Iraq: "The most important point is federalism"

If the victory of the war, essentially the fruit of three divisions (the fourth one was not allowed to enter from the north because of the opposition of our "ally" Turkey), has now led to the quixotic and therefore quasi-defeat of our attempt to show that Democracy Is On the March in Iraq, and that we, Americans, have a stake in creating a viable nation-state in Iraq, with all the fixin's (possibly just in time for this year's Norman-Rockwell Thanksgiving, when we can bow our heads in grateful prayer that everyone in the whole wide world "wants to be free" and by gum, we are making those "Iraqi people" just as "free" as we possibly can, with the expenditure of the lives of American soldiers (not the "Iraqi" police and army whose members cannot possibly be given, in any large numbers, a sense of being "Iraqi" rather than being Kurds or Arabs, Sunnis or Shi'a), then that quixotic quasi-defeat can be turned, paradoxically, again into victory.

The military victory over Saddam Hussein was an attempt to create "regime change." But "regime change" is not the answer for those who comprehend that the menace to the Infidels of this world is not merely this or that regime, but the belief-system of Islam. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a menace, and cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. But even if "regime change" were to be assured, that successor regime cannot be allowed to acquire, or to keep, nuclear weapons -- unless Iran gives up Islam altogether, or the Iranians flee Islam for, say, a return to Zoroastrianism (as a way of emphaisizing a Persian nationalism) or Christanity, or atheism, or anything but Islam.

Since that is unlikely to happen to the extent necessary, it will be important to remove such weaponry from Iran -- even in the heat, possibly, of large-scale and possibly successful rioting against the present regime in Iran.

The "regime change" has now led to a new opportunity. The very fissures that we wish to encourage within Islam -- the fissures that arise from more than a millennium of Sunni persecution of Shi'a (and to be observed, today, in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan), and form the resentment of non-Arab Muslims at their treatment by Arab Muslims, who use islamization as a vehicle for forced arabization, cultural and linguistic and political, and who everywhere have suppressed, or massacred, or mass-murdered, when the spirit moved them, all sorts and conditions of non-Arab Muslims -- the Kurds (182,00 murdered by Saddam Hussein and his Arab troops, with not a syllable of sympathy from the Arab League or any Arab body), the Berbers (in North Africa, persecuted until recently even for using the Berber language -- hence the unreported riots in Tizi-0uzo 15 years ago, and the great unrest, almost all of it unknown outside Algeria, or France, in the Kabyle), the black Africans in Darfur who, though "Muslim," are not Arab Muslims, and therefore, of course, fit to be -- not tied, but raped, looted, murdered.

These are the two fissures which, by removing ourselves, we can encourage. We need not lift a finger (save perhaps to give the Kurds a little something extra by way of air cover, a kind of "equalizer" -- which in the Old West is what a certain kind of Colt revolver used to be called).

Victory in Iraq, anyone? Virtually painless -- for Infidels, I mean? Then let's get out soon.

If this National Assembly does not have the mindset required to produce a meaningful Iraqi constitution, then it is best to dissolve and re-elect the assembly than settle for a prop. It is more important to get it right, than to get it “right now.”

As Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari noted, “We should not be hasty regarding the issues and the constitution should not be born crippled.” The constitution must be meaningful – a living, breathing document that can be a foundation for the long road towards a real democracy in a united Iraq.

Any Iraqi Constitution containing Sharia can be voted down and rejected by the Iraqi female and male voters. Any subsequent drafts of the Iraqi Constitution containing Sharia can be voted down and rejected until the National Assembly writes an Iraqi Constitution which is free of Sharia and has full equality for women and men in Iraq.

***
Reposted from the 8/14/05 "Democracy" thread:
My position:

America needs to stay in Iraq and help them to establish a democracy-even if it is just a "quasi-democracy". This is just the FIRST step. From that point forward, we (the West) need to launch a major educational campaign against Islam to show Iraqis that Islam is the ultimate impediment to longterm freedom, democracy, equality, and human rights for all Iraqis. We also need to send Christian missionaries from all over the world to convert Iraqi Muslims to Christianity. Islam must be rejected by the Iraqi people. It has been around for 1,400 years, so we can't expect it to be rejected overnight. It will take decades for that to happen.
***

Hugh, after you attacked my post above, you never responded to this post from yesterday, and I'd like to know what you think-

From Hugh's post:

"Yet again the usual objections are trotted out to the idea that the best way to contain Islam is to do exactly that -- to contain it, to bottle it up...."

The West seeks to DESTROY Islam, not to contain Islam. Containment just postpones the inevitable conflict between the West and the Muslim world.

"1)'If the USA cuts-and-runs from Iraq now, the Islamic jihadists will claim victory.' So what? Is it beyond the wit of the American government to show that it is leaving for reasons of the most calculating Realpolitik...."

You mean the Bush Administration that is routinely villified as mass murderers-for-Iraqi-oil by the American mainstream media as well as by the mainstream media of other countries like the BBC and Al Jazeera? The American far-left liberal politicians like Howard Dean, John Kerry,Nancy Pelosi, etc., would crucifiy the Bush Administration. The world would shun America for betraying the Iraqis and leaving them to the "mercy" of Islamic terrorists and insurgents-not to mention the blame which would be heaped on America for the bloody civil war which would almost certainly follow a Coalition cut-and-run.

Hugh, you and others who support your position want to take the same ACTIONS as the LLL anti-war, anti-American Bush haters, but for different reasons. Despite your different reasons, you and the anti-war pc crowd want the same thing-to cut and run from Iraq. Your actions are divisive to the country. We are already in Iraq. Deal with the REALITY of the situation.

To my statement: "What then? Would Islam and the Quran that commands Muslims to take over the ENTIRE WORLD cease to exist?" You say among other things-

"What would happen would be a civil war, conducted at whatever level the amount of armaments permits, between Sunni and Shi'a...."

also: "and to exploit Iraq for our own needs."

