IP: 'This is a Religious War'

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: "Jim Hake" <jim () persistx com>
> To: "Dave Farber" <farber () central cis upenn edu (Dave Farber)>
> Subject: NY Times: 'This is a Religious War'
> Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 11:33:39 -0700
>
> Dave,
>
> The following article from the NY Times is the best I've read on our battle
> against terrorism.  Please read it.  Here is the nutshell:
>
> "That is why this coming conflict is indeed as momentous and as grave as the
> last major conflicts, against Nazism and Communism, and why it is not
> hyperbole to see it in these epic terms. What is at stake is yet another
> battle against a religion that is succumbing to the temptation to rule by
> force. The difference is that this conflict is against a more formidable
> enemy than Nazism or Communism."
>
> I'm sure you find that as troubling as I do.  Nonetheless, it's our duty to
> understand the nature of the threat we face. We owe it to ourselves, our
> children and future generations.
>
> Also highly recommended: Jonathan Alter, Newsweek "Blame America At Your Own
> Peril"
> http://www.msnbc.com/news/639242.asp?0sp=w17b10
>
> I hope this message finds you well.
>
> Jim
>
>
> THIS IS A RELIGIOUS WAR
> NY Times Magazine, October 7, 2001
> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/07/magazine/07RELIGION.html
>
> By Andrew Sullivan
>
> Perhaps the most admirable part of the response to the conflict that began
> on Sept. 11 has been a general reluctance to call it a religious war.
> Officials and commentators have rightly stressed that this is not a battle
> between the Muslim world and the West, that the murderers are not
> representative of Islam. President Bush went to the Islamic Center in
> Washington to reinforce the point. At prayer meetings across the United
> States and throughout the world, Muslim leaders have been included alongside
> Christians, Jews and Buddhists.
>
> The only problem with this otherwise laudable effort is that it doesn't hold
> up under inspection. The religious dimension of this conflict is central to
> its meaning. The words of Osama bin Laden are saturated with religious
> argument and theological language. Whatever else the Taliban regime is in
> Afghanistan, it is fanatically religious. Although some Muslim leaders have
> criticized the terrorists, and even Saudi Arabia's rulers have distanced
> themselves from the militants, other Muslims in the Middle East and
> elsewhere have not denounced these acts, have been conspicuously silent or
> have indeed celebrated them. The terrorists' strain of Islam is clearly not
> shared by most Muslims and is deeply unrepresentative of Islam's glorious,
> civilized and peaceful past. But it surely represents a part of Islam -- a
> radical, fundamentalist part -- that simply cannot be ignored or denied.
>
> In that sense, this surely is a religious war -- but not of Islam versus
> Christianity and Judaism. Rather, it is a war of fundamentalism against
> faiths of all kinds that are at peace with freedom and modernity. This war
> even has far gentler echoes in America's own religious conflicts -- between
> newer, more virulent strands of Christian fundamentalism and mainstream
> Protestantism and Catholicism. These conflicts have ancient roots, but they
> seem to be gaining new force as modernity spreads and deepens. They are our
> new wars of religion -- and their victims are in all likelihood going to
> mount with each passing year.
>
> Osama bin Laden himself couldn't be clearer about the religious
> underpinnings of his campaign of terror. In 1998, he told his followers,
> ''The call to wage war against America was made because America has
> spearheaded the crusade against the Islamic nation, sending tens of
> thousands of its troops to the land of the two holy mosques over and above
> its meddling in its affairs and its politics and its support of the
> oppressive, corrupt and tyrannical regime that is in control.'' Notice the
> use of the word ''crusade,'' an explicitly religious term, and one that
> simply ignores the fact that the last few major American interventions
> abroad -- in Kuwait, Somalia and the Balkans -- were all conducted in
> defense of Muslims.

<snip>



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