The "War on Terror" - really a War Against Jihadism - doctrinaire elimination of Infidels - has always struck me as alot like America's Indian wars. Thus, the war in Iraq looks like a Sherrif's Posse action cleaning up a few bad counties. There are crucial differences. First, American Indians never had access to nukes. (Machine guns came a little late and never presented an equivalent threat.) Second, The Ghost Dance revival also came late and never had the same Messianic dimensions based on historical world domination as Islamism presents. In June, an audio tape recording, found Wednesday on an Islamic Web site, is supposedly from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the same Jordanian-born terrorist whose group claimed responsibility for the beheading of American hostage Nicholas Berg and Kim Sun-il. In the audiotape, the speaker thought to be al-Zarqawi said: ***"We will carry on our jihad against the Western infidel and the Arab apostate until Islamic rule is back on Earth," the voice said. *** As with Bin Laden before, the goal of restablishing the Islamic Caliphate and smiting down dominant Western Infidels is repeated, The Islamist goals do not end with pushing the US occupation forces out of Saudi Arabia. They move on to reclaiming Iberia, pushing the Jews into the sea, and so on. Now, worth all this additional rhetoric and terrorist activity, you'd think the US left (if not the Euro left) would get the truthful ambitious reach of these terrorists. It isn't something we (the US, the West ) do to them - it's the very fact that our existence smites the fundamentalist Truth of Islam and Allah. But the Left have been and remain extraordinarily slow learners about the threat of terrorism. How does one break through to them? I ask because I live in a peace-worshipping, Nation reading Green Party voting town. After 9/11, it took nine months of discussion and debate before one well-informed friend to conceed "Bin Laden did it!" (He denies being a pacifisct, but nonetheless cannot state what would justify attcking an enemy in self-defense.) How does on reach these lost souls? --Orson
Hi Orson - In my experience I've found that, when it comes to controversial issues, you can roughly divide people into three categories: 1) Those who are solidly in agreement with you 2) Those who are solidly in disagreement with you 3) Those who are undecided You need to aim your message at those in category #3. You will not convert those in category #2. For an interesting bit a research, please go to your favorite search engine and type in, Prochaska stages of change. This is a commonly used model in the field of psychotherapy for guiding interventions based on the patient's readiness or interest in changing problematic behaviors. In any case, good luck, Jack