Ah, yes. Mass murder, violence, and destruction of Iraqi Muslims vs Iraq Muslims...nicely and conviently facilitated by America and the Coalition when we invaded Iraq and took down that other genocidal murderer Saddam Hussein and his brutal Baathist regime of rape rooms, torture chambers, secret police, amputations of arms and feet, the cutting out of tongues, and the mass graves where men, women, and children were ruthlessly killed.

No thanks, I did not sign on for mass murder.

"The poster who ojbects above still does not offer a single coherent reason why the attempt to create the conditions in which Muslims themselves must confront the various failures of their own societies that are directly related to Islam itself, is not the only strategy that makes sense."

Saudi Arabia is already hated by many Wahhabbi Muslims like Osama bin Laden, himself. What's their solution? Why more Islam, of course. In addition, Muslims around the world always blame the Jews for everything. With Jews still alive and kicking, they will always be Islamists' favorite scapegoat for even the most ridiculous things.

Another reason this won't work is that Western Civilization is not united. America itself is divided 51-49% for and against the war. The PC crowd is deeply entrenched in politics. Outside America, many European nations are also pc, anti-war, Bush haters who oppose doing anything which might be "unpopular" among their Muslim constituents, or more importantly might damage their oil deals with Muslim nations like Saudi Arabia. What about Russia and China and nuclear North Korea? I believe Chinese diplomats are meeting soon with Iran to further their military ties. Iran!?! which is soon to have nuclear weapons, like Pakistan has now.

Another reason this won't work: You said, "...though military means will always be necessary to keep depriving Muslim peoples and polities of major weapons projects."

Too late. Radical, Islamic Pakistan has a nuclear arsenal, already. Iran is close to having nuclear weapons also. North Korea (may have) already supplied some nuke technology or components to Iran. The point being that at least one radical Islamic nation is armed with nuclear weapons and that countries which are hostile to the USA-like China(?) and North Korea-are only too happy to facilitate the acquistion of more nukes.

If we (theoretically speaking, of course) were to isolate the Muslim world and their societies did implode, what's to stop them from taking the West down with them by firing nuclear weapons at Israel, at European countries and at America?

Who is to say that Muslims would EVER realize that Islam is at fault? If there is no one to show them a better (non-Muslim) way of life, they might never get there. They haven't realized that Islam is at fault for 1,400 years! Right now at this very moment in time, Muslim countries are 3rd world disasters. Non-Muslim nations are 1st and 2nd world successes. Muslims the world over still don't "get it".

You still did not answer these questions:

"What would keep nuclear arms-bearing Pakistan (and soon Iran)from firing nuclear weapons on the West? (M.A.D. doesn't work. These radical Islamic people celebrate suicide bombers.)"

Also:

"Even if the West and Muslim world were completely separated, Islamic terrorist attacks against the West (like Islamic suicide bus bombings, and Islamic metro bombings, and Islamic nightclub bombings like the Bali bombing) would inevitably start again. What then? How would people who support isolation from the Muslim world deal with these terrorists?"

You started to answer this question, but then went off on a tangent. What if another 9/11, Madrid bombing, or Bali bombing happened after a separation of the civilizations? How would you respond to these attacks?

"Isn't it better for Infidels that a non-Arab Muslim people achieve independence, so as to help give ideas to other non-Arab Muslims, including obviously the Berbers in North Africa?"

Indonesia already exists and is non-Arab and independent. It's a hellhole.

And finally, you said: "The blind loyalty to a policy that is based on ignorance of Islam and Iraq is exactly the kind of thing that is leading to a situation...."

I want to attack Islam head-on by converting first Iraqis and then other Muslims from Islam to Christianity. By rejecting Islam we defeat Islam and in turn we defeat Islamic societies. You, apparently, want to dance around the real problem which is Islam-and try to wait it out. To which I say-

"Passive isolation of the West from the Muslim world doesn't work. It only delays the problem and allows the problem of Islam/Islamic societies to fester. Sooner or later, confrontation between the West and the Muslim world is inevitable. What then?"

What if this confrontation is nuclear?

We should firmly tell the Iraqis that anything in the constitution that even hints of sharia or even allows sharia to be added later is cause for the immediate removal of all US forces and support. Blood and treasure were not sacrificed for the growth of Islamic barbarity. Right now, this is like defeating Japan and allowing the Japanese to implement Bushido as the law of the land.

While I supported overthrowing Saddam, Bush and Co. have proven to be at best naive and at worst incompetent at managing the aftermath. This "constitution" is just the icing on the cake.

I say pull out immediately and support the Kurds in creating their own homeland.

A poster above repeats his objections to what I suggest would be the most sensible -- from the Infidel point of view -- policy to be followed in Iraq. He finds my views abhorrent, cut-and-runnable, and cannot distinguish between what I argue for, which is a policy of ending the misallocation of resources and exploiting the fissures within Iraq (Arab/non-Arab, Sunni/Sh'a), and the views of MoveOn.org. But quite a few people at JihadWatch have been able to comprehend the difference: I want to demoralize, divide, throw into disarray, Islam, and I believe this is best done by leaving Iraq. MoveOn.org wishes us to leave Iraq, or at the moment says it does (were the Pentagon and the White House to act on my suggestions, MoveOn.org and so on would scream bloody murder, and insist that we "remain in Iraq" and "reconstruct it" because, you see, "we broke it and now we must fix it."

Leaving Iraq is only one part of what I suggest. Obviously it should be accompanied by many other acts -- ending the jizya (foreign aid) to Muslim states; making moves to seizing, militarily, southern Sudan and Darfur if the Sudanese government does not behave to our complete satisfaction -- and they won't, they can't; ending all migration from Muslim lands of Muslims (non-Muslims may be welcomem provided they are not the kind of islamochristians that we have seen promote the Muslim agenda). And so on, and so forth -- this is hardly what has been suggested by MoveOn.org, Juan Cole, and others.

