"...And about two weeks after we arrived, all hell broke loose...""...Meanwhile, the South and the North, developed a taste for ethnic cleansing, and internecine warefare, ...""...American soldiers were sent into this mayhem in 1993, and the world got to see exactly what a tribal, clan-based society can become. Milllions of Somalis have been displaced since then, tens of thousands killed, wounded, and starved to death. Where there is no reasonable, shared discourse, nor community of values; where the individual is not respected just for the sake of it; then the common currency of power becomes violence."
There are those of us who call themselves optimists, and they're those of us who call themselves pessimists. The problem with optimists is you have to draw the line between being optimistic and delusional; with pessimists, you have to draw the line between being pessimist and paraniod. I consider myself an optimist, but a realist in the sense that Islam is a huge challenge, and it's getting bigger. And the complacency in the West is great... "God" is the only god... "Allah" is the only god in town, at least here in the West, and it's a terrible god. So I don't underestimate it. . . Terrible things might happen, especially with nuclear weapons in the hands of fanatics, and other weapons. But I think to give up all hope, and to say that, I mean--we're going to be destroyed anyway, let's just lie back and let it happen, no, i haven't quite acquired that attitude yet.