Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer at FrontPage today on the Freedom House report and its implications for General Vines' reading list:
In a remarkable example of truth in advertising, Lt. General John R. Vines, the new U.S. ground commander in Iraq, has included on a booklist for his senior staff officers the deathless classic Islam for Dummies — among other books that minimize or explain away any connection between Islam and violence. Unfortunately for the General, word of his reading list hadn’t been out long when Freedom House, a human rights group in Washington, released a report on Saudi hate literature in American mosques that made his list look Pollyannaish.In a Baltimore Sun interview after Vines’ list was made public, the author of Islam for Dummies, a retired professor named Malcolm Clark, was asked if he agreed “with President Bush that Islam is a peaceful religion that has been ‘hijacked’ by extremists?” He replied: “Generally, yes, but ‘hijacked by fanatics’ suggests the fault lies completely with that group. Western and American actions have created a climate ... for that hijacking to occur.”
Clark is evidently unaware of the centuries of jihad warfare by Muslims before there even was an America — or perhaps he just got carried away in his zeal to exonerate Islam from any connection to 9/11, Beslan, and all the other recent attacks perpetrated by men who quoted the Qur’an and cited Islam’s doctrine of jihad to justify their actions. “Many Americans,” he lamented, “equate Islam and terrorism. That’s not historically true. Go back 20 years; the majority of terrorist acts against America happened in South America and came from a leftist ideology. Still, there’s a feeling that Muslim groups in the U.S. haven’t been forthcoming enough about condemning Islamic terrorism. In fact, all the major Islamic organizations in the U.S., such as the Islamic Society of North America [ISNA], unequivocally condemned the [9/11] attacks.”
ISNA did indeed condemn the attacks. But I wonder if Clark knows that the Senate Finance Committee in January 2004 included ISNA on a list of groups that “finance terrorism and perpetuate violence.” Does Clark know that ISNA has received Saudi money?
Saudi condemnations of terrorism ring even hollower than they already did after the publication this week of the extensive report from Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom on hate literature produced by the Saudis and distributed in American mosques. One tract featured in the report tells Muslims: “Be dissociated from the infidels, hate them for their religion, leave them, never rely on them for support, do not admire them, and always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law.” A high school textbook makes it absolutely clear where such teaching leads: “To be true Muslims, we must prepare and be ready for jihad in Allah’s way. It is the duty of the citizen and the government. The military education is glued to faith and its meaning, and the duty to follow it.”
Condemn terrorism? Sure. But they don’t condemn jihad — and for the people in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 and other victims of the global jihad, this is a distinction without a difference.
So while Saudi-funded mosques in the United States teach jihad and hatred of non-Muslims, General Vines’ staff in Iraq will be learning from Malcolm Clark that Islam is fundamentally peaceful and that American aggression has created Islamic terrorism.
Maybe General Vines and his staff, after they have thoroughly imbibed all of Clark’s lessons, can approach the Saudis and explain to them how they are getting Islam all wrong. Unfortunately, the Saudis are unlikely to listen, given that also in their literature for American mosques is the assertion that “it is basic to Islam to believe that everyone who does not embrace Islam is an unbeliever, and that they are enemies to Allah, his prophet and believers.”
Wouldn’t General Vines’ staff be more prepared for the kind of opposition they will encounter in Iraq if they studied not treacly Islamic apologetics like Islam for Dummies but works that honestly explored the theological and historical roots of Islamic terrorism? Even if they read the Freedom House report itself, the troops under Vines’ command would gain a fuller and more accurate understanding of the hatred and fanaticism they will encounter in Iraq than they will from anything on his reading list. For only there, and not from Malcolm Clark, will they hear that Muslims are teaching even in America that “until the nations of the world have functionally Islamic governments, every individual who is careless or lazy in working for Islam is sinful.”
Islam for dummies, indeed.
OT but related:
Media and Politicians for Dummies (or: On the Bogus ‘thinking’ of kj)
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/mc20050204.shtml
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/ck20050204.shtml
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/rebeccahagelin/rh20050204.shtml
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/davidlimbaugh/dl20050204.shtml
Another soldier just home from Iraq, for kj and giaour to diss:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_020305/content/across_the_fruited_plain.guest.html
A Yemeni perspective:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0204/p01s04-wome.html
I wish him luck, Ben. It would be interesting to see him go up against the teachers who twisted those guys in the first place.
Only Dummies are for islam. Every person capable of independent objectiove thought would be against islam, almost naturally..
Malcolm Clark appears to be senile, if not somewhat scizo...
