The Immature War
Cafe Alpha provides this link:
Sixty years later the lessons from the era of Japanese reconstruction have been ignored entirely following the US-led military interventions in Afghanistan, now under the post-Taliban Karzai regime, and Iraq, after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Indeed the post-World War II paradigm of neutralizing Japan’s bellicose, religio-political creed of Shintoism, has been turned on its head with regard to Islam, and the theocratic Islamic legal code, Shari’a—imbued with jihad, and completely antithetical to modern human rights constructs.
The core problem is that the West still doesn't comprehend (or refuses to acknowledge) the true nature of the enemy. If Islam is a religion of peace which is being "perverted" by a few psychotics, then we don't have to worry about the influence of Islamic law in Afghanistan and Iraq. Reality, however, doesn't jive with this premise.
It is because of Islam that an ex-Muslim was a few days away from death in Afghanistan. It is because of Islam that Jews are not welcome in Iraq. Islam is the problem.
To be fair, our job is far tougher. Japan was and is one nation. Islam infects dozens of countries with over a billion people. If we come out and bluntly say that a state has no business implementing sharia, then this will put the West in an explicit war with the majority Muslim world. The Bush Administration has tried to avoid this scenario. They'd rather co-opt the "peaceful" majority and defeat Al Qaeda and its ilk.
The problem would still remain, though. What Al Qaeda won't gain through terror, the "peaceful" majority will achieve through demographics. The West will eventually have to broaden the scope of this war in all spheres -- in objectives, strategy and tactics.
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