PHILOSOPHY IN WARTIME

A Collection of Readings prepared in conjunction with the Seminar: Religion, Revolution, Terrorism and War (University at Buffalo Spring Semester 2002)

Philosophy, Politics, Economics and Geography of Islam
Benjamin R. Barber : Jihad vs. McWorld
Bruce Bartlett : Islam and Free Market Capitalism
Reuel Marc Gerecht : Losing the Middle East? When it comes to peacemaking, don't trust the Saudis and Egyptians
Pervez Amir Ali Hoodbhoy : How Islam Lost Its Way: Yesterday's Achievements Were Golden; Today, Reason Has Been Eclipsed  
Irfan Husain : Illusion of Muslim unity
Hussein Ibish : What Went Wrong in the Arab World? America, Ask Yourself
Jeffrey Herf : What is Old and What is New in the Terrorism of Islamic Fundamentalism?
M.A. Muqtedar Khan : An open letter to U.S. Muslims
Albert Kinross : Islam. The East Lives by its Senses, the West Attempts to Follow its Ideals
Osama bin Laden : Frontline interview (May 1998)
Labib Mikhail : Understanding Islam 
Chris Mooney : Holy War
Seyyed Hossein Nasr : Islam and the Question of Violence
Timur Kuran : The Vulnerability of the Arab State: Reflections on the Ayubi Thesis
Waller R. Newell : Postmodern Jihad: What Osama bin Laden learned from the Left
Stephen C. Pelletiere : A Theory of Fundamentalism: An Inquiry into the Origin and Development of the Movement
Virginia Postrel : The Decline of the Muslim Middle East, and the Roots of Resentment
Daniel Pipes : The Western Mind of Radical Islam
Salman Rushdie : Yes, This Is About Islam
Edward Said : A Devil Theory of Islam
Amyn B. Sajoo : The Ethics of the Public Square
Jack Schwartz : Islam: A Religion of Peace?
Patrick Sookhdeo : A Religion that Sanctions Violence
Seth Stevenson : Islam: A Peaceful Religion?
Alexander Stille : Radical New Views of Islam and the Origins of the Koran
Andrew Sullivan : The Anti-Semitism of the Islamo-Fascists

 

Bernard Lewis
"The Question of Orientalism," New York Review of Books (June 24, 1982), 29(11) 49-56. (Review of Edward Said, Orientialism )
"Orientalism: An Exchange," New York Review of Books (August 12, 1982), 29(13):46-48.
Islamic Revolution (1988)
Islamic Revolution: An Exchange (1988)
The Roots of Muslim Rage (1990)
Race and Slavery in the Middle East (1994)
The Enemies of God (1995)
The Middle East Towards the Year 2000 -- Patterns of Change (1996)
License to Kill (1998)
Jihad vs. Crusade: A Historian's Guide to the New War (2001)
Bernard Lewis Unplugged (2002)
A War of Resolve: American kowtowing to "moderate" Arabs may embolden bin Laden (2002)
Tanju Çataltepe : Old Enemies New Paradigms
Jay Tolson : Portrait of Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis: Did You Say ‘American Imperialism’? Power, weakness, and choices in the Middle East, National Review , Dec. 17, 2001

   

Philosophy, Terrorism and War
Victor David Hanson : Wishing War Away? It’s not as uncommon as we pretend.
Ted Honderich : Terrorism and Moral Philosophy -- Their Acts and Our Omissions
Ethical Perspectives on the Terrorist Attacks
Artur M. Loureiro : Can Terrorism Be Politically (Ethically) Justified? A Philosophical Approach
Martin Masse : We are Losing the War Against Terrorism
Georg Meggle : Terror and Counter-Terror: Initial Ethical Reflections
Alex Moseley : Just War Theory
The Nation : Is This Really a Just War?
Keith J. Pavlischek : The Justice in Just War
Philosophers Speak Out about War, Terrorism, and Peace
John Searle : Terrorism, Tomas Kapitan : Letter to John Searle
Peter Simpson : The War on Terrorism: its Moral Justification and Limits
Howard Zinn : A Just Cause, Not a Just War
Peter Wilkinson : Can a State be Terrorist

   

Torture
Alan Dershowitz : Is There a Torturous Road to Justice?
Michael Levin : The Case for Torture
Leonard Wantchekon and Andrew Healy : The "Game" of Torture

   

