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What Muslims Really Think

There is a new book out …  Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think  by John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed. People say the contents contain many counterintuitive findings, as pertaining to terrorism and religious radicals, but I don’t find them hard to understand at all. As I usually point out, it has to do with politics more than anything else we call "religion". Islam just happens to be the main religion, and thus abbreviated focus, in the areas of which the world has a real politik interest - namely oil since supplies are running out.

Clipping a few apt words of summary from http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0517/p12s04-wogi.html (Christian Science Monitor, accessed August 21, 2008) we find:

When asked why they supported the attacks, the radicals gave political rather than religious reasons. They have a sense of political frustration and feel humiliated and threatened by the West. Those who opposed the attacks often gave religious reasons for doing so.

Radicals are no more religious than the general population and do not attend mosque more frequently.

What distinguishes them is not their perception of Western culture or freedoms, but their perception of US policies. Even radicals say they support democracy. But 63 percent of radicals do not believe that the United States will allow people in the region to fashion their own political future without direct US influence.

When I first found out about  Samuel P. Huntington’s book  The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order years ago, I looked at it and the conclusions, noted the extraordinary press it was getting, and immediately knew that such a book was getting such extraordinary press despite a lacluster thesis and conclusions I disagreed with because the powers must be setting the stage for a push against Islam in the future. Fast forward: 100% correct. You have to note the books that get pushed by the great news agencies because there is often a politial motive behind them.

Actually, I knew the upcoming battle was not a "push against Islam," because there really is NO clash  of civilizations as people would like you to believe — unless you set out to manufacture one.  What they were after was setting the stage, via an expedient excuse, cause, rationale, or cover, thesis, philosophy  …for an upcoming attempt to seize geopoltical assets necessary for the long run — OIL, which as in the hands of Arab cvountries, but you couldn’t say that so you had to use the proxy of ISLAM.

Thus we then had the push into Afghanistan, Iraq, and now the attempts to go into Iran and control the whole of Eurasia … all as mentioned in the Project for a New Amercian Century (PNAC members include Dick Cheney, Richard Armitrage, Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle — names familiar) political positions piece book by Zbigniew Brzezinski ( The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives) which explained the upcoming strategy:

"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia) Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia — and America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained. (p.30)

"Two basic steps are thus required: first, to identify the geostrategically dynamic Eurasian states that have the power to cause a potentially important shift in the international distribution of power and to decipher the central external goals of their respective political elites and the likely consequences of their seeking to attain them; second, to formulate specific U.S. policies to offset, co-opt, and/or control the above." (p. 40)

"To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." (p.40)

"Henceforth, the United States may have to determine how to cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of Eurasia, thereby threatening America’s status as a global power." (p.55)

"With warning signs on the horizon across Europe and Asia, any successful American policy must focus on Eurasia as a whole and be guided by a Geostrategic design." (p.197)

These guys should all be taking lessons from my book on Kuan Tzu because it contains the strategies that will work to accomplish the goals they  set out to accomplish. Frankly, THEIR strategies are, by all my yardsticks, failures in both the short run and long run.  Kuan Tzu tells you why. And if you don’t understand any of what I’m writing about, then you shouldn’t consider yourself qualified for political office at the level of statesmanship required to lead a nation. You have to think strategy, long term trends, chess moves …. You shouldn’t necessarily agree with my opinions or adopt them, but MUST think geopolitically about what a leader must do to secure the fate of their nation. If you don’t then you’re just not qualified.

As I say, these are men who believe they are patriots in their thinking about the US, securing its future,  and attaining world hegemony. Every country wants that. However, their track record (and thus prior understanding of what’s required and the proper moves that position the US securely) shows they are absolutely lousy at strategy and tactics (as the results show) despite their positions of power and their patriotic intentions. They are more intellectual  thinkers then wisdom gifted and depend too much on moves that might help certain corporations rather than the country. I call their intentions "patriotic" because all statesmen want their country to survive, grow, prosper, excel, stand out, etc. and must plan for survival issues. Singapore does this well. Israel tries to do this well but is beginning to fail without noticing it. France has been slipping, and Britain as well without overtly showing it. New Zealand does this well. Some South American countries are starting to do this VERY well. Anyway, because of their dependence on wishful thinking rather than wisdom understanding,  thus we have the mess we are in in all sorts of dimensions - militarily, budgetwise, the economic front including manufacturing and employment, financial,  world opinion,and so forth.

