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Opinions/Editorials Title: Can A Dying Civilization Defeat ISIS and Radical Islam? A bigger problem is we do not yet realize we are losing or why. Their legions are growing, their ambitions are apocalyptic, and our resolve is as strong as silly putty. Without question, our military is superior to any other on earth and we could inflict devastating damage to ISIS if we unleashed our military forces against them. But we are not going to do thatnot today, not next month and not after the next atrocity strikes Cleveland, Phoenix or Richmond. If we are honest we must face a very dark and sobering fact: The outcome of this war is far from certain. We are proud of being a nation of can-do optimists, but we are also a nation in denial about a culture in a tailspin. Our secular culture is adrift in a sea of relativism, escapism, and self-indulgent inanities, with our media and entertainment elites leading the parade. In this besotted condition, we are ill equipped to fight an enemy full of passion, idealism and self-confidence. Islamist suicide bombers believe they are dying for a higher purpose, the greater glory of Allah. What, exactly, are our ideals? The freedom to enjoy pornography and polygamy and 24-hour pizza delivery? Then in our generation, along comes multiculturalism to teach that there are no superior cultures, only different ones. Witchcraft is as much a legitimate personal religion as Christianity or Buddhism if that is what turns you on, and polygamy is just another lifestyle with its own cable TV channel. The great Russian novelist Alexandr Solzhenitsyn saw this deepening hollowness in the West as a global development spanning five centuries, with Soviet Communism only a symptom of lost souls. In his Templeton Lecture in 1983, long before the rise of radical Islam, he warned: It has become embarrassing to state that evil makes its home in the individual human heart before it enters a political system. Yet it is not considered shameful to make dally concessions to an integral evil. Judging by the continuing landslide of concessions made before the eyes of our very own generation, the West is ineluctably slipping toward the abyss. ISIS and radical Islam have declared war on us not because of anything we have donenot because we are a friend to Israel and not because we have not yet toppled the bloody Syrian dictator Assad. ISIS and radical Islamists hate us for who we are. The irony is, we ourselves do not know who we are. The Chinese philosopher Sun Tsu said it best in The Art of War: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. ISIS hates the West as an abominable nest of infidels, infidels who reject the Quran and Shariah Law, and so must be annihilated. We are the obstacle to the new Caliphate. OKAY got it: We stand against the Caliphate. But what do we stand for? What is our alternative ideal to the Islamist ideal? Radical Islams principles are out there for all to see if they open their eyes. But what are our principles? In truth, they are up for grabs. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top Page Up Full Thread Page Down Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
#1. To: cranky (#0)
Tancredo is correct. The problem is that other centers of West4ern culture share that rot.
#2. To: rlk (#1)
Just the ones that embrace liberalism.
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