Hugh Fitzgerald sent this for posting yesterday, so mentally date it still as being posted on June 16. It begins in the White House and ends in a house at 7 Eccles Street, but it's the arrival, not the journey, that matters.
Yes. At long last an intrepid Muslim, writing from deep within the Dar al-Islam, a Pakistani named Reza Azmi, has published an article in The Daily Times of Pakistan, “Thinking Aloud: ‘an archaic incongruity’?” that asymptotically approaches the grim truth about Islam. For those just beginning to find out about Islam, it should be a welcome place to start. That is, it is a good place to start for all those now making policy, or criticizing it, as it applies to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, or to Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Malaysia, or to the endless Arab siege of Israel, or to India always threatened with Muslim mayhem and murder, or to helplessly Islamizing Western Europe, or to menaced Armenia and Georgia, or to the Caucasus, or to oil-rich Kazakhstan, to -- well, as that policy now applies to anywhere or everywhere, about almost anything from weapons sales to energy policy to foreign currency holdings to immigration and naturalization rules, this article can be read in public, can be assigned in courses, can be distributed to one and all. For this article tells something like the truth.And thus there should be none of that crippling fear that Muslims might complain about its contents, for it can innocently be said “but a Muslim wrote it.” And then, once this article has been circulated up and down, other ways and sources for learning about Islam, other than what the army of apologists suggests (including those President Bush apparently relied on just a year or two ago, including a professor of law from Ohio who uttered one series of howlers after another about Islam), will present themselves. Ibn Warraq and Ali Sina and Walid Shoebat and Nonie Darwish and many other defectors from Islam should be read. They are ready to share what they know of how Islam operates on the brain, of how it is inculcated, of how it suffuses an entire society, affecting even those who may never attend a mosque, who may even be lax or entirely unobservant but who will rally round, will lie to protect and to promote Islam, in ways that only those who have done it themselves, and testified about it, or who have seen close family members do it (against all reason and good sense), can really know.
The works of the leading scholar of dhimmitude, Bat Ye’or, should be thoroughly digested by the those who most need to comprehend what is happening -- not merely to Christians in Iraq or Lebanon or Egypt, but to Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and Buddhists and Hindus in Malaysia and Indonesia, so that the remarkable similarity in treatment of non-Muslims, through time and space, can be understood, so that the whole thing begins to make sense. And the books by Robert Spencer intended for a mass audience – Islam Unveiled, Onward Muslim Soldiers and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), as well as The Myth of Islamic Tolerance, can be supplemented, for some, by the examples of classical Western scholarship on the Jihad that have been collected by Andrew Bostom in The Legacy of Jihad.
Copies of all of these things should be given out to officers and men. They should be available in libraries on army bases. They should be distributed in the State Department, and not only to the Middle Eastern desks. They should be made available, paid for by the Pentagon, in tens of thousands of copies, for all the member states of NATO – and if Turkey objects, Turkey can simply not be sent a shipment. After all, in Turkey they already know all about Islam. They should be sure to reach the desks of those commentators who, until now, have carefully tiptoed around the subject of Islam altogether, which now limits their usefulness -- at least Fouad Ajami is clever enough to recognize that, though what he is prepared to say and write about this, and whether he is prepared to do the necessary study before speaking and writing on this matter, will be the test of his life.
Let copies be lying around Fort Monroe; let Generals Casey and Vines (he of the Esposito-composed reading list), and Ham and Kimmett (Abizaid, the keenest of the lot on these matters, probably doesn’t need any reading list or books sent to him) make this the subject of their summer reading – that and nothing else. And let them read and re-read, until it all sinks in. A week or two spent with the Articles and Archives at Jihad Watch might also help. Break the silence, break the taboos, end the ignorance, end the talk about “the war on terror,” end the talk about spreading freedom, start talking about defending against the Jihad and weakening the forces of Jihad. Stop the nonsense about “extremists” who have “hijacked” something, stop the talk about “tolerance” and “peace” in this (“noble,” “great,” fill in your false epithet here) “religion,” stop all of it. Stop saying “they hate us” for this or “they hate us” for that. They “hate us” on Wall Street or in the Pentagon or on Elm Street or Main Street for the same reason that “they hate” a Hindu villager beaten to death for being outside a mosque in Bangladesh when Friday Prayers have just ended, or a Thai monk who happens to take care of a Buddhist Temple in southern Thailand, or any number of others, of every nation, of high and low degree: because they are Infidels. Infidels live in monarchies and parliamentary democracies and dictatorships; it doesn’t matter; they are still Infidels. Infidels may have contributed not a penny to Muslims, or may have bombed fellow Infidels to protect Muslims, as some thought advisable, in Bosnia and Kosovo. They may be quick to aid Muslims after every earthquake or tsunami, with far more aid, delivered with far greater dispatch, than all the Muslim states put together. None of that matters: they are still Infidels. Residents of “Infidel” lands may be devout Christians or Jews, Hindus or Buddhists, or people entirely indifferent, even hostile to all beliefs. Doesn’t matter: Infidels all.
And how does the Administration take this in, and what does it make of it? It doesn’t take; it doesn’t make. So far the stated goal of this Administration is to create, in Iraq, a unified, prosperous, able-to-police-and-defend-itself nation-state. It can’t be done, not short of trillions of dollars and decades of making Iraq “our project.” And at the end of it all, what would we have? An Arab Muslim country (with the Kurds largely subdued, like the Berbers in Algeria), inevitably hostile to us because hostility to Infidels is not tangential to Islam, not something that can be sloughed off out of gratitude for all the money we have spent on them, but is inculcated through every other passage in the Qur’an and the Hadith, through the example of Muhammad, through the commentaries and works of every Muslim scholar, historian, jurisconsult since Islam was invented 1350 years ago. And the notion that Iraq could serve as a “model” for Sunni Arab states, when those Sunni Arabs will never reconcile themselves to the transfer of power in Iraq from Sunnis to Shi’a that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by the Americans made inevitable, shows the depths of ignorance and failure to think things through. Administration policy has been formulated despite the actual hatreds in Iraq, despite the hostility toward Infidels inculcated from birth, and reinforced by everything in the society suffused with Islam, despite the inshallah-fatalism that explains the failure to do much more than adopt a “wake-me-when-it’s-over” attitude as American soldiers struggle and risk their lives, and spend American money to build a country for people who, most of them, do not care if we live or die, and in fact might take great pleasure, many of them, in our dying. If the stated goals of the Administration in Iraq fail to weaken Islam, then those are the wrong goals, and need not be pursued. And if, to make things still worse, those goals if achieved (a stable, harmonious, unified nation-state of Iraq) would not only will not weaken Islam, but would prevent the occurrence of the very things (sectarian and ethnic hostilities) that are guaranteed to divide and demoralize and therefore to weaken Islam, then something in the goals, something about the policies pursued, is not right.Two things, beneficial to the Infidels if harmful even to “moderate” Muslims, can be the outcome – if permitted – in Iraq. The first is Sunni-Shi’a warfare. It may be low-level. It may be confined to a few places in Iraq. But more likely, given the kind of violence that seems to come naturally to Muslim peoples and societies, and is usually held in check either by a despotic regime that monopolizes violence, or by conditions of life that are so onerous that there is no time and no money for large-scale warfare, it will have no end. And because the Shi’a population is three times the size of the Sunnis, but the Sunnis have the long military experience, and have within helpful reach Sunni sympathizers, the very rich Gulf Arabs, and volunteers ready both from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to Egypt, Jordan, and Syria (where the Alawi regime will be glad to allow Sunnis or Shi’a Arabs safe transfer through Syria – that regime must accommodate the “real” Muslims in this way in order to limit domestic Muslim opposition), it will have no easy resolution.
