But people much preferred to listen to the short-sighted cries of "We Won!"
"U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq," from the Washington Post, with thanks to Andy:
The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.
"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."
Administration officials still emphasize how much they have achieved despite the chaos that followed the invasion and the escalating insurgency. "Iraqis are taking control of their country, building a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself. And we're helping Iraqis succeed," President Bush said yesterday in his radio address....
Barbers post signs saying they do not shave men, after months of barbers being killed by religious extremists. Ethnic or religious-based militias police the northern and southern portions of Iraq. Analysts estimate that in the whole of Iraq, unemployment is 50 percent to 65 percent....
The ferocious debate over a new constitution has particularly driven home the gap between the original U.S. goals and the realities after almost 28 months. The U.S. decision to invade Iraq was justified in part by the goal of establishing a secular and modern Iraq that honors human rights and unites disparate ethnic and religious communities.
But whatever the outcome on specific disputes, the document on which Iraq's future is to be built will require laws to be compliant with Islam. Kurds and Shiites are expecting de facto long-term political privileges. And women's rights will not be as firmly entrenched as Washington has tried to insist, U.S. officials and Iraq analysts say.
"We set out to establish a democracy, but we're slowly realizing we will have some form of Islamic republic," said another U.S. official familiar with policymaking from the beginning, who like some others interviewed would speak candidly only on the condition of anonymity. "That process is being repeated all over."
The US will be largely out of Iraq before the next Presidential election. Afghanistan will also soon be abandoned as casualties mount for all the countries there and, as it becomes clear, that Western innovations are not wanted.
Then, if we are to survive, we must curtail Muslim immigration, wall off our countries and adopt the Israeli solution. We must also seek to increase the non-Muslim birth rate. Our culture can be re-newed but we will have to work very hard to do it.
At the same time, a massive propaganda campaign to undermine the Islamic ideology must be started.
I agree with you. Bush and his people were naive wanting to impose West democratic values on Iraq. Muslim voting would vote for Sharia’h, what else?
Iraquis have NOT real democratic traditional to help them choosing freedom. They do not want freedom but a strong leader to show them the way.
I think that your suggestions might be a temporary solution. Eventually, the West will have to face the Islamic dragon and kill it; otherwise, the technological civilization that we created will end. If we lose, China and Islam will have the last Tête-à-tête and the roaches will own the earth.
A free society requires free minds. Islam is a system designed for preventing such a thing--it is the perfect mechanism for turning people into robots. Iraq, or any other country, will never have true, longstanding democracy until the people are freed from their mental slavery ("Abd" + one of the 99 names of Allah).
The idea that we could just march into the Islamic world anywhere, and establish a western-style democracy in just a few short years, is naive at best.
Mentat, I think, has SOME of the answers as to policies that need to be implemented,
"Then, if we are to survive, we must curtail Muslim immigration, wall off our countries and adopt the Israeli solution. We must also seek to increase the non-Muslim birth rate. Our culture can be re-newed but we will have to work very hard to do it.
"At the same time, a massive propaganda campaign to undermine the Islamic ideology must be started."
Even more important than the campaign to counter Islamic ideology, we must have a campaign to renew Western civilization and our faith in ourselves. A lot of soul searching needs to be done here. We have a disease of self-hate and self-doubt that has been implanted by those who seek the destruction of Western civilization, and it WILL destroy us! Our enemies smell blood in the water, and the sharks are indeed circling!
In the meantime, there ARE some important military goals that CAN be achieved in Iraq (and elewhere). The "flypaper" theory has some real value in terms of a sort of holding action and inflicting damage on the enemy. What emerges in the end in Iraq remains to be seen.
Until we lay the psychological and spiritual groundwork for a long term war against Islam, and correctly identify the enemy (Islam itself), we can only fight these holding actions and, yes, continue taking casualties.
We must first fix the disease eating away at our own civilization, then we can successfully confront the Islamo-fascists and move on to victory.
My guess is that political correctness from the left will continue to eat away at our resolve, and that we will abandon Iraq, and maybe Afghanistan, before those societies are transformed into something even remotely acceptable. Then things will get even worse, and the jihadists will attack with even more fury. Maybe then we will stop being a nation of sheep led around by politicians who claim they can protect us but are really only interested in their own power and agenda. We are going to have to DEMAND change, and a tough leader who will get the job done with our unwavering support.
We must each take personal responsibility for our future, our survival as a civilization. And we are going to have to realize that this is a fight to the death, and that we CANNOT show
ANY tolerance or mercy for Islamic fascism and tyranny. We have the power to win, but we are our own worst enemies!
The thing that bothers me about these comments is that there ARE people in Muslim countries who understand democracy and wish for freedom.
The women who are fighting for their rights in Iraq.
The Iraqthemodel brother who wept when he voted for the first time for someone other then Saddam.
The Iranian journalist who is on a hunger strike against the current government, and who will likely die.
The sassy young woman in Iran who was hung for immorality because she talked back to a mullah.
The democratic worker in Iran who was beaten to death by their security forces, and a picture of whose bloody, bruised body I saw.
The policewoman in Kabul who is standing up against a long tradition of male domination.
How can we abandon people like that?
ISLAM is a cancer that will infect and kill all attempts at democracy in the Middle East.
The KORAN must be dis-credited; not treated with respect or plastic gloves.
The false prophet, Mohammed, must be demonized as a common criminal deserves.
American citizens are catching on to the above truths.
Our politicians, including Bush, know also but they can't admit it publicly for fear of alienating those Muslim voters who are not causing problems.
The islam undressed website has been updates. Go and visit it today.
http://www.islamundressed.com
I have already posted these comments on the "Ahmadinejad Fills Cabinet With Hard-Liners" thread and they seem to be quite applicable here as well.
Iran's recently nominated president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, continues to cement his hardline anti-West and anti-reform regime by appointing cabinet ministers known for their intractability concerning Iran's "glorious" revolution.
Mr. Ahmadinejad recently stated here, "The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world."
He is now working to consolidate an exportation (see here) of this "revolution" by actively courting fellow Islamic, but non Shi'a, nations with conciliatory rhetoric such as this, "The Islamic World's prestige, talents and capabilities are far beyond what it has today... Sympathy, understanding, solidarity, and cooperation among Muslim brothers can pave the way for the blossoming of all potentials, and restoration of the Islamic World's deserved prestigious status."
In light of this fresh news concerning Mr. Ahmadinejad filling his cabinet with uncompromising ministers, it should be crystal clear to Western leaders what his agenda truly is.
And now it appears that Iraq has succumbed to the trowelling over influence of Iranian politics and religion. When will Western leaders finally learn that the Islamic world has no democratic intentions?
Treehugger:
How can we "abandon people like that?" Ask Cindy Sheehan and Noam Chomsky.
Read an unbiased history of Turkey in the last 100 years, come back and we'll talk.
James Arlandson's "Top ten reasons why sharia is bad for all societies" is a good read.
Check it out online here.
"The thing that bothers me about these comments is that there ARE people in Muslim countries who understand democracy and wish for freedom."
Yes, and they can hold these ideas ONLY to the extent that they CEASE to practice Islam in its fundamental teachings. There is absolutely no compatibility between Islam and democracy or freedom as we in the West understand it.
And you are right, it is sad - especially for women under Islam.
But we cannot free the Moslems from the tyranny of their own religious beliefs unless they wish to be freed of those beliefs, and are willing to fight for that freedom. Unfortunately, the imams and jihadists who wish to maintain and increase their power over the people, are going to fight to the death any attempt at an "Islamic Enlightenment."
In this sense, Iraq is a testing ground for how much the people there really want freedom as we would understand it, and it would seem that those who instead want an Islamic fascist 'republic' are more ready to fight and die for their cause.
Iraqi forces just found a mass grave outside of Baghdad. It contains about thirty bodies, including women, recently killed by the terrorists.
If their minds are imprisoned, we can't force them to be free.