The same poster believes that I failed to answer a few of his many questions put to me.

Here is one:

"What would keep nuclear arms-bearing Pakistan (and soon Iran)from firing nuclear weapons on the West? (M.A.D. doesn't work. These radical Islamic people celebrate suicide bomber)."

Now what does this query have to do with the price of eggs? In other words, if you object to my suggestions for American policy in Iraq, of what conceivable relevance are Pakistan's nuclear weapons? If those weapons are to be used, or not to be used, has nothing to do with whether or not Americans continue to spend their soldiers' lives, their money, their equipment, on fighting the Sunni insurgency for, in effect, the Shi'a who will naturally come to dominate Iraq.

The matter of Pakistan's nuclear weapons does not enter into it. Why not ask me how I intend to solve world poverty, while we are at it, or global warming?

In fact, however, I have said that great, and if possible, intolerable pressure should be put on Pakistan until it agrees to deliver its bombs to the Americans for safeguarding, and pressure to destroy Pakistan's markets abroad are the least of the measures that could be considered. By the way, the Pakistani government need say nothing to its own people -- it could keep them blithely believing that Pakistan controls "its nuclear weapons." Should the Pakistanis give them up, the Americans could guarantee that whatever military conflict might ensue, under no conditions will India use its nuclear weapons (if the Pakistanis request that American pressure be brought to bear on India to yield up its weapons, we will simply laugh off the request -- India, you see, is not Muslim. It is Muslim states that we wish to prevent having arms. And that is a direct consequence of the doctrine of Jihad. If Musharraf can find some HIndu doctrine deep in the interminable Mahabharata that requires Hindus to conquer the world, and humiliate and degrade all non-Hindus (of course, no such texts exist; Hindu India was always the most tolerant of places), then we might listen.

The next question deemed unanswered is this:

"Even if the West and Muslim world were completely separated, Islamic terrorist attacks against the West (like Islamic suicide bus bombings, and Islamic metro bombings, and Islamic nightclub bombings like the Bali bombing) would inevitably start again. What then? How would people who support isolation from the Muslim world deal with these terrorists?"

One does not know where to begin. Exactly why it is better for the Western or Infidel world if we have more to do with Muslims and Islamic countries, more attempts to win them over, more bringing of Muslims to our own countries, whether to remain to procreate, to conduct Da'wa and other forms of disarming propaganda intended either to convert the Infidels, or at least to keep them, for as long as possible, confused and misinformed about the real nature of Islam, in theory and practice, is unclear.

Of course we cannot completely separate ourselves from Muslims or the Muslim lands. But we can limit contacts as much as possible, and deny them the technology, the arms, the medical care, the education, and all the things which are the fruit of Infidel civilization, yet which they assume will be indefinitely accessible to them.

Apparently the poster above believes that if we make efforts to deny the Muslims access to Western arms, Western technology, and so on, this will have no effect in making them see that Islam itself is the cause of their own, now unassuagable backwardness (because they can no longer count on the West to supply all the goods and services which Islamic societies do not possess, and cannot produce), but will merely magically allow them to have so many nuclear weapons (how is that? Even A. Q. Khan had to steal plans while studying in Holland, and had to rely on stolen Western technology for his little science project) that, maddened that they can no longer move to the West, they will -- in the poster's dreamy vision -- rain death and destruction upon us all:

"If we (theoretically speaking, of course) were to isolate the Muslim world and their societies did implode, what's to stop them from taking the West down with them by firing nuclear weapons at Israel, at European countries and at America?"

Well, gentle reader -- you can answer this as well as I. The attempt to isolate, or at least to limit contacts with Muslims, in order not to continually rescue them, even as they continue to enter our countries not in order to participate in the wonders and freedoms that are the result of non-Muslim societies, but only in order to take advantage of them, but at the same time to subversively work for the islamization of those very societies, and therefore of that which gave rise to those freedoms and those wonders, makes sense, and cannot be blamed for any attempts by Muslims to "fire nuclear weapons at Israel, at European countries and at America." Ths line of reasoning sounds suspiciously like the Muslim groups in England that, the other day (see the JW article about it), threatened that if the British authorities tried to do anything about the Jihad, well then -- they'd only be creating more Jihadists, more Jihad. What nonsense from the Muslims in the United Kingdom, and what similar nonsense from the poster above.

I could go on, but ars longa, vita brevis, and all that.

From Hugh's post:

'What would keep nuclear arms-bearing Pakistan (and soon Iran)from firing nuclear weapons on the West? (M.A.D. doesn't work. These radical Islamic people celebrate suicide bombers).'

"Now what does this query have to do with the price of eggs? In other words, if you object to my suggestions for American policy in Iraq, of what conceivable relevance are Pakistan's nuclear weapons?"

Now, you're being deliberately obtuse, Hugh. This question had to do with your advocacy of completely separating the West from the Muslim world. I'm still waiting for an answer to this question.

"Apparently the poster above believes that if we make efforts to deny the Muslims access to Western arms, Western technology, and so on, this will have no effect in making them see that Islam itself is the cause of their own, now unassuagable backwardness (because they can no longer count on the West to supply all the goods and services which Islamic societies do not possess, and cannot produce)..."

Muslims already know this. They know Islamic societies can't produce these arms, goods, medicines, and so on...and they STILL don't see that the cause of this backwardness is Islam.

In other words, in answer to this question-

"If we (theoretically speaking, of course) were to isolate the Muslim world AND THEIR SOCIETIES DID IMPLODE, what's to stop them from taking the West down with them by firing nuclear weapons at Israel, at European countries and at America?"

