WAR OF THE WORDS
Re: Laurie Mylroie's What Is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Saying?

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Ms. Mylroie is persuasive. Readers familiar with her books and able to appreciate the breadth and profundity of her knowledge of the Islamic world know well the meticulous, detailed evidence supporting her view of the nature of our enemy. Odd, isn't it, that she's got to adduce such a torrent of argument to persuade us of a simpler, more parsimonious account than the one we've bought into willy-nilly.

That would be the Vast Islamic Wing Conspiracy theory, the one requiring us to believe in all sorts of entities and, well, djinns that have never before existed. The conception of the enemy we cling to, refusing to revoke our suspension of disbelief.

The conventional view of Al Qaeda is endothermic. Very much so. We're burning a lot of fuel propping that view up with all sorts of Rube Goldberg conceptual devices. I'm surprised the Greens haven't condemned it as a contributor to climate change. Why don't we all just relax, chill, and keep it simple? Laurie Mylroie is asking us to remember that there's nothing new under the sun. She's got parsimony on her side.
-- Paul Kotik
Plantation, Florida


Ms. Mylroie's article "What is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Saying" contains the comment by a senior Iraqi politician that "there is no lack of suicide bombers there -- they are all stacked up and ready to go."

This is true not only of Iraq, but of other locations around the world. And there is no political action, no military force, no expansion of democracy that will change that fact. The only hope the Western world has to confront and possibly relieve the reality of this malevolence is to expose the very basis of the Qur'an as a deception. It is exactly because the Qur'an cannot withstand genuine scrutiny that Islamic clerics, whose power derives from the Qur'an, mount such a loud and even violent effort to prevent anywhere near the challenge that the Christian Bible has endured -- literally -- for millennia.

I realize that this is a very bold prescription. I realize that such exposure could create great unrest among the arguably 1.4 billion Muslims throughout the world. But I also believe that a failure to expose the lie that death "fighting in Allah's cause" opens the door to paradise (as defined by the Qur'an) for those so "martyred" will allow the deception to continue -- if not to flourish -- and thus to continue to threaten Western civilization until dar al-Harb is finally subdued and all the world is dar al-Islam. The truth is powerful and the truth sets men free, but men will remain in bondage to the lie without courageous action to bring them the truth.
-- Dave Smith