Check out the Palestinian Child Abuse slideshow. How is that not indoctrination?

Do you have something specific in mind when you say “you have to understand the Islamic culture and religion first”? Because I’m actively working to increase my understanding. My current text is No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam by Reza Aslan. My favorite text is Infidel by my hero, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I’ve also read Militant Islam Reaches America by Daniel Pipes, American Jihad by Steven Emerson, The Foreigner’s Gift by Fouad Ajami, and Bernard Lewis’s What Went Wrong and The Crisis of Islam. (Hm… maybe I should add an Amazon store to my blog.)

In all of that reading, I’ve not seen anything that excuses Islamist attacks on civilians in the Philippines, Israel, America, London, Madrid, Bali, Mumbai and elsewhere.

I beg to differ from your indoctrination theory. You have to understand the Islamic culture and religion first. Indoctrination is the easy way for propagandists to get the sympathy of those who do not understand Islam.

Schumey, I’m not sure what you’re referring to by a “communist insurgency,” but what drives the kids to follow in their fathers’ footsteps is a indoctrination from an early age into a perverted brand of Islam that glorifies death — see pictures above, and many more at Little Green Footballs.

David, I think fighting radical Islam is the ONLY option. NOT fighting radical Islam led directly to 9/11, and isolationism will lead to more 9/11s. There will be defeats and setbacks along the way, but that’s the nature of any conflict.

The Cold War seemed unwinnable, too… then all of a sudden we won. The Iraq War isn’t over, but it’s looking more and more like a success story.

Here’s the part of Peters’ column where I dissent:

“While it’s impossible to fully eliminate extremism, killing every terrorist leader hiding in a Gaza bunker is the only hope of achieving even a temporary, imperfect peace. The chance may not come again.”

I don’t think it’s realistic to kill “every” terrorist leader in Gaza — not without truly horrific civilian casualties. But it’s realistic to kill a lot of them, and to destroy a lot of their munitions and infrastructure.

I’m not so sure fighting radical Islam is an option; we’ve seen how it has resulted in Iraq and we’ve seen how Israel’s fighting has resulted. Luckily, we have one option Israel doesn’t and that’s isolationism. That’s a dirty word these days, and it’s a loaded one. I’m no isolationist, but I do believe that sometimes when there’s no way to resolve a conflict, you need to resist getting involved.

These are things we the supposed to be civilized world would never understand because we never experienced the same experiences these kids went through.