I knew from the beginning that islam would be at the center of any government in Iraq. The shiites are the majority in Iraq, so were the Iranians who took over our embassy in the 70's. They were considered the most radical muslims at the time, now our press treats them like they are the "Amish of Iraq".
Mentat-
I've read Noam Chomsky. He is an idiot.
I feel pity for Cindy Sheehan, who has obviously been driven over the edge by her grief for her son.
I assume that with regards to Turkey, you are talking about the Kemalization?? process where Islam was kicked to the curb. Is your point that it keeps coming back like the energizer bunny?
I would like to create a mini Muslim state made up of freedom loving secular government type Muslims. Sit back and watch that country succeed, and stand as an example of what Muslims CAN be capable of when they cast off the yolk of fundamentalist Islam. It would also serve as an escape valve for free thinking muslims from around the world.
I know, totally impractical. But a nice thought for a Sunday morning.
Mentat-
I've read Noam Chomsky. He is an idiot.
I feel pity for Cindy Sheehan, who has obviously been driven over the edge by her grief for her son.
I assume that with regards to Turkey, you are talking about the Kemalization?? process where Islam was kicked to the curb. Is your point that it keeps coming back like the energizer bunny?
I would like to create a mini Muslim state made up of freedom loving secular government type Muslims. Sit back and watch that country succeed, and stand as an example of what Muslims CAN be capable of when they cast off the yolk of fundamentalist Islam. It would also serve as an escape valve for free thinking muslims from around the world.
I know, totally impractical. But a nice thought for a Sunday morning.
Treehugger:
Talk about your ethnic cleansing. Totally impractical. Yah. You got that right.
"I feel pity for Cindy Sheehan, who has obviously been driven over the edge by her grief for her son."
I don't buy that explanation for a second. Cindy Sheehan was already involved with Moveon.org and the Michael Moore leftist moonbat types even before the 2004 election. She was already "over the edge."
This whole circus is not about her grief for her dead son, it is all about HER, and the moonbat leftist, hate-America agenda. As far as I am concerned, she has no honor. She disgraces her son, and all the others soldiers who have fallen.
See,
An Iraqi Responds to Cindy Sheehan
My attitude is the same as the India company Marine officer in Fallujah, who told his men, who were grieving for a fallen comrade, that they had to put aside their grief and "get back into the fight!" And, "It's payback time!"
I grieve every day for our fallen soldiers, but we are in a war, so we cannot let our grief make us want to cut and run. You want to grieve? Ok, that's fine, but the battle has been joined, so wipe off your tears, shut the hell up, and reload!
Fourteen Points for the Defense of the United States against Islamic Jihad
I watch, with increasing frustration, the politically correct flailing of our government and public officials in the face of the Islamic threat.
I believe in civil liberties, but not in civil suicide.
Isalam does not deserve the protections offered enlightened religions under our constitution. First, Islam is a philosophy, not a race. So, attacks on profiling are meaningless. Second, its tenets with regard to non-believers are more akin to the vengeful and intolerant "theology" of Nazism than to the enlightened acceptance preached by Jews, Christians, Bhuddists, Hindus, Zoroastrians and others.
A good place to learn more about our enemies is at Jihad Watch. To witness how readily the West seems to subjugate its values to Islam, see their sister site at Dhimmi Watch. A reguar reading of these sites is a frightening look into the moral abyss that is Islam.
Any study of Islam reveals an ideology steeped in the philosophy of violent Jihad. Jihad does not mean some internal struggle of the soul towards enlightenment. Rather, it is clearly defined as the unshakable obligation of each and every Muslim to make war, physical war, against the non-believer, offering him three choices: acceptance of Islam; subjugation, and the payment of a poll tax, "jizya", as a second-class member of society; or death.
Is that clear enough? You can join them, be a virtual slave or DIE!
Although we often hear of moderate Muslims, what does this mean? It means we are speaking of muslims who know little of their fath. Jihad is as much a part of Islam as the Holy Trinity is a part of Catholicism.
In this country, as in other western nations, we are surrounded by enemies of the Republic: Wahabist chaplains in the military; the Council on Islamic-America relations (CAIR); Islamic terror front groups; ACLU apologists; who sabotage our attempts to protect oursleves and our children; Al-Qaeda cells; the loony left of the Democratic Party; treasonous members of Congress, including John Kerry, who undermine our war efforts. All of these enemies of America are the willing dupes of the purveyors of Jihad.
My patience has run out. I'm ready for extreme measures to defend our lives and property.
With the spectre of bomb blasts in London, and every likelihood that Muslims in this country are planning the same, or worse, in our streets, the time has come to accept that Islam is the problem.
Islam today is evil. There has been no reformation, no emergence of a strong movement for positive change to align Islam with the values of the West. To do so would destroy the essence of the faith. What good Muslim could accept that?
Those who call themselves Muslims are, if not guily, deserving of our suspicion.
My first preference would be the conquest and forced conversion to Christianity of the Muslim world. You might ask why I, as a Jew, suggest converting them to Christianity? Because I believe there are enough good Christians in this world to hold the bastards down while they learn to behave.
In the meantime, we need to defend our own shores against the Islamic hordes, many of whom are already here.
Therefore I make the following declaration:
Whereas:
We Resolve:
That, in order to protect our nation, and our civilization, from the depredations of Islam, we should act according to the following principles:
Mentat-
So, resettlement along political lines is verboten, but leaving friends of democracy to get bullets in the back of their skulls is ok? Sheesh.
BTW, why is it any more impractical then having Shia/Sunni/Kurdish areas?
Will one day, Islamic Iraq wage war acquire nuclear weapons and wage war against the west?
Suspension of all immigration, regardless of religious affiliation, from any member state of the Arab League.
OIC is a better organization to identify the Islamic enemies.
I've been pondering the one facet of this civilizational schism that the West continues to refuse to fight....and that of course is the ideological struggle. Up until now, the leaders and cultural elite of the West continue to validate Islam and confine their ideological efforts to branding the jihadis as those who have "hijacked" an otherwise peaceful religion.
Those of us in-the-know realize how hollow, naive and downright disingenuous this strategy is. What is needed is a concerted effort to confront Muslims with the doctrinal intolerance of their faith and encourage intellectual, philosophical and ethical rejection of the core texts and the example set forth by the Prophet Muhammad. This approach would no doubt alienate many moderate Muslims now sitting on the fence and certainly exacerbate the feelings of alienation within the ummah. But the long-term effect would be to begin the process of mass apostasy that is really the only viable way to triumph over this cult.
Muhammad had the cunning to effectively innoculate Islam from the virus of reform; he proclaimed himself the "seal of the Prophets," insuring that there could be no future messanger and no future message that could undo the religion he contrived. Consequently, naive hopes for a latent reformation within Islam are less realistic than a cultural-educational broadside that encourages apostasy among Muslims.
The targeted constituency would be Muslims living in the West and eventually encompass those living within the realm of Islam. I reiterate, such a strategy would exacerbate our problems with the Muslim world in the short-run but to my mind, it is infinitely preferable to the current strategy which is in essence proclaiming Islam to be intolerant in the vain hope that it will become so.
Unfortunately, how do we hold up our own civilization as a viable alternative when we are so busy deconstructing and deligitimizing it in our educational and cultural institutions? And there-in lies the crux of the matter.
Should Islam prevail, it will not be because of any instrinsic virtues or strengths found within its civilization. It will be solely because we in the West discarded our own sense of identity; we stopped cherishing family and became infertile; we stopped cherishing faith and become bereft of spirituality; we stopped cherishing the individual freedom that distinguished our civilization and made it pre-eminent for 3 hundred years.
Ultimately, we stopped cherishing our own cultural heritage and now we are rootless. And from this vantage point, it should come as no surprise that our elite lacks the self-confidence to pass judgment on Islam.
That should read:
"....it is infinitely preferable to the current strategy of proclaiming Islam to be a TOLERANT religion in the vain hope that it will become so."