The second possible outcome is an independent Kurdistan. An independent Kurdistan would inspire Kurds in both Iran and Syria (two enemies of the United States). Their unsettlement might further inspire other, non-Kurdish minorities in Iran, until the Islamic Republic of Iran was so busy dealing here and there with "insurgents" that it would have little time for anything else. Such insurgencies could have especially worrisome consequences for Iran if either the Azeris (30% of the population) or the Arabs or “Khuzistanis,” who live where all the oil is produced, were not promptly and ruthlessly and permanently suppressed.
And then there is the effect of both kinds of developments outside Iraq. Will not the Sunnis and Shi’a outside be tempted to send money (as the Sunnis did to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War), volunteers (with those from Iran, and the Hezbollah in Lebanon, being matched by Sunni Muslim warriors from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria), and materiel (assuming the Americans take theirs home, as they should, save for whatever is left for the Kurds)? Is it likely or unlikely that the Shi’a in Bahrain, who constitute 70% of the population, will not be inflamed further against their Sunni ruler? Or that the Sunnis in Pakistan will continue to attack Shi’a, or that the same thing may happen in Afghanistan, as it did when the Taliban and Sunni warlords would massacre the Shi’a Hazara? And what will happen to the almost evenly-matched Sunni and Shi’a populations in the Yemen? And what will the Shi’a who live in Al-Hasa, the Eastern Province, the oil-bearing province, of Saudi Arabia do, and what will it cost the Saudis in money and time and attention to deal with that?
And in North Africa, will not the Berbers begin to learn from the Kurdish example that they, too, as a non-Arab Muslim people, can undo the linguistic and cultural and political imperialism of the Arabs who use Islam as a vehicle for such imperialism? And among the more advanced Malays, and Indonesians, surely the same resentments at seeing their own people mimic seventh-century Arabs, take Arab names, copy Arab customs, bow in the direction of Arabia, invent false Arab lineages, slavishly copy or emulate the Arabs in every respect – which Islam encourages – will or could emerge from the noisy creation, and attempt to squash, a free Kurdistan?
Will President Bush finally see the need to do this? Will he finally understand how irrelevant and pointless is his present definition of “victory” in Iraq (a nation-state, stability, harmony, and so on) to the only goal that matters: weakening the camp of Jihad, dividing and demoralizing it, using up its resources? Does Bush at long last realize that the urge he and his supporters demonstrate, to simply fend off the missing-the-point criticism of political opponents in and out of Congress, prevents him, prevents all of them, from seeing the situation as it is? Are they ready to take in the unanswerable criticism from those who are not appeasers, those whose criticisms are based on the belief that Jihad is permanent and so must be the defense against it, and that this is not merely or mainly a “war on terror,” that the instruments of Jihad are various, and money, Da’wa, and demographic conquest must all be countered, and that the Americans have been squandering rather than husbanding resources for a long war?
The Americans have been doing this in this manic and messianic belief that it is up to the United States to train and equip Sunni Arabs and Shi’a Arabs and Kurds as recruits for what those Americans keep thinking and hoping will be an “Iraqi” army and an “Iraqi” police force, and that this army and this police force will in turn support a state that somehow -- it is never quite clear how -- will help to strengthen or support the Americans and other Infidels, in quite unspecified ways. And that furthermore, Iraq will somehow be a Light Unto the Muslim Nations that will be inspired by its example, by the example of vote-counting that transferred power from Sunnis to Shi’a, that formally recognized and accepted Kurdish autonomy, that even suggested that political legitimacy was to be located in the votes of mere men, no longer the slaves of Allah, but individuals exercising free choice (or so it was believed by some).
Will Bush, a few months away from the fifth anniversary of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, finally stop prating about Islam as a “tolerant” and “peaceful” faith, stop prating about “Jihadist extremists,” stop spending all his time building up an Arab state and an Arab army? Will he stop trying to prevent the widening of those ethnic and sectarian fissures? Will he, finally, stop permitting American policy to be influenced by considerations of wishing not to offend, or perhaps even wishing to accommodate by doing the bidding of, those affable and plausible “moderate” Muslims who, having their own ill-concealed fish to fry, have so successfully inveigled the Americans first into invading Iraq on the assumption that Americans would have no further problems, but would be greeted as liberators? Now these plausible "moderates" have continued with the generals, promising all sorts of good-faith cooperation with American efforts. What they are really attempting to do is to manipulate the American soldiers for their own ends, to help them in their jockeying for power and for money, and to keep the Americans around for as long as possible on the theory (and it is a good one) that the longer they stay the more military equipment, the more aid, the more dollars will come floating down to various Iraqis with their hands carefully out to catch them. Only here and there, at home, does someone shout the obvious, unheeded: that the $400 billion already committed to past and future costs in Iraq could have been much better spent on energy programs that might have cut Saudi Arabia and other OPEC funders of the worldwide Jihad off at the knees.
Answers to the three questions above remain: No. No. And No.
But let's pretend that on this very day, June 16, 2006, a spirit of someone else, not a sentimentalist insisting that everyone is the same, that everyone “wants freedom,” but someone with a greater familiarity with men and events, and with the ability and time to read deeply, enters into the soul of Bush, just the way that Lily Tomlin enters the body of Steve Martin in that famous movie. There’s a name for it. Met-him-pike-hoses. Yes, that’s it. Metempsychosis.
Newly possessed, Bush sits at his desk in his darkened White House office, and thinks. And as he thinks, those three questions asked above, the three questions that everyone in official Washington should be asking -- come into his head. And they disturb him. He can’t quite make sense of what to say, because the questions make sense and what should he think? So he stands up and goes to the window, and looks out on the Rose Garden. A particular lushness today to the rose bush nearest to that window, the one that had been planted on June 16, 1904, having arrived in a package addressed to “President Theodore Roosevelt and the American People” by a grateful resident of distant Gibraltar, one Moses Montefiore Halevi, and his wife Sarah Virag Halevi (the card is preserved in the records of the White House Gardener). Just look at those roses.
