Procrastination Pays Off Now

While trying in recent days to avoid finishing my presentation for next week's Intelligence Summit, I was reminded of this wonderful Demotivator beautifully presented by Despair.com.

Paint Me Paranoid

One of the little convenient features here at Existential Space is the MindViz tracker that can be accessed by anyone at the bottom of the index page. Interested in who might be visiting? I didn't think so, but this morning I noticed one particular visitor who stopped by this morning. The image below is a screen capture of that visitor.

It might be a little hard to read, but someone in Egypt came here after doing a Google search looking for "Patrick Poole images". Now might it be the case that word of my legendary good looks has now gone international? Not likely. So exactly who in Egypt might have an interest in my personal details? One possible explanation might be someone associated with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood trying to dig up dirt to counteract the public pounding I've been giving that organization recently. But that doesn't quite explain why they would looking for a picture of me. Another explanation might be that they were just looking for my fabulous photography. That possibility notwithstanding, I carry my CCW and my .380 in the event that any of my Egyptian, Saudi Arabian, Pakistani, etc. "fans" are looking for more than my picture.

As the saying goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you. Yes, paint me paranoid.

More on the Muslim Brotherhood

UPDATE (03/26/07): Welcome to everyone visiting from LGF today! Feel free to stay and look around a while!

Following up on my article this morning at The American Thinker, "The Militarization of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood," here are a few background resources for those interested in more information on the Muslim Brotherhood:

Patrick Poole, "The Muslim Brotherhood 'Project': The Radical Islamist Plan to Conquer the West - and the World" FrontPage Magazine (May 11, 2006) [text of "The Project"]

Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Sam Roe and Laurie Cohen, "A Rare Look at Secretive Brotherhood in America", Chicago Tribune (09/19/04)

John Mintz and Douglas Farah, "In Search of Friends Among the Foes", Washington Post (09/11/04)

Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen, "The Truth About the Muslim Brotherhood" FrontPage Magazine (06/16/06) [Part II] [Part III] [Part IV]

Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen, "The Progress of Hassan al-Banna's Vision" The American Thinker (Nov. 24, 2006)

Lydia Khalil, "Al-Qaeda & the MB: United by Strategy, Divided by Tactics," Terrorism Monitor, Vol. IV, Issue 6 (March 23, 2006)

Adel Guindy, "The Islamization of Egypt", Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Vol. 10, No. 3 (Sept. 2006)

Lorenzo Vidino, "The Muslim Brotherhood's Conquest of Europe," Middle East Quarterly Vol. XII, No. 1 (Winter 2005)

Lorenzo Vidino, "Aims and Methods of Europe's Muslim Brotherhood," Current Trends in Islamist Ideology Vol. 4 (November 2006)

Glen Feder, "The Muslim Brotherhood in France", In The National Interest (Sept. 2005)

Diaa Rashwan, "Islamism in Transition", Al-Ahram Weekly No. 420 (March 11-17, 1999)

Alain Chouet, "The Association of Muslim Brothers: Chronicle of a Barbarism Foretold", European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center (04/06/06) [pdf]

Douglas Farah, "The Little Explored Offshore Empire of the International Muslim Brotherhood", International Assessment and Strategy Center (April 18, 2006)

A Historical Note on the Symbolism of Regensburg

Update: Welcome to everyone visiting today from JihadWatch! Feel free to look around a bit while you're here, and thanks for stopping by. And thanks to Robert and rest of the hard-working JihadWatch staff for the plug!

Update #2 (2/12/07): Welcome to everyone visiting from Jihad i Malmo (Sweden)!

James Arlandson in a blog entry at The American Thinker ("Muslims Rebuke Pope in Open Letter") notes the continuing fallout from Pope Benedict's lecture at the University of Regensburg this past September. As evidenced by this open letter, as well as the Christian churches destroyed and Christian ministers murdered by adherents of the Religion of Peace™ in response (such as the cold-blooded murder of an aged Italian nun in Somalia, shot in the back by the brave warriors of jihad), it seems evident that Benedict's lecture was not well received by Muslims around the world. That said, there are much better equipped commentators out there to respond to this latest salvo.

But I wonder if some of the rage acted on by the adherents of the Religion of Peace™ comes from the deep recesses of the collective consciousness of Islam itself. One historical note lost thus far in the discussion of Benedict's Regensburg lecture is the symbolism that the city of Regensburg represents for Muslims and Christians alike in the history of anti-jihad. Paul Fregosi in his book, Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests From the 7th to the 21st Centuries (1998, Prometheus), reminds us of two important historical tidbits related to Regensburg (p. 295):

• The first is that during Suleiman the Butcher's push into Europe to lay siege to Vienna in 1529, Regensburg was the place at which his calvary was finally stopped in their advance into the European heartland. As the main body of Suleiman's Ottoman army advanced towards Vienna, his troops massacred, tortured, enslaved and killed Christians all along the way. As his calvary approached the city walls, his soldiers carried on their pikes the severed heads of their Christian victims. The city was defended by only 16,000 troops led by Nicolas von Salm in the face of Suleiman's 250,000 troops. After three weeks of an unsuccessful siege, and the inhabitants of Vienna continuing to hold fast against Suleiman's vast army, Suleiman declared victory, murdered all of his Christian captives, and set about his return to Istanbul with Vienna unconquered, raping, pillaging and enslaving all along the way as is the custom of the Religion of Peace™. The Ottomans would return to Vienna under Kara Mustapha in 1683, only to be vanquished again by John Sobieski, King of Poland (Fregosi tells the whole story of Sulieman's failed siege of Vienna, pp. 285-287, and Sobieski's defense, pp. 343-348). Thus, Regensburg represents the highwater mark of the European conquests of Islam's greatest jihadi, Suleiman the Butcher.