"I've been pondering the one facet of this civilizational schism that the West continues to refuse to fight....and that of course is the ideological struggle. Up until now, the leaders and cultural elite of the West continue to validate Islam and confine their ideological efforts to branding the jihadis as those who have "hijacked" an otherwise peaceful religion.
"Those of us in-the-know realize how hollow, naive and downright disingenuous this strategy is. What is needed is a concerted effort to confront Muslims with the doctrinal intolerance of their faith and encourage intellectual, philosophical and ethical rejection of the core texts and the example set forth by the Prophet Muhammad. This approach would no doubt alienate many moderate Muslims now sitting on the fence and certainly exacerbate the feelings of alienation within the ummah. But the long-term effect would be to begin the process of mass apostasy that is really the only viable way to triumph over this cult."
Amen, and amen...!
Treehugger said:
The thing that bothers me about a comment like the above is
1 - anyone in a Muslim country that wants democracy and freedom does not seem to have the power to do anything about it and
2 - the person who made the above comment does not seem to have the power to DO anything about it.
Treehugger said:
Sit back and watch that (utterly hypothetical) "country" appear to "succeed" for a short time, then quickly become an Islamic state because of the unchanged, unchecked, unbalanced seeds of violence and psychological control written in the Koran that no-one seems to want to expose.
A glimmer of a hint of an understanding that two things were not sufficiently studied, and therefore not understood, in the Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations Project:
1) the nature of Islam which, pace Bernard Lewis, encourages both submission to the Ruler, however unpleasant or unjust or corrupt he may be, unless he can be considered an Infidel.
2) the nature of Iraq, a country composed of three distinct groups: Shi'a Arabs, Sunni Arabs, and (largely Sunni) Kurds. The three Ottoman vilayets that were yoked, under Sunni rule, by Sir Percy Cox, back in the 1920s, never became a nation-state. Gertrude Bell's Letters testify to the Shi'a resentment of Sunnis, a resentment that has only grown over the past 80 years. She testified as to the Kurdish desire for freedom from Arab domination, a desire that has only grown over the past 80 years.
So that was the Intelligence Failure in Iraq: the failure to understand both Islam and Iraq.
I will now repeat for the thousandth time what I have been writing here:
The "war against terrorism" is nonsense. The war to protect ourselves, to protect all Infidels, from the various instruments of Jihad, is world-wide, and without end. 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. The goal should be always and everywhere to create the conditions within the world of Islam which will force Muslims themselves, or at least a significant number of them, to realize that the source of their failures, political, economic, social, and intellectual, are not in their genes, but in the belief-system of Islam. It was a belief-system constructed to justify, and promote, conquest. It soon congealed, and cannot now be reformed, and all that brave or silly talk about such "reformation" (when not designed simply to win Infidel favor, to delay the day of Infidel reckoning, to obtain Infidel grants in order to "study the possibilities of reform in Islam" whether those grants come from the ever-naive and ever-generous American government, or from the Carnegie and similar foundations) is pointless. Such talk ignores what is in Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira.
Getting out of Iraq is not cutting and runinng. It is not abandoning the "true course." Getting out of Iraq is the very best way to achieve the long-term goals of Infidels. The ensuing strife between Shi'a and Sunni, and between non-Arab Muslims (the Kurds who deserve to be supported, for reasons of realpolitik) and Arab Muslims, will do much to dampen enthusiasm for Islam among naive or alienated or psychically marginal Infidels, and also help divide, demoralize, bring into psychic disarray many Muslims world-wide.
And that should be the goal. Not "democracy." Not a Light Unto the Muslim Nations.
Report-
Where to start....
Yeah, when the bad guys have the guns and have no compunction about total brutality it isn't so easy to make changes. We are tucked up safely in our properous western societies, and those westerners taking the risk in Iraq and Afghanistan are trained and well armed.
At home we trust our police and firemen to protect us, and we know that they are for the most part worthy of that trust. It's a bit different if you live in a society where joe average citizen might get their throat cut for expressing an unpopular political opinion, possibly by a policeman. Or beaten to death, as I saw pictured in Iran. That's why I have such admiration and respect for those who are willing to stand up in these countries, they don't have the layers upon layers of social protection that we have here. I wonder how well the averaage American would do under the same circumstances?
I think people that brave and decent deserve something more then a "kiss off" from the US and a bullet in the head from the fundamentalists. So sue me.
I also give them more credit for understanding what dangers lie in Islamic fundamentalism then you do. After all, they've actually lived it, haven't they?
Re your second comment: people aren't allowed to have ideas unless they already hold the reins of political power? If the founding fathers had thought that way, we'd still be a British colony.
Treehugger:
Don't misunderstand, at least, me. As Hugh says, we have to convince the Muslims that Islam is the source of their problems. Until we do, there is no hope for those people.
Sorry Treehugger:
My thoughts were incomplete. What I meant was that I am all for helping those people in those countries who want our assistance but I have come around to Hugh's point of view that tough love is the answer.
Hugh said: "Getting out of Iraq is not cutting and runinng. It is not abandoning the "true course." Getting out of Iraq is the very best way to achieve the long-term goals of Infidels. The ensuing strife between Shi'a and Sunni, and between non-Arab Muslims (the Kurds who deserve to be supported, for reasons of realpolitik) and Arab Muslims, will do much to dampen enthusiasm for Islam among naive or alienated or psychically marginal Infidels, and also help divide, demoralize, bring into psychic disarray many Muslims world-wide."
This and, just as importantly, the previous paragraphs comprise the very first "good" argument I've heard for leaving Iraq and the Middle East.
However, I understand TreeHugger's argument that there is a significant minority of people we would be abandoning. We don't have it in our hearts to be so cruel.
Until we know to what extent Sharia law permeates their new constitution I have to think that it will be far better than Saddam's "the rules are what I make them today". Let us also not forget the atmosphere in our own country when our constitution was written. Slavery was AOK, the poor, powerless and minorities had little or no rights, spousal abuse was routinely overlooked, and only property owners could vote. Those are only a few of the things that we have taken a couple hundred years to overcome.
The biggest things we need to look at before we get our panties in a wad is how they will treat their citizens in the courts and to what extent human rights will be upheld.
Treehugger:
"I think people that brave and decent deserve something more then a "kiss off" from the US and a bullet in the head from the fundamentalists. So sue me.
"I also give them more credit for understanding what dangers lie in Islamic fundamentalism then you do. After all, they've actually lived it, haven't they?"
Yes, they deserve more than a "kiss off," but the question is really whether there is any real possibility of change within Islam. An Islamic reformation, or Enlightenment is needed, but is that even possible? It does not appear likely at this time in history. The world of Islam is not the world of 16th thru 18th century Europe. It is a different culture and mentality altogether, and the Enlightenment grew out of Western civilization and thought. While the Enlightenment was indeed a "revolution against thrones and altars," it did not destroy Christianity even though it did alter the relationship between church and state. The American Revolution and constitution was one outcome and solution to that tension between church and state, and a sort of peaceful balance between the two has worked pretty well for the last 200 years. If Christianity survives in the West, it must be because it recaptures the hearts and minds of the people again, and not because it is imposed by force.
I think Hugh is basically right when he says,
"So that was the Intelligence Failure in Iraq: the failure to understand both Islam and Iraq."
I agree that Iraq will almost certainly degenerate into open civil war, and there will not be a lot we can do to stop it. Good people will die, and we won't be able to save them.
We need a rethink about how we are waging the war on Islam, and the first rethink is to get it thru our heads that it IS A WAR ON ISLAM, and NOT A WAR ON TERROR, which is, as many have pointed out, only a tactic. This IS a clash of civilizatiions, of cultures, of beliefs and world-views. Once that is at least settled, maybe then we can come up with a viable strategy to win...
Well stated Hugh. I agree that Muslims must be contained in their own societies. The multiculturalist experiment hasn't and isn't going to enlighten enough muslims for them to reform their culture and society. They are so brainwashed by their death cult that it is impossible for them to even attempt such a reformation. Muslim emigration to the west must stop and the sooner the better. My battle cry,
S I E N F I E L D !
