War of Ideas

It's a pretty sorry state that we find ourselves in.  We are losing the war of ideas.  Prior to the Iraq war 75% of Egyptians looked disfavorably upon the United States.  Now 98% of Egyptians look disfavorably on the US.  Egypt receives the 2nd highest amount of US aid in the world.  What, exactly, is all that money buying?

And what's even more pathetic is that we're not losing the war of ideas to a decent alternative.  At least communism, as an idea, has a fairly legitimate appeal to rational people.  Many reasonable people could see it working.  But we're losing the war of ideas to Arab Nationalists and Islamic Terrorists, whose visions, as far as I can tell, involve making the world as miserable as possible for as many people as possible. 

All much of the West can think about is how to get George Bush out office and how to get ourselves out of Iraq.  All the Arab governments think about how can Iraq not explode into chaos, but also not serve as a functioning democracy.  All I hear is what people DON"T want: US troops in Arabia, the US telling people what to do, George Bush as president, bombs blowing up buildings, kidnappings, a puppet Iraqi government, blah, blah.  Nobody wants anything.  They DON"T want everything.

And everyone is bailing.  Led, by of all people, the Philipinnes, case after case of negotiating with these kidnappers has led directly to more and more kidnappings.  Doesn't everyone know how this works already?  You cave and it encourages more.

Egypt makes public statements trying not to piss off the insurgents for fears of reprisals.  Guess what?  That means the insurgents are running things.  I'm ashamed of the world we live in right now, a world too scared to face the threat of Islamic terrorism together, so we break apart and go around blaming each other and the big boogy-man, the US.  It's insanity. 

UPDATE:  Intriguing ideas about the war of Ideas.

"In my view, moderate Muslims today are in a position that is analogous to that of ordinary Germans and Japanese in World War II. Although they may not be personally committed to the rabid ideology that is behind the behavior of the warmongers, they are in awe of it.

For all practical purposes, most of the Muslim world is undecided between Islamism and America. If we adopt a more aggressive approach, some of these Muslims will jump off the fence and onto the other side. But passivity and weakness on our part would be even worse. To regain support of moderate Muslims in the long run, we will have to take steps in the short run that risk upsetting them."

Well, we're certainly doing that.