-there is NOTHING (no "carrots" or other incentives) to stop them from nuking the West and dying as martyrs of Allah and going to Islamic paradise where they think they will enjoy their 72 virgins, and assorted boys. Because as Muslims who follow Islam, this is their insane way of thinking.

You are betting our lives that these Muslims will "see the light" as they look around at the disaster that has befallen their nations and won't lash out in anger and religious fervor at "The Great Satan" and Israel-whom they blame for EVERYTHING.

Your passive isolation policy will result in the deaths of tens of thousands of Muslims across the Muslim world (first from civil war in Iraq; and then from lack of Western medicine, humanitarian goods, etc. which you would deny them) and it won't protect the West. The West needs to ACTIVELY destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, we need to ACTIVELY remove Pakistan's nuclear capabilities, and we need to ACTIVELY engage the Muslim world and teach them about the horrors of Islam and the wonders of a non-Islamic life.

The poster above asks, or rather repeats, or rather harps on, a few questions.

1.

"'What would keep nuclear arms-bearing Pakistan (and soon Iran)from firing nuclear weapons on the West? (M.A.D. doesn't work. These radical Islamic people celebrate suicide bombers).'

"Now what does this query have to do with the price of eggs? In other words, if you object to my suggestions for American policy in Iraq, of what conceivable relevance are Pakistan's nuclear weapons?"

Now, you're being deliberately obtuse, Hugh. This question had to do with your advocacy of completely separating the West from the Muslim world. I'm still waiting for an answer to this question.

This question had to do with your advocacy of completely separating the West from the Muslim world."

Let me once again repeat: I am not advocating "completely separating the West from the Muslim world." It isn't possible. I am advocating a halt to Muslim immigration. I am advocating policies which will lead to the deportation of those deemed to be immediate security risks. I am for policies, adopted by Infidels as private citizens, that will make their societies less Muslim-friendly, and more Muslim-hostile -- purely as a matter of self-defense. I am advocating a denial of easy access to Infidel (i.e., Western) medical care, technology, weaponry, education, and all the other goods and services that Muslims assume they can continue to buy in the West. I never said let's not bomb Iran's science project -- the need to destroy that nuclear possiblity has been mentioned by me -- oh, about 400 times. I never said not to pressure Pakistan.

#2.

"Muslims already know this [that they cannot produce what they obtain from the West] They know Islamic societies can't produce these arms, goods, medicines, and so on...and they STILL don't see that the cause of this backwardness is Islam."

But that is because they still have access to these goods. Naipaul has been acute on this subject. He remarks on the supremacist ideology of Islam, the fact that Muslims exist parasiticaly on the Western world, but do not give a hoot about so-called backwardness when it comes to all the advances of the non-Muslim world. They don't care a whit that no Muslims have produced anything of value in science or art for the past 1000 years -- and that the supposed contributions of high Islamic civilization are 1) exaggerated and 2) died out when the fructifying influence of the Christians and Jews, who no longer fully participated in Muslim societies after the first few hundred years following the Islamic conquest, ended. They don't care that they have not been responsible for any medical advances. The ONLY thing they care about -- see the speech of former Malaysian President Mahathir Mohamed, reproduced in Bat Ye'or's "Eurabia" as an appendix -- is the failure of Muslim states to produce weapons technology, weapons of war. That's it.

But that might change -- might -- if the Muslims can no longer count on their money giving them easy access to Western goods, Western services, and even to travel, or settlement, in Western lands.

You do end with a sentence part of which I can agree with -- even, more than half. This is it:

"The West needs to ACTIVELY destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, we need to ACTIVELY remove Pakistan's nuclear capabilities, and we need to ACTIVELY engage the Muslim world and teach them about the horrors of Islam and the wonders of a non-Islamic life"

Phrase 1 about Iran's nuclear weapons -- agree. I don't know, by the way, how one would "passively" destroy those nuclear facilities, so your adverb is unnecessary.

Phrase 2 about Pakistan's nuclear weapons -- agree.

Phrase 3 -- about how we must "ACTIVELY engage the Muslim world and teach them [sic] about the horrors of Islam and the wonders of a non-Islamic life."

Disagree completely. You strike me as a possible missionary, who believes that if only we offer Muslims Christ, all manner of things will be well. Have you bothered to read the accounts of missionaries among the Muslims, written between 1900 and 1950? Start possibly with Zwemer, or St. Clair Tisdall. You will find that for all the massive efforts made, the results were tiny indeed. And that was in a period when the Muslims did not have OPEC money, or their own states free of the pressure of powerful Westerners.

Have you gone mad? Islam subjects Believers to an astonishing brainwashing, and furthermore puts such pressure on would-be apostates that only the morally and intellectually most aware are likely to publicly jettison Islam. And in the Arab countries, where ethnicity supports and reinforces suppoort for Islam, so that the phenomenon of the Islamochristian is quite noticeably pronounced -- just look at all those "Palestinian" islamochristians (though few indeed among the self-assured, and historically aware Maronite Christians, or to a slightly less developed level, among the Copts -- at least those safely out of Egypt).

And in Iran, where disgust with the Islamic Republic of Iran is beginning to translate into disgust with Islam (seen as an "Arab" import imposed upon a more sophisticated and interesting Persian civilization), it is clear that having essentially left Iran to its own devices, the horrible devices that is of the Islamic Republic, has done more to damage the image and status of Islam than anything ten battalions of Christian missionaries might do.

Of course there is a place for missionaries. At the edges of Islam -- in West Africa, for example, where Islam's opposition to music, to dance, to art, to having fun, does not always endear it, and where the syncretistic version still holds sway, and the marabouts remain stronger than the dour Wahhabis now attempting to stamp out the somewhat more relaxed version of Islam. But in North Africa and the MIddle East missionaries will only make headway after, not before, Muslims have had a chance to realize for themselves what a mess Islam has made of their lives, and their civilizations.

