Someone at Lucianne replied to my question and I wrote back.

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Reply 22 - Posted by: Phil_hk, 11/20/2003 8:06:35 PM

#14

To answer your question: I do not think that GWB is going to be able to democratize Iraq. I think the US will fail in this. It will be useful to try because it will show how primitive, authoritarian and backward Islam is.

This is why I was against going into Iraq. I didn’t and still don’t think people in heavily Islamic countries will ever be able to fully join the modern world unless they become like Turkey and BAN the practice of Islam in secular institutions and public places.

That said, since the US army is in Iraq they should take all measures to try and actually prove me wrong. I hope they can win and I hope I am wrong.

Reply 26 - Posted by: Larry, 11/20/2003 10:44:27 PM

#22,

Ok, you accept my premise. They are NOT like us and we are NOT going to be able to “democratize” them. You just feel that as a practical matter, we now have no choice but to try.

However, the other people on this thread, the people who are both enthusiastic Bush supporters and very anti-Islamic, have got to face the contradiction they’re in. Bush wants to “democratize” the Muslim world, because he thinks Muslims are basically just like us. But many of the Bush fans at this site think the Muslims are completely UNLIKE us and DANGEROUS to us. By that reasoning, we should not want to democratize and uplift the Muslims, but to demoralize and crush them.

I’m not necessarily proposing that. I’m just saying that, given the hostile and warlike attitude toward Muslims that many people here have expressed, their adoration of Bush and his policies makes no sense.

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I think we need to deal with the mythology of “moderate” Turkish Islam. How can any rational person characterize a country that has systematically exterminated and expelled members of a religious minority - Christians - as “moderate”? I didn’t notice any lberals or neocons describing the Bosnian Serbs as moderate. Just as an aside, Christianity was present in the area controlled by modern-day Turkey long before Islam was, so it’s not as if the Christians there were some sort of colonizers from Europe or the USA.

Turkey prresents a modern facade of liberal tolerance, but the fact remains that it is unlawful to build a new church in Turkey to this very day. This stands in stark contrast to traditionally Roman Catholic Spain, where a new Mosque was dedicated in Seville last year. In short, moderate Islam is a simply yet another myth concocted by Western liberals - who resolutely refuse to face truth.

I think it is a bit hysterical to take modern secular Turkey to task for the extermination of the Armenians by the Young Turkish dictatorship — which was quite different from either the Ottoman state in its traditional form or the Kemalist regime. Noone says that Turkey is a utopia. But compare the Turks to the Wahabbis of Saudi Arabia, or the Islamists — the difference is obvious, and the Turks look pretty good. In fact, compared to the blundering messes you find in most of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, Turkey presents a sterling example.

Actually, Mr. Levine, I wasn’t referring exclusively to the extermination of the Armenians. There has been systematic persecution that goes on to this day - including the destruction of a Baptist Church made up of ethnic Turks in Antioch (Antyaka) about two years ago. No attempt was made to apprehend or prosecute the bombers. The only charges filed were against the Turkish Christians - for building a new church (they are legally only allowed to meet in existing Greek Orthodox structures). Even though the government doesn’t usually carry out such attacks officially, it typically looks the other way while the Islamists do the actual dirty work.

I’ll admit that Turkey is certainly better than Saudi Arabia or a host of other Islamic dictatorships. Nevertheless, the non-Muslims who happen to live in Turkey are subjected to dhimmitude, though it is a less-severe form since the Turkish state is at least officially secular. If this is the bast an Islamic country can offer, after some 70 years of a secular government, it tends to support the argument that Islamic societies are fundamentally incapable of supporting liberal democracies.