It is all about perspective...

Yahoo! News - KILLER DEBATE AHEAD: "David Ignatius of The Washington Post, explicitly influenced by the recent publication in France of a report by an anti-Bush jihad expert, wrote: 'The Taliban regime in Afghanistan has been toppled; the fence-sitting, semi-Islamist regime in Saudi Arabia has taken sides more strongly with the West; Islamists in Sudan and Libya are in retreat; and the plight of the Palestinians has never been more dire. And Baghdad, the traditional seat of the Muslim caliphs, is under foreign occupation. ... Perhaps it takes an outsider -- a Frenchman, even -- to help Americans see the war on terrorism in perspective. Saturated in terrorism alerts and images of violence from Iraq, Americans may miss the essential fact that the terrorists are losing.' "

I'm back! Though I don't have much time to write, these days, I'll try to throw a few interesting tidbits out. This one from the Post, via Buckley, is the most succint recital of the last few years as I have seen. Having read Bernard Lewis' book on the history of Islam, seen his prediction of an Islamic Europe within a few generations, I am convinced of the need for broad historical and geographic perspective. Benjamin and Simon's book "the Age of Sacred Terror" ties in this large picture with a more concentrated look at the roots of al Qaida going back to the Muslim Brotherhood...not as an organization, but as an evolving and cohesive worldview.

Islam is at a crossroads, much as Christianity was after the Crusades and in through the reformation. Which path will predominate, violence and statism vs relationships and personalism, remains to be seen. For now, the most vocal and attractive side of Islam is the one that gives followers a reason to live, and a reason to die.