I remember the halcyon days of 2001 and early 2002 right at the time 9/11 happened. The internet was aflame with all manner of anti-muslim stuff (with many sites and earliest citations of personalities going back to March 2001 for some reason) that labeled the entirety of the Muslim world as so irredeemably ignorant and stuck back in the Middle Ages and trying to bring about an apocalypse or simply acting out of centuries or millennia old hatred and prophecy…
All the while every fucking they were saying was a goddamn projection of their own shit. Zionists at the time claimed they were secular and rooted in the modern world of liberalism and computers while in reality they were far more fundamentalist into their own religion and religious prophecies than any Muslim group.
Also they loved to claim that the entirety of the Muslim world was a carbon copy of rural Taliban controlled Afghanistan when nothing could have been farther than the truth.
Muslim fundamentalism (however you define it) is a major problem. But if I had to put the order of danger that religious fundamentalism faces to the world, it would be on lower orders, compared to American Evangelicalism and Zionist Judaism. As a general rule, the fairly harsh religious views of Saudi Arabia, the gulf states, and Iran are mostly contained there with their governments not really interested in propagating it elsewhere.
Meanwhile you have Americans who literally think they are going to bring out the apocalypse, and people like Eric Prince who want to make an old school style ‘free army’ like in Medieval Italy and France (that resulted in untold death and misery) and to have modern crusader states where Muslims convert or die.
Muslim fundamentalism (however you define it) is a major problem.
The fixation on Muslim fundamentalism as a problem only came about after the Soviet Union collapsed. Prior to the Soviet fall, Muslim fundamentalists were a dogged ally of Western Capital - particularly in countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkyie, and Pakistan. Hell, the current hand-wringing over Chinese Xinjiang is rooted in the “Why are all the villainous Communist Atheists persecuting these sweet, harmless, beautiful traditionalist Muslims?!” line of propaganda.
What all of it misses is fundamentalism as a reaction to the post-industrial economic tide. Afghani fundamentalists grew out of opposition to the British/US Era opium trade and the Northern Alliance warlord pedophiles, both of which were closely aligned to the American CIA during Operation Cyclone. Egyptian and Iranian fundamentalism emerged from the collapse of liberal democracy in the 1950s, after secular nationalism was undermined by the Great Powers. The mosque became an unassailable bulwark against foreign imperialists of both the Soviet and American stripes, while liberal social and economic institutions were either co-opted or demolished by foreign businesses and saboteurs.
As a general rule, the fairly harsh religious views of Saudi Arabia, the gulf states, and Iran are mostly contained there with their governments not really interested in propagating it elsewhere.
Saudi Wahhabism is very evangelical in practice. You’ll find it all across North and West Africa, most notably in Egypt, Syria, and Ethiopia. But much like the Catholic evangelism common to East Asia (the Philippines, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan most notably), the faith is concentrated in the wealthy professional and bureaucratic classes. It becomes a prerequisite for joining the elite club of economic insiders.
Iranian Shia Islam is much more populist and economically left-leaning, which makes it heterodox to western economic planners. This isn’t to say Shia Islamists aren’t also evangelical. When the US toppled Saddam’s Sunni-aligned Ba’athist party, the Shia evangelicals poured in and aligned the new nation with Iran fairly rapidly (much to the chagrin of Rumfield and Cheney).
But the difference is ultimately rooted in the country’s appetite for exporting energy at below-market-rate to Western business consumers. The actual religious practices are incidental to whether we support or oppose the religion itself.
people like Eric Prince who want to make an old school style ‘free army’ like in Medieval Italy and France
American Freebooters are a tradition rooted in America’s own history. These “free armies” are how we conquered Texas and California from Spain/Mexico. And how we spread our influence over Hawaii, Latin America, and much of the Pacific Rim states.
If anything survives the next big economic decline in the US, it’ll be the freebooters.
That is also what is freaky.
I remember the halcyon days of 2001 and early 2002 right at the time 9/11 happened. The internet was aflame with all manner of anti-muslim stuff (with many sites and earliest citations of personalities going back to March 2001 for some reason) that labeled the entirety of the Muslim world as so irredeemably ignorant and stuck back in the Middle Ages and trying to bring about an apocalypse or simply acting out of centuries or millennia old hatred and prophecy…
All the while every fucking they were saying was a goddamn projection of their own shit. Zionists at the time claimed they were secular and rooted in the modern world of liberalism and computers while in reality they were far more fundamentalist into their own religion and religious prophecies than any Muslim group.
Also they loved to claim that the entirety of the Muslim world was a carbon copy of rural Taliban controlled Afghanistan when nothing could have been farther than the truth.
Muslim fundamentalism (however you define it) is a major problem. But if I had to put the order of danger that religious fundamentalism faces to the world, it would be on lower orders, compared to American Evangelicalism and Zionist Judaism. As a general rule, the fairly harsh religious views of Saudi Arabia, the gulf states, and Iran are mostly contained there with their governments not really interested in propagating it elsewhere.
Meanwhile you have Americans who literally think they are going to bring out the apocalypse, and people like Eric Prince who want to make an old school style ‘free army’ like in Medieval Italy and France (that resulted in untold death and misery) and to have modern crusader states where Muslims convert or die.
Fuck them hard.
The fixation on Muslim fundamentalism as a problem only came about after the Soviet Union collapsed. Prior to the Soviet fall, Muslim fundamentalists were a dogged ally of Western Capital - particularly in countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkyie, and Pakistan. Hell, the current hand-wringing over Chinese Xinjiang is rooted in the “Why are all the villainous Communist Atheists persecuting these sweet, harmless, beautiful traditionalist Muslims?!” line of propaganda.
What all of it misses is fundamentalism as a reaction to the post-industrial economic tide. Afghani fundamentalists grew out of opposition to the British/US Era opium trade and the Northern Alliance warlord pedophiles, both of which were closely aligned to the American CIA during Operation Cyclone. Egyptian and Iranian fundamentalism emerged from the collapse of liberal democracy in the 1950s, after secular nationalism was undermined by the Great Powers. The mosque became an unassailable bulwark against foreign imperialists of both the Soviet and American stripes, while liberal social and economic institutions were either co-opted or demolished by foreign businesses and saboteurs.
Saudi Wahhabism is very evangelical in practice. You’ll find it all across North and West Africa, most notably in Egypt, Syria, and Ethiopia. But much like the Catholic evangelism common to East Asia (the Philippines, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan most notably), the faith is concentrated in the wealthy professional and bureaucratic classes. It becomes a prerequisite for joining the elite club of economic insiders.
Iranian Shia Islam is much more populist and economically left-leaning, which makes it heterodox to western economic planners. This isn’t to say Shia Islamists aren’t also evangelical. When the US toppled Saddam’s Sunni-aligned Ba’athist party, the Shia evangelicals poured in and aligned the new nation with Iran fairly rapidly (much to the chagrin of Rumfield and Cheney).
But the difference is ultimately rooted in the country’s appetite for exporting energy at below-market-rate to Western business consumers. The actual religious practices are incidental to whether we support or oppose the religion itself.
American Freebooters are a tradition rooted in America’s own history. These “free armies” are how we conquered Texas and California from Spain/Mexico. And how we spread our influence over Hawaii, Latin America, and much of the Pacific Rim states.
If anything survives the next big economic decline in the US, it’ll be the freebooters.
Just ask yourself, which religious nutjobs have nukes? And you have your answer. And no it is not Iran.
The United States of America. But yes, Israel as well