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The West defeated fascists and communists in World War II and the Cold War. It now faces a foe equally determined, if not more so. Can it defeat radical Islam?
Daniel Pipes, author of 11 books on Middle Eastern topics and director of the Philadelphia think tank Middle East Forum, asked that crucial question in his Dec. 26, 2006, article "How the West Could Lose" in the New York Sun.
"On the face of it, [the West's] military preponderance makes victory seem inevitable . . . ," he wrote. "Yet, more than a few analysts, including myself, worry that it's not so simple.
"Islamists (defined as persons who demand to live by the sacred law of Islam, the Sharia) might in fact do better than the earlier totalitarians. They could even win. That's because, however strong the Western hardware, its software contains some potentially fatal bugs. Three of them--pacifism, self-hatred, complacency--deserve attention."
In discussing pacifism, Dr. Pipes writes of those in the West who believe that a military solution is not possible. Yet, he points out, "What were the defeats of the Axis, the United States in Vietnam, or the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, if not military solutions?"
His paragraph on self-hatred illustrates a phenomenon peculiar to the West. "Significant elements in several Western countries--especially the United States, Great Britain, and Israel--believe their own governments to be repositories of evil . . . Self-hating Westerners have an out-sized importance due to their prominent role as shapers of opinion in universities, the media, religious institutions, and the arts. They serve as the Islamists' auxiliary mujahideen."
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