Jay of Bleak City,
That link you put up was interesting not because
it said what probably many moslems believe but because of the insight
it gave to what is taught in schools, universities & mosques.

Hi SM,

I suspect that, once IS is destroyed in Syria and Iraq, other versions will spring up elsewhere in the Muslim world, and that that is going to keep happening for decades yet. Alrready this year, according to an article in today's Austtalian, Boko Haram has killed more innocent people than IS, at least officially - we'll see when the dust settles over Syria and Iraq, if ever.

The problem is that Islam can be used, or at least bits of its book can, to justify the most vile crimes, and as long as clerics like the grand mufti issue ambiguous statements, new recruits for anti-West, pro-fascist and ardently Islamist groups like IS, will continually be generated out of the Muslim population. Islamism is a logical out-growth from standard Islam, a reaction to the West at the same time as its adherents take advantage of the benefits of the West, its technology for instance.

I think we are in for a very long haul, a struggle between different value systems, cultures, ideologies, between the supposed values of a very distant and primitive past and those of very uncertain future. Utopians of all sorts, including the pseudo-left in the West, hanker for certainties, so they're willing to trade, hoping theirs will be the last heads to roll.

Perhaps it's not too grandiose to suggest that IS and its related fascist groups are forcing the entire world, seven billion of us, to re-assess our values, to make explicit what we, each and every one of us, believe in and stand for.

Yes, it's going to be a very, very long struggle - sometimes war, sometimes passionate discussion and analysis, back and forth, until either the values of human rights and freedoms prevail, or the reactionary certainties of a dead past prevail. Nothing is inevitable. It's going to be up to all of us.

Joe

Joe, I think you have nutshelled it effectively.
I agree when it is hammered down it will go quiet but later will be
reestablished and make a nuisance of itself again.
It has been like this for 1400 years.

In our time there has been a lot of money available from sources in
Saudi Arabia & groups in other moslim countries. These sources get
their funds directly or indirectly from oil.
Once that source dries up they will revert to Mohomadd's example and
raid banks. They did that when they first got established, in that they
took the funds from the banks in Mosul and Raqqe.
Now I doubt if the banks in those cities carry any or very little cash.
They are existing on oil sales but the US is trying to stop those
transactions. Eventually they will run out of money.

Currently Saidi Arabia is on an austerity drive due to the low price.
Saudi needs US$90 to break even on their national budget.
The lack of funds may reduce their interest in the outside world
while they blame everyone else in the ME.

The real financial difficulty in the ME may not occur for 10 years.
If I am correct in that time scale it means they will be operating
in the current mode for some time yet, unless hammered down.

The Islamic model cannot produce a viable society as can be seen in
the mess into which the Middle east is currently descending.
Oil income has produced a surge in an unsupportable population.
Hence the surge in immigrants to Europe.

Until the ideas and the religion of Islam is shown to be false and intellectually foolish, radical Islam will exist. Close Mosques and Islamic schools unless They are open to public scrutiny, and all teaching be in English, and all teachers be university trained in Australia.

'Until the ideas and the religion of Islam is shown to be false and intellectually foolish, radical Islam will exist.'

True Josephus but no more so than secular humanisn totally devoid of rationality and morals.

Couldn't agree more Josephus, but it takes better equipped politicians
than we now have. Even Abbott pussyfooted around the problem, yet
look where it got him.

Everyone, except a female relative, that I have spoken to wants a very
much more hardline program against the moslem problem.
There is real anger out there.
Our local polly held a meeting for voters a few days ago and he got the
message, but it was all the party line of course and glazed over look.

He also pushed the "Growth growth growth" line and actually said that
you can have growth without using more energy !
What a dill ! and I might be forced to vote for him because the
alternative is worse !!