war of civilization against barbarism

A Manichean world, &c.
By Jay Nordlinger


About the atrocities in Bombay, I will say only this — something you have heard many, many times: There is no negotiating with or appeasing these people; they must be faced down, until they don’t bother us anymore. They are the same, really, wherever they strike: Bali, London, Madrid, New York . . . They are Islamists, or Islamofascists, and the civilized world must round on them, until they die or quit. This is a war of civilization against barbarism. All the rest is a matter of details.

Now, the view I have just expressed is often criticized as “Manichean.” But life is sometimes like that, for better or worse: Manichean.

Earlier this year, I was standing in front of the Taj Hotel (although I didn’t stay there). Does it make me feel the atrocities more acutely? No — human sympathy has no need of travel or direct experience. But one might imagine the scene more vividly, I regret to say.

Some Indians are pointedly identifying the terrorists as “Pakistani.” And they are, in some sense. But in a more important sense: They are Islamists, or Islamofascists. It doesn’t matter where they’re from — whether Pakistan or India or the Philippines or Egypt or Amsterdam or Marin County. They are Islamist terrorists, and they must be faced down until they bother us no more.

Or did I say that already?

More at link:

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZTQ1NzdkMmM0ZTZiZjQ3ZDk0ZTg4ZTllNTRhYjQ0NzM=