A professor friend on mine in Jordan ask me if I had seen this study…..he sent it to me in Arabic……He wanted my opinion of the conclusions that it was drawing on the fight against violent extremism….
المجاهيل المعروفة ومكافحة التطرف العنيف
Since I left the Middle East my Arabic has seen better days…..so I had to cheat and translate it so that I could get a good read and then give him my honest opinion……
Rumsfeldian logic has its uses in the field of counter-terrorism, where one of the key known unknowns remains whether violent extremism can, in fact, be prevented.
Source: ISS Africa | Known unknowns and the fight against violent extremism
The piece began with what I could only call a WTF moment……
The question took one into the realm of Rumsfeldian logic, Armitage said. He was referring, of course, to former United States secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld’s famous reply in February 2002, when asked about the lack of evidence linking the government of Iraq with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.
There were ‘known knowns … things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns, things we know we do not know,’ he said. ‘But there are also unknown unknowns; the ones we don’t know we don’t know,’ he added. These last were the difficult questions. Armitage suggested the ISS seminar topic ‘Can violent extremism be prevented?’ belonged to Rumsfeld’s second category, of ‘known unknowns.’ Nevertheless, Armitage then went on to suggest that there would always be some minority support for some form of violent extremism.
The article went on cover many of the events and situations that lead to extremism….I was thankful that it was more clearly articulated than what Rumsfeld had to say back in 2002…..
I sent my friend my analysis and I await his reply….
Read the article for yourself and let me know what you think…..this is not a study that one reads and then go off on some rant about people coming to get you…..it will require some thought and some analysis on the readers part……
Time awaits……..
I shall forgo commenting extensively on this; the term “Rumsfeldian logic”, which is, obviously, an oxymoron, had me in stitches for five minutes, and I won’t recover for a while…. However, I am reminded of the old joke about the boy who wanted to work on the tuna boats, baiting hooks to catch the fish. After many years, we all know he became a master baiter….
Such is the fate of those who try to actually USE Rumsfeldian logic….
The percentage of “unknown unknowns” in his world, is an infinite number….
gigoid, the dubious
I did appreciate the logic (laughing) of Rumsfeld…..what a tool…..chuq
Aye…. ’twas a perfect example of a lie spread so far and thin, it had no real meaning left… but, he tried to make it dance anyway….
g
Sorry for the badly mixed metaphors….
g
He you go Lobo.
Rome was sacked by Muslims in 846 AD during the great conquests of Islam after the time of Mohammed.
During the 8th and 9th centuries, the Muslim Arabs (then called Saracens in Europe) were rapaciously invading Christendom through Southern Italy which they succeeded in conquering by fire, murder, rapine and the sword. Sailing from newly acquired bases in North Africa which they had just stolen from the Christians of the Eastern Roman Empire, the had conquered Sicily and were now bent upon seizing the rest of the peninsula.
They had earlier been rebuffed in France in 732 by King Charles Martel, the grandfather of Charlemagne, but they had got as far as Tours in Nothern France. King Charles was the first to halt their seemingly inexorable advance. Thereafter they retired to Spain and parts of Southern France and settled. They retained their hold on what had once been Catholic Visigothic Spain for the next 800 years! They were not finally ejected from Christian Spain until 1491 by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand.
Under Pope Paschal I (817-824), the relics of the holy martyrs were concealed in the walls of the city of Rome. When Rome was sacked, Paschal’s careful precautions did not prevent the wholesale spoliation and robbery of Basilica of Saint Peter itself, nor, indeed, of San Paolo fuori le Mura (St Paul’s outside the Walls), because they both lay outside the walls of the city of Rome.
Later, a second wall was constructed on the other side of the Tiber from the main city area. It was constructed by order of Pope Leo IV and so this enclosure was called the Leonine City.
The Islamic conquest and domination of Sicily, as well as parts of southern Italy began in the 7th century after the foundation of Islam and the attempt by the Muslim leaders to conquer the world.
By Koranic tradition, Islam makes its attempts to re-conquer the world in the 7th or 8th decade of every century and does not stop until it is halted by force. When stopped it generally lies low until the 7th or 8th decade of the next century when it then makes another attempt at world domination.
How, then, can it call itself a religion of peace? It does so because it means by peace the eventual peace that will, it says, be the consequence of the conquest of the world for Islam. In the meantime, however, it is war.
(Retrieved from, http://www.romanchristiandom.blogspot.com)
The Battle of Tours France is said to be the most important battle ever won for the sake of civilization.
Please…..must we revisit this? Christianity is not so peaceful either….Judaism is definitely not….