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Type: Hardcover
Item#: c7015
ISBN#: 1403976392
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"A must read for those who want to understand the jihad radical Islamists are waging against democracies." - Oliver North
The War of Ideas
by Walid Phares
From the morning of the 9/11 attacks onward, ordinary citizens started to wonder how all this could have happened so suddenly. But in fact, writes Walid Phares in The War of Ideas, it hadn't been sudden at all. Jihadism had been resurging throughout the Islamic world for decades, and its murderously anti-Western intentions were plain for all to see. Then why did it come as news to Americans? Because, Phares argues, for more than a decade, our intellectual elites had ignored it - or, worse, "spun" it as a benign spiritual tradition, like yoga. Even now, he says, academics and media professionals - some in thrall to Saudi money, others to political correctness -- softpedal the truth about jihadism. Meanwhile, particularly in the Arab Muslim nations, it continues to transform millions into militants and demonstrators, and some into suicide bombers. The time has come - if it isn't already too late - to face the truth about our enemy's ideology, and begin challenging it openly and fearlessly, as we once did Communism. And in this challenging book, Phares shows us how.
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"During the fall of 2001," writes Phares, "Osama bin Laden said on al Jazeera that as long as he can reach the next generation of Muslims, he will be winning the war against his enemies. In fact, the central point in the entire war between Jihadism and democracy is this: All it takes for the jihadists to make progress is to continue to implant their ideology in the minds of the younger waves of followers. And all it takes for the supporters of the radicals within international society (and particularly inside Western democracies) is to prevent the public, especially youth, from understanding this equation."
Based on Phares' years of following the evolution of the main players in world politics and closely analyzing the strategies of the two main camps in the current War on Terror, The War of Ideas describes in detail the intellectual and other forces - the big picture - behind the ongoing world conflict. What are the aims of the jihadists and their allies, and how do they intend to reach them? How do they want their enemies to think, and are their strategies working? Phares answers to questions like these are as fascinating as they are troubling. To end his discussion, he leaves the reader with seven strategic recommendations which can be made to governments, international organizations and NGOs as a way to rebalance the debate - and recover for the West its advantage in what is shaping up as a war for civilizational survival.
"A must read"
"'From China's borders to the Atlantic Ocean, masses are being taught to hate the other side of the world and blame it for all evil.' Phares, a Lebanese-born policy analyst and television commentator, is no alarmist; in public discussions of U.S.-Middle Eastern affairs, he is a voice of calm and reason. Yet, he urges, there really is such a thing as a terrorist Muslim enemy, a class of person he calls a jihadist, who takes literally Islam's call for jihad, or war against the infidel. This term, Phares argues, has been denatured and defused: An academia friendly to Saudi interests (because it's funded by them) has assured worried Americans that ‘jihad is essentially a spiritual experience,' just as Harvard think-tankers once called the Taliban ‘elements of stability.' ‘Since 9/11,' he concludes, ‘many Western political and academic establishments have generally caved in to the jihadi intellectual offensive.' Well, jihad is jihad, the author says, wrapped up in a pan-Arabist, Islamist (though jihadists and Islamists aren't necessarily one and the same), Baathist, generally fascist ideology that demands the restoration of the caliphate to wage endless war against all nonbelievers." - Kirkus Reviews
"A beacon that helps us to see and understand the extent of the Jihadist threat the World is facing. Nobody who reads his analysis will have any doubt left about the existential peril posed by the radical Islamists and Jihadi terrorists to democracies. A must read." -Jose Maria Aznar, Former Prime Minister of Spain
"A pioneering work in history and politics. It shows clearly how Jihadism has become a strategic threat to democracy worldwide.' - Paulo Casaca, Chairman of the NATO commission to the European Parliament
"Phares' book puts fifty years of Cold War and Jihadi offensives against democracies in an ultimate global perspective." - Col. Kenneth Allard, USA (Ret.), former dean of the National War College
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