Cozy Corner

Two of my favorite authors have recently taken on radical Islam.

Dan Simmons wrote, in April, an interesting story of a Time Traveler warning about the Islamic future:

“Your enemy is he who will give his life to kill you,” said the Time Traveler. “Your enemies are they that wish you and your children and your grandchildren dead and who are willing to sacrifice themselves, or support those fanatics who will sacrifice themselves, to see you and your institutions destroyed. You haven’t figured that out yet – the majority of you fat, sleeping, smug, infinitely stupid Americans and Europeans.”

He stood and set the Scotch glass back in its place on my sideboard. “How, we wonder in my time,” he said softly, “can you ignore the better part of a billion people who say aloud that they are willing to kill your children . . . or condone and celebrate the killing of them? And ignore them as they act on what they say? We do not understand you.”

I'd missed his May/June followup, which included this The End of Faith's analysis of a Pew survey of Muslims in various countries:

Over 38,000 people recently participated in a global survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The results constitute the first publication of its Global Attitudes Project entitled ‘What the World Thinks in 2002.’ The survey included the following questions, posed only to Muslims:

Some people think that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets are justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies. Other people believe that, no matter what the reason, this kind of violence is never justified. Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?

Before we look at the results of this study, we should appreciate the significance of the juxtaposed phrases ‘suicide bombing’ and ‘civilian targets.’ We now live in a world in which Muslims have been scientifically polled (with margins of error ranging from 2 to 4 percent) as to whether they support (‘often,’ ‘sometimes,’ rarely,’ or ‘never’) the deliberate murder and maiming of noncombatant men, women, and children in defense of Islam.

The results are about 2/3 of the way down the page. Go read them.

Orson Scott Card chimes in, and notes the most important quality we Americans should be looking for this November, and in two years:

For me, there is only one test of candidates for Congress this fall. Do they actively support aggressive opposition to terrorists and terrorist-supporting nations, including the continuation of the occupation and pacification of Iraq? If both candidates fit that description, then of course you can look at other issues. But whenever the choice is between Churchill and Chamberlain, then no other issue really matters, does it?

Either way, we will be at war with the madmen of the world over the next decade at least. The real issue is just how bloody it will have to be.