And as he stares at that gift of Rosa gibraltarica var.joycei in the garden, by long placement now practically an American official rose he starts to think and then starts to fall into a revery by night it would be and isn’t the garden just the way its only natural the way gardens are at this season all abloom o god of heaven there’s nothing like nature and that bush which keeps blazing oboylanly this year as every year since in that big house and even before and his heart is going like mad and now he remembers when he was a young boy and he tripped over the flowerpots in the first house that must be where was it now in houston was it christmas time and always the same poinsettia and bang it goes and the pot and someone speaking spanish cleaned it up and then when he was a boy at andover and he knocked over the flowerpots this time geraniums still the red or even redder but where was it was it outside the addison gallery in the fancy display for the parents that special parents weekend just before thanksgiving and they beat exeter 12-6 and old saltonstall came down with his team and introduced himself and the walkers and the ellises were there too and when even he came but not to stay on the green had to stay at the inn too many secret servicemen so then coming home from the game and the tailgating and the beer and the girls and the cans and the cans of it and all he wanted was to take a pee or something and you couldn’t see a thing in the dark and then crash and smash and everyone laughing and then the latin master yelling old fittsie was it well as well him as another always going on about the greeks or the romans or something but what good is all that nowadays and all of them not just fittsie always yelling weren’t they all of them at him probably just didn’t like the politics of the da because he never deserved it did he da that’s what the lady called him the one from county galway who came to clean it all up afterwards and then when he was a young man not like those other ones those skinnymalinks the clinton or the kerry or whatever and the day he practically binked over at yale another one of those pots and these with roses roses roses all the way near the library was it this time coming back from skullandbones when it was three sheets to the wind and someone from avellino or somewhere they’re all the same aren’t they those people who do all those things for you just when you need them and that’s why let them all in because they are so grateful when you smile at them and they cleaned it right up but now it was different he was a man and men were supposed to clean up their own flowerpots and their own messes here and there and everywhere even far away because could it be that everyone decided they didn’t want freedom even when handed it on a silver platter and how silly and some people don’t know what’s good for them like a cow down in waco that won’t go into the right pasture with all the best hay and you have to thump it and when people don’t want what we all want of course we do don't we they just spoil it for the rest of us all the other cows and what’s wrong with them anyway and why do we have to keep thumping them and why not and why can’t they be just like us that only makes sense doesn’t it we’re all brothers or cows under the skin and after all and at long last maybe its time for george bush to come to his senses so he will and he will whisper to himself the answers to the three questions your goodself asked above and here they are and if you don’t like them or if you do well it remains to be seen doesn’t it so perhaps you can now put a rose in your own hair and listen as he tells you yes he says yes he will Yes.
Did anybody else recognize the very last paragraph of Hugh's ranting anti-Bush political hit-piece above as the longest sentence ever written in the history of the English language?
I've contacted the good folks at Guiness Book of World Records. They will be holding a special ceremony at Jihadwatch Headquarters a week from Tuesday to bestow the honorific on Mr. Fitzgerald. The award comes with a courtesy copy of "The structure of English;: An introduction to the construction of English sentences" by Charles Fries.
Congratulations!
@Mahdi Al-Dajjal:
any opinion towards the topic?,
...or just more stupid ranting by someone who ran out of logic reasoning ??
" Break the silence, break the taboos, end the ignorance, end the talk about “the war on terror,” end the talk about spreading freedom, start talking about defending against the Jihad and weakening the forces of Jihad. "
Posted By Hugh above,
Hugh;
A good post, and the quote above is in my view also part of the problem. The pillar of Jihad is but one in the construct of Islam. I understand that this site is J.W., but the focus on Jihad only is in many ways like the "War on terror", a defocus.
If it is not seen as part of Islam, you can say these who do Jihad are the "tiny minority", the "extreme" part. But they are following the passages from the koran, and this is the bible of islam. Jihad is part of Islam.
By this, it becomes clear who is behind the mask.
Islam is the enemy.
@Mahdi Al-Dajjal:
Re: ...longest sentence ever...
Maybe not. There are some tax laws, patents, EULAs (thanks to Bill G), performing artist contracts n such that may have it beat.
Islofob,
For some reason or other which Robert and Hugh don't want to tell us, they want to maintain a gingerly distinction, ever-hovering (asymptotically, as Hugh would say) on unification, between Islam and Jihad. As you and I know, an Islam without Jihad is like a day without sunshine: i.e., it makes silly nonsense to maintain any distinction. However, I think you and I would both agree that at the end of the day, Jihad Watch is the closest thing to a cigar we have, and for that we should be asymptomatically grateful.
Well, cosmicAvenger, I have an opinion.
My general opinion of Hugh hasn't changed: While his knowledge of Islam is superb, he seems less interested in the realities of world geopolitics. As a result, he ends up making the same type of mistake Bush and his neo-con supporters made: inventing a grandiose theory of how to fight the Islamic jihad while being impervious to contrary facts.
Hugh's idea that the U.S. can remain aloof from, let alone encourage, violence among various Islamic factions as a way of weakening them and strengthening us, I've already dissected in my other posts. You can search through past JW articles for my objections, so I don't have to keep repeating myself.
As for allowing, let alone encouraging, Kurdish independence, Hugh ignores the fact that even before the Iraq War started, the U.S. already pledged to Turkey that we would not allow that. For obvious reasons: Kurdish independence would entice the Kurds in Turkey to secede from Turkey, threatening the very territorial integrity of Turkey. That pledge was a part of the diplomatic horse-trading that the Bush Administration did in order to get other nations to sign up to our war on terror. How does Hugh suggest we doublecross and stab in the back Turkey, an ally of the U.S. and fellow member of NATO, without huge diplomatic consequences? How do we allow Kurdish independence to go forward if Turkey claims it will threaten their territorial integrity, something the NATO Charter is specifically designed to prevent?
What Hugh and Robert need is to have their recommendations reviewed by recognized experts on world power politics. Somebody like a Henry Kissinger or a Jeane Kirkpatrick or even a Norman Schwartzkopf, who can explain to them what the realities of world politics are. During World War II, even General Eisenhower had to be a politician and diplomat as well as a soldier, holding together a fractious and squabbling coalition of nations to win the war. Just committing to fighting jihad is not enough. One also has to explain how to do it in the context of the 190 mutually suspicious and power-hungry nations on this planet.
OMG. That was an hilarious Joycean portrayal of Bush. I dont know whether to laugh or cry, though. I hope it is inaccurate, but it is an all too plausible (and amazingly insightful) version of the way the man "thinks." Those afflicted with Bush Derangement Syndrome are kooky and have it all wrong. The man merely has shallows which run deep.
Steven L.,
I think Hugh is more interested in how long he can make his sentences for his groupies to gaggle over than he is about anything else. Although lately, it seems that when Hugh climbs onto his soapbox for another rant of Bush-bashing, he gets swept up in the moment and let's his derangement syndrome get the best of him and he simply is unable to hide his stripes. That's unfortunate. Expect his rhetoric to become even more political as the voting season approaches. Makes one wonder if the DNC and/or George Soros is now backing this site. Oh well.. it was good for awhile there.
Mahdi
I wrote: "...like a day without sunshine: i.e., it makes silly nonsense to maintain any distinction."
I forgot about cloudy, or partially cloudy, days: so a day without sunshine is not "silly nonsense", nor is it even necessarily an unpleasant thing; Hugh and Robert likely enjoy settling in before a roaring fire with a glass of sherry on hand and an erudite book, on blustery days when odd rains might spatter the study's windowpane. I'd have done better to employ a twist to the old saw to go against the grain, by writing "...like a day without sun." Now, that -- ever since Day One (cf. Genesis 1:3-5) -- is more like the silly nonsense of an asseveration that severs the un-sun-derable.