• The second historical tidbit related to Regensburg is that in 1545, it was the birthplace of Don Juan of Austria, hero of the Battle of Lepanto in 1572. Born the illegitimate son of Charles I of Spain, raised in Spain as the anonymous Gerónimo, and finally recognized by his half-brother, Philip II, John resisted the clerical life that Philip had planned for him, and gravitated towards military service. After demonstrating his leadership ability in defeating the Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean, John was appointed as Commander-in-Chief of the naval forces of the Holy League gathered from all over Catholic and Protestant Europe alike to confront the invading forces of Ali Pasha. In fact, Christians were participants on both sides of the battle at Lepanto, as Ali Pasha's ships were powered by Christian slaves and manned by Janissaries. On October 7, 1572, with the Ottoman ships in sight, Don Juan shouted to his men, "We are here to conquer or die! In death or in victory, you will win immortality!" By the end of the day, the Holy League had won by God's grace a decisive victory: the Turks had lost 210 ships and 25,000 Muslim soldiers and sailors, including Ali Pasha, as well as 8-10,000 Christian slaves that drowned chained to their oars. The Christian fleet lost 12 ships and 7,500 men, but freed 15,000 Christian slaves from their defeated and dead Muslim masters. Only bad weather prevented Don Juan and the fleet from striking deep into the heart of Ottoman territory in the Dardanelles. Rising from an ignoble birth in Regensburg would come one of the greatest Christian heroes fighting victoriously against the Ottomans and halting one of the most ambitious expeditions of the perpetual campaign of jihad in history, thus protecting the mainland of Europe. (Fregosi provides even more wonderful detail of Don Juan and the victory of Lepanto, pp. 322-328)

In light of these tasty tidbits from history, one is given to wonder whether Benedict chose Regensburg for its historic and symbolic value in the 1,400 year Christian defense against jihad. By his lecture was he drawing a line in the sand at Regensburg, much like in 1529, and telling the modern day forces of jihad, "Here we push back"? Did his speech reflect a silent prayer for a new generation of Don Juans to push back the Islamic imperialist threat that today threatens to overrun Europe once again? Was Benedict in fact aware of the symbolic value of Regensburg in the history of anti-jihad?

We may never know...

Everybody Wants to Rule the World (But Islamists Are Planning for It!)

"I have complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America, because Islam has logic and a mission.” – Muhammad Mahdi Othman ‘Akef, Muslim Brotherhood General Guide and Supreme Leader

One present area of study for me are the many cultural strategies developed by Islamists for the eventual Islamization of the West and the rest of the world. I have previously written about the Muslim Brotherhood "Project" and have provided for the first time an edited translation of that document for American readers. The Project, drafted by MB "researchers" in 1982 when the organization was rechartered, is part of an entire genre of Islamist literature of that period dedicated to the strategic takeover of the West inspired by the birth of the Islamic "Republic" of Iran and the reinstitution of shari'a law there.

In my analysis of The Project, I described it thus:

What makes The Project so different...is that it represents a flexible, multi-phased, long-term approach to the “cultural invasion” of the West. Calling for the utilization of various tactics, ranging from immigration, infiltration, surveillance, propaganda, protest, deception, political legitimacy and terrorism, The Project has served for more than two decades as the Muslim Brotherhood “master plan”. As can be seen in a number of examples throughout Europe – including the political recognition of parallel Islamist government organizations in Sweden, the recent “cartoon” jihad in Denmark, the Parisian car-burning intifada last November, and the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London – the plan outlined in The Project has been overwhelmingly
successful.

Rather than focusing on terrorism as the sole method of group action, as is the case with Al-Qaeda, in perfect postmodern fashion the use of terror falls into a multiplicity of options available to progressively infiltrate, confront, and eventually establish Islamic domination over the West.

While some have questioned the authenticity of The Project (one critic responding to my analysis of dubbed it "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Mecca" and therefore an apparent fake), the fact that a number of these Islamist strategic plans have been documented coming from several different organizations should give some evidence that acknowledging the existence of such is hardly conspiratorial. Rather than revealing some secret cabal exercising power globally, this genre of Islamist cultural strategic studies is dedicated to obtaining power. The Project is no more conspiratorial than Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals was for the New Left in America during the 1960s (it is worth noting that 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton dedicated her senior thesis at Wellesley College to Alinky's political and social thought - a thesis that is currently under seal thanks to Wellesley administrators).

In Europe, of course, they are much more aware of the intentions of the Islamists since the large Muslim communities throughout Western Europe have attained much greater social and political influence there than here in America, where the Muslim population is still quite small (around 1 percent of the overall population). One recent analyst of the present situation in Europe is Egon Flaig, who had an article published by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung entitled, "Islam Wants to Conquer the World" (English translation thanks to Western Resistance; the original article in German can be found here at the FAZ site). Flaig's article (which was banned in Egypt) provides some historical context from the history of Islam itself, from the rapid conquest and domination of North Africa, followed by Islamization efforts in Spain, Anatolia, and the Balkans - all at the expense of Christianity. Despite the revisionist attempts by 19th Century European scholars to whitewash this history, Islam has plenty of experience transitioning from minority community to ruling community through the escalating use of violence against non-Muslims. In his conclusion, Flaig warns against ignoring this reality:

To ignore the past means to re-live it. He who keeps on spreading the fairytale of Muslim tolerance, stands in the way of those Muslim intellectuals, who seriously work towards a reformation of islam, which started out so promisingly in the 19th century. He steals away their chance to overcome a past, which threatens to become a horrible present. If the reformers could achieve a radical de-politicization of Islam, the Muslims could become real citizens of their states.

Another scholar that presents the European dilemma in stark detail is Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, an Anglican cleric and Christian convert from Islam. In his August 2005 article, "The Islamization of Europe", he cites a book published in 1980 by the Islamic Council of Europe, Muslim Communities in Non-Muslim States, which offers a comprehensive program for the eventual domination of Muslims throughout Europe:

When Muslims live as a minority they face theological problems, because classical Islamic teaching always presupposed a context of Islamic dominance; hence the need for guidance on how to live in non-Muslim states. The instructions given in the book told Muslims to get together and organise themselves with the aim of establishing a viable Muslim community based on Islamic principles. This is the duty of every individual Muslim living within a non-Muslim political entity. They should set up mosques, community centres and Islamic schools. At all costs they must avoid being assimilated by the majority. In order to resist assimilation, they must group themselves geographically, forming areas of high Muslim concentration within the population as a whole. Yet they must also interact with non-Muslims so as to share the message of Islam with them. Every Muslim individual is required to participate in the plan; it is not allowed for anyone simply to live as a “good Muslim” without assisting the overall strategy. The ultimate goal of this strategy is that the Muslims should become a majority and the entire nation be governed according to Islam.