And even in Iran, one suspects that those who are disaffected from Islam will turn not to Christianity necessarily, but more likely first to Zoroastrianism, not because its doctrines are so obviously superior, but because it can offer an identity -- so important to so many people in the MIddle East -- that connects them clearly to the Persian past, and offers a kind of nationalistic rationale for their rejection of Islam.

One more thing. I am very nice. Very sweet. But at a certain point, even I, for all of my sweetness and light, get a little tired of having to answer not legitimate criticism, but the kind that is almost wilfully based on a misreading, or misunderstanding, of what I have in fact said, not once, but hundreds of times. For pedagogic reasons, and only those, I have chosen to often repeat myself at Jihadwatch, never sure who has been reading for two years, and who for two months, and who has just dropped in for the day. I even go so far, and it pains me, to quote verbatim a good many fixed phrases. Those who understand the task I have arrogated to myself forgive me. [I find the repetition necessary, but scarcely endurable myself]. It cannot therefore be said that I have not made every single one of my suggestions, prescriptions, whatever one wishes to call them, about policy in Iraq (and a good deal else) not clear. I have been crystal clear, translucently clear.

So your refusal to understand what I have written, to mistate my position as advocating, absurdly, "complete" withdrawal from the Muslim world (an impossibility, of course), including apparently an indifference to the nuclear project in Iran and nuclear weapons in Pakistan (how unfair can you be in attributing such indifference to me?), you are beginning to tax my relaxed view of the universe, my easygoing nature, my famous amiability.

Even I -- shall I end here, on the same kind of thunderboltish aposiopesis with which Neptune ends his warning in The Aeneid, in Book I, l. 135 "Quos ego---" Or would you prefer the aposiopesis that naughtily ends Sterne's "A Sentimental Voyage Through France and Italy" for as the narrator says, and not about a restaurant menu either, they order these things better in France"

Well, I'll end with this:

That tether, that end, I come to?

Capish?

"It can be won only through containment of Islam, in reducing contacts between Muslims and non-Muslims to a minimum, reducing the Muslim population behind Infidel lines, limiting Muslim access to Western education, Western technology, Western armaments, Western medicine."-Hugh.

Ok. Not "complete" separation of the West from the Muslim world, but nearly complete separation of the West from the Muslim world.

I repeat, since you ignored this:

Right now at this very moment in time, Muslim countries are 3rd world disasters. Non-Muslim nations are 1st and 2nd world successes. Muslims the world over still don't "get it".

Your plan to further deprive Muslims of Western medicine, food, humanitarian aid etc., doesn't seem to be rooted in sound logic. These Muslims already live in horrific deprivation and yet they don't even seem to consider that Islam is the cause.

"...you are beginning to tax my relaxed view of the universe, my easygoing nature, my famous amiability."

You're complaining that I hurt your feelings while you advocate pulling out of Iraq right now and relishing the almost inevitable civil war and bloodshed which would result from a cut-and-run policy?! That's cruel!

" And does anyone doubt for a minute that as the Americans leave the violence between Sunni and Shi'a will only increase, or that between Arab and Kurd -- so that the fissures that we had hoped to exploit will, in fact, be on view for the entire world."-Hugh.

I repeat-

You champion policies which will result in the deaths of tens of thousands of Muslims across the Muslim world: first from civil war in Iraq; and then from lack of Western medicine, humanitarian goods, etc.-which you would deny them. Do you remember the effects on the Iraqi people (especially on Iraqi newborns) of 12 years of UN economic sanctions? The death toll and suffering was horrific. You want to impose these harsh sanctions on the entire Muslim world when so many of those Muslims can barely feed and clothe themselves and their families, now?!

If your policies were inacted, thousands of Muslims will die, all in the hopes that other Muslims "might" realize that Islam is the root cause of their societies' woes. Of course, it's more likely that their imams and clerics will blame it all on the infidels and the Jews and the Muslims will believe it.

"If your policies were inacted [sic]" you predict terrible things would happen to Muslims. I doubt that they would be so terrible. Indeed, what I am suggesting is not world war, not war at all -- in fact what I suggest is positively the most humane and least bloodthirsty way to deal with the need for Infidels, and for Muslims, to have Islam either changed (highly unlikely) or contained, or jettisoned, or a combination of all three.

The outcome of my suggestions, if followed (Infidel separation, even Infidel inattention, and certainly an end to all attempts to "win hearts and minds" either for an etiolated democracy or for Infidels repeatedly demonstrating what good and generous fellows they can be, what with the water-treatment plants, and the 3,100 schoolrooms, and the 100 hospitals, and all that candy and those soccer balls much separation and inattention. The only intervention should be rapid strikes, preferably from the air, to destroy any nuclear or similar weapons projects, and the delivery systems that go with them.

Besides, whatever would happen in Iraq will happen, sooner or later, anyway. And the outcome will not be nearly as terrible as what might happen to Infidels if we continue to misallocate resources there, and pay less atttention to the Iranian science project, and to the islamization of Europe, that requires immediate and almost-total attention. Since I am an Infidel, I am most concerned with their wellbeing, and not concerned, as you seem to be, with the wellbeing of Muslims. And I find strange those who find that strange.

Now that tether really is stretched to its limit.

"...in fact what I suggest is positively the most humane and least bloodthirsty way to deal with the need for Infidels, and for Muslims..."

You've gotta be kidding! Twelve years of UN economic sanctions on Iraq devastated the Iraqi population! Are you completely oblivious to this? You want to replicate these harsh sanctions on the whole Muslim world. Tens of thousands will die: from starvation; from extreme heat/cold (no Western air conditioners/heaters) in 140 degree weather in the desert during summer, and freezing weather in the winter; from disease-no Western immunizations for diseases like Polio, Cholera, Measles, etc., etc.; no Western medicines for illnesses like, TB, malaria, AIDS,etc. Once these diseases like TB, Polio, STD's and malaria take hold in a small portion of the population they spread like wildfire. Tens of thousands, possibly millions of Muslims will die without these Western medicines.

