Thursday’s attack in London is the latest blow struck in the war that began on Sept. 11. Its origins are easy to fathom: A minority of Muslim extremists, their numbers in the few millions, resents deeply the erosion of life in the Middle East and other Muslim areas. A globalized communications system reminds them daily how far behind a Pakistan is from India, how much better a South Korea or China is doing than Egypt, or how more humane life is in an Infidel North America or Europe than in Syria or Algeria.
Autocratic regimes, statist economies, gender apartheid, corruption, the absence of a free press — all that and more retard economic growth from the Gulf to Morocco. In response, theocratic regimes like the Taliban and the Iranian mullocracy blame the West for their own self-inflicted misery and inadequacies. But more often, clever dictators such as a Baathist Saddam, the Saudi Royal family, an Egyptian kleptocracy, or the Pakistani military regime allow Islamicists some rein, if not covert support, to deflect blame from their own failures onto the United States and the “Jews.”
A shamed Islamic street — ill-housed, ill-fed, and ill-informed — is nourished on the mythology that a purer creed and a return to the 8th century alone can reclaim past glories of the caliphate, and stop the decadent intrusion of Western consumerism and popular culture.
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July 11th, 2005 | Global War On Terror, Jihad Watch, Politics