Regardless of the means and ends they recommend, as an outside observer, I have to give Islamists credit for their shrewd cultural strategy and the effectiveness and discipline they have demonstrated in implementing their agenda in Europe and America. They are well ahead of the game, aided in no small part to the spiritual vacuum created by militant secularism and the decline of the Christian faith.

In coming weeks I hope to expand on this theme of Islamist cultural strategic studies and discuss other variants on the theme of the Islamist takeover of the West in addition to The Project of the Muslim Brotherhood, including similiar plans by the Islamic Foundation (UK)/Jamaat-e-Islami (Pakistan) and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. This is part of my preparation for the speech I will be delivering at the upcoming International Intelligence Summit, March 5-7, in St. Petersburg, FL. Stay tuned!

Should We Read Richard Dawkins Literally or Allegorically?

Update: Welcome to everyone visiting today from WorldMagBlog! Feel free to look around and stay a while.

As a Christian, there are few things I detest more than an atheist pontificating to me on the subject of religion. Self-professed atheists and agnostics are testaments to the loss of nerve for living life as human beings; rather than seeking meaning and purpose in life as humans have done for at least as long as recorded human history, they decidedly abandon the project altogether. In lecturing the rest of us with absolute certainty on the meaning of life and the necessity of human freedom, in the end all they have to tell us is that there is no meaning, certainty or freedom in the universe.

This is precisely what nauseated me while reading University of Texas physicist Steven Weinberg’s Times of London review, “A Deadly Certitude”, of fellow atheist Richard Dawkins’ new book, The God Delusion. (HT: Worldmagblog) In grotesque display of condescension and bigotry, Weinberg – a Nobel Prize-winner and recipient of the US National Medal of Science – so wantonly wallows in his ignorance of the Christian faith and Christian history that it betrays his blind faith in the dark dogmas of doubt.

(For a devastating analysis of Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion, see Terry Eagleton’s article in the London Review of Books, “Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching”)

Weinberg doesn’t get past the first paragraph of his review before making several glaring (and self-serving) factual errors. He mockingly cites the Second Century Church Fathers Theophilus of Antioch and Clement of Alexandria as examples of dim-witted biblical literalist Neanderthals who believed that the earth was flat. But this is flatly (pardon the pun) not true. Rather than being biblical “literalists”, Theophilus and Clement were two of the more prominent advocates of an allegorical approach to Scripture – a position that Weinberg seems to accept as not quite as detestable as biblical “literalism”. In fact, it is Theophilus’ explanation of Genesis 1-3 that is perhaps the section he subjects most to his allegorical reading of the Bible.

One wonders if Weinberg reads Darwin’s Origin of Species, James Watson’s The Double Helix or Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time literally or allegorically? If he takes these texts literally, can’t we just dismiss him as some secular fundamentalist crank?

Having read the Bible regularly for almost twenty years, I have yet to come across anything that advocates a flat earth. That must be why he has to qualify his position that “verses could be interpreted to mean that the Earth is flat” (my emphasis), an admission that a non-literal approach to Scripture – Weinberg’s preferred method – is what is required to arrive at a very conclusion he deplores.

The acceptance of helio-centrism in Christian Europe is the next straw man that Weinberg sets ablaze. He states that “the more radical idea that the Earth moves around the Sun was harder to accept.” This is partially true, but again, the culprit was not biblical literalism. Galileo’s tormenters were not literalist zealots, but rather, Renaissance Humanists unwilling to discard the ideas of the Greek rationalists, in particular Aristotle and Ptolemy. It was Aristotelianism and Ptolemy’s terra-centric universe that Pope Urban VIII was so desperate to protect against Galileo’s ideas, not the biblical literalism that Weinberg is so quick to deride. Exactly how did he win a Nobel Prize with such shoddy scholarship?

Of course, secular humanism has been such an advancement to humanity over monotheism, hasn’t it? What with the Reign of Terror and its goddess of Reason, Napoleonic total war, Prussian militarism, Marxist revolutions, Darwinian eugenics and racism, Bolshevik communism, Stalin’s collectivization of the kulaks, Italian fascism, German Nazism and the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Stalin’s purges, Third World “liberation” movements, Nasser’s Arab socialism, Soviet gulags, the brutal crackdown on the Prague Spring, Pol Pot’s killing fields, Mao’s Great Leap Forward, the Baathist regimes of Syria and Iraq, Sandinista death squads, Nicolae Ceausescu’s Securitate, and those atheistic paradises on earth, Enver Hoxha’s Albania and Kim Il-Sung’s North Korea, it is amazing that religion exists at all these days and that atheism hasn’t been universally embraced for the empowering and humanizing idea that it is.

Then again, the estimated 100 million people murdered in the name of atheism in the 20th Century alone so far surpass the collective abuses and persecutions launched in the name of Christianity over the past two millennia that the two are entirely incomparable – not really a record of the joys of secularism that Dawkins or Weinberg are really interested in revisiting.

Perhaps the most striking feature of atheism is the self-loathing manifested by the most strident atheists. In all of my travels, I have never met a happy-go-lucky atheist. This is only natural; as creatures created in the image of God, to be consistent they must not only hate the reflection of that image in others, but themselves as well. This explains the unparalleled butchery of the 20th Century: as a measure of sheer survival, atheists must vent their rage homicidally to avoid its suicidal implications; only when there is no one else left to kill will they finally eat their own ideological bullet.

Much like a man whistling past a graveyard, Weinberg assures us that all is well with atheism. This, too, is an article of his blind faith. He chides Dawkins for “he does not seem to realize the extent to which his side has won. Setting aside the rise of Islam in Europe, the decline of serious Christian belief among Europeans is so widely advertised that Dawkins turns to the United States for most of his examples of unregenerate religious belief.”

The simple fact is, however, that both atheism and the Europe “inspired” by it are dying a rapid death. Inevitably, atheism like Cronus is forced to eat its own. This is the subject of Oxford scholar Alister McGrath’s recent volume, The Twilight of Atheism (I should note that McGrath, now a theologian, holds a doctorate in molecular biophysics from Oxford).