"I think you and I would both agree that at the end of the day, Jihad Watch is the closest thing to a cigar we have, and for that we should be asymptomatically grateful."
Posted by: Television
Television;
And right you are. This site of Jihadwatch, and Robert,Hugh,etc.. is so needed at this time, would not change a thing. It is a leader shouting to all from the mountians, to all who will hear.
To me, Islam should always be attached to Jihad, simply because it is. It helps those see who know less about it, or helps to clear the path to the door of the enemy.
Islam must fix itself from within (doubtful), or it will be done by us "infidels" for the good of the world by destroying the faith of Islam.
l am disappointed with rants on Bush, he is not perfect, but merely a human, and is at least trying to clean up the problem. so far there are NO Democrats politicians that can even come close to labeling the terrorsit as how Bush has done this.
Hugh was a stop on all immigration from muslim countries, that would impossible in this PC environment. Bush is distablizing somewhat the politics inthe Middle East by trying to introduce Demcoracy. We have to engage them, both politically and militarily.
Although lately, it seems that when Hugh climbs onto his soapbox for another rant of Bush-bashing, he gets swept up in the moment and let's his derangement syndrome get the best of him and he simply is unable to hide his stripes.
He dont have to climb very far to get on that soapbox,goergie helps by giveing people things to get bashed about.One stupid thing after another.Remember religion of peice,saudie's,pakinstan as staunch allies.Letting them put shaira back into iraq,afganistans constitution....list goes on.He will have something new to be stupid on tomarrow,but we have to live with it for a couple more years,till he's gone.Hopefully there will BE a U.S.A still.
Excellent tour-de-force parody of the final sentence of James Joyce's Ulysses. Compelling post, as usual. Perhaps the Mahdi would care to identify what he finds factually erroneous about this anti-Bush "rant", hmm?
Wasnt everybody proud the way our president took picture's holding hands with that suadie dude?I know it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Books and websites are appreciated but if you want to change government policy you should contact the government directly, or as we call it 'lobby your MP', and reply to replies gained. It works sometimes.
Islofob and Television,
Please do not take a statement that was not meant to be an all-encompassing enunciation of the problem that confronts us and assume that it was meant to be just that.
Hugh and I have both spoken a great deal about Islam as being at the root of the problem -- you may be interested in consulting particularly Hugh's other articles here (click on "Articles" and scroll down). And indeed, I am now working on my sixth book explaining, from a new angle, how mainstream Islam contains these elements that give rise to violence.
I regularly ridicule and refute (whenever new evidence comes along), here at Jihad Watch, the idea that jihad is the province of a tiny minority of extremists who have hijacked the religion.
Neither Hugh nor I have ever said that jihad is not an integral part of Islam, although obviously there is a distinction, since not all of Islam is jihad.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
To Robert's response that -- "Neither Hugh nor I have ever said that jihad is not an integral part of Islam, although obviously there is a distinction, since not all of Islam is jihad."
-- I would ask: Of what concrete utility to us, in the context of our self-defense, does the distinction between Islam and jihad, however obvious it is, have when the relation of the latter to the former is integral?
Aside from this question, I would dispute a good deal of Robert's wider premise that many of the features of Islam that apparently seem unrelated to jihad really are that unrelated to it: to wit, that, e.g., Islamic dental hygiene is not itself in the orbit of jihad, insofar as it (and 1,001 other similar regimens) is part of the obsessive-compulsive inculcation of a totalitarian psychology & sociology that is the main texture of the culture of Islam, helping to nourish and strengthen the cultivation and execution of jihad. If one may arguably relocate many, most, or even all, of the apparently non-jihadic regimens and ideas of Islam back into the orbit of the jihad engine that runs the whole damned automobile called Islam, then the obvious distinction under consideration becomes even less tenable and useful.
I'd submit that the portions of Islam that are not Jihad, are just as lethal to infidels insofaras they help spread the taquyya that Islam is a faith just like any other, where one can go to find their own personal enlightenment, a la Buddhism. In short, someone who is attracted by, say, the 5 pillars, embraces Islam, explores more, and discovers Jihad. The bait and switch approach.
This would be evident from the fact that the majority of converts to Islam are malcontents of society, who've discovered membership in a supremacist club - an Arab equivalent of Aryan nation. There may be a few rare birds like Thomas Haidon who may have embraced Islam to reform it, but the non-Jihadist segments of Islam, to the extent they help spread the taqiyya, are as lethal for infidels as well. As a result, I agree with TV that it's a distinction without a difference that's not worth making.
Television,
I agree totally that the mindless repitition which is integral to islamic life and culture is precisely, as you say, "part of the obsessive-compulsive inculcation of a totalitarian psychology..".
Well said.
Mahdi
Three quarks for Muster Hugh.
Bush needs to smell more than a Teddy Rose to wake from his "peaceful" dream, methinks. (I doubt that they've even screened the movie version of "Ulysses" at the White House. ...Maybe Kirk Douglas'.)
He needs to re-read President John Adams on Islam, and General George Patton on warfare.
And maybe the Koran, too, one of these years.
It's so goddamned "noble", what's stopping him?
Yes, the Koran, I said, the Koran, oh, yes, the al-Qur'an, yes... ah, yes... yes....yes...
To Hugh and Robert,
I cannot imagine how frustrating this whole endeavor must be for both of you--day after day, year after year, hours and hours of research, study, analysis, writing, and speeches--striving to educate the ignorant and the oblivious. How maddening it must be dealing with us! I am writing now, as one of the ignorant, to ask that you never quit. There are many millions more of my ilk, and the knowledge you impart is absolutely essential and invaluable. It must seem at times that you are beating your heads against a wall. Not so! Every day more and more people are realizing the real threat that we face, and we have people like you to thank for that.
I only discovered Jihad Watch about six months ago, but I had been searching for it for more than four years. I kid you not. When the news broke about a plane hitting the World Trade Center, I was watching CNN. Having been born and raised in Manhattan, I was well aware that in spite of its proximity to three major airports, there are never planes flying at low altitude over that borough. Yet remarkably, the CNN anchor (Aaron Brown?) kept spewing inanities such as “possible pilot error, or instrument failure.” Even I (who had avoided all possible World History courses because it was so complicated and convoluted, and chose instead to major in Biochemistry because it was black and white, neat and clean, and rational) knew we had been attacked when the first plane hit. But that moron was STILL spewing his ridiculous chum even after the second plane hit! Since that day, I have flitted from one newspaper to the next, and surfed through broadcast and cable news programs in search of the truth. I needed someone to explain this enemy to me because like so many others, I avoided trying to understand the quagmire that is the Middle East because it is constantly in turmoil and its history is far too tortuous and alien.
But you, Hugh and Robert, have educated me. I have read your books and I am still in the process of reading others that you have recommended, such as Bat Ye’or and Oriana Fallaci. I check your website several times a day, and I discuss everything I have read with my husband and sons, and with my colleagues and friends. Your word is getting out. In fact, what prompted me to write this was finding my 17-year-old reading “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades”--this from a child who has never voluntarily read anything more complicated than a cereal box!