If his collective memory allows him only to look back over the last 20 years, then obviously he forgets that Islam is on the Jihad trail for 1400 years and the rest of his reasoning 'its all America's fault'....EEEeeeeh?
I can't help but shudder in disbelieve when such crackpots get undeserved exposure for their bizzarre and strangely weird views. A good kick in the ass might shake him up a bit...
With regards to Muslims denouncing terrorism: They all do,but usually only when hard pressed as if they had a fart coming on.
Most of our simpleminded (or better Dummie-reporters) are content with that. Then they go around assuring everyone:" See, We always knew it! Islam a peaceful religion and it has been hijacked by a few extremists...!" yak yak yak...
The finer point: None of those Muslims interviewed actually or clearly denounced ISLAMIC violence or terrorism, they simply denounced 'terrorism'- but what they really mean is in fact AMERICAN TERRORISM ON MUSLIMS !
Knowing that might help you to sleep better tonight, or does it?
If Islam is not the problem then what the hell are we doing in the middle-east? I believe we are involved in a war because islamic terrorists flew planes into a few of our buildings. Even the thickest brain should wonder about a religion that produces even "a tiny minority" of terrorists that intend to end our world as we know it.
OT, regarding the Freedom House report:
Have you noticed there's been no comment on the Saudi publications report by Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch yet?
I finished reading the report on Sunday and started contacting Amnesty officials about it on Monday. This morning I contacted HRW to see if they were going to comment on it.
For now, they deserve the benefit of researching and vetting the report. However, if we don't hear anything out of them by next week, it can be expected that they have no intention to address this issue (the human rights violations detailed in the report are violations of Article 20, Part 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).
As I stated, they deserve some time to investigate this matter, but let it be known they have been contacted about the report, they have been informed of the violations of the ICCPR, and they have been provided with the link to the PDF - they cannot claim to be ignorant of the report and the problems it reveals.
I've asked for a reply from AIUSA and HRW on whether they intend to address this matter or not. I'll keep you all posted.
In my forthcoming book, Saracens at the Gates, I devote significant space to the Barbary Wars of 1801 and 1815. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson was opposed to paying tribute to the Barbary states in order to "secure the peace" but in 1789 the United States did not have the resources to build a navy powerful enough to protect the American merchant ships plying the Mediterranean. Congress caved into the demands of the Barbary Beys (vassals of the Ottoman Sultan) and paid what we know is the state-level equivalent of jizya. These despots were never satisfied and they constantly threatened, and on occasion made good on their threats, to declare the "treaties" with the U.S. void and would subsequently pronounce jihad on the United States and the raids would begin again. American ships would be captured, cargos seized, and the crews were sold into slavery.
The first Barbary War was the first invocation by Congress of the power to declare war under Article I., Section 8., of the infant constitution. It was invoked then, and it is invoked today, in defense of the United States. So if defending the United States against Islamic belligerents constitutes foreign policy that "created a climate ... for that hijacking to occur", so be it.
Here is a link to an interesting vignette that captures the essence of the "climate" that Professor Clark alleges was created by the United States and other Western powers: Barbary diplomacy.
There's also the Complete Idiot's Guide to Islam. I read it last month and it helped me understand some of Islam's basics. But is was also a sneaky soft-soaping of Islam in the fine tradition of Karen Armstrong. I'm immune to this but the lazier among us will be fooled by such books and misunderstand the terrible side of Muhammad and Islam. The authors of the Islam for Dummies and Idiots books are slick
Mike:
AI and HRW lash out at the US, Australia and Israel with impunity.
They are more concerned about the rights of the Gitmo prisoners than what's going on in Saudi Arabia. If they have not been bought off then they have certainly been sufficiently intimidated not to do so.
All these wonderful organizations are just good enough to shit on what we and our forefathers have provided them: Democracy, a civilized society, freedom of speech and expression, rule of law, etc. They take that for granted. But in the face of intimidation and death-threats they shut up just as quickly as the Dutch 'Intellectuals' and movie makers after Van Dutch was assassinated.
I don't even bother to read their reports anymore, let alone support them. They have lost their credibility long ago, just like the UN.
Indeed, don't trust any Muslim who says he objects to terrorism and does not reject the Sunnah completely, as there can be two possibilities:
1. he is well-informed about the obligation for terrorism in the Sunnah but lies/omits, e.g. redefines 'terrorism' as anti-islamic violence (taqiyya/kitman)
2. he is not well-informed about this obligation, but can be recruited easily by referring to the Sunnah (as the fundamentalists do successfully).