As for our "failure" to establish a western style democracy in Iraq, I say WHO CARES! Our main purpose for going in there was to eliminate a strategic threat. We have accomplished that mission. Democracy as we know it was only on the wish list. The Iraqi people have turned this down and that is their right to do so.
I say let us leave the Iraqis to their own devices and if in the future they again become a threat to us, well we will just have to go in again and repeat the butt kicking. However, I don't envision this as being required as Iraq will eventually tear itself apart along the sectarian lines that the British should have established in the first place.
We're arguing at two different levels, macro and micro.
Hugh is approaching this from the macro level. At that level, it does make sense to disengage from MUSLIM COUNTRIES if they choose Islam/Sharia.
However, at the micro level, those INDIVIDUALS who are both Muslim and in favor of secular democracy are the catalysts from which change will come.
We would be fools to throw these people away.
Hugh,
I don't at all agree with your call for a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq. The bloody carnage that we both agree would follow such a course would not as you suggest sour infidel and Muslim alike on the nature of Islam, but rather would be forever be laid at the doorstep of the USA for invading in the first place...(the multicultural left would insure this as history's verdict).
The end result would be a new round of repression against the Kurds (likely aided and abetted by both Turkey and Iran)...which we both agree would be tragic but which the USA - having disengaged as per your suggestion - would be in absolutely no position to prevent.
I believe it is in our interest to stay the course and encourage the establishment of even just a quasi-Democracy in Iraq. The alternative is a Shia-Sunni civil war and the inevitable insertion of Iran into the strategic vacuum.
We walked away from Afghanistan in 1992 and were eventually badly bitten in the ass. The stakes are much higher in Iraq.
I dont think the Iraq campaign was naive at all. There people throughout the Middle east who DO understand democratic principles and yearn for them. It seems they have not reached critical mass in Iraq. However, we have given the chance, and they have failed. Now we can be clear in our conscience for what kind of War we will fight next in the region. It can never be said that we didnt first aspire to these principles before we had to stomp the region without mercy.
However, we also have to realize the real world strategic benefits operating in Iraq has given us, particularly by allowing us the possibility of isolating both Syria and Iran. Our presence in Iraq was the main reason Syria pulled out of Lebanon. Furthermore, The Airspace between Israel and Iran is now clear, with the US able to provide critical refueling.
"I don't at all agree with your call for a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq. The bloody carnage that we both agree would follow such a course would not as you suggest sour infidel and Muslim alike on the nature of Islam, but rather would be forever be laid at the doorstep of the USA for invading in the first place...(the multicultural left would insure this as history's verdict)."
Yes, but Iraq may well descend into civil war anyway, whether we stay or go. The only way to stop this would be to insert massive numbers of troops and rule the place by brute force until some magical time in the future when the Iraqis are all ready to get along with each other. Either way, whatever carnage takes place will all be laid at the United States' doorstep.
I doubt that Americans would support the insertion of large numbers of troops into the Middle East long term, and then there are the problems looming with Iran and Syria.
I do think it may, and I emphasize the may, be possible to transform Iraq, but I am very doubtful we have the stomach to do what would be necessary to achieve that end. It would be brutal.
There are also ways to selectively insert military operations at certain times, to achieve defined specific military objectives, that would keep the pot stirred until something half-way acceptable came out, but the Iraqis would inflict a lot of carnage on each other in the meantime. The best bet longterm may very well be to split Iraq into three or more autonommous regions of sovereignty.
The bigger picture in the war against Islam definitely involves isolating the Moslem world, and not letting them live among us in the West. And when they attack, we respond with overwhelming force at specific points with air and missile strikes. We could keep that up virtually forever, and then time is on OUR side, instead of the other way around. Take out the radical madrassas and mosques, target their leaders personally, take out infrastructure, etc., and keep a wall up to keep them out.
We should also launch the biggest propaganda campaign in history to undermine Islam and the power it has over people. Islam should be declared a terrorist cult, and the world will be better off when it is gone forever.
Cornelius said "We walked away from Afghanistan in 1992 and were eventually badly bitten in the ass."
I was thinking the same thing. We are taking a major chance when we create (or allow to continue) failed-nations. Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, northwest Pakistan, and now Iraq and Gaza, they are all breeding grounds for the next generation of Islamicidists. It feels good to walk away and leave them to suffer in their self-created hell, but in the meantime they continue scheming how to suck us down into their hell with them.
Sooner or later a more direct response will be required. And the longer our leaders mislead us about the nature of Islam, the less prepared we will be for facing that day.
So, for billions of dollars and thousands of deaths, Iraq gets to go from slavery to a LIVE maniac into slavery to a DEAD maniac.
Sharia-
The law that ends all doubt. (Under pain of death.)
From the religion that ends all thought.
And nothing will change in the p.c. somnambulistic West until a serious WMD attack rousing the sleepers.
Maybe 9/11 again? Cubed.
As Hugh and others on this site have been pointing out for a considerable time, that trying to get democracy to take root in Iraq, or for that matter any Arab/muslim country, is a futile task. That has been my opinion as well, going back over two years before the Iraq campaign. Persons such as V.D.Hanson and Podhoretz, just do not understand the mindset of the ordinary muslim. He does not want democacy; he wants islam that has been the social and spiritual binding glue for the last 1400 years. Period.
The few "good" results that may result from this huge waste in blood and treasure can be listed
1. Iraq may fragment, a civil war a definite possibilty, along religious and ethnic lines, thus posing no threat to other Arab nations.
2. We may get over the utopian belief that democracy is a product that can be sold everywhere, as long as it is marketted properly.
3. Question our assumptions of islam.
The last is the most important lesson. I have my doubts if the elite are quite ready to grasp that yet.
Cornelius posted :The targeted constituency would be Muslims living in the West and eventually encompass those living within the realm of Islam. I reiterate, such a strategy would exacerbate our problems with the Muslim world in the short-run but to my mind, it is infinitely preferable to the current strategy which is in essence proclaiming Islam to be intolerant in the vain hope that it will become so....Unfortunately, how do we hold up our own civilization as a viable alternative when we are so busy deconstructing and deligitimizing it in our educational and cultural institutions? And there-in lies the crux of the matter.
The answer lies in exposing islam as an institution of slavery, which in all its social practices, it resembles.
If one examines islam and its practices, it is more akin to slavery. Islam and those who convert to it, effectively become slaves. Islam = submission = subjugation, is not coincidence. Wherever islam dominates, slothful attitudes start to dominate. Free thinking stops, and people become mere cogs, almost children, dependent on the cleric on matters of any substance. Muslims are thus the first victims in this institution of slavery. I would therefore term Islam as the "religion of institutionalised slavery". It is no surprise that muslim countries are intellectual deserts. Free thinking can only occur in Free societies.
Some points worth considering
1. The institution of slavery, crushed the spirit of slaves. They were unable to think originally for themselves as a consequence. A striking feature of islamic societies.
2. Another striking feature of islamic societies is that they blame everyone else for their acts or predicaments.
In what may be consider as a traditional slave society, a similar situation holds. The slave has no power over the direction of his life, and no sense of responsibility to himself, the civic society or the state. This leads, quite naturally in my view, to blame others for his predicaments.
3. The subjugation of women and the view that women were simply chattels, i.e. slaves.
4. Runaway slaves used to be beaten, and oft executed, as a lesson to other would be runaway slaves. The same punishment is koranically sanctioned for the muslim apostate. Is it mere coincidence?
The most public manifestation of our acceptance of institutionalised slavery in the West is the burqa. It is a symbol, that we as a Western society, have recognised the institutionalised slavery of women in islam, as legitimate in the West. Thus FGM, the beatings, multiple wives, muslim women having no choice in the matter of their lives, are symbolised by the burqa.
This is absolutely absurd. Freedom and slavery are mutually incompatible. It is a tragedy that we have allowed in, into the domain of Freedom, a society that practices slavery, and worse we give it legitimacy under the guise of multiculturalism.