After reading Weinberg’s review of Dawkins, I was prompted to pick up G.K. Chesterton’s devastating critique of modern thought, Orthodoxy. Chesterton long ago had seen the end of atheism:

It is vain for eloquent atheists to talk of the great truths that will be revealed once we see free thought reign. We have seen it end. It has no more questions to ask; it has questioned itself. You cannot call up any wilder vision than a city in which men ask themselves if they have any selves. You cannot fancy a more skeptical world than that in which men doubt if there is a world…Free thought has exhausted its own freedom. It is weary of its own success. If any eager freethinker now hails philosophical freedom as the dawn, he is only like the man in Mark Twain who came out wrapped in blankets to see the sun rise and was just in time to see it set…We have no more questions to ask. We have looked for questions in the darkest corners and on the wildest peaks. We have found all the questions that can be found. It is time we gave up looking for questions and began looking for answers. (1990 Image edition, p. 37)

Atheists have long ago worn out their welcome to flog the rest of us on the matter of religion, particularly those of the rabidly bigoted variety represented well by Richard Dawkins and Steven Weinberg (among many others). In their malicious handling of Christianity and its history we find that they are not intellectually honest; this should be no surprise to us, however, as they don’t have any reason to believe in honesty.

Bereft of anything meaningful or insightful, they must resort to the tired secular mythologies and endless litany of errors to tear down the Christian faith in order to make it appear that they have actually built something on their own. In the end, all atheism leaves us with is nothing more than a pile of intellectual rubble. The demise of atheism would be so much more fun to watch if they didn’t keep trying to dismantle the rest of humanity in the endeavor.

Gov. Schwarzenegger Goes to Nashville

UPDATE: Thanks to Nashville-area political blogger Bill Hobbs for the plug!
UPDATE #2: And thanks to Lynn Vincent at WorldMagBlog for the link as well. As she told me today, I'm "world famous and totally unknown." How true!

Just a quick note to let my regular readers know about my article published today by The American Thinker, "Governor Schwarzenegger Should Go To Nashville". In light of the Govenator's plan for universal health care scheme for all Californians, I note:

But before riding the universal health care train too far, Gov. Schwarzenegger might want to make a stop in Nashville to see exactly how such a plan has actually worked for Tennessee, where that state's abysmal TennCare program has forced dozens of hospitals out of business, pushed thousands of doctors and other health care professionals out of the state, destroyed any semblance of competitive health insurance market, and nearly drove the state government into bankruptcy.

This is based off my experience dealing with TennCare while I was a policy analyst for the Tennessee Institute for Public Policy. My published study of the TennCare system can be found here (though it is quite dated at this point, but the first section about the failures of Tennessee's experiment with universal health care are still valid).

For my previous articles at The American Thinker, go here.

Ohio State: From Heroes to Zeros

Absolutely stunned and embarrassed is about all I can say about my Buckeyes' performance tonight. All credit due to Florida for playing a solid game and not making any mistakes. It was clear that they showed up ready to play and they represented their school, fans and the SEC in fine fashion. The Buckeyes, however, were the perfect picture of a team self-destructing. About the only saving grace of the game is that the score doesn't really reflect how badly Ohio State played. Fourteen points makes it seem that they were actually able to put together one or two offensive series, but the simple fact is that they couldn't. The majority of Ohio State's offense came in the first six seconds of the game. And Troy Smith - don't get me started.

I seriously doubt that all the hand-wringing and second-guessing in the days and weeks to come really will be able to fully answer the question of exactly how the wheels fell completely off the Ohio State Buckeyes. Not really much more I can say other than to tip my hat to the Florida Gators for a game well played. Congrats.

Happy Hajj!

In an effort that is sure to warrant a fatwa calling for my death, FrontPage is headlining today my article, Happy Hajj! You're Not Invited!. Or at best, it will prompt some really creative hate mail. Lest anyone think that the Saudis aren't serious about preventing non-Muslims from entering Mecca or Media - or even approaching either city - be sure to read this article published yesterday regarding an Indian citizen traveling to see his wife who works near Medina who lost his way, was stopped by Saudi authorities and was sentenced to death by beheading earlier this week. No one can accuse the Wahhabis about being soft on crime! As the article reports, it was only through the intervention high-ranking Indian government officials with the Saudis that the man's life was spared. I would have included that information in my own article, but I didn't see that piece until I had already turned it in to my editors.

Also of interest is another article from 2003 by Jonathan Last in the Wall Street Journal that discusses the incongruity of Muslims building mosques in the heart of Christian Europe (in this case, right near St. Peter's Square in Rome), versus the prohibition of non-Muslims from entering Mecca.

And just to prove that I'm an equal opportunity critic, read an old article of mine (from Dec. 1997, as I recall), Happy Kwanzaa! (note: the original location of the article is no longer in service, and this site republished it without permission, but it is the only place I can find it; so don't hold me responsible for anything else there that might offend, because I haven't scoped it out.)

For anyone who might still be skeptical of the treatment of non-Muslims around Mecca, here's some visual evidence:

Happy Hajj! Happy Kwanzaa! Happy Hanukkah! And a Merry Christmas to all!

Existential Space goes global!

I was delighted to see earlier today that my article for FrontPage earlier this week, "The War Ayatollah," has been translated and republished in France by ResilienceTV, "L'ayatollah de la guerre". Though I'm not quite sure how well my war-mongering piece today for American Thinker, "Bush's March to the (Mediterranean) Sea" will be received by les Francais, where I recommend that our withdrawal from Iraq be through Syria and Lebanon, where we can take out the Assad regime and help the Israelis put the squeeze on Hezbollah before our troops board ship in the port of Beirut to come home. Nonetheless, I was glad to see Existential Space getting some global love!

Merci, mes amies!

Rise of the Metroevangelical™

An article in today's NY Times offers a portrait of uber-perky actress and current it-girl, Kristin Chenoweth ("She Sings! She Acts! She Prays!"). In the first few paragraphs reporter Jesse Green lets us know that not only does Chenoweth carry authentic evangelical bona fides, having released a CD (As I Am) of Christian power pop, but that she manifests all of the politically correct virtues of the Manhattan elite (her regrets at having appeared on the 700 Club, her support for gay marriage, and wearing an Obama Barack for President button). And then there was the racy bikini spread in FHM (and I have to say she looks hot in the knee-high white leather boots in the NYT article).


Kinky!

For years, culturally-minded evangelicals have been urging Christians to engage culture in order to break out of the "evangelical ghetto". We were supposed to go to the rabidly secular universities, be familiar with all the various media (books, magazines, movies, music) that the world had to offer and generally take our place among the central cultural institutions of America - in short, to be culturally "relevant". Many of us bought into that project, myself included. In these positions of cultural influence, we were told, we would be able to affect the transformation of our culture "for Christ".