So please don’t quit, no matter how exasperating it must be to read the comments from imbeciles like me.
A most sincere “thank you” to both of you.
Robert posted:
"As for allowing, let alone encouraging, Kurdish independence, Hugh ignores the fact that even before the Iraq War started, the U.S. already pledged to Turkey that we would not allow that. For obvious reasons: Kurdish independence would entice the Kurds in Turkey to secede from Turkey, threatening the very territorial integrity of Turkey. That pledge was a part of the diplomatic horse-trading that the Bush Administration did in order to get other nations to sign up to our war on terror. How does Hugh suggest we doublecross and stab in the back Turkey, an ally of the U.S. and fellow member of NATO, without huge diplomatic consequences? How do we allow Kurdish independence to go forward if Turkey claims it will threaten their territorial integrity, something the NATO Charter is specifically designed to preve."
1. What diplomatic horse trading? With Turkey? What did they give us? Name a single thing?
2. How is Turkey an ally. Let's talk turkey here. Did they show their allegiance when we invaded Iraq? How so? Did they allow us to use their air fields or territory? How have they helped us?
3. Is the average Turk on the street an ally? or is this like our allies in Saudi Arabia(there is no greater ally in the war on terror).
4. Should the Kurds fight the Turks and vica versa, how will that impact us? Then, using you logic, Turkey will no longer be an ally. Whups. So, if Turkey(now an ally)will be an enemy, what will this mean? Will they produce anti-US films and books? Will they refuse helping us in our Iraq campaign? Will the Islamists take over? Looks like all of these things are happening as we post.
5. If there is a Turkish - Kurdish war, do you think Nato will aid Turkey? Will England and Germany and Spain lend their forces to suppress the Kurds, aiding Turkey? Do you think this is realistic?
6. You speak of diplomatic consequences. Be specific. If the Muslims start killing each other in greater numbers, embroiling Turkey in conflict, what will those consequences be? Will France withdrawl their amb. to the US? Will Saudi Arabia? How about Egypt? Tell us, should we care even if they would?
7. If Iran gets embroiled in Southern Iraq(in a bigger way), dispatching young kids with keys to the kingdom of heaven and a Koran to boot, using up their oil wealth defending the Shia, is this a bad consequence?
8. Finally, what consequences to the 'war on terror'? Will Muslims from around the world still wage Jihad? or will the consequences be a 'Jihad plus' or a 'pissed-off Jihad'(I hate when that happens).
Will Muslims from around the world hitch a ride to Iraq to meet the virgins? Is this not allready happening?
9. Turkey will no longer be a friend in the war on terror. I get that one. Who cares? Why should we care?
One could argue the removal of Sadaam smashed a crucial pressure point within Islam. Entropy and chaos resulted, old religious passions have been excited. Now, we are 'valliantly' trying to keep the genie bottled up. No one can dispute, without us, all hell would break loose. Yes, there will be consequences of these passions cut loose. The Iranians and the Saudis and the Jordanians have a stake in our remaining the good dhimmi, holding 'Iraq' together like a piece of unstable uranium.
But if we leave, Muslims will rip Iraq apart. The Jordanians, Iranians and Saudis will not(and cannot)ignore that. But why is it in our interests to hold this green TNT together?
Steven L posted:
"What Hugh and Robert need is to have their recommendations reviewed by recognized experts on world power politics. Somebody like a Henry Kissinger or a Jeane Kirkpatrick or even a Norman Schwartzkopf, who can explain to them what the realities of world politics are. During World War II, even General Eisenhower had to be a politician and diplomat as well as a soldier, holding together a fractious and squabbling coalition of nations to win the war. Just committing to fighting jihad is not enough. One also has to explain how to do it in the context of the 190 mutually suspicious and power-hungry nations on this planet."
1. Henry Kissinger has business ties to Turkey through his firm. Does this matter? Many 'experts' have ties to Saudi Arabia? Will these ties effect their views on fighting Jihad? Kind of important, wouldn't you say?
2. Your analogy to Ike is the only point I partially agree with. Yes, Ike was a diplomat, but in terms of worrying about the '190 mutually suspicious' nations is wrong; should somebody have veto power over us?
3. Since we are(presumably)not flush in Saudi green money as 'experts' in geopolitics, and as we are posting pro bono in Jihad watch, answer me this: what are these specific realities of geopolitics? Should we avoid the wrath of the French? the Turks as you allude to? Why? Oh, please, tell us why?
4. Also, on the topic of Ike and WWII geopolitics in general, diplomacy was used, and, yes, Ike was a diplomat; FDR and Truman were too. But, when it was in our geopolitical interests, we firebombed Dresden and nuked Japan. So, don't go overboard with the 'WWII diplomacy stuff.'
Didn't Clinton(Bill) favor the Dubai ports deal? Were his hands clean of green money, or those hands of his sec of defense and state????
How about Brent Scrowcroft? or Richard Perle? or Kissinger?
Some are democrats. Some Republicans. All are 'experts' -- and all have their hands in the Islamic money train; Robert, will this color their perceptions of fighting Jihad? Come to your senses.
"Neither Hugh nor I have ever said that jihad is not an integral part of Islam, although obviously there is a distinction, since not all of Islam is jihad."
Cordially
Robert Spencer
Posted by: jihadwatch
J.W. / Mr Spencer,
I agree, with the above quote, and your posts that clearly show the links between Jihad and Islam. Also, I do think as I stated that the focus on Jihadwatch is to indeed inform on the actions of Jihad.
However, many people do not fully understand the link. So much is fussy about the data and information in the press, blogs, etc. I stated what I see, that the link to islam and jihad is not as clear as it should be. Not because of this site, but in the whole coverage of events.
Jihad to many is the tiny minority, the out of control fringe, the cartoon riots, the threats of destroying Israel, etc,etc. But all these things flow from Islam, and many times the link is never made, and it should be every time there is reason to do so.
Also, with islam, it is the jihad that captures the infidel's attention. If the jihad is the terrorist's law, then the war against it will be inside it's core, not at just the high pillar of jihad. That is how most will see it once the link is clear.
Then true change will happen to islam, if at all possible.
"...recommendations reviewed by recognized experts on world power politics. Somebody like a Henry Kissinger or a Jeane Kirkpatrick or even a Norman Schwartzkopf, who can explain to them what the realities of world politics are."
-- from a posting above
?
Crusader18 says,
Holy Shiite Hugh, you just changed my mind forever. It's been a long time coming but, YEAH, let's pull out and let them sort it out themselves. Instead of bleeding the American Taxpayers dry, let them spend their petrodollars on killing each other off. Let the Jihadis fight other Jihadis and leave us Kuffar alone. 400 billion for Iraq? Nope 400 billion for US! Let the Saudis and Iranians pay. Supply the Kurds and let them tear off a corner of Iraq, Turkey and Iran, then they'll have a war. Now we're talking Peace in the West.
That was not intended as a long sentence. That was intended as stream of consciousness. President Bush, gradually possessed by the spirit of Hugh.
