Customer Reviews

The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad (0)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Mr. Walid Phares does a brilliant job in The Confrontation of giving both historical lessons about the Jihadi movement, the Middle-East oil rich regimes and The West's view and reactions to both entities; as well as a blueprint on how to confront and beat our enemy in the future.

The Confrontation does an excellent job of balancing history with future endeavors. While some people want to simply look at the past and point to mistakes we have made in our struggle with Islamofascism they don't put forth plans on how to win other than we should leave Iraq. Other groups want to discuss how to address our future struggle without learning from the past. Mr. Phares does an excellent job of pointing out what he views to be mistakes in the past and then applies that knowledge to how America and the West should engage our enemy.

A common theme early in the book that I had not really considered is that The West needs to take a hard look at our academia programs which end up being feeder systems to the governments of The West. Mr. Phares discusses how many of the Middle-Eastern studies programs in North America and Europe are financed by countries such as Saudi Arabia and therefore it enables a conflict of interest on objectively looking at the Middle-East.

Anyone interested in further study on both how we got to where we're at regarding fighting the Jihadi movement and who wants to promote thought about how we as America as well as The West should proceed in the future would be well served by reading The Confrontation.

Walid Phares is a brilliant author, as well as speaker. This book addresses the issues that are so complex, facing the future of western civilization. Since 9/11 we have not fully grasped the intentions of the Islamist regimes making attempts, successfully I might add, into overtaking the west either through terrorism, financial jihad, and incitement. This book addresses the causes, the issues, and should be a part of every high school and college curriculum.

Phares is an outstanding author and portrays accurately what is to come in dealing with Islamic fanatics.

I read this good book, here in Brazil. This book was writen by a Lebanese and the author knows about this subject. This book has dozens of pages with excellent level informations.
Some examples:
1-Page 31:"It is not the wealthy West that keeps the Middles East poor, it is the rich segment of the Middles East itself that does so. Instead of offering youngsters education, the have provided indoctrination, raising a generation not of doctors and lawyers but of Jidadists and suicide bombers."
2-Page 64:"A simple statisc graphically displays how oil is related to oppression."
3-Page 73:"The oil Jihad will only really recede when an alternative to a petroleum economy is found."
4-Page 134:"Jihadists present a strong contrast to materialist philosophy. They aren't deterred by defeat, destruction and physical death."
5-Page 200:"In the minds of the Islamits, any peace process with the infidels would bring about open borders, trade, and , even worse, interaction with a democratic culture."
Even with so great moments, as these, I must give four stars for this book, because many times, the author decides not to tell the truth.
One example of this thing happening is on page 104. Talking about the failure of democracy is Islamic World, in this page, the author (even knowing) doesn't tells why Democracy fades ever in the Islamic World. Islam isn't just a religion, but also a totalitarian way of making politics. The fact of being a totalitarism ever kills any real Democracy in any Islamic society.
In Islam, crime and sin are the same thing.
When in a society almost everyone is against free thinking, religious freedom, women's rights, etc. This society will ever be a dictatorship. Such as Marxism, Fascism, etc. Islam means tiranny.
The last Iran's Shah tried to bring Democracy to Iran. The result? The Shah's fall and Iran under atomic ayatollahs, since 1979.
And the author forgets the fact that more Islam brings more corruption, poverty, violence, etc. And more corruption, poverty, violence, etc. brings more Islam, as a "solution".

So often our world is muddled with noise about terror. Walid Phares is a name I respect, read his earlier book, and this new one, The Confrontation allowed me to understand yet another layer. Generalities are out the window when you read his specifics. His command of the Arab language and his ability to navigate the subtleties is of course imperative.

This book is a must read for the next US administration. It clearly defines a path to victory against the terrorists. It provides deep insight into the war of ideas, and how to win that war.

The book also raises alarm bells that, in unheeded, could lead to major catastrophes affecting all democracies.

The White House staff all need to read this book. It is a very enlightening book. It will give you a "AH HA!!" moment for sure when you finish. The author does a better job of explaining the White House policy in the middle east than the White House does. Once you read the book you will understand what they are saying when the reference "war on terrorism". The author shows how Jihadism is working to bring down ALL of the west. In some ways through the book you see how events now aren't much different than the middle ages and earlier when Muslim warriors marched against Christian Europe.

The book starts out real slow. In the first of the book it runs real slowly. It is all theory about how the western side of things is superior. About half way through the book picks up speed quite a bit. It shows how politic events throughout the world are linked to Iran or other such Jihadists.

If you want to understand the stakes in today's war against terrorism you need to read this book.

Having read Future Jihad and War of Ideas, I found that much of the information and discussion was repeated in this book. However, I did enjoy his new and deeper discussion of parts of the world not previously discussed in such depth in his previous books, specifically Russia, Africa, and South America.

Although I continue to find his call to educate the public on the jihadist threat pertinent and on target - his recommendations for the use of military forces to protect the many borders of the Middle East to isolate the jihadist threat are resouce unconstrained and unfeasible any time in the near future.

Overall, however, a very well written book and I recommend it - especially if you have not read any of his previous books.

This book is clearly written by someone with an ideological agenda, it is full of very basic errors that someone like him should never make. It is essential however to expose this author and who he really is. Walid Phares was a member of the fascist Phalange Lebanese Christian Militia in Lebanon during the civil war. The same people that massacred thousands of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila camps. I know this might come to a surprise for many American readers, but there are countless books, in Arabic, by former members that describe Phares as being the most passionate in mobilizing Christians to fight Muslims during the civil war. As well as revealing articles in Lebanese journals about Phares. All this information of course could not be found on his resume, and whenever he is asked about it in lectures he says its another guy with a similar name. This guy has blood on his hands, he is a bigot with a clear agenda, that is why he is an adviser to the Bush administration.

This is a compilation of several books. Very unorganized and has few fatal mistakes of definitions that any elementary scholar would not do. I can now understand why the government did not get any thing right in the past 7 years, it has Phares as one of its advisors!