There is a lot of wisdom in that model of cultural transformation. Jesus himself never shied from the seedier elements of cultural life in his day, a tradition carried on by noble outreach efforts, such as XXXchurch.

That said, I wonder if there isn't in Chenoweth's story a warning to those of us who want to engage culture of the consequences of the many slight accommodations we are forced to make to get into those positions of cultural influence. With obvious talent, Chenoweth went to college and majored in Theater, eventually cultivating her career into wild success on Broadway, television and Hollywood. Bravo! But what does it say that this self-identified Baptist girl has been forced to reshape her standards to fit into these wildly liberal, but incredibly influential, cultural microcosms? Did anything resonate in her conscience when her gay theater clientele forced her contrition for appearing on the 700 Club and demanded her repentance for the crime of being remotely associated with the bane of East Coast and Left Coast sensibilities, Pat Robertson (who admittedly is nuttier than a loon)? Would Chenoweth be able to return to the small-town Oklahoma world she grew up in and that instilled in her the very values that have made her a success?

As we saw last week in the hand-wringing over uber-evangelical Rick Warren's AIDS conference and the resignation of Christian Coalition president-elect Joel Hunter after a rejection of his "social justice" agenda, these questions about who is really being influenced and in what ways when evangelicals engage culture are not insignificant or inconsequential. In fact, it seems to be the very issue we should be talking about, but really aren't.

Strangely, I think the world has much to teach us here. We only need to look at the many evangelical leaders tripping over themselves to preach on Third World debt (see my thoughts on Bruce "Prayer of Jabez" Wilkinson's disastrous project in Swaziland, "When Jabez Just Isn't Enough)", the environment and AIDS to be able to get a photo op with Bono, and then see that Bono and his U2 pals moving their assets out of Ireland to avoid paying the taxes to fund the very policies they promote. When given the opportunity, the world isn't willing to put their money where their principles are; they just are expecting you to pay for their policies without any complaint. The world must look at the Christian community (rightly so) and laugh at our desperate attempts to be hip and emergent. We are not much unlike the Seinfeld episode when Elaine shows off her horrid dancing skills completely oblivious to how bad they really are.



And I'm sure the Manhattan and Hollywood limousine liberal crowd applaud themselves when they see someone like Kristin Chenoweth fall right into line with their cultural agenda. In becoming agents of cultural change, we need to ask who we have become agents of cultural change for.

If anything, Kristin Chenoweth's success heralds the rise of a new kind of culturally relevant Christian, the Metroevangelical™ - a trend that should give Christian leaders a moment of pause. I would roughly define a Metroevangelical™ to be a thoroughly postmodern American Christian evangelical, who under pressure from popular culture feels compelled to transform objective moral values into subjective personal/political preferences. With that in mind, we would do well to remember that Jesus made a point about being in the world, but not of it.

Some of my previous observations on Evangelicalism:

The SS Titanic of Evangelicalism (12/11/05)

Evangelical Cultural Bankruptcy, Exhibit A (12/12/05)

Evangelical Cultural Bankruptcy, Exhibit B (12/17/05)

Congrats Hilliard Davidson Wildcats!

It's been a great season for football in Central Ohio. Not only are my Ohio State Buckeyes headed to Arizona to play for the National Championship next month after defeating two No. 2 ranked teams - Texas and Michigan - during the season and securing an outright Big Ten conference title, and quarterback Troy Smith looks to be a shoe-in for the Heisman Trophy (Ohio State's seventh, by the way), but also last night my high school alma mater, Hilliard Davidson, won an astounding 2OT victory to win the Ohio Division I-A State Championship 36-35 over Mentor in the first I-A overtime game in history. Since 1972, only one other Central Ohio team has won the I-A championship, which is usually dominated by the mammoth play-for-hire teams from Cincinnati and Cleveland (Mentor has double the enrollment of Hilliard Davidson). In their first trip to the state championship (falling last year in the semi-finals to the eventual winner), the Wildcats clawled their way back from a 14-0 deficit, intercepted a pass in the closing seconds of regulation to push the game into overtime, and in the last overtime went for gutsy a 2-point conversion to win the game, exhibiting Coach Brian White's philosophy - GO FOR THE WIN! Last week, the Wildcats had to beat the USA Today 12th nationally ranked Cincinnati Colerain to get into the title game to play against Mentor.

Congrats to my Hilliard Davidson Wildcats - Ohio Division I-A State Champions!

Next up, Glendale, AZ. Go Bucks!

Islam and the Problem of Rationality

Greetings to everyone visiting today from my article in today's American Thinker, "Islam and the Problem of Rationality". You can find some of my Islam-related blog posts linked on the sidebar to the right, as well as links to my other articles for The American Thinker and also for FrontPage Magazine. Thanks for visiting!

In Defense of Napping

Whenever I get a phone call during the day, invariably the first question usually asked is whether I was asleep or not. In fact, whenever one of my mother's friends stops over at the house, she always asks whether I was still in bed - at two o'clock in the afternoon. Yes, it is well known that I'm a napper. As a result, I experience the heavy weight from the social stigma that comes with being a napper.

But is the social stigma attached to napping warranted? Are nappers just lazy bums? According to Kurt Kleiner of the Toronto Star, the answer is no. In an article published earlier this week, The Modern World Killed Off the Nap, Kleiner explains that not only are researchers discovering that naps are entirely natural, but they are signs of a balanced life. He also notes that some of the greatest and most productive figures in history (Napoleon, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller, Winston Churchill, et al.) were all nappers. I'm in good company, it seems.

But that doesn't relieve the social stigma associated with napping. With my peculiar schedule of working through the night (I was up writing until 5 am this morning before going to bed), many people have concluded that I am an unproductive bum. That may be true, but it isn't because of my sleeping habits. In fact, what I have found is that I usually get less sleep than most of my critics (those critics usually go to bed at 9pm and get up at 6am, while I rarely get more than 7 hours of sleep). And I find that I'm much more productive. When I was a working stiff (much like yourself) I would regularly see that productivity around the office would decline precipitously after lunch. Getting something done after 3pm was virtually impossible. I remedied this problem in my own life by going home during lunch and taking a nap, which usually enabled me to work into the evening long after most of my co-workers had gone home. I was also one of the last persons into the office in the morning, which meant that I avoided long traffic delays and that the office was in full gear by the time I got to work. Thankfully, all of that is behind me now.