Contaminated water-a huge problem in Africa-is a breeding ground for diseases like malaria. Western water purification projects protect thousands of lives-you'd deny them this aid.

The list goes on and on. They need us. I can't in good conscience, sacrifice so many of their lives to prove it to them.

I want to win this war too, but there are much more humane ways to fight it than what you're suggesting.

BTW, how is your cut-and-run strategy in Iraq different from the duplicity Muhammad showed at the Treaty of Hudaibiya?

One final reply, and that's it. The reply of course is not intended for the impervious and tendentious recipient, whose replies show that there is really no point in taking him seriously but for those who are enjoying the spectacle.

We are informed that "containment" of Islam is terrible when in fact it is the very best way to save the shedding of blood, and a big war (as Othello might say).

We are informed about the "twelve years of U.N. sanctions" on Iraq. My, I didn't realize that I was supposed to regret those sanctions -- but I don't. Is the entire Arab and Muslim world, with $10 trillion received from OPEC money, incapable of spending some of that money on the training of doctors, on the development of their own pharmaceuticals? With $10 trillion, can't a little something be left over from the call girls and the armaments and all the glittery gold in the souks. I think if forced to divert resources from the Jihad, at least one or two Muslim governments might possibly be able to produce some drugs.

The impervious poster seems to think there is an Infidel Man's Burden, and while we are steadily being encroached upon, attacked, damaged in every possible way within and without from the various instruments of Jihad, we are not allowed to contemplate a single act, or a series of acts, that would begin to concentrate the minds of Muslims on what they can produce, or what they cannot produce, and why. Unless this is done, the mixture as before will continue.

But the impervious poster seems to think that the wonders of Infidel medicine -- which allow that vast growth in the Muslim population, with those families of 10-12 children apiece (just ask the American soldiers about those families in Iraq). Well, how many Muslims are Infidels expected to support, through foreign aid (jizya), and through copious doses of our medicines. Let them take their own medicine, or figure out ways to keep doubling and tripling their own populations if they insist. It is not to our benefit. The only export that should be made freely available are all sorts of contraceptive devices.

Then we are subjected to a parade of horribles:

"You want to replicate these harsh sanctions on the whole Muslim world. Tens of thousands will die: from starvation; from extreme heat/cold (no Western air conditioners/heaters) in 140 degree weather in the desert during summer, and freezing weather in the winter; from disease-no Western immunizations for diseases like Polio, Cholera, Measles, etc., etc.; no Western medicines for illnesses like, TB, malaria, AIDS,etc. Once these diseases like TB, Polio, STD's and malaria take hold in a small portion of the population they spread like wildfire. Tens of thousands, possibly millions of Muslims will die without these Western medicines."

Reply: I doubt it will come to this. But I still maintain it is not our problem. They have all the money in the world. That money has been theirs for at least two full generations. Someone who was still in high school in 1973, when the bonanza came in (and the Arabs with oil were not exactly poor before 1973 -- were they?), are now in their fifties. And yet they have been unable to come up with anything, they must rely completely on "Western medicines for illnesses like TB, malaria, AIDS, etc." and so on. Well, go ahead and tell me I must take care of those who would, if they could, destroy everything that matters to me in life. I completely reject this duty, and all sensible Infidels will join me.

And finally there is this:

"BTW, how is your cut-and-run strategy in Iraq different from the duplicity Muhammad showed at the Treaty of Hudaibiya?"

Readers know that I do not advocate a "cut-and-run strategy" and never have; I advocate an icily rational withdrawal from the Tarbaby of Iraq, and an allocation of misallocated resources -- men, money, materiel, and attention -- to fighting the world-wide Jihad in a hundred places, and using all the instruments of that Jihad against it. To argue that exploiting natural fissures and resentments within Islam to divide and demoralize the enemy from within is absurd. And everyone coming to this site knows it.

But the most telling of all the charges is that final absurdity comparing what I suggest from "the duplicity Muhammad showed at the Treaty of Hudaibiyya." Hmmm. Well, have I advocated signing a treaty, and then breaking it at the first opportunity? Have I suggested that as a general principle Infidels should lure the Muslims into trusting us with such treaties, and then attacking them?

Not at all. I have been completely forthright. Indeed, possibly in pointing out how Iraq should be exploited, for the purposes of checking the Jihad by weakening Islam (making it less attractive both to Infidels and to Muslims, and exposing, and encouraging, the main intra-Islamic resentments and rifts), I have been, if anything, too open in these views.

There is nothing to this charge, but it tells us much about the person levelling it. I will leave it to the readers, contributors, and visitors to JW to make of that charge, and him, what you will.

From Hugh's post:

"But the most telling of all the charges is that final absurdity comparing what I suggest from "the duplicity Muhammad showed at the Treaty of Hudaibiyya." Hmmm. Well, have I advocated signing a treaty, and then breaking it at the first opportunity? Have I suggested that as a general principle Infidels should lure the Muslims into trusting us with such treaties, and then attacking them?"

I don't know what planet you live on, Hugh, but here on Earth everyone knows that a cut-and-run strategy-aka "an icily rational withdrawal from the Tarbaby of Iraq"-is a major betrayal of the Iraqi people, the American people, and the world US Coalition of 17 nations who trusted the US to defeat Saddam Hussein and the Ba'athist regime and then to create freedom and democracy in Iraq. Cutting-and-running ("icily withdrawing")right now will almost certainly plunge the Iraqis into a bloody civil war and cost thousands more lives, needlessly. The world would never trust the US again if we betrayed our word and abandoned the Iraqi people.

"I think if forced to divert resources from the Jihad, at least one or two Muslim governments might possibly be able to produce some drugs."