Intellectuals, Liberals and Cosmopolitans
William J. Bennett : Maddening Deeds at US Universities
Paul Berman : Terror and Liberalism
Robert Conquest Where Ignorance Isn’t Bliss: In need of a lesson (on Institutionalized Intellectual Incompetence)
Paul Craig Roberts : What Multiculturalism Hath wrought
Adam Garfinkle : The Case for Realism
Mark Goldblatt : French Toast
Victor Davis Hanson : Gone With the War? Ideas Whose Time has Passed
Vox Day : One World ... One Big, Bloody Problem
Kay S. Hymowitz and Harry Stein : Earth to Ivory Tower: Get Real!
Michael Kelly : Non-Judgment Day at Yale (Here's a Newsflash: Mass Murder is Wrong)
Roger Kimball : America's wake-up call
Mark Lilla : Why are Deep Thinkers Shallow about Tyrrany?
Mark Lilla : The Lure of Syracuse
V. S. Naipaul : Our Universal Civilization
Paul Craig Roberts: Genocide in the Classroom
Edward Rothstein : Attacks on U.S. Challenge Postmodern True Believers
Edward Said : Thoughts About America
Susan Sontag : Observations
Shelby Steele : The West must stop apologizing for the greatness of our civilization.
Andrew Sullivan : The Agony of the Left
Bruce Thornton : Politically Correct Imports
Polly Toynbee : Limp liberals fail to protect their most profound values
[Gore Vidal] : The World Trade Center Attack
Michael Walzer : Can There Be a Decent Left?
Justus Reid Weiner : "My Beautiful Old House" and Other Fabrications by Edward Said
George Will : Onward and Upward
Keith Windschuttle : Edward Said's Orientalism Revised


   
Reasons, Causes

David Brooks : Among the Bourgeoisophobes. Why the Europeans and Arabs, each in their own way, hate America and Israel
Steve Dasbach : An Obvious Link: U.S. Adventurism Laid Groundwork for Sept. 11 Attack
Victor Davis Hansen : Why the Muslims Misjudged Us: They Hate us Because Their Culture is Backward and Corrupt.
Victor Davis Hansen : Misunderstanding America. We’re not the ones with the problems.
Victor Davis Hansen : The Longest War
Mickey Kaus : Does Welfare Cause Terrorism?
Rabbi Daniel Lapin : Know Thy Enemy. Why They Hate Us
Rally for America : What are the Causes and Origins of Terrorism?
Jonathan Rauch : Don't Fear Bin Ladenism's Strength. Fear Its Weakness
Saskia Sassen : Entrapments Rich Countries Cannot Escape: Governance Hotspots

 

Solutions
Hans-Hermann Hoppe : On Free Immigration and Forced Integration
Charles Krauthammer : The Real New World Order: The American and the Islamic challenge
Paul R. McHugh : A Psychiatrist Looks at Islam
Leonard Peikoff : End States Who Sponsor Terrorism
Fareed Zakaria : How to Save the Arab World: The First Step to Undermining Extremism is to Prod Regimes into Economic Reform
 
Imperialism
Max Boot : The Case for American Empire  
Neil Clark : Colonial wars. New liberal imperialism is making the world safe for terrorists
Robert Cooper : The New Liberal Imperialism
Michael Gove : Colonialism is Alive and Well in the Middle East
Michael Klare : The Geopolitics of War
Mark Steyn : Imperialism is the Answer 

 

The Fifth Column
Farrukh Dhondy : An Islamic Fifth Column. Muslim Americans and Englishmen join the jihad.

 

Anthropology, Culture
Pascal Boyer : Religious Ontologies and the Bounds of Sense: A Cognitive Catalogue of the Supernatural
Ian Buruma : Review of V. S. Naipaul, Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples
Ian Buruma : Why are so many educated young men willing to die to kill Americans? Perhaps the answer lies in Japan
Ian Buruma : The notion that future wars will be fought between civilisations, not states, may be clever but it is wrong
Robert B. Edgerton : Sick Societies
Ernest Gellner
Ernest Geller : Industrial Society
Ernest Gellner : Culture in an Agrarian Society
Ernest Gellner : Marxism and Islam: Failure and Success
Francisco Gil-White: Papers on ethnicity
Francisco Gil-White: Why are Americans hated in the Middle East?
Charles Lindholm
: Culture Shock: We Say we Honor Differences. But Can we Accept Pushtun Ways?
V. S. Naipaul (Interview): Indian writers don't know why their country is in such a mess
Kenneth M. Pollock : Why Arabs Can't Fight - The Arab Culture Theory

 

Clash of Civilizations
Robert D. Kaplan : Looking the World in the Eye: Samuel Huffington
Samuel P. Huntington : The Clash of Civilizations; Said on Huntington; Douthat on Said
Jack Miles : Theology and the Clash of Civilizations
James D. Miller : The Clash (Huntington vs. Fukuyama)

 

Western Civilization and Its Enemies
Silvio Berlusconi : Is the West Really the Best?
David Blankenborn : What We're Fighting For
The Cato Institute : America's Values Under Attack
Marian Kester Coombs : Resentment as a religion
Theodore Dalrymple : What We Have to Lose
John Derbyshire : Hesperophobia: On blaming the Jews
Francis Fukuyama : The West Has Won
Hans-Hermann Hoppe : Democracy: The God That Failed
Hans-Hermann Hoppe : Secession, the State, and the Immigration Problem
Robert D. Kaplan : Was Democracy Just a Moment?
Charles Krauthammer : The Enemy is Not Islam. It is Nihilism
Deepak Lal : Does Modernization Require Westernization?
Michael Medved : World's Most Dangerous Hatred
Kenneth Minogue : How Civilizations Fall
Philippe Nemo : The Invention of Western Reason
Clifford Orwin : Incurable Hate v. the Modern World
John O'Sullivan : Allegiances in a Multicultural Age: Discovering the dangers of worshipping tolerance.
Stuart Reid : A War to Save Civilisation - or Carry on Lap-Dancing?

