Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the vacuity of the idea that dhimmi Westerners have a responsibility to rebuild Muslim countries:
Does the United States, and the West in general, have a responsibility to fix what is broken in Afghanistan? As a poster to this website put it recently: “The only option I see is for the armed forces of the western nations fully occupy afghanistan, subdue them and colonize them for at least two generations and teach them civilized life."Absolutely not. That would end, once and for all, any chance of sensible support, within the Western world, for dealing with the worldwide Jihad, and especially with the problems of Da'wa and demographic conquest within the Western world. What happens in Europe is far more important than whether primitive tribesmen, who will hardly be weaned away from Islam by Infidels, fight with each other or do not fight with each other.
The Pentagon should right now be arranging only to supply local warlords who may, in promoting themselves, do our bidding. Let Afghanistan collapse into warring fiefdoms, as long as those warlords keep Al Qaeda and the Taliban at bay. And they can do so, if they are supplied with weaponry, and if there are on the ground only Afghanis or others of interest (for example, soldiers from Tadjikistan). Others who are also worried about the Taliban can at the same time supply what they can (e.g. Kazakhstan might help with American bases for the odd bombing run, and with some of that oil money as well).Resources must be husbanded, not squandered. The American public will lose all interest -- the very interest it has been so hard to sustain -- in fighting a war of self-defense against the Jihad if the American army is now deployed in large numbers to Afghanistan. In fact, the Infidel presence in Afghanistan should be reduced to the point of near-nothingness. As long as America is seen as the source of money, money, money (as it is seen in Iraq), plausible locals will insist on the Americans remaining, and doing much of the fighting, and all this ridiculous "rebuilding" which has nothing to do with limiting the power of the global Islamic jihad.
We can only lose, we can only become confused, when we begin to think that maybe this or that group is composed of people who hold to Western sensibilities. We, the Infidels, and especially the naive Americans, are permanently out of our depth when we are dealing with those for whom smiles and deception are a way of life.
Instead of working to rebuild Afghanistan or any other Muslim polity, we should work to divide and demoralize the forces of the global jihad. We can do this in many ways, among the chief being by pointing out the obvious. For example, we should be pointing out all the ways in which Islam is a vehicle for an Arab supremacist ideology, one which requires non-Arabs to exhibit a kind of historical amnesia about, or indifference to, or contempt for, all that is pre-Islamic about their past.
By refusing to help -- helping with the Jizyah of foreign aid, helping with all that rebuilding -- Infidels can do more to help themselves. In the end, this will also help the peaceful Muslims around the world. Let them discover, over the next many decades, what has been done to their societies by the inshallah-fatalism of Islam, and by the habit of mental submission that is encouraged by Islam, and by the willingness to endure despotism because in Islam political power cannot be located in the will of mere people, but only in the Will of Allah as codified in the Shari'a or Holy Law of Islam -- which mere mortals, men who count for nothing except to the extent that they submit to the revealed will of Allah, can only hope to approximate.
Let Muslims themselves begin slowly (as Kemal Ataturk did, and as others have) to understand that all of their political, economic, social, intellectual, and moral failures, of their states, of their societies, whether in Dar al-Islam or Dar al-Harb, are a direct result of various Islamic doctrines and assumptions.
That cannot be imposed by Infidel armies. That can best occur by the U.S. limiting its contacts with Muslim countries, and not helping them out. It can best be accomplished by forcing them to help each other out, or to dissolve into internecine warfare, Muslim against Muslim.
Meanwhile, as that spectacle of internecine warfare and endless Muslim cruelty is on display, even those in Western Europe who have lost all sense of themselves, and who have permitted themselves to allow their own worst mental pathologies -- anti-Americanism and antisemitism -- to be exploited cleverly by an army of mujahedin and their ideological collaborators (or simply venal Western hirelings of Muslim states and interests), may come to their senses, and at long last strive to undo and reverse their own intellectual and moral errors, errors that have harmed not only the United States and Israel but above all, themselves.
I could't agree more!
As a life long labour supporter I can assure you that I , along with many of my fellow britons shall be voting for the British National Party at the next election to get rid of these dangerous apologist cowards who are giving away our once proud country - there is a sea change coming!!
No one wants to be "fixed" by someone else. In this case, those that are being "fixed" are seen as "filthy unbelievers," unworthy to be among Muslims, not fit "to have any say in the affairs of men." Thus, being "fixed" by such people is really an insult and a humiliation, hated and resented. We will take your money and someday will repay the favor by annihilating you for your impudence. In this case, "no good deed goes unpunished."
In the early going after 911, I believe I recall Secretary Rumsfeld saying something along the lines that, "this is not going to be about nation building." Almost immediately it became about nation-building instead of search and destroy. As soon as the U.S. decided it had to foster and protect perceived "interests" in Afghanistan, it was immediately on the defensive and has remained so ever since. We need to concentrate on identifying and eliminating as many enemies of America as we can, then leave, with the realization that in two or three years we may have to repeat the process.We must let the nationals of the coutries where we conduct prophylactic military operations worry about things like sewers and electrical grids instead of spending our blood and treasure doing so. Shoot and scoot. Force our enemies to feel that they will not be safe anywhere, because we will do our utmost to track them down and destroy them.