They "might possibly be able to produce some drugs", true, but would they even bother? The radical Islamic dictatorships of most Muslim countries are known for their barbarity, cruelty, depravity, FGM, and other such brutal acts. They don't seem to care about the health and welfare of their Muslim peoples. As long as they can maintain power, the people will probably be made to just suffer from the lack of Western immunizations, medicine, fresh water, food shortages, etc. Disease will run rampant. Tens of thousands will likely die without Western humanitarian supplies before these Islamic governments lift a single finger to help their own people.

"...we are not allowed to contemplate a single act, or a series of acts, that would begin to concentrate the minds of Muslims on what they can produce, or what they cannot produce, and why."

Now who is misstating whom? This is where the teaching Muslims about the horrors of Islam and the wonders of the non-Muslim life comes in. In addition of course, to: the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, a military strategy to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilites, hunting down terrorists and their supporters, educating the American and Western world on the true evils of Islam, monitoring mosques/madrassas, deporting radical clerics/terrorists/etc., and on and on and on. To clarify, Hugh, that's a "series of acts".

"Then we are subjected to a parade of horribles:"

"Reply: I doubt it will come to this."

Here's the statistics on just one of these "horribles"-AIDS-in North Africa and the Middle East in the year, 2004:

"According to the latest figures on the AIDS epidemic published by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) this month, the Arab region has seen:

• 92,000 adults and children newly infected with HIV
• A range between 230,000-1.5 million of adults and children living with HIV
• 28,000 adult and children deaths due to AIDS
• 250,000 women living with HIV
• 48% of adults living with HIV are women

http://www.undp.org/dpa/pressrelease/releases/2004/december/pr13dec04.html

http://www.unaids.org/EN/Geographical+Area/By+Region/north+africa+and+the+middle+east.asp

Now, imagine how these numbers of sick and dying people would grow if I added in the statistics from just a few more of the myriad of diseases in the world like malaria, cholera, polio, and TB.

"Well, go ahead and tell me I must take care of those who would, if they could, destroy everything that matters to me in life. I completely reject this duty, and all sensible Infidels will join me."

We can win this war against Islam without losing our basic humanity and sense of decency. Jesus Christ commanded us to, "Love our enemies". I advocate using "tough love", but love nonetheless, in addition to the military/strategic tactics outlined above.

I leave it with this, a message from an Iraqi who would be betrayed and abandoned if the US suddenly "icily withdrew" from Iraq leaving almost inevitable civil war and carnage in our wake:

http://www.gopbloggers.org/mt/archives/001841.html

"What an Iraqi Would Like to Say to Cindy Sheehan"

Dean Esmay brings to our attention this entry from Iraq the Model:

"...today I was looking at your picture and I saw in your eyes a persistence, a great pain and a torturing question; why?
I know how you feel Cindy, I lived among the same pains for 35 years but worse than that was the fear from losing our loved ones at any moment. Even while I'm writing these words to you there are feelings of fear, stress, and sadness that interrupt our lives all the time but in spite of all that I'm sticking hard to hope which if I didn't have I would have died years ago.

Ma'am, we asked for your nation's help and we asked you to stand with us in our war and your nation's act was (and still is) an act of ultimate courage and unmatched sense of humanity.

Our request is justified, death was our daily bread and a million Iraqi mothers were expecting death to knock on their doors at any second to claim someone from their families. Your face doesn't look strange to me at all; I see it everyday on endless numbers of Iraqi women who were struck by losses like yours.

Our fellow country men and women were buried alive, cut to pieces and thrown in acid pools and some were fed to the wild dogs while those who were lucky enough ran away to live like strangers and the Iraqi mother was left to grieve one son buried in an unfound grave and another one living far away who she might not get to see again.

We did nothing to deserve all that suffering, well except for a dream we had; a dream of living like normal people do.

We cried out of joy the day your son and his comrades freed us from the hands of the devil..."

"Read the whole thing - and then pity the people who oppose our liberation of Iraq. Since 9/11, the left in this country has entirely cut itself off from an outpouring of love, charity and devotion unmatched in human history - they coldly watch our actions and choose to deny the good and embrace evil, just because the people who are commanding the effort are of a different political philosophy. Very sad."-Mark Noonan.

Posted by Mark Noonan at August 15, 2005 01:59 AM

Saddam Hussein has been removed. That was entirely the doing of the Americans. No one else showed any interest in removing him; no Arab regime ever uttered a syllable of protest when he massacred many Iraqis.

The behavior of those living in Iraq has not been, alas, real gratitude. The chief feature of Iraqi life, as any soldier (and I am related to several) has been the fantastic corruption of the various Iraqis with their hands out for more and more and more American largesse. Another feature has been the evanescent quality of that famous "gratitude" that you seem to think people feel toward Americans. Save for the Kurds, whose Kurdishness is what limits their enthusiasm for Islam, and whose resentment of the Arabs leads them to appreciate the Americans, there is no real gratitude.

There are, of course, a handful of Iraqis, the very people who helped make such a plausible case for American intervention, and who are still the kind of people whom visiting Important Personages (e.g. Fouad Ajami) meet with -- Chalabi, Allawi, and so on. They all have spent 20, 30, even 40 years in the West. They speak English well; they know what their American interlocutors wish to here. In some cases they are not meretricious, but of course they also wish to retain power and influence, and have consistently overestimated their power, and underestimated the power of Islam, not unlike what beneficiaries of Kemalism in Turkey have done, and now realize that Islam is a permanent force, ever-resurgent if not kept down.

All of a sudden your argument changes in your last two postings. You are full of concern, overwhelmed with concern, with the wellbeing of Iraqis. Everything from AIDS to malnourishment concerns you. You tell me to "love my enemies." No, sorry. No can do. Why should I love enemies who give no signs of ever being changed or redeemed, who already have a formula that explains to Believers why, for example, they should continue to mistrust and hate Infidels who are kind to them?

