The Movement

As France and Germany reel at Islamist terrorist attacks on a daily or near-daily basis, George Friedman points out something that should have been obvious at this point:

The essential problem has been a persistent misunderstanding of radical Islamism. It is a movement, not an organization. Or to be more precise, radical Islamism is a strand of Islam. How large or small it is has become the subject of a fairly pointless debate. Its size is sufficient to send American forces halfway around the world and it is capable of carrying out attacks in Europe and the U.S. Whether it is a small strand or a giant strand doesn’t matter. What matters is that it cannot be suppressed, or at least has not yet been suppressed.

Here in the United States we’ve been fortunate that we haven’t experienced what the Germans and French are experiencing.

Can we expect that to continue? It may be that we can. Our oceans continue to protect us, the demographics of the U. S. Muslim population is different from that of, say, Germany, and we’ve been lucky. However, the fear that it will not continue is what motivates remarks like Donald Trump’s famous demand that we end Muslim immigration “until we know what’s going on”.

I think that goes a step too far but I do think that it would be prudent of us to limit immigration from the Middle East and North Africa to people who’ve been thoroughly vetted which would in turn imply that those immigrants would largely be limited to people who’ve been working with the U. S. military for years in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere and their families.

I do think that we should abandon our efforts at suppressing the movement. That will remain beyond our ability as long as we eschew the means that would be required to do it which would result in our killing tens or hundreds of millions of innocents.

5 comments… add one
  • Ken Hoop Link

    You might research the peace proposal Osama bin Laden offered the United States a short while after 9-11-2001 and before ISIS had evolved. bin Laden was pretty tame, he didn’t approve much of attacks on Shias generally for example.
    One of the demands was curtailment of aid to Israel and a significant evacuation of US bases from the Mideast which would be returned by no further attacks here.
    Obviously since the United States has evolved into a world-policing Empire, not a nation, with The Lobby in dominant control of Congress, these demands could not be met.

    Perhaps bin Laden is happy at this juncture they were not and that Obama has drone bombed his way to Taliban resurgence in the Mideast while US aid to Saudi in Yemen has led to AQ seizing significant parts there while Assad is still preoccupied with salvaging much of Syria and begging his own people to stay and fight rather than flee to Europe with jihad infiltrators aided by Clinton’s hawkishness, you get the drift.

  • Ken Hoop Link

    I should say “Taliban/ISIS” resurgence in Afghanistan, considering the recent terror attack in Kabul.

  • ... Link

    Okay, so you only bring in the people already thoroughly vetted. How are you going to vet the children of those people that haven’t yet been born? That’s at least part of the problem they’re having in Europe, and part of the problem we’re having here.

    The Orlando killer had been born here, after all. Hell, the FBI investigated him several times and found him to be a charming fellow.

    It’s time to admit (a) that the vetting process doesn’t work (see that wonderful Army doctor for another example), and that (b) Muslims do not assimilate, nor do they want to, and that eventually some of them are going to get around to trying to kill every non-Muslim they can before getting sent to heaven to fuck 72 Clay Aikens. No more Muslim immigrants, get rid of the ones already here that aren’t citizens, and get rid of the ones that are citizens that are working against the USA, which means most of the devout ones.

  • G. Shambler Link

    And if the terror attacks are only a distraction? While a more intelligent and patient strain of militant Islam infiltrates our government? How dangerous could any group with the acronym C.A.I.R. be? Better hope they’re nice because they have one of their own at the side of, if not in the bed of the historic first cracked glass ceiling candidate for POTUS.

  • Better hope they’re nice because they have one of their own at the side of, if not in the bed of the historic first cracked glass ceiling candidate for POTUS.

    Yes, it’s a scandal and an outrage that Huma Abedin’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood aren’t much more common knowledge. The MB aren’t good guys. They’re the enemy and CAIR is a MB off-shoot.

Leave a Comment