When FNC combines with Murdoch’s UK SkyNews, it actually has pretty good global reach.

Why they didn’t use it in this case is unclear to me.

They certainly matched and exceeded CNN in Iraq war coverage, not only in quantity, but certainly in, um, outlook.

Those experts were operating from their experience, they were extrapolating on ‘what they would do’ if they planned the 9/11 attacks. So would I. With those attacks completed I would have it be the signal for sleeper cells to begin operations, like Mumbai. Keep hitting, keep causing pain and spreading terror for as long as those cells can remain active.

And perhaps that was the plan, but too many got rolled up on 9/12 and other days, things we will not know about for decades. Or perhaps Bin Laden and Co. were too arrogant and thought one good hit would cause collapse (the Y2K hysteria may have given them that idea).

Again – who knows?

There is perhaps one force strong enough to change the face of Islam. Modernity itself might be the answer. An educated populace living with abundance and liberty always grows more secular over time. Indeed, the natural progression moves toward agnosticism if not outright atheism.

The Turks, for example, are not a pious people by Muslim standards. I can’t remember once seeing anyone in Ankara or Istanbul throwing out a prayer rug five times a day. The norm was to visit the mosque for Friday prayers. Likewise, the Iraqi people seem to recognize that American-style modernity is preferable to theocratic mayhem. Even Arabia is moving away (slowly) from tradition toward reform.

You say yourself that “Islam provides the excuse for insane behavior.” Yes, but I think AlanC has it about right because he’s looking at the human motivations behind the dogma. Islam is the excuse that hides the face of tyranny. The mullahs of Iran are in practice nothing more than garden variety kleptocrats. As are the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas. They rely on hatred and ignorance as a means to control subject populations. But it’s all a carefully contrived lie for purely non-religious motives.

A million Arab citizens of Israel know the truth. They are free, prosperous and hold all the rights of citizenship. Terrorism against Israel comes from without, not from within. The Jews are not the problem; in fact, they represent the solution.

If my reasoning is correct, then the problem is tyranny, not Islam. Religion is the excuse disguising baser motives. Yes, probably some of the more fanatical imams are deluded in their beliefs. But then that’s a form of ignorance, is it not? I’m not trying to split hairs. Dialectic is useful for finding truth. Modernity will bring the people of the Middle East education, liberty, and abundance. Therein, I think, lies the only viable solution.

Islam is a Utopian cult in the same way that Fascism, Communism etc. are. All will be perfect if only the heathen will bow to the master. And note the similarity between Islam and Communism. In Islam all the bennies go to the self-professed agents of an unknowable Allah via a dead Mo. In Communism they skipped the diety except for putting an ideology in it’s place instead of a theology.

But, the result is the same. A sacred dogma that can only be known via the priesthood who, of course, reap the rewards. Those dachas don’t come cheap. Neither do the palaces of the self-designated mullahs, not to mention the high given by virtually limitless power.

So, the peasants provide the cannon fodder for the leadership of the cult. If the cult isn’t getting where the leadership thinks it should be then you get the equivalent of a temper tantrum like Mumbai.

Islam as the single cause for outbreaks of terrorism seems to me a bit simplistic. My experience in the Muslim world informs me that Islam is more often a cause for complacency and fatalism than for violence. I am fully aware that there exists within Islam virulent strains like Wahabbism. Yet outbreaks of violence seem more episodic through history rather than normative. The problem is complex with Islam being but one element in the equation.

I wish I could site the paper I read from a Danish sociologist, but I haven’t got the time to look it up. It’s somewhere in the archives at Gates of Vienna. The gist of his study suggests that the problem is primarily demographic. The Islamic world is sitting on a population bubble of too many young males. Natural aggression between young men results in violence based on a need for status. The author goes on to site various historical examples, but I’ll let his work speak for itself if you should be so inclined to look it up. I think he’s on to something.

Throw sexual repression into the mix and the results become literally explosive. The sexual proclivities of men in the Muslim world have a dark and unspoken side. I won’t go into the details, but anyone who has traveled in the region knows what I’m talking about. Widespread homosexual activity is the signature mark of a misogynistic society. And Islam is certainly that.

Throw into the equation people who are ignorant and illiterate. Rates of literacy in Afghanistan and Pakistan are among the lowest in the world at about 33% for the tribal peoples of the region. I can’t express it any other way: they are primitives. It’s the perfect recruiting ground for reactionary violence against anything that smacks of modernity. How else are young men so easily motivated by nonsense like the promise of seventy-two virgins?

We can politely agree to disagree, but I reject Islam as the single cause. Human society is more complex than to suggest a single cause for anything relating to our species. Even a reformation within Islam, something I find highly unlikely, might not be sufficient to quell the violence. The problem will persist probably longer than any of us will be alive. Solutions are few, but to suggest it’s all about Islam strikes me as narrow-minded.