Hamas has a kid's web page. Apparently on this page here, they're calling on Muslims to liberate Seville, as well as the rest of Spain, from infidel rule.
As Meryl says, 'Sure. They’re definitely going to change their tactics once they get control of the PA, and the billions of dollars in international aid that comes with. I’m sure not a penny of that aid will be spent on weapons and bombs.'
Touching on the theme of propaganda more generally still, Pipes entitles his latest Winning the Propaganda War. I prefer the term ideological war, ragardless, Pipes's is a rather glum assessment - but the final graph is indicative of what is needed. In part it serves to indicate why the Iraq campaign very much is an integral part of the overall War on Islamofascism, or WWIV or the GWOT:
"Unlike the Soviet bloc, the Muslim world lacks not access to reliable information but interest in it. The reasons are many but perhaps the most salient of them are a disposition to believe in conspiracy theories and an attraction to totalitarian solutions. Rather than try to purvey information to Muslims, [the State Dept.] (and its counterparts elsewhere) should instead assert the case for liberal, secular, and humane values. More than facts, the Muslim world needs to understand the basics of what makes the West thrive – and thereby be inspired to emulate it."
Hear, here. The particulars, the specific tactics and subordinate strategies, can still be debated, obviously enough, but Pipes's simple yet critical assessment here is, just perhaps, the single most critical assessement if mid-term to long-term success is to be effected. I.e., if the despotic and totalitarian forms of governance - forms which have proven to be breeding grounds for germinating and further radicalizing militant Islamicists - are to be supplanted with more participatory forms, it will require a sustained effort. A beginning has been effected within Afghanistan and Iraq, but only a beginning. Pivotal question is - especially so given the Left's perduring corrosives and offensives: will the U.S. and the West in general sustain both the vision and the resolve needed to sufficiently initiate and effect these changes? Or, optionally, the Left is right and Bush/Blair actually are Stalin/Hitler.
Re, propaganda as it pertains to the long-term view, Michael Yon provides specific examples here and here, after which he rightly frames the overall picture with a post entitled Montage or Mirage. It provides one encapsulation or framing of the ideological war, against the Islamicists as well as the soft and harder Left.
Personally, I'm all in favour of Hamas taking over the leadership of the PA. Why? Well, they are, if nothing else, honest about what they want. The same cannot be said of Abbas (a/k/a "Arafat Lite"). Let the world see them for who and what they really are. Then again, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's anti-Semitic ravings haven't exactly hurt him, have they?
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Touching on the theme of propaganda more generally still, Pipes entitles his latest Winning the Propaganda War. I prefer the term ideological war, ragardless, Pipes's is a rather glum assessment - but the final graph is indicative of what is needed. In part it serves to indicate why the Iraq campaign very much is an integral part of the overall War on Islamofascism, or WWIV or the GWOT:
"Unlike the Soviet bloc, the Muslim world lacks not access to reliable information but interest in it. The reasons are many but perhaps the most salient of them are a disposition to believe in conspiracy theories and an attraction to totalitarian solutions. Rather than try to purvey information to Muslims, [the State Dept.] (and its counterparts elsewhere) should instead assert the case for liberal, secular, and humane values. More than facts, the Muslim world needs to understand the basics of what makes the West thrive – and thereby be inspired to emulate it."
Hear, here. The particulars, the specific tactics and subordinate strategies, can still be debated, obviously enough, but Pipes's simple yet critical assessment here is, just perhaps, the single most critical assessement if mid-term to long-term success is to be effected. I.e., if the despotic and totalitarian forms of governance - forms which have proven to be breeding grounds for germinating and further radicalizing militant Islamicists - are to be supplanted with more participatory forms, it will require a sustained effort. A beginning has been effected within Afghanistan and Iraq, but only a beginning. Pivotal question is - especially so given the Left's perduring corrosives and offensives: will the U.S. and the West in general sustain both the vision and the resolve needed to sufficiently initiate and effect these changes? Or, optionally, the Left is right and Bush/Blair actually are Stalin/Hitler.
Re, propaganda as it pertains to the long-term view, Michael Yon provides specific examples here and here, after which he rightly frames the overall picture with a post entitled Montage or Mirage. It provides one encapsulation or framing of the ideological war, against the Islamicists as well as the soft and harder Left.
Personally, I'm all in favour of Hamas taking over the leadership of the PA. Why? Well, they are, if nothing else, honest about what they want. The same cannot be said of Abbas (a/k/a "Arafat Lite"). Let the world see them for who and what they really are. Then again, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's anti-Semitic ravings haven't exactly hurt him, have they?