 

Religion
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : It's Time to Save our Islamic Faith
Richard Dawkins :Religion's Misguided Missiles. Promise a young man that death is not the end and he will willingly cause disaster
Richard Dawkins : Time to Stand Up!
David F. Forte : Religion is Not the Enemy -- Reply by Daniel Pipes
Katie Grant : Would You Die for Your Faith?
John Guthmiller : Allah Must Be Proud -- A One Way Ride to Oblivion
Sohail H. Hashmi : Jihad (from Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion)
Kevin J. Hasson : Finding the Koran's Truth
Michael Novak : Don’t Call Me Secular! The U.S. is Anything But
Robert Sirico : Faith and Freedom: In praise of religious liberty

  

Feminism
Sexuality and Terrorism
Stephen Farrell : West's Feminists under fire from Female General
Rebecca Mead : A Woman's Prerogative
Mark Steyn : Feminists Reaching for a Clue

 

Land, Territory and the Ontology of War
Robert Jackson : Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World
Steven Plaut : Patriots, Refugees, and the Right of Return
Jeremy Rabkin : Sovereignty Amidst Terror: Every terrorist lives in a nation-state, which is accountable for him.
David B. Rivkin, Jr., and Lee A. Casey : The Rocky Shoals of International Law
R. J. Rummel : Understanding Conflict and War
Barry Smith : Agglomerations
Barry Smith : The Cognitive Geometry of War
Barry Smith and Leo Zaibert : The Metaphysics of Real Estate

 

Racial Profiling
Jennifer Kabbany : Demise of the Racial Profiling Debate

 

Ireland, Japan
Ian Hacking : Review of Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami
Timothy Garton Ash : Is There a Good Terrorist?
Iain Duncan Smith and David Trimble : There's No Such Thing as a 'Good' Terrorist, Mr Blair

 

Liberty vs Security
Nat Hentoff : Assault on Liberty. Abandoning the Constitution to Military Tribunals

 

Israel/Palestine
Yaron Brook : Calls for Palestinian State Spell Suicide for Palestinians
Thomas L. Friedman : Suicidal Lies
David Gelernter : The Suicide of the Palestinians. Beyond barbarism in the Middle East.
Tomis Kapitan : The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Its History, and Some Philosophical Questions it Raises
Tomis Kapitan : Self-Determination and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Tomis Kapitan: Reason and Flexibility in Islam: a 12th Century Perspective
Uriah Kriegel : What do the Palestinians Want?
Daniel Pipes : Arabs Have Never Accepted Israel
Anita Shapira : The Failure of Israel's "New Historians" to Explain War and Peace. The Past is Not a Foreign Country
Norah Vincent : It's Not Just Hamas

LATE ADDITION:
Francisco Gil-White: Anti-Semitism, Misinformation, and The Whitewashing of the Palestinian Leadership


 

Crusades
John Derbyshire : Crusading They Went: The Deeds and Misdeeds of Our Spiritual Kin

 

Aftermath
Andrew E. Busch : September 11 and the Return of Reality
Niall Forguson : 2011
Svetozar Stojanovic : The State Of The Union And The State Of Humanity (The End Of The "End Of History" Illusion?)
David Graham Du Bois : A War Like No Other? You Bet!

 

Diplomacy, Treaties
John O'Sullivan : Rules for Diplomats, and when to break them

 

Anti-Americanism
Salman Rushdie : America and Anti-Americans
 

Further Resources:
Fouad Ajami
The American Prospect: Aftermath of Terror
Antiwar.com
Ashbrook Center : Recommended Commentary on America's War on Terrorism
Ayn Rand Institute: America At War
Brookings Update on Terrorism
Center for Research on Globalisation
Crimes of War
Critical Thinking on the Web
Debkafile
Edward Said
Emperor's New Clothes: Piercing a Fog of Lies
The Edge of England's Sword
Foreign Affairs : The Terrorist Attack on America: Background
Christopher Hitchens : The Christopher Hitchens Web
Instapundit
JustVictory.com : Analysis of Legal Issues in the War Against Terrorism
Middle East Forum
Perspectives from the Social Sciences
Princeton Student Manifesto on Terrorism
Lew Rockwell : The Peace Archive
The Scorpion and the Frog
Strategy Page : The War on Terrorism
Stratfor.com
Study of Islam : Responses to the Tragedy