West outmanouvered by Islamic extremism

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The former prime minister said that there had been a failure to challenge the ''narrative'' that Islam was oppressed by the West which was fuelling extremism around the world.

He said too many people accepted the extremists' analysis that the military actions taken by the West following the 9/11 attacks were directed at countries because they were Muslim and that it supported Israel because Israelis were Jews while Palestinians were Muslims.

''We should wake up to the absurdity of our surprise at the prevalence of this extremism,'' Mr Blair said

''Look at the funds it receives. Examine the education systems that succour it. And then measure, over the years, the paucity of our counter-attack in the name of peaceful co-existence. We have been outspent, outmanoeuvred and out-strategised.''

Speaking on Tuesday night in New York to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Mr Blair warned that it was impossible to defeat extremism ''without defeating the narrative that nurtures it''.

Moderate Muslims who believed in co-existence and tolerance were, he said, being undermined by the unwillingness of the West to take on the extremists' arguments.

''We think if we sympathise with the narrative - that essentially this extremism has arisen as a result, partly, of our actions - we meet it halfway, we help the modernisers to be more persuasive,'' he said.

''We don't. We indulge it and we weaken them. Worse, a reaction springs up amongst our people that we are pandering to this narrative and they start to resent Muslims as a whole.''

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Original piece is http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/tony-blair/8045717/West-being-out-manoeuvred-by-Islamic-extremism-Tony-Blair-warns.html

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Blair is correct that we are pandering to Muslims but the consequences are not "resentment to Muslims as a whole." The result is that Islam grows stronger, Sharia gets closer, and democracy gets usurped. In the US Arabs have bought controlling interests in school text book publishing companies. Guess how attractively Islam is presented? The books go nationwide.

Posted by Roberta on 2010-10-09 03:31:44 GMT

Islam is in no uncertain terms marching forward in the financial world, given the impacted perspectives of banks, and the poisen pill that the Western financial system has swallowed and now feels the effects of. Earnst & Young report a growth in Sharia compliant fund assets from $34,1 bln in 2005 to 52,3 bln in Q1, 2010. Petrodolalr wealth isn"t seen alone in the vulgar affluence of the 1% of the Mid-East insiders, it"s buying up Western assets as it funds it"s ideologic and sociopolitic attacks. Blair is more than accurate in describing the absurdities involved here, but where is the concrete action plan? It"s easy enough to take the temperature of a sick person and tell that it"s seriously ill. It"s quite a different skill set to accurate diagnose the illness and propose an effective cure.

Posted by Brian_007 on 2010-10-08 07:42:22 GMT

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West outmanouvered by Islamic extremism

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