The formula "love your enemies" may work on the kind of "enemies" that existed before Islam arrived with its own unpleasant version of that prescription. The Islamic version is: "hate your enemies even if they do not act like your enemies, because Infidels, no matter how kind they may seem, remain your enemies as long as they do not accept Islam." The Qur'an and Hadith encourage that attitude. Muslims are inculcated -- a few manage to through off that attitude -- claim that if the Infidels seem to be acting kindly, it is only out of their Infidel meretriciousness; they will still be whispering the counsel of Shaytan (Satan) as they try to win Believers away from Islam.

You quote one of that handful of Iraqi bloggers who get such attention. There are -- what? five or six such bloggers, all of whom I follow, and very few of whom are up-to-date. Several of them appear to be Christians. Others are nice guys. I'm sorry Islam is what it is, but I am sorrier for the American soldiers forced to remain, to risk their lives, for a fool's errand. In Soviet Russia there were a far greater number of people completely disaffected from the Soviet system. Even in Nazi Germany there were those who were anti-Nazi, beginning with the White Rose campaign. But we did not stop bombing Nazi Germany because of Sophie and her brother in Munich. We did not make alternative plans for dealing with the Soviet Union because some -- some -- were not admirers of Stalin or of Communism.

If one really cared about the long-term wellbeing Muslims, one would wish for them a different world where they could freely chose to throw off Islam. That is, possibly, one of the results of the 25 years of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is more likely to happen to Muslims around the world, if Islam is roundly and obviously defeated, and thrown into disarray. In Iraq, the people had a chance to show that they were not simply jockeying for power -- the Sunnis claiming still to be 42% or even a majority of the population; the Shi'a insisting not on "democracy" but on "democracy" because it insures their dominance over the Sunnis as they were once dominated.

The entire quote, about the horribleness of Saddam Hussein, taken from that blogger in Iraq, is quoted as part of a "reply to one Cindy Sheehan." Since I have nothing in common with Cindy Sheehan, no matter how hard you in your own way keep trying to pin the tail of that particular donkey on me, I will say this about her and her ilk: they are urging us to leave Iraq for entirely different reasons, with entirely different expectations. They do not want American power used to defend against the Jihad. I want American power used -- I want it, in a sense, to be employed better, to be re-deployed outside of Iraq so that the natural conditions within Iraq can be allowed to work their course, and for me that course means Shi'a and Sunnis in a simmering civil war, and Kurds becoming fed up with their mistreatment and their deferred hopes, and declaring their independence (and being covertly, or overtly, aided with equipment by the Americans and others). You keep trying to pretend my suggestions only play into the Sheehans of this world. Oh no they don't.

And finally, you quote at length from an Iraqi blogger, in his own reply to Cindy Sheehan. He tells us about all the terrible things that were done under Saddam Hussein. I am perfectly aware, and so is everyone who comes to JW, all the terrible things done by Saddam Hussein.

What is the conceivable relevance of this to the matter at hand? Saddam Hussein is out. I have never criticized his removal. It was a rational and sensible thing to do, even though those famous weapons of mass destruction were not found; it made sense to get rid of him. It did not necessarily make more sense, than to leave him in place and deal with Iran first, as a far greater threat to Infidels. But it was not, on the whole, unwise.

But he is gone. That's it. The Americans did it. And they stayed, and stayed. And built water-=treatment plants. And schoolhouses. And hospitals. And hardly anyone outside noticed -- and what is more important, hardly anyone in Iraq seems to be swelling with gratitude for the Americans. And the fantastic corruption, the whining, the blaming of Americans for everything -- the Iraqi man on the street again and again says the American soldiers started this, or fired on the Iraqi civilians (this happened when the dozens of children who had gathered to receive candy were killed by terrorists). One gets sick and tired of these people, with their hysteria, the way in which they blame American soldiers who are continually risking their lives -- at this point, for what?

Don't attack my suggestions about what to do now by bringing up the completely irrelevant monstrousness of Saddam Hussein. He's now gone. I understand why an Iraqi blogger would wish to remind Cindy Sheehan, that simpleton, of one good reason "why we went to Iraq." But that does not serve as an answer to my objections, which are quite different from those of Sheehan and of course of the sinister figures behind and around her.

And do not present to me as "represent5ative" Iraqis the 1%, or even 2% or 3% or 5%, of the Iraqipopulation that is grateful with unfeigned gratitude, that is rational, that wishes for areal secular democracy, that has had its fill of Islam as a political and social force (it is too much to expect a thorough disgust with Islam, as one can find in Iran). Policy cannot be made, resources cannot be spent, on the basis of that 1% or 2% or 3% or 5% of Iraqis. It is the 95% that matter.

If you truly wished Infidels well -- had as much concern about them as you appear to have for Muslims in Iraq -- you would wish us to be out of that Briar Patch tomorrow. And if you had understood what I have said for a year or two -- google "Light Unto the Muslim Nations" -- you might come to share the conclusion that in the end, the best thing for Muslims as well as for Infidels is for the divisions within Islam to be encouraged -- the best thing if you believe, as I do, that anything is better for Believers, as well as for Infidels, than the situation, and the belief-system, they are born into, through no fault of their own, and cannot leave.

"...everyone knows that a cut-and-run strategy-aka "an icily rational withdrawal from the Tarbaby of Iraq"-is a major betrayal of the Iraqi people, the American people, and the world US Coalition of 17 nations..."

No, I think what we are facing is a betrayal by the Iraqi people. We have spent our blood and treasure to give them the opportunity to create a government based on Western principles. Instead, they have decided to create a government based on Sharia and Islamic principles. As such, I believe the deal is off. We offered them a gift and they have shown no gratitude.

"A democracy of liberal people will be liberal, a democracy of cannibals will be cannibalistic, and a democracy of Shi'ites will be Shi'ite." Norman Davies