it. But the ideology, as a movement within Islam, has to be defeated. It is incompatible not with ‘the West’ but with any society of open and tolerant people and that in particular means the many open and tolerant Muslims.

Blair’s concluding pep talk to America and the West:

We have to re-discover some confidence and conviction in who we are, how far we’ve come and what we believe in….We are standing up for what is right. The body of ideas that has given us this liberty, to speak and think as we wish, that allows us to vote in and vote out our rulers, that provides a rule of law on which we can rely, and a political space infinitely more transparent than anything that went before ; that body isn’t decaying. It is in the prime of life. It is the future.

This is international liberalism and American idealism at its most inspiring and convincing.

Olivier Roy. That’s right Olivier ‘flipping’ Roy was at UCSD’s Political Science Department today and I was able to sneak in. Actually, I was pretty much a ‘star’ guest, but who cares? Well, probably all the the people that saw me.

Mr. Roy, a Frenchman, is one of the most distinguished Western scholars of Islam. He has studied and worked for the United Nations and French foreign ministry in Tajikistan and Afghanistan and has written several influential books about political Islam. Unfortunately, his talk at UCSD was not very substantial. He just discussed certain aspects of Islam, its relations within Europe, and the intriguing topic of converts. He spent a considerable amount of time trying to discredit the Clash of Civilizations thesis, mainly by arguing that for it to exist there would need to be one Islam and one West, and each just don’t exist. Relations are more complicated. He provocatively argued that states should no longer speak of ‘Islam’ in foreign ministries, just individual states and regions. In other words, instead of Obama trying to reach out to all of the Muslim world, Roy believes he should just concentrate on small, individual parts of it, like Egypt, Iraq’s shia, or Hamas.

In any case, Roy has written and spoken some wise words when it comes to Islam and the West. I found this 2005 op-ed of his that describes the bankrupt nature of most Islamic extremists in one short page. And this Charlie Rose interview with Roy covers much ground. In it Roy even states that he supports the Iraq war as a way of spreading democracy throughout the region, BUT only if the US follows through with a long term commitment to its growth. I wanted to ask Mr. Roy if he thought President Obama was ready to carry that policy forth, all indications are otherwise, but alas I did not get the chance to ask him as my mouth was full of the delicious chocolate chip cookies USCD provided.