So what is the moral of the story? Get in touch with your inner napper and enjoy a more balanced life. There are few things in this world as sweet as a post-lunch sugar coma.

I think it's time for my nap.

Cathedral Music Videos

We are on the cutting edge of technology here at Existential Space. To prove it, I've posted two of my music videos online thanks to something called "YouTube". Maybe you've heard of it. Amongst all the jihadist ranting, moonbat Leftist drivel and ego masturbation there, you can find my "Cathedrals of England, Ireland and Scotland" and "Washington National Cathedral", or you can watch them right here by clicking the controls below. Both videos are comprised entirely of pictures I have taken. Enjoy!

Cathedrals of England, Ireland and Scotland



Washington National Cathedral

Ohio State Prof: "What Terrorist Threat?"

UPDATE #1: Thanks to Charles at Little Green Footballs for the plug, and welcome to all lizardoids. Thanks also to Ciaospirit. And lest any U of Michigan football fan take false hope in Mueller's corrupting influence on the#1 ranked OSU Buckeyes - keep dreaming! GO BUCKS! BEAT THE BLUE!

UPDATE #2: I am informed that Professor Mueller has a book due out in mid-November, Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them (Free Press), that also advances his thesis that terrorism doesn't exist. I just hope he sent an advance copy to Osama bin Laden!

With the fifth anniversary of 9/11 now behind us, I'm sure that few of us can forget the horror and uncertainty of that day. But despite the pervasive presence of that event in our collective memory, some in academia say we do not need to fight a war on terror because we are fighting “an enemy that scarcely exists.”

See as Exhibit A the lead article in the September-October issue of Foreign Affairs – published by the Council on Foreign Relations and considered one of the premiere sources of foreign policy for the East Coast Leftist and inside-the-Beltway establishments, where you will find an article by John Mueller, “Is There Still a Terrorist Threat?”, which is summarized as follows:

Despite all the ominous warnings of wily terrorists and imminent attacks, there has been neither a successful strike nor a close call in the United States since 9/11. The reasonable – but rarely heard – explanation is that there are no terrorists within the United States, and few have the means or the inclination to strike from abroad.

This conclusion might strike most of us who pay attention to the news as patently bizarre, but Mueller is not some visiting lecturer at Antioch College or Berkeley; he is a professor at one of the largest and most respected public universities in the country: The Ohio State University (my alma mater). In fact, Mueller holds the Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies, named after Ohio State’s beloved pugilistic and military historian football coach, and a professorship in the Department of Political Science (my undergraduate major).

Of course, in August the U.S., UK, and Pakistan foiled a terror plot to attack U.S.-bound airliners, potentially killing hundreds or thousands of Americans, but we find out that Mueller doesn’t let that fact get in his way. More to the point, there is evidence immediately at hand in Central Ohio to refute his ridiculous argument. In June 2004, Nuradin Abdi and Iyman Faris were arrested and charged with terrorism for plotting to blow up a Columbus-area shopping mall and making plans to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge. Faris, who admitted to receiving his orders directly from former al-Qaeda terror operations chief, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, pled guilty to the terrorism charges; Abdi’s case comes to trial this month at the Federal courthouse just a few miles from Mueller’s office.

Upon reading his argument that there is no terror threat to the US, I sent Professor Mueller an e-mail identifying myself as an Ohio State alum and Political Science graduate, politely asking him whether the revelations of this most recent plot to blow up US-bound airliners contradicted his thesis that there is no actual terrorist threat. Within a few hours, I received his single sentence reply:

“Why do you think it contradicts my thesis?”

In my response to his question I noted the fairly obvious conclusion that the existence of actual terror plots against the United States would flatly refute his contention that there are no terror plots against the US. That seems logical to me; but then again, Mueller is Political Science faculty, not Philosophy. Needless to say, since I pointed this out to him, I haven’t heard from Mueller again.

In his article, he gives evidence that logic is not his strong suit when openly contradicts himself:

But if it is so easy to pull off an attack and if terrorists are so demonically competent, why have they not done it? Why have they not been sniping at people in shopping centers, collapsing tunnels, poisoning the food supply, cutting electrical lines, derailing trains, blowing up oil pipelines, causing massive traffic jams, or exploiting the countless other vulnerabilities that, according to security experts, could so easily be exploited? One reasonable explanation is that almost no terrorists exist in the United States and few have the means or the inclination to strike from abroad. But this explanation is rarely offered.

Given their previous history of striking when their media cache sinks, wouldn’t it be more likely that al-Qaeda would attempt another 9/11-style attack to demonstrate their potency and to mask their current "desperation, isolation, fragmentation, and decline," much as he claims they did on 9/11?

Of course, there are a number of factors that have prevented al-Qaeda from striking America again, most importantly our military assaults against them abroad and vigorous law enforcement measures at home. This includes the destruction of Al-Qaeda’s Taliban safe haven, intensive signals surveillance and human intelligence gathering, the capture and dismantling of their terror cells around the world, the identification and freezing of their financial assets and disrupting their sources of income, and the U.S. military pushing what remains of al-Qaeda’s leadership into the remote mountain caves of Waziristan.

None of that fits into his assessment, however: if al-Qaeda actually intended to strike us again they would have successfully done so by now; therefore there is no real terror threat to the US, Mueller smugly concludes. Just who exactly is arguing for the "demonically competent" terrorist, Professor Mueller? But elsewhere he writes that al-Qaeda’s powers are "overblown" and "greatly exaggerated"; that they have reached the point of "desperation, isolation, fragmentation, and decline"; and that they "scarcely exist."

Being the good social scientist, Mueller finally retreats to the data, equating the risk to individual Americans of being killed in a terrorist attack as being hit by a meteor or drowning in the bathtub:

But while keeping such potential dangers in mind, it is worth remembering that the total number of people killed since 9/11 by al Qaeda or al Qaeda­like operatives outside of Afghanistan and Iraq is not much higher than the number who drown in bathtubs in the United States in a single year, and that the lifetime chance of an American being killed by international terrorism is about one in 80,000 -- about the same chance of being killed by a comet or a meteor. Even if there were a 9/11-scale attack every three months for the next five years, the likelihood that an individual American would number among the dead would be two hundredths of a percent (or one in 5,000).

