On 20-Sep-2006,

ey.markov@iname.com wrote:

Why is the left afraid to face up to the threat of radical Islam?

Here's a puzzle: Why is it so frequently the case that the people who
have the most at stake in the battle against Islamic extremism and the
most to lose when Islamism gains--namely, liberals--are typically the
most reluctant to fight it?

Why does the right confuse criticism of its policies with an acceptance
of radical Islam? To many on the left, one problem with the invasion of
Iraq is precisely that it did nothing to confront radical Islam and in
fact made it stronger. Ditto for the use of torture, and the
compromising of civil liberties.

Except that a lot of those people are just plain wrong: just as Israel
is NOT the "reason for terrorism", so did our "invasions" (we haven't
invaded anywhere in the actual sense of the word): not "strengthen"
radcial Islam in any appreciable way - except maybe to give them a
wider voice - & respectability - in what is called the Liberal Press.
If anyone is strengthening "radcal Islam" it's people who use the term
"radical Islam" instead of calling them whatthey are" terrorists.

And and plenty of those people are not just "against the Iraqi war",
they are anti-semites using it all as an excuse to acceptably bash
Jews, proivded they use the right codewords.

"They think that by appeasing

them--allowing them their own ghettoes, their own Muslim schools--they
will win their friendship."

Or they think that Muslims have as much right to their schools as
Christians and Jews have to theirs.

They are the same people who stupidly insist on believing that giving
them bits of Israel, over & over, will make them happy.

Suzy