First, know thyself
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7081189
Jun 22nd 2006
From The Economist print edition
FOUR authors of recent books about America's conflict with Islamism are
like blind men feeling an elephant-each one describes the problem in
a slightly different way. What unites them, though, is a single,
overarching question: if the jihadists are just a bunch of
bloodthirsty, head-chopping, woman-haters, why does the West have such
a hard time gaining the moral high ground in what America persists in
calling the "war on terror?"
Bruce Bawer and Claire Berlinski focus on what they see as a moral and
spiritual crisis for Europe. Rather than line up behind America to
confront radical Islam, Europe's supine elites prefer to snipe at the
superpower that protects them. Too selfish to bear the children who
will support them in old age, they import foreigners whose own children
turn out to have other plans for the future. Lost to Christianity,
atheist Europeans remain in thrall to a weak rationality that prevents
them mobilising against the green peril within.
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