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Over at Dhimmi Watch, duh_swami and Charles Martell have a few words to say on this issue.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/007664.php
Islam is like a house of cards. Demolish just a couple of its important tenets, and it collapses.
The strategic advantage of this method is that we can no longer be labelled as bigots or worse. We are afterall, defending the weak and vulnerable. In other words, we use the tools of PC and liberalism to defend the victims of islam. In fact therem is no need to mention islam. Just freedom of choice for muslim women and freedom to live without fear for apostastes, will do.
Look into the eyes of one of the most prominant shiites ever to live, what do you see? I see pure evil.
http://www.faithfreedom.org/Iran/KhomeiniSpeech.htm
Forget the education or public relations..muslims are not going to give up their allah who hates Jews and Christians. Hate is their most precious possession, don't waste time and energy trying to deprive them of it. This is going to be a war that lasts through the lifetime of most of us. We need to husband our strength and resources because not all the enemies are muslims. Their friends on the left are islam's most powerful weapon. Without the left, islam would be almost impotent.
Forget the education or public relations..muslims are not going to give up their allah who hates Jews and Christians. Hate is their most precious possession, don't waste time and energy trying to deprive them of it. This is going to be a war that lasts through the lifetime of most of us. We need to husband our strength and resources because not all the enemies are muslims. Their friends on the left are islam's most powerful weapon. Without the left, islam would be almost impotent.
The answer lies in exposing islam as an institution of slavery, which in all its social practices, it resembles.
Islam is like a house of cards. Demolish just a couple of its important tenets, and it collapses.
Women are the big losers in islamic society. We should aim a good portion of our propaganda campaign at them. And women, for obvious reasons, have shown more courage in opposing the slavery of islam than the men who exploit them under islamic law. Turn the women, and the whole insitution may very well collapse. Let's call it what it is: SLAVERY.
The more we expose the human rights abuses against women under islam, the sooner the foundation will begin to crack. It is not the total answer, by any means, but it is a damn good place to start!
Ahmed Chalabi and other Iraqi exiles sold the Bush Administration a happy bill of goods regarding how easy it would be to overthrow
Saddam and set up a democracy in Iraq.
The quick victory in Afghanistan gave Bush a false sense of confidence regarding Iraq.
Another important factor at the time was the USA economy; which was reeling badly after the 9/11 attack. The stock market was in a severe downturn, airlines were in danger of financial collapse, and the economy was shaky and getting worse.
American troops were deployed in Kuwait etc and waiting for the UN to complete their inspections and resolutions. Everyone knows that a war gives a nice boost to the economy, so the decision to invade Iraq was irresistible.
As soon as the bombs started falling on Baghdad, the stock market took off on a prolonged rally.
Farouk: "The quick victory in Afghanistan gave Bush a false sense of confidence regarding Iraq."
I concur wholeheartedly. Bush was intoxicated with his success in Afghanistan and in point of fact the military victory in Iraq unfolded just as impressively and rapidly. But as any third-rate historian knows, conquest and occupation are two entirely different matters. Where was the forsight?
Farouk: "Everyone knows that a war gives a nice boost to the economy, so the decision to invade Iraq was irresistible."
The decision to invade Iraq may or may not have been irresponsible depending on one's point of view, but suggesting it was predicated on stimulating the domestic economy is just as slanderous as the left-wing accusations that it was all about oil. I'm convinced Bush's motives were geo-political and predicated entirely upon national security considerations.
Bushwacker: "Turn the women, and the whole insitution may very well collapse."
Very astute. The sorry state of women's rights in the Islamic world is the achillees heel of Islam. Infidel men can escape the excessive taxation and other depredations of dhimmitude by converting to Islam, but there is no such escape mechanism for Muslim women in confronting the many liabilities against them.
The negative response of Canadian Muslim women to the impeding advent of Sharia in Ontario is an encouraging sign. They understand full well the advantages conferred upon them by Western concepts of gender equality.
We must incessantly expose the anti-female character of Islam; Quranic verses 2.228, 2.282, 4.11 and 4.34 all of which codify the second-class status of women; the various hadith that denigrate the fairer sex including the quote of the Prophet Muhammad as he addressed the women of Mecca, calling them "deficient in intelligence and religion."
This is a process folks. Muslims CAN be weaned from Islam, but it's going to take a concerted effort spanning decades.
Alas, in addition to the impediment of our severed links to our own cultural patrimony, we Westerners are afflicted with a short attention span.
Farouk says,
As soon as the bombs started falling on Baghdad, the stock market took off on a prolonged rally.
The war is costing us billions each month, so I can see no long term benefit to the U.S. economy. Certain defense related sectors and spinoffs will profit, as in any war, but the long term effects overall will be devastating to the average American and the economy as a whole.
I think there are better ways to bring islam down than putting lots of boots on the ground long term, but when you do put those troops into a situation, you need clearly defined goals and enough troops to get the job done.
A rift is now reported between Bush and Rumsfeld, according to a Fox News report today. Rumsfeld wants out of Iraq asap, and no longer wants to "nation build." Plus, he wants a smaller military (a BIG mistake, in my opinion) and believes the Iraq war is too big a strain. (I wonder what he thinks a war with China or North Korea would bring??!!!) Fact is, we don't have the troops to take on Iran right now without pushing our military to the breaking point.
According to Sun Tzu, when the enemy fights in such a way that the time and place of battle are unknown, you must lure them out by showing them some perceived advantage. That is the "flypaper" theory.
Another way is to turn terror against the terrorists. Hit them without any warning, wherever they may be. Let them never have any peace, and always be looking over their shoulders! This means when you spot a camp or radical madrassa in Pakistan where the terrorists are training and recruiting, you send in about a hundred cruise missles, or a few B1 bombers, and give 'em hell! If an imam picks up a phone somewhere, he gets a cruise missile through his bedroom window and right up his ass.
If a radical imam speaks out in support of jihad, he gets arrested, along with his family, and 'disappears' for the next 100 years. As I see it, foreigners inciting violence and terrorism in our midst have no free speech rights. Coming to America is a priviledge, not a right.
Now we can manufacture one hell of a lot of cruise missiles and JDAMS, and they could reign down on the islamic world for a long, long time. And if the islamic world cannot restrain its jihadists, then we can make things a lot more miserable on them than they can on us, and for a lot longer time. It just requires the will to do it!
Isolate them, cut them off from civilized nations, and keep them looking at the sky every minute of their lives!
Now if you will all excuse me, I have to go renew my membership in Amnesty International...
"Rumsfeld wants out of Iraq asap, and no longer wants to "nation build."
-- from a posting above
If this is true, it is good news. And Rumsfeld is far more intelligent than either Bush or Rice. My Weekly Standard has its share of thrusting young (or no-longer-quite-so-young) careerists, the Brave Young Conservative cheerleadrs for the Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations Project. One of them is currently baying for the blood of Rumsfeld (I think it is the editor who is the Son of an Important Couple Which Is the Only Way to Distinguish Him from his co-editor). There is also a sufferer from the Weiss-Schartz Syndrome, and a former C.I.A. analyst who not long ago was singing the praises of the Shi'a in Iraq, distinguishing them from the bad old "Wahhabist-Salafists" and failing to realize that Shi'a Islam holds views of Infidels (see Sistani's website, and the list of what is "najis" or unclean) identical to those of the "Wahhabist-Salafists" of which he so thoroughly disapproved. Still a third is an Iranian exile who often comes close to the truth, but as Ali Sina, who delivered a licking to him, points out, he still insists on defending Islam qua Islam, and thereby participates, even if reluctantly, in the continued misleading of Infidels.
Rumsfeld is the most intelligent of the lot -- and in any clash between him and Bush, or him and Rice, over leaving Iraq or not, all those who see Islam as the enemy should support Rumsfeld to the hilt.
beerheads guide to islam
1/3 of muslims hate our guts and make no bones about it..
the second third of muslims hate our guts but maintain low profile until there is wtc to ullulate about..
the third third of muslims are just the go alongs
who wish they were prebyterians
presbytarians
hey beerheads..thats 2/3rds we gotta woory about
A look at the creation of another Islamic republic -- Pakistan.
