No Unlimited Enemies

Yesterday I mentioned that I would post an entry about the argument that U.S. action overseas will only inflame "the Arab street," recruiting more and more terrorists to fight against us. In other words, that we’re dealing with an unlimited enemy.

Not true.

One hates to say it, but like the Soviets before them, the Islamists do respect strength. Shows of strength in that part of the world make things better, not worse. They quiet rather than inflame the Arab street–at least in terms of its creation of more terrorists. What really makes new terrorists is showing weakness so that they think they have a chance of succeeding. Making it clear that they do not has a pacification tendency.

This isn’t just my conclusion. It is the conclusion of others, such as Bernard Lewis, the foremost Western scholar of Islam.

THOMAS ("HE’S SO SMART") SOWELL EXPLAINS FURTHER.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

3 thoughts on “No Unlimited Enemies”

  1. It’s also the conclusion of the terrorist. UBL famously said after 9/11 that one of the reasons for the attack was to show their strength. Here is and excerpt from a transcript of a post 9/11 video of UBl…
    ‘When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse. This is only one goal…’
    …Here’s the full transcript http://www.greatdreams.com/osama_tape.htm
    …As Jimmy indicated, I think it’s clear to ALL who the strong horse is at this point.

  2. Well to a certain extend all that is true.
    But when I see how it’s easy for a Jehova witness or an evangelical to “convert” a catholic (most of the ones I know are former catholic), I think it would be more easier for an islamist to use anger, the feeling of injustice, biased interpretation on Gulf war or palestinian problems, historic errors (“they were aggressed by crusades”) to win people for their Jihad.
    Perhaps do they fear strengh… But it’s easy to send a new convert full of great feelings for God to do the dirty job.
    The key is – to my mind- not only in being stronger, but in practising justice, humility (we remember that one of the major cause of the rising of Hitler was the feeling of injustice and humiliation that germans had after the first WW.).
    However, I agree that historians often say that at his begining Hitler would have been impressed if other european countries would have shown their strengh.

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