If we were to take Mueller’s argument to its logical conclusion, since the annual fatality rate for car crashes in the US is 14 out of every 100,000 people, we should stop having law enforcement patrol highways. And since the lifetime risk of dying in an airplane crash is a staggering 1 in 8 million, the U.S. government should close down the National Transportation Safety Board, because there really isn’t much of a threat statistically speaking. But what comfort would Mueller's cold calculus be to a grieving widow or widower that lost their spouse on 9/11 that their death was little more than a statistical improbability?

It is interesting to note that one scholar that Mueller cites in support of his argument is Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East studies professor at Sarah Lawrence College, who argues that militant Islam is an invention of the West and that radical Islam had for the most part abandoned violence prior to 9/11 for politics. As Jonathan Calt Harris of Campus Watch explained in the National Review in 2003, Gerges has a habit of trying to hold mutually exclusive positions – all to the detriment of the foreign policy and national security of the United States:

Gerges feels America is wrong for taking militant Islam seriously, wrong for aiding Arab states against militant Islamic opposition and wrong for not aiding Arab states against Israel. America should not "collectively punish," yet should deny aid to a state based on the actions of its unelected ruler. America should not act "hegemonically," yet must "push along" Islamist groups to democracy, and "literally push" Arabs and Israelis to a solution. America cannot escape its "blood legacy" for supporting Saddam decades ago, yet now it is perpetrating a "unilateral military onslaught" by removing him.

Mueller not only quotes Gerges approvingly, but heartily embraces his “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” approach to radical Islam and terrorism. For both, it is as if 9/11 never occurred and that there really is no enemy for us to protect ourselves against – except the Bush Administration, which in their mind is a cross between the Khmer Rouge and Italian fascism. Thus for these “scholars”, any terror-related intelligence gathering, investigations, or (heaven forbid) arrests of terror suspects are gross human rights abuses and war crimes.

The only other scholar cited by Mueller in his Foreign Affairs article is Georgetown law professor David Cole, who has recently received awards from the Communist Party USA-founded National Lawyers Guild (who Erick Stakelbeck has described as “Cheerleaders of Terrorism”), the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (which openly supports suicide terrorist attacks against Israel), and the American Muslim Council (whose chairman was imprisoned in 2003 for terrorism-related charges). In addition, he serves as the legal affairs correspondent for the far Left magazine, The Nation.

Last year, Cole complained to U.S. News and World Report that the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Emergency Support Team was conducting radiation monitoring at 120 sites, including mosques, in the Washington D.C.-area and five other cities to prevent a nuclear attack against the US. Cole asserted that driving by these places each day with a Geiger counter was a violation of the most basic constitutional protections. This past May he protested the fairness of the conviction of Palestinian Islamic Jihad support, Sami al-Arian, and defended al-Arian’s innocence, despite the fact that al-Arian eventually pled guilty to the charges.

Cole is also a volunteer staff attorney and sits on the board of the George Soros-financed Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). The most recent publication by the CCR is the book, Articles of Impeachment of George W. Bush, and their most recent legal victory was securing civil liberties for the captured terrorists imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Again, Fawaz Gerges and David Cole are the only two scholars cited by Mueller, both of whom play to the conspiracy-mongers among the Daily Kos and Democratic Underground crowd. Is it any wonder then that Mueller’s Foreign Affairs article is laced with very familiar Leftist catch-phrases (“the ill-considered U.S. venture in Iraq”), politically-charged indictments (“The FBI embraces a spooky I-think-therefore-they-are line of reasoning when assessing the purported terrorist menace”) and completely over-the-top comparisons (likening US terror investigations to the Japanese-American internments of WWII)?

Professor Mueller’s opinion is sure to be sought out by eager New York Times reporters digging for quotes and his Foreign Affairs article cited in the press releases that stream endlessly from Howard Dean’s office at the Democratic National Committee, but what does it say about academia in America today that recognizing the deadly obvious terror threat to our country is considered a Copernican heresy by the faculty of our some of our most prominent colleges and universities? If 9/11 wasn’t sufficient to convince these academics that terrorism exists and that the US is the prime target, it’s doubtful that another attack will.

Having been born and raised in Columbus, having grown up as an Ohio State football fan, and being an Ohio State alumnus, I can safely conclude that if Woody Hayes were still alive, he would punch John Mueller in the mouth as quick as a Clemson football player.

Long live Woody! Go Bucks!

Christian Worldview and Changing Cultures

I am pleased to announce that I am now able to offer all three parts of my essay series published by Christianity & Society, "Christian Worldview and Changing Cultures," which appeared serially in the Summer 2005, Winter 2006, and Summer 2006 issues of that journal:

Christian Worldview and Changing Cultures, Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

I have said previously here that Christianity & Society should be among the subscriptions list of any serious-minded, culturally-aware Christian. Now that many back issues are available for free online on the Kuyper Foundation website, even the most skeptical should be convinced that this excellent international publication is worthy of your support. Subscribe today!

I hope to revise this essay and issue it as a short book in the near future. Comments welcome and appreciated!

The Islamist Cult of Death at Work in Iraq

Welcome to the visitors joining us today from The American Thinker! Thanks for stopping by! For you regulars, the visitors have come to us from my AT article posted this morning, The Islamist Death Cult at Work in Iraq. Here's a sample:

Superlatives are insufficient to describe the horror currently seen in Iraq: bags filled with severed human heads; scores of bodies found with the eyes drilled out; limbs amputated with power saws; crowds of Iraqi children blown to bits for accepting candy from American troops; pits filled with bodies of executed “collaborators”. These are the daily deeds of the self-proclaimed Islamic “freedom fighters” in Iraq – the Warriors of Jihad...

...To begin to get a grip on the scale of awful magnitude of the situation, consider that more people will be murdered by al-Qaeda and its jihadist allies in Iraq this month alone than all of the victims they killed on 9/11 (3,009 murdered in Iraq in August 2006 vs. 2,996 on 9/11). They seem intent on liquidating the entire populace in order to save them for the New World Caliphate.

Thanks to the good folks at The American Thinker for continuing to give me a regular place in their excellent line up. If it isn't a regular stop on your daily reading, it should be!