Islam is both a unity and a multiplicity. It is both simple and complex. It is useless, at least from the point of view of knowledge, to try to deny one pole or the other. Robert Spencer is therefore correct to recognize both the intimate unity of Jihad with Islam, and yet the distinction between the two. This paradox in Islam can be easily pictured by considering something beautiful (and in that respect unlike the spirit of Islam). I mean the rainbow. Is the rainbow discontinuous? Or is it continuous? Is it a unity? Or is it multiplicity? It is irreducibly both. It is an unbrokenly continuous unity, but only through the paradox of being composed of an infinite multitude of unique shades that flow continuously into each other. Islam is no rainbow, but the relation between whole and part is somewhat similar. The whole spirit of the religion animates every part. Yet the parts are not mere reflections or images or puppets of the animating spirit of the whole, but have some independence and individuality. One can condemn the spirit of a thing, yet recognize that it could be still worse than it is, could be even worse because more of the participating parts could be more supportive of, or less refractory to, the net negativity of the overall spirit. Making distinctions need not obfuscate an animating unity. Such a unity is real and is more than the sum of its parts, and imparts to those parts a certain common style that nevertheless has ever been subject to variations and even to transformations introduced by the parts in their semi-independence from the whole. Often the variations introduced into Islam are largely unoriginal and mostly consonant with the preexisting spirit of the religion. Rarely, the variations are comparatively original and even dissonant with respect to Islam's preexisting spirit. Most kinds of originality and dissonant variation are snuffed out in Islam.
In any event, the refusal to recognize distinctions and differentiation within Islam (because one is concerned unity is thereby denied) is a mistake and a rejection of knowledge. Coleridge referred to that mistake as a debility that makes us refuse to distinguish wherever we cannot divide. To think we can distinguish only where we can divide is delusory, unless you assume the world is identical to Aristotelian logic and that the principle of the excluded middle is always absolutely valid. Or unless you assume that the world is composed of the 19th century's billiard ball atoms, each one ultimate and indivisible, and all of them having interstitial nothingness as their common joining ground. But nothingness cannot be a joining ground. Nothingness cannot be anything. "Particles" are not tiny perfect billiard balls with absolutely defined or definable boundaries. "Particles" are semi-independent phases of a world that is a unified field, where part and whole are related in a manner that is in varying degrees akin to the manner in which part and whole in the rainbow are related. What we call "matter" is, from one valid point of view, that aspect of the world that most closely approximates to the rule that two things cannot occupy the same place at the same time. But even with matter, that neat delimination of boundaries is not perfect, and even in matter both unity and multiplicity are ultimate, neither is reducible to the other. Even matter has an aspect, call it "spirit," that does not obey that rule of mutual exclusion. What we call "spirit" is, from one valid viewpoint, that paradoxical aspect of reality in which two realities can occupy the same space at the same time, and where something can wierdly be both within itself and at the same time outside itself. This "spiritual" or non-physical kind of reality, whether recognized as an aspect of matter or seen in pure spirit in a spiritual world, is qualitative and is not quantifiable except in a way that largely denatures it. Everything that is more than merely quantitative, everything that does not fit into abstract Aristotelian categories of pure logic (in which the principle of the excluded middle mimics that aspect of matter that forbids the occupation of space by two things at the same time) -- and there is nothing that is only quantitative and logical -- everything requires of us the ability to make distinctions and recognize those distinctions as real, even though one often cannot equate those distinctions with neat physical divisions, in which there is no visible mingling or overlap. The essential act of the intelligence is the recognition of ultimate unity and ultimate differentiation simultaneously in the same phenomenon. To refuse to make distinctions where they exist is to turn off the intellect and shut down the mind. If one refuses to see some things, one warps one's vision in general and ties one's hands behind one's back.
All I know is, all the words and paragraphs and analogies and theories are not worth anything to a muslim. He will slit any throat willingly so long as it is infidel, and of what he thinks as infidel. So, for me, it is survival. Black or white, true or false, 0 or 1. It is binary. But I could be wrong.
Steven L. said:
Somebody like a Henry Kissinger or a Jeane Kirkpatrick or even a Norman Schwartzkopf, who can explain to them what the realities of world politics are."
Those 'realities of world politics' like the State Department :
1) Covering upArafat's assassination of those two American Diplomats in Sudan?
2) Hampering (until the Israelis got one by chance a few weeks ago) the finding of the thugs responsible for the killing of those guys going to present Fullbright scholarships in Gaza?
3) The Administration turning a blind eye to Egypt's blind eye to the movement of "men in business suits" attending, through those ubiquitous arms smuggling tunnels, the International School for Jihad Training where they perfected the new and improved IED now being used so bloodily in Iraq?
4) The State Department "Raining on Bolton's Parade" in the UN?
I'll conclude with the following analysis:
I.
When distinguishing parts from a whole, two kinds of part may be employed:
1) a part that is sufficiently peripheral that it may be detached without the whole suffering degradation, destruction, and/or transformation;
2) a part that is sufficiently central that its detachment from the whole would, in fact, result in the whole suffering degradation, destruction, and/or transformation.
The second kind of part is the one that is "integral to" the whole.
II.
There are also two kinds of whole to be considered:
1) a simplex whole, whose concatenation of parts remains inert after the concatenation -- i.e., the whole is not more than the sum of its parts: it takes on no "life" after the parts have been completely put together into the whole they constitute;
2) a complex whole, or system: this is a dynamic interrelation of parts, where there is a kind of microcosm or ecosystem and the interrelation of parts involves a symbiotic synergy.
III.
There are two kinds of system:
1) systems that are relatively open and flexible to change and self-correction;
2) systems that are closed, inflexible to change and self-correction, and require a totalitarian rule in order to be self-perpetuating: the totalitarian system is a type of contradiction -- it has no real "life" as systems ordinarily do, and thus it has no real way to perdure: in the absence of a natural way to perdure, it tries to make itself inert, as though it were a non-system kind of whole, notwithstanding the fact that it needs to be a system in order to have power and extension. Its contradictory existence can be maintained only by perpetual oppression and violence, which sooner or later succumbs to the pressures of reality and implodes and/or explodes.
IV.
Summary: Islam is a II.2 kind of whole: it is a system. And it is a III.2 kind of system. (Note: only by virtue of its historically imperialistic voracity has the Islam system become so extensive and swallowed up so many different peoples and cultures, that it has taken on a spectacularly sprawling rag-tag diversity that can be mistaken for the true diversity of III.1 kinds of systems.) In the system of Islam, jihad is a I.2 kind of part. Because Islam is a III.2 kind of system, we may say that:
1) the dinstinction between jihad and Islam has no pragmatic usefulness insofar as jihad is integral to Islam;
2) #1 means that this site could just as well be called "Islam Watch" -- i.e., Islam the system is the overarching problem and danger non-Muslims of the world face;
3) the systemic synergy of parts noted in II.2 above that characterizes the system Islam renders any or all discernible parts in that system as co-dependent enablers of the overall system, such that seemingly innocuous parts (e.g., dental hygiene) become useful contributors to the same machine whose entelechy is the jihad that imperils us. Because Islam is a III.2 kind of system -- its composition & complexion attenuated by diversity only through the fact that it is so spatially and culturally extensive by virtue of its historically imperialistic voracity -- any distinction of parts that would forestall condemnation of the whole system is meaningless to our self-defense, and may even provide fodder for those who like to treat Islam as though it were a III.1 type of system that has detachable I.1 type "bad apples".
