New Atheism, Old Empire

[AtheistCrusader]

159. That is his justification for support/aid to moderate muslims, because they MUST

win the war of ideas (his words, indicating non-violence) with the extremists.

You are ALTERING THE CONTEXT of what he is saying. It is deceptive, and immoral to do so. Anyone who read that paragraph without the rest of the piece he authored would also come to that conclusion, because you have scrubbed the actual intent.

Harris is NOT advocating military action/first strike. He is laying out a worst case consequence IF we/Islamic moderates fail.

It should be of particular concern to us that the beliefs of Muslims pose a special problem for nuclear deterrence. There is little possibility of our having a cold war with an Islamist regime armed with long-range nuclear weapons. A cold war requires that the parties be mutually deterred by the threat of death. Notions of martyrdom and jihad run roughshod over the logic that allowed the United States and the Soviet Union to pass half a century perched, more or less stably, on the brink of Armageddon. What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry? If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them. In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime—as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day—but it may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe. How would such an unconscionable act of self-defense be perceived by the rest of the Muslim world? It would likely be seen as the first incursion of a genocidal crusade. The horrible irony here is that seeing could make it so: this very perception could plunge us into a state of hot war with any Muslim state that had the capacity to pose a nuclear threat of its own. All of this is perfectly insane, of course: I have just described a plausible scenario in which much of the world’s population could be annihilated on account of religious ideas that belong on the same shelf with Batman, the philosopher’s stone, and unicorns. That it would be a horrible absurdity for so many of us to die for the sake of myth does not mean, however, that it could not happen. Indeed, given the immunity to all reasonable intrusions that faith enjoys in our discourse, a catastrophe of this sort seems increasingly likely. We must come to terms with the possibility that men who are every bit as zealous to die as the nineteen hijackers may one day get their hands on long-range nuclear weaponry. The Muslim world in particular must anticipate this possibility and find some way to prevent it. Given the steady proliferation of technology, it is safe to say that time is not on our side.

Emphasis by Harris himself, in his own words.


This is the only thing Harris is exhorting ANYONE to DO in those articles:

"Muslim moderates, wherever they are, must be given every tool necessary to win a war of ideas with their coreligionists."

Bombing them with atomic weapons, as you seem fixated on attributing to him, would be counter-productive to that aim. One, it would inflame moderates, and two, it would kill a shitload of moderates. Bombing people isn't something any rational person could equate with 'giving them every tool necessary'.