[d20 Modern] National Crisis

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

Something along the lines of the TV show, "Dark Angel" might fit in well with what you're looking for, considering some of the events are similar.

 

[Mistwell]

Thats virtually impossible. They glue that ties the islamic world together, and that always has, is their belief in racial/religious superiority (during the Cold War some Marxism crept in, too). Pan-Arabism and Islamism have always been close cousins to Nazism. There are many powerful internal divisions within the Islamic world and virtually no democracy. There is no ideological precedent or even concievable strategy for a Pan Islamic Allience to be based on anything but hate.

Your racism is unwelcome.

 

[DM_Matt]

Your racism is unwelcome.

So is your politically correct lack of historical perspective.

The powerful influences of fascism, Marxism, and racism on Pan-Arabist and Islamist movements is recognized historical fact. Besides, any ideology that is based on the superiority or desire for widespread domination of a specific ethnic group or religion is inherantly racist itself.

I also stand by my claim that almost no Islamic countries are democratic. Only Turkey, where the pro-western military is able to keep down the Islamist elements, is a true democracy.

Like the Nazis, psychotic genocidal dictators spew racist propoganda in order to pin all their nation's troubles on evil outsiders (both blame Jews and capitalists, but Islamists add Americans to the list). In fact, the Arabic translation of Mein Kampf (with passages about the inferiority of Arabs removed, of course) is a perrenial bestseller in the Arab world, and Islamist leaders can be found praising Hitler on a regular basis. Even in the US, the extremist Louis Farrakkhan, leader of the Nation of Islam and a man infamous for his outrageous statements regarding whites and Jews in particular , has called Hitler "a great man."

The influence of Marxism stemmed from the fact that most Arab states, particularly Egypt and its Pan-Arabist leader Gamal Nasser, were allied with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and beucase to this day Marxists abroad for a variety of reasons tend to be pro-Arab.

Pan-Arabism and Islamism seek to create racially and religiously (respectively) "pure" empires which will either (again, respectively) be the dominant power in world affairs or conquer the world, convert everyone forcefully to Islam, and force everyone to live under their twisted version of Islamic law that is not really Islamic at all, but rather just how things happened to be done in 6th-century Arabia.

I did not say that Arabs or Muslims are inherantly evil. Such a statement would be ludicrous. Islam is fundamentally speaking a religion of goodness and most Muslims are just as good as most non-Muslims, but the thugs like Al-Queda, Hamas, Saddam Hussein, etc. who have hijacked it for their own bizzarre goals are evil to the core. I am saying that presently the uniting ideologies in the Islamic world are hateful and undemocratic, and currently, no credible alternatives exist to challenge this.

I sincerely hope that someday soon an alternative will arise, but as of now, nothing is on the table that will bring the peoples currently under the sway of these ideologies into the world community as peaceful, prosperous, and non-violent members. There are dissident of course, but there really is no servicable popular movement to promote effective change that has yet taken shape.

How to deal with the dangers that Islamic Fundamentalism and its political counterparts pose without resorting to a distasterous series of wars is in fact probably the biggest challenge in the world today.

But just beucase its complicated doesn't mean that you should play the race card and pretend that no problem exists. While I am only concemning the extremists and their actions, not Muslims or Arabs themselves, these extremists are many, violent, and widespread.

A comfortable majority of terrorist groups recognized as such by the United States State Department are based on these ideologies, and they are killing and oppressing people worldwide.

Off the top of my head, Islamist terrorists are or have been recently attacking and killing innocent non-Islamic civilians for racist reasons in the United States, the Philipines, India, Pakistan, Israel, Indonesia, Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Sri Lanka, China (Xinhua province), Russia, the Balkins, Kenya, Tanzania, Lebanon, Afganistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and at isolated times in other places as well such as Germany, Argentina, and Greece.

 

[jonrog1]

Hoping to hijack the thread BACK to helping develop the gameworld by interjecting a mediatory note, I suggest reading Fouad Ajami's The Dream Palace of the Arabs, an excellent, scholarly, and heartfelt book about the positive forces of modernist pan-Arabism which were unfortunately hijacked by history and more radical factions of that society.

Now, Velenne, for a great source for the near-future stuff you're discussing, Warren Ellis' Global Frequency comic book is a must-have. Only three issues out so far, your local comic shop'll have them.

Have fun.

 

[Fellwind]

Since the movie's already been brought up, I'd say reading Sum of All Fears would be a good idea. The movie oversimplifies and comes up with a silly Neo-Nazi element.

The book is a better representation of how a terrorist might get a bomb along with what our probable response would be.