Rome Getting It Wrong on Islam

I have previously written two posts (Part 1, Part 2) on "Rome Getting It Right on Islam", praising the shift in official Vatican policy regarding Islam from Pope John Paul II to Benedict XVI. Just when it looked like it was safe to loudly cheer Benedict's recent comments regarding Islam at a conference in Regensberg, Germany - comments that have rightly inflamed the Muslim world - it seems that what he has given on one hand, he has taken away with the other.

Daniel Pipes reports that in the wake of violence and condemnations in the Muslim world in response to Benedict's Regensburg address, the Roman Catholic pontiff has this past week acknowledged Islam's filial relationship to Christianity as a member of the Abrahamic faith. In his address to the Ambassadors to Rome from Muslim countries, Benedict reaffirmed the Second Vatican Council's Nostra Aetate Declaration, which equates the Islamic Allah with the Christian God:

The Church looks upon Muslims with respect. They worship the one God living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to humanity and to whose decrees, even the hidden ones, they seek to submit themselves whole-heartedly, just as Abraham, to whom the Islamic faith readily relates itself, submitted to God.

Benedict went so far as to cite this conclusion as "the Magna Carta of the Muslim-Christian dialogue." This is clearly a step in the wrong direction, though he is following in the path of his predecessor, who said regarding Christians and Muslims while visiting Morocco in 1995, "we believe in the same God, the one God, the living God."

As we are engaged in the most recent phase combatting the 1400 year-long defense of the West against violent and aggressive Islamic imperialism, it is tempting to lose our nerve. In this case, Pope Benedict has lost his. The furor by Muslims over his recent comments has prompted him to retreat into the institutional complacency that has plagued the Roman Catholic Church for the past two hundred years. Benedict has shown signs of breaking this habit. He has made some bold steps to break with the policies of JPII in a short period of time. But this is a time for leadership, not safety.

Islam is not a step forward for monotheism, but is a retreat into paganism. This has been the unmistakable message of the Christian Church since the 7th Century. Benedict is in an unparalleled position to provide leadership the world by proclaiming Christian truth in the face of the Islamic threat to global civilization. He only squanders this opportunity by mau-mauing to the political correctness endemic to the Vatican diplomatic mandarins.

Al-Qaeda's 20-year Plan

For anyone that is interested in the war on terrorism, and article in last week's issue of The New Yorker is must reading. Lawrence Wright's, "The Master Plan," discusses the development of al-Qaeda's strategy since 9/11, gives an overview of their primary strategists, including Abu Musab al-Suri (who I wrote about here back in July, "The Architect of the New Global Jihad"), Abu Bakir Naji (author of The Management of Savagery, now available in a translation by William McCants at the Counter Terrorism Center at West Point), and a critical analysis by Jordanian author Fouad Hussein, who outlines al-Qaeda's 7-step 20-year plan in his book, Al-Zarqawi: al-Qaida's Second Generation. Hussein's book is based off a number of interviews with al-Qaeda leaders and his time in prison with Zarqawi.

The German daily Der Speigel covered Hussein's book last August. They summarized al-Qaeda's 20-year plan:

In seven phases the terror network hopes to establish an Islamic caliphate which the West will then be too weak to fight.

• The First Phase Known as "the awakening" -- this has already been carried out and was supposed to have lasted from 2000 to 2003, or more precisely from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington to the fall of Baghdad in 2003. The aim of the attacks of 9/11 was to provoke the US into declaring war on the Islamic world and thereby "awakening" Muslims. "The first phase was judged by the strategists and masterminds behind al-Qaida as very successful," writes Hussein. "The battle field was opened up and the Americans and their allies became a closer and easier target." The terrorist network is also reported as being satisfied that its message can now be heard "everywhere."
  
• The Second Phase "Opening Eyes" is, according to Hussein's definition, the period we are now in and should last until 2006. Hussein says the terrorists hope to make the western conspiracy aware of the "Islamic community." Hussein believes this is a phase in which al-Qaida wants an organization to develop into a movement. The network is banking on recruiting young men during this period. Iraq should become the center for all global operations, with an "army" set up there and bases established in other Arabic states.
• The Third Phase This is described as "Arising and Standing Up" and should last from 2007 to 2010. "There will be a focus on Syria," prophesies Hussein, based on what his sources told him. The fighting cadres are supposedly already prepared and some are in Iraq. Attacks on Turkey and -- even more explosive -- in Israel are predicted. Al-Qaida's masterminds hope that attacks on Israel will help the terrorist group become a recognized organization. The author also believes that countries neighboring Iraq, such as Jordan, are also in danger.
  
• The Fourth Phase Between 2010 and 2013, Hussein writes that al-Qaida will aim to bring about the collapse of the hated Arabic governments. The ultimate is that "the creeping loss of the regimes' power will lead to a steady growth in strength within al-Qaida." At the same time attacks will be carried out against oil suppliers and the US economy will be targeted using cyber terrorism.
  
• The Fifth Phase This will be the point at which an Islamic state, or caliphate, can be declared. The plan is that by this time, between 2013 and 2016, Western influence in the Islamic world will be so reduced and Israel weakened so much, that resistance will not be feared. Al-Qaida hopes that by then the Islamic state will be able to bring about a new world order.
  
• The Sixth Phase Hussein believes that from 2016 onwards there will a period of "total confrontation." As soon as the caliphate has been declared the "Islamic army" it will instigate the "fight between the believers and the non-believers" which has so often been predicted by Osama bin Laden.
  
• The Seventh Phase This final stage is described as "definitive victory." Hussein writes that in the terrorists' eyes, because the rest of the world will be so beaten down by the "one-and-a-half billion Muslims," the caliphate will undoubtedly succeed. This phase should be completed by 2020, although the war shouldn't last longer than two years.
  

Douglas Farah at Counterterrorism Blog asks, "Islamists Have a 20-year Plan: Do We?". According to Wright's New Yorker article, our policymakers have unwittingly played into al-Qaeda's strategy because they refuse to learn from the terrorists themselves:

Although American and European intelligence communities are aware of the jihadi texts, the work of these ideologues often reads like a playbook that U.S. policymakers have been slavishly, if inadvertently, following. “The data don’t get to the top, because the decision-makers are not looking for that kind of information,” a policy analyst who works closely with the American intelligence community told me. “They think they know better.”

It would be suicidal for us to ignore what al-Qaeda is willing to tell us directly. I'll have more on this issue in coming weeks, including some material never made public in English before. Stay tuned.