V. Conclusion:
Sooner or later, Muslims will have to find some other way to keep their teeth healthy, since their current way is directly related to a system that endangers our lives and societies. Muslims who jump ship will find that their teeth survive just fine: ask Ibn Warraq's dentist or just look at the healthy gleaming ivories of Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
miswak indeed!
Looking back at WW2, a book written about the Nazi "The rise and fall of the third reich" explores somewhat, of being nazi. He finds a few good, useful programs that were started, and added to the good of the germans.
I.E. ,even Nazi germany had good ideas, and ways instilled through the country. But, who remembers what these were? The germans were brought to the gates of hell by a "faith" of N.S.W.P. , one that had good within it.
When the Americans walked into the place where Hitler gave so many speaches, and blew apart the giant swastika, they did not care about the good within the nazi party, for it was all gone.
The good and evil were seen as one, and the good were destroyed with the evil. And now history may indeed repeat, as it always will.
Is all of Islam somthing you can trust?
"Today we have un-distinction of parts."
But we already know that, in a certain sense, in Islam, tout se tient. Everything connects: the knee-bone connects to the thigh-bone, and the thigh-bone connects to the ankle-bone...now hear the word of the Lord.
The inability of Western Man to come to grips, with previous threats in the twentieth century, no doubt has many overlapping causes.
What was it, for example, that prevented Western European man from recognizing and dealing with the Bolsheviks in time? Was it:
a) Left-wing propaganda by admirers or fellow-travellers of the Soviets?
b) Weariness on the part of those who had just come through the Great War and could not even think about large-scale intervention in vast and mysterious Russia?
c) Unwillingness to listen to the warnings of intelligent White Russians in exile, millions of whom, in Berlin and Paris, Harbin and Shanghai, Buenos Aires and New York and London, did as best they could try to warn the Western world?
d) Belief that the Soviet system would soon collapse anyway? After all, Russia was starving; it was only Herbert Hoover's mission of mercy that helped rescue some from famine; who could ever have imagined that the Bolsheviks in Russia would survive; that fear of Bolshevism would be a selling point for Fascism and Nazism in the West; that Soviet Commmunism would not only hold on, but create the second most powerful -- militarily and politically -- country in the world, one that in turn threatened the West for nearly 50 years.
Answer: a) and b) and c) and d) and others besides.
And the same kinds of answers, and not one answer, would have to be given to the question What Explains the Western World's failure to come to its senses about Hitler in time?
But if one wants to spend time convincing people that the "miswak" or the ban on eating pork is part of a Total System and that No Part of That System can remain uninvestigated or considered harmless or innocent, then one is going to have quite a row to hoe. Many rows. Not time for that. It won't work, not when the Western world can hardly see the problem of the Jihad, a duty imposed on Muslims, whether to participate directly or to support those who do so participate, in order to spread Islam.
Como si el problema fuese el "miswak."
Today we've had un-distinction of parts.
And urged to make sure we do not miss the tiniest particle of Islam whenever we talk about Islam. ("What we talk about, when we talk about Islam"). Synecdochic invocation of Islam, thorugh use of the word "Jihad," for some apparently for some will not do.
There is a problem. Time is short. Not a single government, not any of the non-governmental powerful institutions, not even more than a handful of individuals, are helping this effort. There is the Esdrujula Explanation: Stupidity. Timiidity. Cupidity. Insisting that those who run this website should always and everywhere make sure to refer nakedly to "Islam," and include every last jot and tittle of Islam (such as, presumably, not eating pork) as part of the problem, will not be effective, will not win allies and influence people.
During World War II the American government allowed all kinds of misconceptions about the Soviet Union to flourish. That was not crazy. The craziness was in not immediately, one minute after V-E or perhaps V-J Day, undoing those realpolitik untruths, so that Americans could see at once, and not in 1948, what Stalin and the Red Army and the NKVD (or whatever it was then cappled) were all about, what they stood for, what they would do if they could. Soviet system were all about, and what makes sense.
Insistence that discussion of Islam must force others, as part of their understanding, to accept the idea that every part of Islam, including those parts of the regulation of life that can be found in other belief-systems (e.g. regulations on food), is implicated and therefore, presumably, as worrisome as every other part, will throw a spanner in the works. Acceptance of the major premises is what counts. What are those premises? To repeat:
1) Islam uncompromisingly divides the world between Believer and Infidel. Between the two there must be permanent hostility. In some cases the latter may avoid death or immediate conversion, but the only recognized status, in the lands where Islam dominates and Muslims rule, is that of dhimmi (or "zimmi"), and that is a status, for non-Muslims, of permanet humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity.
2) Islam divides the world between Dar al-Islam, where Islam dominates and Muslims rule, and Dar al-Harb, where Muslims do not yet rule and Islam does not yet dominate.
3) Believers have a duty to engage in Jihad, the struggle to promote and protect Islam, by removing all barriers to its spread, until it dominates the entire world, and Muslims rule everywhere. The scope of the goal should not be regarded as so fantastic as to cause Infidels not to recognize that attempts to reach that goal will inevitably cause them, those Infidels, great grief. In Europe, the large-scale presence of Muslimas has created a situation far more unpleasant, expensive, and physically insecure for Infidels than it would otherwise be. That cannot be denied, even by those who think there is nothing to be done about this (of course, there is much to be done about this).
4) All Muslims have a duty either to participate, in some circumstances, directly in Jihad, or in other circumstances, merely to support those who do participate directly in Jihad. Traditionally this meant violent Jihad, qital, combat. However, the "weapons" of Jihad, the instruments of Jihad, include other things unknown in 7th century Arabia: the "money" weapon. Da'wa (on the scale and duration now practiced). Demographic conquest. These are the main weapons of Jihad today.
That is quite enough for Infidels to understand. If that could be accomplished, it would be plenty. It is silly to scare people off by insisting that only a wholescale denunciation will do, miswak and all, at this point.
I assume you would not have thought it advisable to whip up dislike of Mussolini on the basis that everything he did, including the agricultural reforms, the holidays for farmers, the trains running on time, and the draining of the Pontine marshes, were all part of a single indivisible system, and one should not fail to see it as such. Or to do the same with the Nazis or the Bolsheviks -- after all, those workers' holidays could and did shore up support for both the Nazis and the Communists; this solicitude was part of the system, helped shore up support for the system.
There is not all the time in the world to educate everyone about the whole thing. No time to stop and take account of how the inattention to the teaching of history and of literature has helped to soften up, make easier targets, of Infidels. It's true, but even to start on that or on a thousand other things that have gone wrong would not at this point be the highest and best use of this website. En pasasnt such points can be made, but only en passant.
"But we already know that, in a certain sense, in Islam, tout se tient. Everything connects: the knee-bone connects to the thigh-bone, and the thigh-bone connects to the ankle-bone...now hear the word of the Lord. " Quoted by Hugh
Hugh;
Forgive me lord, you are speaking in tongues.
