shiv wrote:The point I am making is that there is a double hurdle to be crossed when discussing some things. the first is to raise the topic itself - a difficult task in a group that wants to talk Orkut/Bollywood. But once on that path, getting them to overcome their fears and showing to them that they are dhimmis, not true liberals is more difficult. Howevern 9-11 and a whole bunch of Talimaniac yahoos have made the job easier.
9-11, and the Taliban are self goals by Islam on a global scale. jaish e Mohammad, Lashkar e Tayeba, HuM. HuJI and SIMI are own goals by Islam in India. The advantage given to us by these self goals has to be utilised to the hilt.
Yes, they are own-goals and 'reformed' jihadists, ie, politically oriented Islamists have been shouting this message as loudly as they can since 9-11, or in the Egyptian (longest modern jihad) case, since 1997. 
But this is the nature of the Islamist world - those with the most power will dictate the course of Islamist strategy to suit their needs, not necessarily that of the larger movement. 
Around 2004 a consensus that emerge among those who spent most of their time looking at these things was that Al Qaeda's strategy since 1996-98 constitutes of creating and sustaining an insurgency on a global scale in order to remake the Middle East. 
It seems highly likely that Musharraf following failure at Kargil in 1999 adopted a similar model of building and sustaining an Pan-India jihadist insurgency, which he has prioritised even over Kashmir.  
These 'external' confrontations comes at a cost *particularly* in Europe and India where Islamists were using political and social pressure strategies. Islamists are placed in a no-win situation as societies slowly mobilise against Islamist ideology.
But this mobilisation is in effect *only* as long as the bombs keep going off, or threatening to go off. You take away the jihadis, and society will return to its usual dhimmified, or self-dhimmifying state to avoid internal social and political conflict. 
But in the end, jihad is just too intoxifying, and Arab/Pakistani/BD politics and societies are too unstable to take the really smart route to domination.
When I look at the trend lines, in 50-75 years we will start having to worry about the soft Islamists again, as the flush of the Arab successes of the 20th century (decolonisation under nationalist pressure, oil & gas booms, etc) fade and the costs exceed the Arab world's ability to sustain such efforts. 
That is when the threat will appear to be over, and Non-Muslim societies will happily de-mobilise and forget what it was all about. It has hapened so many times already. 
There will never be any 'final victory' against Islamism and jihad. There can only be permanent efforts at vigilance, containment and value-centric assimilation.