… in his response to a new Pentagon report envisaging a “long war” against Islamism – but I suspect he is not. Mr. Judd wrote the following: The Cold War was ultimately won by rhetoric as much as by the Soviets’ inability to compete militarily. It should be even easier to defeat Islamicism [sic] because, unlike Communism, no one considers it feasible in the first place, not even Western intellectuals.
Unfortunately I think it may be precisely the opposite. It is the very irrationality of Islamism that makes it hard to defeat. Marxism (“scientific socialism”) was a philosophical doctrine that could be argued, modified or refuted on a theoretical/intellectual basis. Islamism (Islam itself to great extent) is a blind faith attractive to hundreds of millions, even billions of people. Invented when most of humanity thought the world was flat, it brooks no intellectual analysis. That its adherents, for the most part, live in backwards societies is beside the point, perhaps even a positive for its survival. In a sense, it is the perfect cult. As a threat, Marxism (or communism) may pale by comparison, I’m afraid to say. (via PJ)
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