Quote:
Originally Posted by SeattleUte
Chris Hitchins believes radical Islam poses every but the specter of evil and physical danger to the United States as did Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. But having grown up under the specter of mutually assured destruction and Warsaw Pact tanks and troops vastly outnumbering NATO's along the Eastern European divide, and reflecting that in the mid-twentieth century the Nazi flag flew over Paris, and appeared likely to stay there for generations, I have my doubts.
I think I'm in Waters' camp believing these Islamic terrorists live in caves and are relics of medieval times. In the Looming Tower Richard Wright demonstrates that Al Queda really needed near-criminal negligence by the CIA (knowing full well two of bin Ladin's henchmen were in the U.S. and taking flight lessons and doing nothing about it and telling no one including the FBI for over a year) to pull off 9/11. Even getting a VISA is tough if you're a Middle Easterner, and you need to be legal to buy large amounts of fertilizer, take flying lessons, buy deadly weapons, etc. And even terrorism as spectacular as 9/11 doesn't really threaten American military and economic primacy.
I continue to believe that freedom is ephemeral and doomed in the long run as it has always been, but it's not radical Islam I fear in this sense. It's probably ourselves, our own leaders. I think radical Islam will go the way of all underfunded etreme minority terrorist groups in modern times who fade away as their founders die of prostate cancer or become addled if not die violently.
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It is not in and of itself a long term threat to our survival, IMO. I agree the bigger threat comes from our own complaceny in the face of the erosion of our rights. I disagree that it will go away with the death of the current genreaiton of leaders. I think radical islam will be around for a long time and will be a serious threat for a long time, and will remain so until they run out of oil or we stop buying it.