Anwar Shaikh: The Autobiography of an Apostate
I regret to say that 1947 was the darkest period of my life. We were told that murdering the non-Muslims, seducing their wives, burning their properties, was an act of Jihad, that is Holy War. And Jihad is the most sacred duty of a Muslim because it guarantees him a safe passage to paradise where no fewer than 72 houris, that is the most beautiful virgins, and pearl-like boys wait for him. Such a reward is a great temptation!
It was during the first week of August, 1947, when l was an accounts clerk in the railway office in Lahore that I saw a train pull in from the East Punjab. That was full of mutilated bodies of Muslims, men, women, and children. It had a terrific, horrendous effect on me. When I went home I prayed to the Lord asking Him not to forget my share of houris & boys. Now this is true. I actually prayed and then I took up a club, and a long knife and I went out in search of non-Muslims. Those days were remembered for the curfew orders and everybody seemed terrified of everybody else. I found two men, Sikhs, father and son, the father was perhaps not more than 50, perhaps younger, and his young son. I killed both of them. Next day I did not go to work, I felt nauseated but I wanted to kill some more non-Muslims. I encountered another Sikh at Darabi Road & I killed him too. Often memories of those terrible days haunt my mind, I feel ashamed, and many a times have I shed tears of remorse. If it had not been for my fanaticism, engendered by the Islamic traditions those people might have been alive even today. And I might not have felt the guilt which I still do.
Who told me that the act of Jihad, the act of killing non-Muslims was good? Well, if you read the Koran, you will find that in a certain sura God says that he has bought the lives of the Muslims in return for the rewards of Paradise. They kill non-Muslims and get killed in this war-effort, & the reward for these Muslims is paradise & paradise is a huge garden inhabited by the most beautiful virgins, who live in palaces, & there are countless pretty pearl-like boys to serve them as well.
India and Pakistan: why the mass killings occurred
Partition was a unique period. In many ways it was our Holocaust. The difference being that it didn’t completely run one way – Hindus and Sikhs also slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Muslims. I think the starting point is to understand what “Pakistan” means. “Pak” in Urdu means “Pure”, “Stan” means place. “Pakistan” means “land of the Pure”. Land of the Pure believers of Allah. Now we had a situation where the land of the “pure” believers had a 30 percent population of unbelievers – Hindus and Sikhs. Polytheists to boot. Allah commands the destruction of Polytheism with a particular vengeance through our favourite “holy” book, the Q’uran. So I am surprised that people couldn’t see it coming when they talked about creating Pakistan. It also says something about the delusion of the British and other assorted liberals in not seeing that creating a Muslim state would risk large scale riots.
Once the announcement was made that Pakistan would be created, many Hindus and Sikhs who found themselves on the wrong side of the border tried to talk themselves into believing that life could go on as normal. Although they would be a minority, this wouldn’t matter because they had lived as a minority for centuries- so what was so different? But it was different before because the Brits were ruling India. So politically, the Muslims had little power. Unfortunately, once the Muslims got wind of the coming political windfall, they decided to settle scores with those idol-worshippers that Allah hates with such passion. So the Muslims initiated violence in West Punjab which is now in Pakistan (but was merely part of unified Punjab province earlier).
Once Hindus and Sikhs on the Indian Hindu majority side got wind of Muslim barbarity, they retaliated. In that sense there is nothing unusual about it except scale. The story is almost always the same. Muslims initiate violence, Hindus and Sikhs retaliate. So once mob fury was unleashed, it got out of hand. Pakistan “cleansed” itself of all Hindus and Sikhs (almost all). On the Indian side, anti-Muslim violence was limited to Punjab (where people were not followers of Gandhi). In the rest of the country Muslims were not attacked because Gandhi had issued his “sermon” that Muslims not be harmed. As a result, Muslims remained in India in large numbers (and India now has the largest Muslim population on earth).
http://www.secularislam.org/skeptics/anwar.htm
Posted by: Cornelius at August 14, 2005 03:48 PM
Cornelius'-August 14, 2005 03:48 PM-post above is right.
If the USA cuts-and-runs from Iraq now, the Islamic jihadists will claim victory. The Islamic terrorists will proclaim that through "the blood of their Muslim martyrs" that they were able to defeat the great superpower America. They will proclaim that Islam is greater than the "Great Satan" America and a billion Muslims around the world will likely believe it.
Also, people who support the isolation of the West from the Middle East need to ask themselves, "WHAT THEN"??? IF there was a complete separation of the West from the Muslim world, then what?
Would the 1.2 billion Muslims of the world cease to exist? -Obviously not.
Would Islam and the Quran that commands Muslims to take over the ENTIRE WORLD cease to exist?
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.)
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?
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.
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.
I agree with Freedom1. I think it necessary to say it, because so many posters on this site would disagree with him.
Freedom, Paolo:
"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."
Nobody has the resolve for this and where would the funds come from to pay for such an undertaking?
Nice idea. Just like drilling a hole through the centre of the earth to pump the oil out of Saudi Arabia...
Wow...I didn't see that coming,what a surprise!!!
How can you bring democracy overnight to a country which consists of warring tribes.....it takes a long time and the will to do it and the Americans to take their noses out.
The idea of convincing the rank and file muslim that he is on the wrong theological track is totally unrealistic..impossible actually. I believe the democracy experiment in Iraq will fail but we have showcased our military power to those who doubted it and that should be good for something. Unfortunately, we have also displayed some of our weaknesses and that is not good. Behind the irrational maniac rank and file muslims are the puppeteer muslims who pull the strings and give orders. They are in Iran for the most part and they are very smug about what they think we will do and what we won't do. I would hope they are in for a surprise but I don't know. I wish we had someone with backbone in the White House. He started out with promise and then faded.
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, to cease to allow Muslims to migrate to the Lands of the Infidels, to cease to allow them to have ready access to the medical care, the education, the advanced technology, the armaments, of the Western world, and to force them, as much as possible, not to endure Western programs designed to make them feel that they are welcomed in the West (all those "Muslims in America" programs beamed into the Middle East are absurd).
And what are these objections? They include the usual:
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, and that as the shrill screams in the Western world, from the very people who once demanded that the Americans leave Iraq, now rise in a chorus of "but you have to stay -- you broke it, you have to fix it" and so on are silently ignored, this change in the demands, and the refusal to stay, will show that it is part of a more intelligent strategy. 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. All it takes is for the correct interpretation to be given to that withdrawal, and a thousand other things could be done, from promptly cutting the jizyah to Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and the "Palestinian" Authority (with a nice note suggesting that they conduct a little fund-raising campaign among the rich Arabs of Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and Kuwait), and possibly other acts, from interfering with Al-Jazeera transmissions, to halting all immigration from Muslim countries, to preparing troops for seizing the southern Sudan (and remaining there until a referendum can be held, under the protection of the 5,000 or so American troops that would be there, ready to blast to smithereens in both the southern Sudan and Darfur the assorted Janjaweed, and what regular army the government of Sudan may pride itself on possessing. There may be some shrill cries of triumph ("We drove the Infidel Americans" out) but they will soon be drowned out by the sound of gunfire and explosives, as the Shi'a finaly go after the Sunnis as they will, in ways the Americans could not possibly have contemplated, and then as Sunnis are aided, in turn, from Jordan and Syria and Saudi Arabia, and the Shi'a by Iran. And of course, the arming of the Kurds by the departing Americans, the same interdiction of Arab (or other) forces over Kurdish airspace, will make clear that there is an entirely new, and much more hard-headed, view of matters -- and that the "democracy" nonsense is over.
Other objections seem equally ludicrous, disjointed, and illogical:
"Also, people who support the isolation of the West from the Middle East need to ask themselves, "WHAT THEN"??? IF there was a complete separation of the West from the Muslim world, then what?