The Chinese, for  instance, are doing a bang up job in Africa policywise, and it seems that Africa (trendwise) will eventually turn its back on the US within one or two decades. The US will have very little influence in such countries unless it invades them when the future comes, though there will be lots of "humanitarian" reasons one could develop for just such interventions. In Africa  China is  clearly winning the superpower game as most nations turn away from the bullying US with its endless demands and consistent track record of constantly turning on allies (because its strategies weren’t long term wise in the first place, and focused on business profits without being well thought out). Playing for the long term, with consistency and determination, the Chinese will win there. As its manufacturing base builds and middle class starts to form, China is poised to replace the US as the world’s economic engine of both consumer and producer within 1-2 decades. The remingbi, if not within 20 years, will probably become the main exchange currency of Asia. I agree with investor Jimmy Rogers on its ascendacy 100%. When its currency replaces the Yen in improtance, people will say they could not see it yet anyone can see it. Previous to the US it was England, after the US it will be China. Naturally I have policies and strategies to counter this, but who will consider them? Such things you never reveal publicly anyway.

What exactly have we achieved so far through our geopoltical moves?  Let’s go over a small list …

* Secure foreign oil fields? (not if  troops aren’t permanently stationed there or the next administartion reverses things or the occupied nations kick us out). 
* Secure the US manufacturing base? (not with the move to ousourcing approved in catering to corporate business wishing ever increasing profits that don’t enrich the nation or populace)
* Strengthen the dollar? (no nation in history has saved itself by debasing its currency)
* Create more friends abroad? (we’ve created  more extremists and terrorists bent on revenge then we have eliminated, and actually provided a rationale for their existence … plus alientated many countries who now have the thought we cannot be trusted or depended upon because of too many alliances)
* Strengthened our bond with Allies? (the recent Georgian debacle proved to nations that being over-extended, we can’t do much of anything to satisfy mutual protection treaties we’ve signed on for  … do you think they WON’T rethink where they will buy their next weapons and who they should start making deals with)
* Lowered the budget deficit (One word for you: Iraq. Second word for you: Banking crisis ready to cost billions more at taxpayer expense)
* United the nation? (by promoting a Mexican open-door immigration policy for individuals who speak a foreign language and have trouble integrating)

Putting it bluntly: many of the world’s citizens now hate us and given a chance, will turn on us or to other international players. We’ve lost our ability to stand as the shining knight, or lecture other countries on freedom, democracy, rights, etc. As we become less and less of an important player due to supplying less product to the world (the manufacturing base is deteriorating, and agriculture is threatened) and as our currency becomes less improtant as a medium of exchance or reserve currency, it will happen. Slwoly but surely. So all those guys in Washington really don’t know the long term Kuan Tzu strategies of sages for turning things around. You can use them to make your country stay on top or get to the top. One day I’ll write a book on how to make a country rich, but right now this one will suffice.

Anti-americanism is much more important to us than these guys think. Good will and trustworthiness, as Warren Buffet can say, are more important than the mere fact of controlling an oil nation, or thinking you can control it, because of its multi-faceted ramifications. My book on Kuan Tzu, the only book on achieving world hegemoney in the marketplace, provides lessons on how to reverse things and achieve geopolitical dominance  correctly. Basically, the Bush administration has been a dismal failure when it comes to securing the future of the US; most all the policies instuted have worked to weaken us rather than to attain the grand objectives. When Rumsfeld was around, the Rumsfeld-Cheny-Bush trio reminded me of cases in Chinese history where you had a dim-witted emperor surrounded by two euncuhs (Cheney’s had 4 heart operations and Rumsfeld is in his 70’s) controlling access to him and ruining the country in the meantime. History will not judge these men kindly although they may have had good intentions for American superpower status. I don’t criticize intentions or people — I just say the startegies have not worked, have done the opposite, are lousy and practically everyone now sees it. But of course, while in office people aren’t honest enough to admit it.

That aside, the real BIG wars in the future will be fought over WATER. Not oil, WATER. India and China might fight over this, the States in the US will see conflict, all over the world there will be water wars. The veneer of the conflicts will take the shape of something else, but water control will be the target. See Trevor Constable’s work on how to make the weather rain, or collapse hurricanes, via chi machines if you’re interested in micro solutions for certainlocalities when imperiled.

And speaking of water, if it weren’t for water unavilability we’d already have coal liquification plants in the US galore that woud supply lots of oil needs,  provide countless jobs, and actually act as a Keynesian push for the economy. Water is the deficient culprit holding these plants up. Similarly, the best replacement for biofuels I’ve ever seen is also unfortunately water dependent . See the  great video below. If these algae facilities - based upon GROW TO ORDER SPECIFICATIONS — were to become abundant, we would have a new source of fertilizer as well as biofuels as well at efficiences undreamed of. It just takes political will to make this happen.

Of course, the new Daniel Nocera breakthrough in  fuel cell energy storage for solar energy applications, using common chemicals like cobalt and phosphate, will see a revolution in solar energy soon, too, as well as solar cells being printed on plastic sheets.