Short Quiz

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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Short Quiz

Post by johnkarls »

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1. On p 343, our author states that Al Qaeda was “founded in 1988” which, though not noted on or about p. 343, was toward the end of the 1979-1989 Soviet War in Afghanistan -- does our author appear to think that “The Terror Years” (the title of our focus book) began in 1988 with Al Qaeda?

2. Was long-time (1963-2008) Harvard Political Science Professor Samuel Huntington the co-founder and long-time co-editor of Foreign Policy Magazine, which he sold to The Washington Post upon his retirement?

3. Did Prof. Huntington write a famous article entitled “The Clash of Civilizations?” for the Summer 1993 issue of Foreign Affairs (the OTHER pre-eminent foreign policy magazine)?

4. Was Prof. Huntington’s article expanded into his classic book entitled “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order” (Simon & Shuster 1996 – 367 pages)?

5. Was Prof. Huntington’s thesis, essentially, that in the wake of the Cold War, Islam would CONTINUE to challenge in deadly earnest both Western and Chinese civilization?

6. Did Prof. Huntington’s thesis include the argument that Islam would be far more persistent and intransigent than the Cold War opponents whose enmity for each other had NOT been based on religion?

7. Are Prof. Huntington’s Foreign Affairs Article and his “Clash of Civilizations” tome where he first coined the term “Bloody Borders”?

8. Was Prof. Huntington referring to national borders invented by European colonial powers, or was he referring to borders between the world’s Islamic areas and non-Islamic areas?

9. Did Prof. Huntington cite as the reasons for Islam’s “Bloody Borders” its basic beliefs (A) that all Muslims should wage Holy War (“Jihad”) in order to bring the entire world under Islamic domination, and (B) that each Islamic Martyr (“Holy Warrior” who sacrifices her/his life for the cause of world domination by Islam) will, together with 70 close relatives, by-pass a truly fearsome Judgment Day upon which they would otherwise have been prosecuted by Avenging Angels?

10. Did Prof. Huntington note that these basic beliefs had produced “Bloody Borders” throughout the 14 centuries since the founding of Islam?

11. So why does Lawrence Wright, our author, think that Al-Qaeda and ISIS are NOT part of Prof. Huntington’s 14-centuries-long “Clash of Civilizations” and that, per our author -- “The conflict that the Islamic State has provoked will ultimately bring about its destruction, but not without much more havoc and heartache”?

12. Has Prof. Dario Fernández-Morera of Northwestern U (BA Stanford, PhD Harvard) published several books and many articles on cultural, literary, historical and methodological issues in Spain, Latin America and the United States?

13. Is his most recent book “The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews Under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain” (Intercollegiate Studies Institute 2/22/2016 – 376 pages including 95 pages of notes)?

14. Following Prof. Huntingtons’s “Clash of Civilizations” and his observations about 14 centuries of “Bloody Borders,” have numerous books propagandized for Islam by calling Muslim rule in Spain during the Middle Ages a “Golden Age of Tolerance”?

15. In “The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise” does Prof. Fernández-Morera use a plethora of primary and secondary sources, many not published in English, to demonstrate “in meticulous detail…that intolerance, segregation, formal inequality, and brutality were the order of the day [in Islamic Spain]”?

16. So I repeat Q-11 “why does Lawrence Wright, our author, think that Al-Qaeda and ISIS are NOT part of Prof. Huntington’s 14-centuries-long ‘Clash of Civilizations’ and that, per our author – ‘The conflict that the Islamic State has provoked will ultimately bring about its destruction, but not without much more havoc and heartache’”?

17. In terms of “Realpolitik” what is (whether we admit it or not) America’s “national interest” vis-à-vis Islam in general and the Islamic countries of the Middle East in particular?

18. Like the American news media of which Lawrence Wright, our author, is a part, does he mention Osama bin Laden’s FIVE fatwās -- including (A) his 1996 fatwā entitled “Declaration of War Against Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places” (i.e., Saudi Arabia where we had established military bases for Gulf War I against Saddam), (B) his 1998 fatwā entitled “The Nuclear Bomb of Islam” and (C) his 2002 fatwā (updated in 2005) making it the solemn religious obligation of each of his followers to nuke 10 million Americans about which the Founding Dean of Harvard U’s Kennedy School of Government, Graham Allison, wrote a famous book entitled “Nuclear Terrorism”?

19. Have Graham Allison’s recommendations been ignored despite the strenuous efforts of former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA and Senate Armed Services Committee Chair 1987-1995), former U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN and Senate Foreign Relations Chair 2003-2007), Messrs. Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton (Chair and Co-Chair of The 9/11 Commission), Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert?

20. Does Lawrence Wright, our author, mention that Osama bin Laden’s fatwā to nuke 10 million Americans can NOT be revoked, now that Osama is dead (a principle that was on prominent display when the Brits negotiated to restore diplomatic relations with Iran following the death in 1989 of Iranian Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini who had issued a famous fatwā to assassinate Salmon Rushdie in the wake of his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses -- the Brits were told by new Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that the fatwā could NOT be revoked because Ayatollah Khomeini was dead)?

21. Does approximately 50% of the world’s oil production come from the Persian Gulf or downwind from the PG?

22. Are virtually all of the world’s agricultural fertilizers manufactured from petrochemicals?

23. Accordingly, if there were a nuclear war in the Middle East, would approximately 50% of the world’s population become unsustainable overnight because 50% of the world’s oil production is radioactive?

24. So, to help answer Q-17, have we often concluded that America’s only “national interest” vis-à-vis the Islamic countries in the Middle East, is to prevent nuclear proliferation?

25. Is this conclusion still valid, since America would become energy self-sufficient in the near future if it develops thorium fission (as well as solving global warming 100% virtually overnight), and since America could easily defend itself militarily against the world’s starving nations that might still be dependent on agricultural fertilizers derived from Middle East oil & gas?

26. Even if America disengages from the Middle East because thorium fission has made oil & gas obsolete as an energy source, would it still be impossible to escape Prof. Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” in which he argues that the Islamic beliefs of Jihad and Martyrdom for the last 14 centuries in order to achieve world domination, will continue?

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