"Would the 1.2 billion Muslims of the world cease to exist? -Obviously not.
Would Islam and the Quran that commands Muslims to take over the ENTIRE WORLD cease to exist?"
What indeed would happen? Indeed, "What then" if we leave Iraq -- but I have spelled out what I think would happen. We would cease to be caught in the tarbaby of Iraq -- one which, incidentally, our enemies themselves have recognized it to be, calling Iraq a "logjam" (the term is off, but we know exactly what they mean) for the American Infidels. What would happen would be a civil war, conducted at whatever level the amount of armaments permits, between Sunni and Shi'a (right now the Sunni insurgency is directed at the Americans, who are in the position of suppressing that insurgency on behalf of the Shi'a, even as we tell ourselves we are doing it on behalf of Iraqi "democracy" and that the Sunnis are really against, not Shi'a dominance, but against that same "democracy" -- what we have here is a failure to comprehend, both Islam, and the nature of Iraq.
I have ever denied that there are many Muslims, or that the tenets of Islam will remain immutable. What does that have to do with the results that we desire, which are to weaken Islam, not ourselves, and to exploit Iraq for our own needs, and not for some abstraction that is essentially a dream-palace (not only Arabs have those) of "democracy" that ignores the fact that the Shi'a voted not for "democracy" but for Shi'a power and Shi'a control, which is exactly why the Sunnis stayed away. If anyone seriously thinks Iraq can hold together they are simply mad. It will not happen. It cannot happen. And we should not be moving heaven and earth to prevent that, but be delighted that, despite our own maladroit bwehavior, the forces of Iraqi disintegration are too strong. What is horrific is the misallocation of American resources to prevent the happenign of the very things which we should most ardently desire to have happen -- and which, in any case, will happen, no matter how many more American lives, how much more American money, equipment, morale, attention, are squandered on this unhappy and impossible nation-state of "Iraq" that does not, and cannot, exist.
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. That no one else has seconded, word for word, in public, what I have suggested for the past two years, means nothing. Eventually, many will, and they will pretend that they have been saying the same thing all along.
My insistence that only containment will work is based precisely on the idea that there are too many Muslims (but not 1.2 billion -- that is the kind of figure that Muslims themselves, when they are not busy upping the number all the way to CAIR's preposterous "2 billion," like to use (there are at most 1 billion, and probably not more than 800 million Believers). It is for that reason that a military campaign could not work, though military means will always be necessary to keep depriving Muslim peoples and polities of major weapons projects. But no invasion of Muslim countries, no large-scale encounter with Muslims is either necessary or desirable. It can only bring trouble.
Of course the tenets of Islam are aggressive, and violent, and immutable. And many Muslims seem not to care, or not to wish to deny their self-identification as Believers, despite this. For Arabs, in particular, Islam and ethnic identity are too strongly intertwined for most Arabs, even "secular" (e.g., Kanan Makiya) or Christian Arabs (all those "islamochristians" among the "Palestinian" Arabs), to do anything other than defend Islam when they feel Infidels are attacking it.
Infidels need to inform themselves about Islam, but need not conduct propaganda against Islam among Muslims themselves. We need only do nothing to help delay the day of Muslim reckoning with Islam. We need to stop the jizyah of foreign aid, and to diminish the unmerited, unearned oil wealth that is the result of an accident of geology. The fruits of non-Muslim minds, the medical advances, the educational systems, the technology, and everything else that has been created outside the world of Islam, need not be on offer to that world. Let them figure out what it is about Islam that explains their political despotisms, their economic failures despite being the recipients of the greatest transfer of wealth in human history. Let them ask themselves why for at least a thousand years virtually nothing, no art, no music, little literature (save for the Persians who wrote despite Islam, and against its limiting spirit), no science, no developments in political or moral philosophy. Let's not point it out to Muslims, but at least learn it for ourselves, and wait for the more intelligent people within Islam to reach certain conclusions -- as the most intelligent and morally aware Iranians, having endured 25 years of the Islamic Republic of Iran, are now coming to those anti-Islamic conclusions.
But to state the obvious -- that there are a lot of Muslims, and that the tenets of Islam will not change -- as if this somehow vitiates my suggestion that getting out of Iraq now will help to divide, demoralize, throw into disarray the forces of Islam, and will help to achieve results for Infidels that remaining in Iraq not only will not achieve, but will do the very opposite of what one wishes to achieve. I have reason to believe that this view, expressed consistently and coherently for more than 2 years, is now finding support not only at JW but elsewhere, including certain well-known corridors of power. The numbers of Muslims, and the immutable doctrines of Islam, do not represent a point against what I have suggested, but rather, they are simply two more reasons for why my proposals make sense.
A further objection in the same posting above is all about "terrosim," for we are asked "What then?" if the Western world as much as possible disengages from the dar al-Islam, ceases to offer aid (except selectively, for reasons of clear realpolitik, as in offering military aid to the Kurds in order to help them achieve independence, just as the black Africans in the southern Sudan and Darfur ought to be given such aid, to split the Sudan, to weaken Islam, and to signal to black African Christians that the Americans will help them, and far from being the world's "fastest-growing religion," Islam is on the defensive, and from within the internecine warfare in Iraq will send out ripples that will affect Shi'a in Bahrain, in Saudi Arabia (Hasa Province), in Pakistan, and elsewhere. And those obvious divisions will remain permanently opened, as Iraq itself becomes the fault line between Shi'a and Sunni (in the one place in the world where the Shi'a, though only 20% of Muslims worldwide, are more powerful, and with the oil of Iraq as well as that of Iran, can menace the Saudis, who were the chief beneficiaries of the removal of Saddam Hussein, and need to have another menace put in his place).
"America needs to stay in Iraq and help them to establish a democracy-even if it is just a "quasi-democracy".
Oh no it doesn't. And what is a "quasi-democracy" anyway? Even the "democracy" that Iraq has is already a semidemihemi quaver of a quivering demoracy. How should we "help" them? Should American money be poured into the country, beyond the $300 billion that has been spent in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why? Isn't Iraq capable of borrowing against future oil revenues that will come from the second-largest, or perhaps the largest, oil reserves in the world? And how will this "democracy" reconcile the overwhelming desire of the Kurds to a free and independent Kurdistan, an impulse reflected in the 98% vote by Kurds in favor of such independence? Should they be kept in an artificial "Iraq" against their will? If there is a good reason for this, perhaps. Is there? 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? (By the way, would one be surprised to find the mercurial Khaddafy declaring himself a Berber, and an enemy of the Arabs? It would not surprise me at all).
And why do we want to expend lives, money, materiel, and morale which will simply dry up public support for a much longer conflict, one that will be far longer than the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and require, therefore, a husbanding of all resources -- men, money, material, and above all that morale, both military and civilian, that will need to remain high. There is no good reason.
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 where the collapse of the citizen-army, and even of morale problems among the regular soldiers who have been to Iraq, and know the impossibility of winning either friendship or loyalty from all but a handful of those in Iraq (almost all of them either Kurds, or from the tiny group of Christians, or a very few of the most Westernized and secular Shi'a, whose influence and power are almost non-existent).
The war of self-defense against the Jihad requires that learning curves be made steeper. In Iraq, that curve has been far too flat. It needs to rise to the occasion.
From Hugh's post above:
"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 American government that is routinely villified as mass murderers-for-Iraqi-oil by the American mainstream media as well as by the mainstream media-like the BBC and Al Jazeera-in other countries? 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?
I find it fascinating that Hugh espouses policy goals identical to that of the terrorists, i.e., the precipitous removal of American forces from Iraq.
I also find it fascinating when he advocates cutting and running from Iraq at the very time that he champions the Kurdish right of self-determination, goals that are most definitely incongruous.
The scenario I see played out from an American withdrawal is this:
1) a violent Sunni-Shia civil war in which the outcome will be determined by Shia numerical superiority and Iranian intervention.
2) the new Shia leadership will move to impose Islamism on the country and maintain the country's territorial integrity BY MOVING AGAINST KURDISH INDEPENDENCE.