Give me a while to ponder this, I is only eight grade educated. Once I fully uncode, I may give my thoughts..
how come people are defending prez Bush? Sure, he's the kind of guy you might want to sit down with and play poker or pinochle or whatever. But he's a politician all the same. Is he less slimy than clinton or the totally unspeakable jiminy cricket who was president with the permission of Zbig when Khomeini took over Iran, to the sorrow of humanity? Yes, he's less slimy than they are -- and it would be hard to go beneath water level in jiminy cricket's swamp. But bush is still a politician. Can you trust him? How many Dubai ports deals do you need? Or the deal about buying the weapons plants in the US, also with Dubai, if I'm not mistaken?
How about his partnership in the reprehensible Quartet which still keeps on throwing money at the palestinian authority? Or his agreement to treat politely with ahmadinejad of Iran?
"But we already know that, in a certain sense, in Islam, tout se tient... En passant such points can be made, but only en passant."
I concede asymptotic victory.
Television,
Agreed.
Personally, I would tighten one small screw by striking as superfluous the phrase "to our self-defense" from the sentence in IV.3 which reads, in part, "... -- any distinction of parts that would forestall condemnation of the whole system is meaningless to our self-defense, ...".
Mahdi
Yes, the Koran, I said, the Koran, oh, yes, the al-Qur'an, yes... ah, yes... yes....yes...
OMFG ... that is hilarious.
The Sunni insurgents remind me of the 'pilgrims' in Germany during the First Crusade. They spoke of driving out the infidels from the Holy Land. But those infidels were well armed, unfamiliar, and far away. Why not take on other infidels in the meantime who were defenseless, known to all, and right next door? The big difference, of course, is that the Jews of Germany in 1096 were a despised minority, while the Shiites of Iraq in 2006 are a despised majority.
I recently finished reading your book on Islam and the Crusades, Mr.Spencer. I can't say I agreed with everything you wrote, but I found some of it of interest.
The Crusades could have been called a 'defensive action' if they had been launched after the 'mad' caliph Al-Hakim destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1009. But the knights of western Christendom were too busy with their own private wars then to listen to any call to arms by a pope. 86 years later, Pope Urban II saw a measure of order and unity, and decided to put that to good use by turning that aggression against the Moslems. Also, I found it chilling that you mention the Mongols as possible allies of the Kingdom of Acre; you neglect to mention to your readers that the Mongols captured Baghdad around the same time (1258), and treated the inhabitants with a mercilessness that I'm sure the Nazis aspired to.
On the plus side, I look forward to reading the true-life adventures of the Monks of Kublai Khan. Also, it's good to see a conservative who wishes America could wean herself off its dependence on foreign oil. The Saudis remind me of the Spanish in the 16th century. In each case, a modest-sized nation stumbles across a precious resource (gold instead of oil), and sees it as a sign from God to export its own narrow version of its faith around the globe (I'm Catholic, btw). The Spanish sold their gold for trade goods, until the gold dried up, and Britain and France wound up with both the trade goods AND the gold.
If you or any other member wishes to share your thoughts on the Crusades, please drop by a Yahoo group I moderate - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thecrusades
Good luck,
P.J.
Another Irish farthing when a Pound is really needed.
PJ:
Thanks for writing. Are you sure I didn't mention Baghdad 1258? I certainly thought I did, but perhaps it dropped out at some point.
In any case, I am certain that I did not write that the Mongols were moral, upright people. The alliance would have been one of convenience. I believe it would have been wiser to ally not with the Muslims, as many Christian rulers did, but with the group that did not have a long-term supremacist agenda. Some peaceful accord might have been possible with them, particularly if they had converted to Christianity, which at one time seemed possible, rather than to Islam as they ultimately did. (One could also argue, of course, that they chose Islam because its warrior creed was more in keeping with their own predispositions.)
Your analogy with Spain would hold only if the Saudis originated at that point their agenda of imperialism and Islamic supremacism, and if it were to die with the House of Saud. The first is not true, and the second is unlikely in the extreme to turn out to be true either. But the Spanish could not and did not capitalize on Christian doctrines commanding warfare to establish the hegemony of the Christian social order; such doctrines did not exist and never existed.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
Television:
I read your response carefully enough to understand most of it and see how excellent it was. I will be reading it again later, as I must hit the sack. And Hugh has now presented further info as to where he and Jihad Watch stand -- and why -- on the issues you and I have been batting back and forth.
That was an entertaining and satisfying lead off piece Hugh wrote, including the ending with the portrayal of President Bush's inner stream of consciousness as he gradually became possessed by the tutelary tutorial spirit Hugh sent.
Hugh;
Another good post, your points raised do much to show the why of the ways at J.W. A couple of issues of note..
"Insisting that those who run this website should always and everywhere make sure to refer nakedly to "Islam," and include every last jot and tittle of Islam (such as, presumably, not eating pork) as part of the problem, will not be effective, will not win allies and influence people."
In posting, I did not insist of action, just noticed that the walls around Islam are of all colors. Called it like it was seen, As much from all sides. Perhaps some way to link the actions of jihad to islam would be a proper step, in my view. Not my place to demand. Perhaps to table this for the use of consideration, where it can help.
Also;
"I assume you would not have thought it advisable to whip up dislike of Mussolini on the basis that everything he did, including the agricultural reforms, the holidays for farmers, the trains running on time, and the draining of the Pontine marshes, were all part of a single indivisible system, and one should not fail to see it as such. "
"Duce" indeed did good for his people, and also Hitler. Was this remembered? I know you remember what happen to this leader in the end. The good he gave his people did not balance with all.
It follows the nature of people, to remember the bad. It is not one of our better traits, but is there for a reason. Perhaps looking into the reason would give light to the need of a link I raised.
"All I know is, all the words and paragraphs and analogies and theories are not worth anything to a muslim. He will slit any throat willingly so long as it is infidel, and of what he thinks as infidel. So, for me, it is survival. Black or white, true or false, 0 or 1. It is binary. But I could be wrong." Posted by: arjun.sevak
In this statement, I feel the truth. Black and white, and plain.
Is the Muslum the attacker, or a follower of Islam? Perhaps a terrorist, or a moderate that was cut off on the freeway on the way home, perhaps a member of Suni, or the tiny minority, or a muslum who wants to see us become a muslum nation, or a muslum who wants us to become a islamic nation, etc,etc.
Everything here is from Islam. When it attacks, it is black and white.
Evil ,but also good, but why do you have that knife?
We can all start by sending books to the "Commanding officer" at any local military base. Collect e mail addresses of those in uniform and send them news from JW.
Books are expensive contact like minded business business people and ask for their help.
"Islam should always be attached to Jihad, simply because it is. It helps those see who know less about it, or helps to clear the path to the door of the enemy."
from a post above.
Jihad has the same relationship to Islam that Revolution has to Communism. Not all Marxist-Leninists were active revolutionaries, but philosophically no true communist could oppose revolution. They might oppose a particular revolution as being inopportune or for some other pragmatic reason. But if they were to be true to thier belief they must hold that revolution and class conflict was their goal.
Likewise, most Muslims are no active jihadists and some may oppose particular acts of jihad for various reasons, but if they are true to Islam and its teachings they must hold that jihad and shari'a is their ultimate goal.