Mr. Fitzgerald, how do you suggest we go about lending arms to the various factions in Afghanistan (and the wider Middle East) in a way that would ensure a.) that the arms do not fall into the wrong hands and are eventually used against us, such as how we armed the Mujahadin originally in Afghanistan and b.) that the public would support such an adventure that is essentially a policy of conspiring to support horrible human vs. human violence?
I'm not saying whether I disagree or not, but it seems that inevitably when we try to arm one faction against another and let them attack each other because it is in our interests, we later on down the pipe are targeted by these same weapons... not to mention the messy political scandal that comes with it. Iran-Contra, anyone?
I think you're on course with the suggestions about cutting financial support of Muslim countries. That point is well made and logical and I am just waiting in earnest for it to ever happen... however, you're going to have to work harder to convince me that arming any faction in that part of the world is going to be a sound-idea both short-term and long-term.
"Subdue them and colonise them for at least two generations and teach them the civilized life"
But Hugh,will two generations can undo what is imbibed in them for 15 centuries? Their mentor,Mohammed knew fulwell the knack of brain washing his followers to such an extent,they can disown thier own mother , father,country,and their former faiths. This can be seen ,when a Belgeum white convert to Islam caught in the nic of the moment,while getting herself ready for a suicidal bombing mission.The brain-washing tchnique is so effective that even the once more peacful people of Indonesia,before they embraced Islam is now competing with the Soudis in Bombing activities such as the Bali Bombings.
Then there is the ourcry from the World Muslim Umma that a Muslim nation has been hyjacked by the Christian west,and they will start their suicidal mission arround the non-Muslim nations.
Just like you cannot sreighten up a dog's tail,you cannot civilise a practicing Islamist-(unless,he comes out of it ,like Dr.Ali Sina,Warrak,and the rest of Ex-Muslims).
The West-particularly America has spent billions of dollors not only to 'civilise' these people,but also the amount spent on terrorist protections,extra checking in the Poets of entry etc.I think it is a shere waste of tax payer's money.
The best option is outright uprising of the whole world of Infedals against the Umma.Anyway this is going to happen in the near future.
"how do you suggest we go about lending arms to the various factions in Afghanistan (and the wider Middle East).."
-- from a posting above
Thousands of Stinger missiles were given to the Afghani mujahedin. One hopes that most of them are no longer in working order. Whatever is given should not include any advanced technology. No Stinger missiles, no airplanes, no helicopters. Guns and ammunition, selectively deployed, to those who might, either for ethnic reasons (e.g., Tadzhik vs. Pashtun) or religious reasons (Shi'a Hazara against Sunni Pashtun) or other reasons (the will-to-dominate of a local warlord), usefully do on the cheap what would cost a fortune, keep the American public and the government giving undue attention to the merely "military" parts of this war, which is not in the main a matter of the military, because the instruments of the Jihad are not, in Western Europe, mainly military, but the use of the "wealth" weapon, the "pen, speech" weapon, and the newest addition, demographic conquest from deep within the Lands of the Infidels.
In the Middle East, advanced military technology should be available only to the victim of the Lesser Jihad, and the more militarily powerful Israel is, and ideally is perceived by the Arabs and other Muslims as impregnable, so that the doctrine of "Darura" (Necessity) can be invoked to justify a failure to conduct military attacks, will both preserve the local peace, and also allow Israel to tie down local Muslim forces should they wish to be deployed elsewhere. For example, in the water-war with Ethiopia that should start to heat up in the next decade, it is important to prevent Egypt from expanding further southward, via some kind of semi-suzerainty in the Sudan, all the way to Ethiopia. An Israel which is perceived to be allied with Ethiopia, and which is perceived to threaten, on any number of pretexts, to re-take and never give back again (it has already done so twice, for the most vacuum-packed promises)the entire Sinai.
Arms, and training, might be given to Maronites in Lebanon, and to Assyrians (those still left in Iraq), and perhaps special provisions can be made to intervene to protect Christian villages in Syria and Iraq where necessary -- or at least to help put them in zones where the local Muslims (as possibly the Kurds) would owe us so much that we could extract a promise to protect local Christians in return for the aid we do extend to, say, those Kurds.
As for Muslim forces, it is not inconceivable that should the Yemenis be fighting the Saudis, to give the former a little boost, or to allow Bahraini Shi'a to acquire some rifles -- but really, this is something they can do on their own. Kurds should be aided, and in Iran, those who are likely to cause trouble for the Islamic Republic of Iran might receive some minor aid -- rifles again, jeeps, and so on. Baluchis, Arabs in Khuzistan, Kurds in northwestern Iran (right next to a newly-independent Kurdistan), even Azeris, could receive some modest aid. The best thing would be to wipe out, at one fell swoop, the Iranian air force, so that it cannot be used to suppress such local movements for autonomy or even independence.
Why should this be so difficult to consider? It would seem to be far easier a matter than keeping 140,000 American troops in Iraq and 20,000 in Afghanistan, at horrific expense. Divide and conquer. Divide and weaken. Divide and demoralize. Instability and internecine warfare throughout the Muslim world should be our goal -- not, as at present, apparently the very opposite.