Say It Like It Is
JAN. 20, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/opinion/thomas-friedman-say-it-like-it-is.html?comments#permid=13888927
Not to be insulting to Mr. Friedman, but the topic and theme is eerily similar to an Op-Ed piece by Marine Le Pen, which appeared in the NYT earlier this week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/opinion/marine-le-pen-france-was-attacked-by-islamic-fundamentalism.html
The real problem is that we in Western countries cannot solve the schisms in Islam, which are at the root of jihadism. All we, especially the US, have managed to do by destroying a number of Middle East countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, and to a lesser extent Libya) is to give the jihadist an excuse to target western countries in an effort to gain media attention.
Once that genie was out of the bottle, and showed just how effective this media attention getting was, it is impossible to put it back in the bottle. All we can do now is to try and isolate ourselves as best we can from the jihadist's ability to export their terror to us - we cannot solve the problems of Shia-Sunni and other intra Islam conflicts in Muslim countries, but we can reduce the ability to export that conflict to us by:
- stopping our misguided efforts to"stabilize" and "democratize" Middle Eastern countries, which has only served to destabilize their tenuous political and social structures.
- working on better integrating Muslim minorities in western countries so as to reduce the likelihood that they are recruited into jihadist terror cells.
We, "the West", cannot modernize Islam and bring it into the 21st century - that can only be done from the inside. Certainly our two "wars of liberation" in Iraq and Afghanistan have been counter-productive.
The real problem is that we in Western countries cannot solve the schisms in Islam, which are at the root of jihadism. All we, especially the US, have managed to do by destroying a number of Middle East countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, and to a lesser extent Libya) is to give the jihadist an excuse to target western countries in an effort to gain media attention.
Once that genie was out of the bottle, and showed just how effective this media attention getting was, it is impossible to put it back in the bottle. All we can do now is to try and isolate ourselves as best we can from the jihadist's ability to export their terror to us - we cannot solve the problems of Shia-Sunni and other intra Islam conflicts in Muslim countries, but we can reduce the ability to export that conflict to us by:
- stopping our misguided efforts to"stabilize" and "democratize" Middle Eastern countries, which has only served to destabilize their tenuous political and social structures.
- working on better integrating Muslim minorities in western countries so as to reduce the likelihood that they are recruited into jihadist terror cells.
We, "the West", cannot modernize Islam and bring it into the 21st century - that can only be done from the inside. Certainly our two "wars of liberation" in Iraq and Afghanistan have been counter-productive.
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