The enemy of my enemy. YEAH BABY

story.news.yahoo.com.../usnews/20050416/ts_usnews/theenemyofmyenemy

we can't always use force against our enemy so we have to use the enemy's enemy against them and it can be a long term effect in defeating Al Qaeda. new idea, good idea.

Encouraging Islamic moderates is a smart move, our "friends" the Saudis have been promoting Wahabbi extremism around the Islamic world, someone needs to support the cooler heads.

I think this approach will prove more effective over time than the "toughguy" approach, that only seems to drive more Muslims into the arms of the fanatics.

Originally posted by xmotex
Encouraging Islamic moderates is a smart move, our "friends" the Saudis have been promoting Wahabbi extremism around the Islamic world, someone needs to support the cooler heads.

I think this approach will prove more effective over time than the "toughguy" approach, that only seems to drive more Muslims into the arms of the fanatics.

I think you are right on the money there. I do agree that the "fanatics" are trying to drag as many others into it as they can. I also agree that the Saudis are not our friends. They do not consider us equals, we are merely "the help" so to speak.

Great post, indeed. Any thought toward a solution is a move in the right direction.

The sufis are islamic mystics, I don't think that they have too much support within islam. Sunni and Shia islam are still the power brokers. The syrian rulers, they're Alawite islam, they are mystics and esoterics, they too have limited powers.


Perhaps the better move would be to support the zoroasterians in Iran, who are supposedly going thru a cultural revival now anyways? Might be interesting if that part of the world de-converted back to Zoroasterianism.

Yeah that method works really well. We did it with this guy named Osama Bin Laden during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, we did it with a guy named Saddam Hussein... Look where our meddling in the affairs of other nations has gotten us, and you honestly think it works well? Get real.

Neither bin Laden nor Hussein could be considered moderates. At any rate, we don't know how to promote a particular religion, since our culture (US) is based on exactly the opposite behavior.

It seems like a good idea now to get other muslims to encourage different behaviour but it will all backfire somehow....

Wow, thats a good point twitchy.


Hussein was a moderate. He was secular, he was very moderate compared to the iranian revolutionaries. As far as bin ladin, technically, the US, so far as I know, didn't support/fund/equip bin ladin directly. Equiping and funding infact was what he did. Thats what he brought to the table in the anti-soviet jihad for the other jihadis.

But the point is obvious. The US supported hussein, and look what happened. It supported the Shah, and look what happened. It supported the Jihadis, and look what happened. What happens 50 years down the road when there's a shi'ite caliphate ruling everythign from egypt to pakistan, flexing it nuclear muscles and invading, say, russia and greece?

More of the same, no?