Kurdistan is land-locked and the US - having withdrawn from the conflict as per suggested by Hugh - will have no access to contiguous airspace in order to provide help to the Iraqi Kurds. In other words, a precipitous US withdrawal will render the Kurds isolated and at the mercy of Shia, Iranian and Turkish ambitions.
Ansar al Islam was a Kurdish Islamist group funded by Iran (and paradoxically supported by Saddam). Should the Kurds face off in the future against the triumphal Iraqi Shias, this group will most likely be reconstituted with the support of the Shia and Iran. They will come to dominate Iraqi Kurdistan, replacing today's progressive, tolerant society with a fundamentalist one. This is the future of the Iraqi Kurds if Hugh's policies are implimented.
As for Hugh's questioning of the nature of a "quasi-Democracy," this is something less than the Western model, perhaps on order of what currently exists in Tunisia, but which is certainly preferable to what exists in Iran (Iraq's ultimate destiny should we listen to Hugh's advice).
Iraq may go the route of fundamentalism anyway, but the jury is still out; the constitution is not yet written. The prospect of Parliamentary Democracy - let alone Kurdish autonomy - are much more viable in the current setting than if the US cuts-and-runs and leaves Iraq to the wolves.
Robert and Hugh have been writing the postmortem on Iraq for months. As far as I'm concerned, the patient is still alive.
Fascinating. I can't add anything intellectual to the educated posts already here, but I want to add something NON-intellectual:
Ugh. How bloody depressing and predictable, that Iraq will be some sort of Islamic Republic. All those people who stood in line to vote are voting--in a way--for Saddam, who will have shape-shifted into another brutal dictator, probably in mullah dress. Ugh.
And our soldiers are fighting so the Iraqis can march backward to AD 546.
Ugh.
Posted by: Cornelius at August 16, 2005 09:07 AM
Yup.
"I find it fascinating that Hugh espouses policy goals identical to that of the terrorists, i.e., the precipitous removal of American forces from Iraq."
--- from a posting above
No, I don't. Not at all. The "policy" I wish to promote is that of doing everything possible to weaken, divide, demoralize, diminish the power and appeal, of Islam. That can best be achieved in Iraq not by continuing to misallocate our own resources, to take our own casualties (dead and wounded), to desert-degrade our own equipment, to spend our own hundreds of billions, to focus absurdly on trivial Iraq when what really matters is Iran's science project and the islamization of Europe through Da'wa and demographic conquest (which must be halted and reversed, whatever it takes, including something akin to the Benes Decree).
I think the "terrorists" -- a vague term for what is in fact two kinds of Sunnis -- the Ba'athist kind, and the Zarqawi kind -- who differ in their enthusiasm for the full Sharia, but who are both groups of Sunni Muslims who wish to keep Sunni Muslims in power, the first group because they had that power, and now they don't, and the second group because they regard Shi'a as Infidels.
Incidentally, it is not true, though it keeps being repeated, that the "terrorists" want us out. I don't think they do. I think Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri regard the American presence in Iraq, as long as it is costly, is useful for world-wide Jihadis. They can learn their trade, they can enjoy killing expensively-trained Americans and inflict damage on America's economy -- they continually emphasize in their own statements the "economic damage" they are inflicting on Infidel America, and this significant aspect of their war keeps being entirely overlooked.
Iraq is a tarbaby for us. Those Muslims who do not wish us well of course want us out, but not right away. Not at all. For them, this tarbaby is costing us. And all they have to do is warn us, as Brer Rabbit warned Brer Bear, to stay away. And what do we do -- we insist not only on going in, but staying right there in the thorny patch, with some of the dumber Brer Bears insisting that we have to "stay the course."
And as for simply leaving the Kurds to be attacked -- whatever makes you think that I advocated leaving without promising to retain air cover for the Kurds, and leaving whatever weaponry is left in their hands (with the promise of resupply). Of course I think the Kurds should be supported, and to the hilt. Why misstate what I have said in a hundred postings?
No, we can leave this Tarbaby, and in leaving, coolly exploit -- and even exploit those who have been on the "anti-war pro-Islamic left" who will have a hard time appealing to most Americans when we do leave -- very few people will be inclined to listen when that left starts to insistently sputter "But we can't leave, we broke it and we have to fix it."
We didn't break it. We tried to fix it, nonetheless. Now it's time to go. Goodbye.
And let the troops and their families sing, and all of America sing, aloud or to ourselves, as those assorted Johnnies come marching home:
"Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
My, oh my, what a wonderful day
Plenty of sunshine headin' my way
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
And that's the truth. Its actual.
Everything will be satisfactual.
Hugh,
If you don't believe that the our Islamist enemies (and their supporters on the Left) want us cutting and running from Iraq, then I have to seriously question your political judgment. Withdrawal is their principle stated demand as they use the spectre of mass terror (London, Madrid and Iraq itself) to blackmail us into leaving.
As for the Kurds, having a presence on the ground in Iraq during this period of transition is the best guarantee to preserve their political autonomy. Your suggestion that we walk away from the conflict and then, if or when the Kurds are threatened by unfolding events, we re-intervene from the air (by violating Iraqi airspace) doesn't make a whole lot of sense...politically or militarily.
Furthermore, a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq will no doubt have pronounced geo-political repercussions in the region. Allies of America will undoubtedly re-evaluate their relations with us as our lack of resolve and staying power becomes apparent for all to see. There is every possibility that both the Kuwaitis and Qataris, not wanting to antagonize the emerging Iran-Iraq axis, will ask us to leave, depriving us of foward bases from which to deal with contingencies such as an existential threat to Iraqi Kurdistan.
I also think your suggestion that we disengage from the Muslim world and terminate all but a minimum of civilizational interaction is not only lacking in feasability in our global age, but is - like your position on Iraq - confluent with the aspirations of Bin Ladin and his ilk. Why deliver the entire Muslim world to the extremists on a silver platter by declaring them collectively personna non gratta? Why deprive the Muslim world of the civilizing influence of the West?...the technological genie is already out of the bottle insofar as WMDs are concerned.
While there might not be a moderate Islam, there are indeed moderate Muslims. Turkey and Tunisia are examples of societies that have much more in common with the West than with the Saudis. To suggest we write off the hundreds of millions of Muslims who are potential allies in this struggle is very short-sighted. Certainly the majority of Muslims in the world are ambivalent in their attitudes towards terror vis-a-vis the West. But to push them into the waiting arms of the extremists as the conflict matures is a mistake in my humble opinion.
As for facets of Sharia appearing in the new Iraqi constitution, while this is unfortunate it is not the utter catastrophe it's being portrayed as. Some are even suggesting that Iraq was preferable under Saddam because he had embraced secular law. This is intellectual rigidity in the extreme. Jordan has facets of Sharia in its civil law, yet nobody can claim that Jordan is not a moderate country and a stauch ally of the USA, while the secularist Saddam was an arch foe with the blood of hundreds of thousands on his hands, unbridled imperial ambitions and undeniable megalomaniacal impulses that promised future bloodshed.
Hugh, I find your world-view uncompromising, unrealistic and extreme. You seem to want the Muslim world to degenerate into fratricide and bloodletting, even though this is certain to empower those elements most committed to expressions of violence, with all the attending worldwide repercussions.
I feel strongly that we must engage the Muslim world in order to help guide its development to the best of our ability, just as we must stay on in Iraq until the Iraqis can provide for their own security.
I agree that the "democratic domino theory" in Iraq has bombed.
But I think those who say Saddam would have prevented the islamization have selective memory. They forget that Saddam himself already played the islamic card before the invasion. Remember who added the "Allah is great" to the Iraqi flag? Remember who fired rockets on Israel? Remember who violated the no-fly sanctions by flying Mecca "pilgrims" across the South, daring the allies to shoot them down? Remember who invited Wahabi preachers into Iraq?
Too late to cry over spilled beans. At this point, it would be best to withdraw from Iraq and let the place erupt in civil war.