Robert Spencer’s response to Mary Habeck’s fanciful assertions about Islam and Jihad is unanswerable. And it will not be answered. What can she say when she has already admitted that no Islamic sects "reject the proposition that the umma must wage war in order to establish Sharia” -- and yet she continues to prate about a “hijacked” Islam? Instead of sober realism, the Grand Strategy in the War of Ideas today, in and around Washington, is to play the game of Let's Pretend with Muslims, so as to win the hearts and win the minds of the "moderate" Muslims (vide my article "Ten Things to Think When Thinking About Moderate Muslims"). It's in the air. It's among the higher-ups, among generals, for example.
But among the captains and the majors and the colonels who have served in Iraq, and certainly among most of the soldiers who have, through experience, unbrainwashed themselves about the "mission" and about the essential wonderfulness or just plain common decency of Muslims, the thoughts and understandings, thank god, are far more realistic, and quite different from those of the higher-ups.
Is Mary Habeck by any chance now at the Johns Hopkins School of... not International Studies, but something far grander, Advanced International Studies? That is the institution where that Middle East expert Paul Wolfowitz was once Dean, and where the new head is the charming are intelligent Fouad Ajami. Ajami is the one who used to smite Edward Said hip and thigh, but who on his own trip to Iraq, he found himself stirred elementally by his visit with Sistani. He called his book on Iraq "The Foreigner's Gift" instead of, as it ought to have been called, "The Infidel's Gift." And clearly, like other "good" merely "cultural" or Muslim-for-identification-purposes Muslims, he listened to a bit too much to the soothing blandishments being peddled. And neither Fouad Ajami nor still less Vali Nasr or others of that ilk could conceive of or could bear to hear about the only policy that makes sense: to educate Infidels, and then to create the conditions that will force a sufficient number of Muslims as well, to recognize that the political, economic, social, intellectual, and moral failures of Islamic states and societies suffused with Islam are a direct result of Islam itself.
It would be fascinating to gather together the signers of the St. Petersburg Declaration, including Ibn Warraq and Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Wafa Sultan, people born and raised in Islam (or is one simply struck with total amnesia the minute one becomes an apostate from Islam, and become completely unreliable narrators, as Muslim spokesmen appear to believe?), and see whether they think Robert Spencer has understood Islam better, as a Belief-System, or that Mary Habeck has understood it better.
I already know the answer. It wasn't even close.
Mary Habeck in her writings appears to believe that after the second, failed siege of Vienna by the Ottoman Turks in 1683, the doctrine of Jihad simply disappeared. It did not. It was as much a part of Islam then as it was in 700 A. D. or 2007 A.D. What changed was the ability of Muslims to act on the doctrine, and as long as Muslims understand their duty of Jihad, and attempt to fulfill it whenever and wherever it proves possible, they need not quixotically attack, through military means, those Infidels who are simply too strong. Besides, the instruments of Jihad are now far more varied than they were in 700 A. D. or in 1683 A.D. There is today the "money weapon" to pay for mosques and madrasas, academic centers taking their orders, subtly or openly, from their Arab funders. And of course there are small armies of Western hirelings, journalists, businessmen, public relations experts, former diplomats, former intelligence agents for Western countries, all of whom have in the past, and still now, are hired to limit the Western understanding of, and hostility to, Saudi Arabia, the Arabs, and Islam.
Habeck is confused -- she who just began her study of Islam a year or two ago (as the non-tenure handwriting on the wall at Yale became clear, she began to repackage herself as an "expert on Islam"). If Judith Kipper the sociologist could overnight transform herself into a "Middle East expert," why then, so can any man...or woman.
Mary gave a great lecture at Heritage Foundation in 2004
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Events/EV081204A.cfm
Following the Method of Mohammad: Jihadist Strategies in the War on Terror
Details:
Location: The Heritage Foundation’s Lehrman Auditorium
To many observers the jihadis seem to have no strategy at all. Attacks around the world appear random or even counter-productive, and there is, apparently, no over-arching strategic vision driving their project. Dr. Habeck argues quite the reverse – there are coherent strategies behind the seeming randomness of the jihadist war on the West, strategies that only make sense within the ideologies of the various extremist groups.
