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Throw the book at ’em!

10 comments on Throw the book at ’em!

Throw the book at ’em!

: ChangeThis is touting its manifestos before they’re published (as PDFs) and is apparently going with the 9/11 Commission strategy for defense against terrorists: libraries.

We signed on Jessica Stern, who is a lecturer in public policy at Kennedy and served on Clinton’s NSC.

Instead of studying the roots of terrorism from an office in America, Jessica went to the source–Pakistan, India, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Indonesia. For five years she interviewed terrorist groups, from extremist seminaries in India and Pakistan to refugee camps in Lebanon to Christian cults in Texas.

She found that terrorism has become a way of life, a profession, that no amount of bombing can change. The War on Terror needs to be a battle for terrorist’ minds, not for their camps and ammunition depots.

That’s right. If you load up a car with books from the library, you can’t fit in a bomb.

10 responses to “Throw the book at ’em!”

  1. John Thacker Avatar
    John Thacker

    Of course, it’s also true that terrorists are far more likely to be college educated than the average person in the Middle East. It’s not clear that just any books would help– and, sadly, Western-produced radical American bashing seems to fit hand-in-glove with things taught at extremist mosques and seminaries.

  2. pele Avatar
    pele

    Positive steps must be taken in all areas to improve relations between East and West. Does any really believe that force will end this conflict?

  3. dhanson Avatar
    dhanson

    pele,
    First you have to stop the folks who are actively trying to kill you from accomplishing their goals. After all, you can’t take positive steps to improve relations if you’re dead. It’s difficult to find common ground with people who believe that all Americans must die, or that all non-Muslims must die, or even that even Muslims who don’t agree with their fundamentalist view of Islam must die.
    When the people who continue to try to kill everyone who disagrees with them are not a threat, it will be much easier for everyone to try to improve relations.

  4. Michael Zimmer Avatar
    Michael Zimmer

    Just becuase you don’t like to read books, Jeff, doesn’t mean that they can’t be a vital tool in spreading tolerance around the globe. Imagine how much better we all would understand Islam if we actually took the time to read the Qur’an (rather than relying on Kat’s interpretations).

  5. pele Avatar
    pele

    Mate, we’ve got to change if they are going to.

  6. Andrea Harris Avatar
    Andrea Harris

    You first, pele. Be an example to us all! Walk up to the next terrorist you see and offer to tutor him in Western Philosophy if only he will lay down his explosives!

  7. pele Avatar
    pele

    It’s the potential terrorist’s that we need to focus on dear Andrea. Such a mess has been made of things that there is no chance to change a lot of people of this generation. But surely we must look to the future. We’ve got to start somewhere after all. I can’t see any other alternative. In my opinion a change of leader in the USA is an important start. There is now too much hate for Bush around the world.

  8. Andrea Harris Avatar
    Andrea Harris

    What the hell is a “potential terrorist,” pele? From what I have been able to ascertain, it’s mostly a young male from an upper-middle-class background (if not from one dripping with wealth, like Bin Laden) with at least some college education — in other words, the people most likely to be the most spoiled, cosseted, and catered-to class of people in just about any country. Your proposal of terrorist — excuse me, potential terrorist — -hugging would simply be giving them more of what they already have, and would be adding to their already swollen egos and make them feel even more entitled to the power over humanity that they think they deserve.
    People like you are idiots, and people like you, not George Bush or anyone else like him, are the reason there are more and more terrorists. They know that no matter what they do, there will always be dupes and fools like you ready to say “Awww, poor oppwessed tewwowist, they just want Justice For the People™!” And you blame their victims, and you rot society’s morale from within so that instead of defending themselves from the evil murderers they offer up more sacrificial lambs to some notion of “peace” that the terrorist is by no means interested in and never will be. You and your blind friends refuse over and over to accept what anyone with half a brain knows: terrorists want power, not peace. They want to win. They aren’t interested in compromising, meeting anyone halfway, soul-searching for The Reasons They Are Hated, or any of that stuff you and your buddies blab on about.
    But why do I bother? It’s like trying to get a deaf person to enjoy the sound of Bach — no, it’s worse, at least deaf people can feel the beat.

  9. Russel Croas Avatar
    Russel Croas

    To Any One Who Would Challenge,
    I think all Muslims must die in order to solve our terrorist problem. Granted we do have American terrorist but most of them are mentally insane. So here is the solution, kill all mentally insane. And the plus, all Muslims are mentally insane so we get to kill them. And don

  10. Russel Croas Avatar
    Russel Croas

    To Any One Who Would Challenge,
    I think all Muslims must die in order to solve our terrorist problem. Granted we do have American terrorist but most of them are mentally insane. So here is the solution, kill all mentally insane. And the plus, all Muslims are mentally insane so we get to kill them. And don