Dr. Habeck has written Storm of Steel: The Development of Armor Doctrine in Germany and the Soviet Union, 1919-1939 (Cornell, 2003); co-edited Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War (Yale, 2001) with Ronald Radosh and Grigory Sevostinianov; edited The Great War and the Twentieth Century (2000), with Jay Winter and Geoffrey Parker; and published essays in several collections. Currently, she is writing two books on jihadist ideology.
.....
I found it a very informative and non-apologetic view of the strategic thinking that motivates the Jihadis.
She also handled a few hostile questions pretty well.
So that was 2004.
Then I heard her on Dennis Plager's show a month ago, and she was so equivocal and qualified so much of what she said. She never lied.. but came close to making errors of omission.
My own personal theory is that she's under threat and she's trying to remain true to what she knows but is afraid. I have nothing to base that on other then my own conjecture.
Habeck is confused -- she who just began her study of Islam a year or two ago (as the non-tenure handwriting on the wall at Yale became clear, she began to repackage herself as an "expert on Islam").
Funny enough, I also began my study of Islam a year or two ago, yet I seem to have come to a completely different set of conclusions than Habeck. Perhaps because I left the academy ABD and didn't need to worry about tenure or sucking up to people whose intellects are compromised by their politics. That I now make about 3X what a professor my age makes, with almost complete job security, doesn't hurt, either.
The fact that she couldn't even correctly analyze the intent and content of the Morocco demonstration she holds up as an example of anti-jihadism among "moderate" Muslims makes me believe that she's not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.
Islam must dominate.
That's the core tenet that all true Muslims must believe.
Everything Islamic follows from this.
Soft and slow or murderous and fast, it's all the same ultimate imperialistic, expansionistic movement.
And the end result is a global theocratic gulag.
What's to make excuses/apologies/rationales for, in any sense, if this is their aim?
Their goal is tyranny.
I oppose any path to that.
The rest of the "discussion" is obfuscation.
How I love Hugh's "tributes"!
Many who started life studying one subject, usually Kremlinology, have quickly moved over, while the getting's good, to "terrorism" and thence to "Islamic terrorism" and thence, in still a further sly elision, to "Islam" itself. Ronan Gunaratna wrote six books on Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka (his country of origin) and then, in 2001, he was one of four authors (how many people does it take these days?) to c0o-write an article, with an organizational chart and lists of leaders of Al Qaeda. Then came the attack of 9/11/2001. Suddenly he was Mr. Al Qaeda, and like so many these days, became an "expert" on "terrorism" with a steady gig on Sky Television. Now you can't miss him, and he's suddenly also an expert on Iraq, and what's to come there (my, he knows exactly what's going to happen there -- it's going to turn into a "Terrorist Disneyland" overnight if the Americans leave), and he furthermore knows just How To Fight Islam, because all those who wrote "Inside Al Qaeda" books have such experts on the whole matter, and have no need -- Ronan Gunaratna has no need -- to discuss, in detail, the tenets, attitudes, atmospherics of Islam, and the fissures, ethnic, sectarian, and economic, that have been repeatedly discussed here but have received so little attention elsewhere. His warning about a "Terrorist Disneyland" was preposterous, but apparently not preposterous enough for him not to make it before a too-credulous audience in London a few days ago.
Many others who got their degrees in Soviet studies, and who now realize that the market for that has gone out of fashion (but they should hold on -- Russia is coming back into grim fashion). One of them is Frederick Kagan, he of the "we can't leave those decent Iraqis"-- all 50,000 of them out of 27 million, because otherwise "no one in the Middle East will ever trust us again" (as, you know, they have been all along because we, and the Arabs of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Libya, and so on share a common view of things, which would be destroyed by the "betrayal" of our leaving Iraq. Another is Michael Waller, Kremlinologist out of the International Relations program at B.U., recently turned expert on the "war of ideas" with Islam, which war, he thinks, can only be won if we do nothing to demoralize or anger Muslims, but instead pretend that Jihad is not a central duty and furthermore does not mean what Muslims have so clearly taken it to mean over 1350 years.
And another of these Instant-Makeovers is that of Mary Habeck. Here is her own faculty biography posted on the web:
Mary Habeck
Associate Professor of Strategic Studies
Expertise by Geographic Area:
RUSSIA AND THE FORMER SOVIET UNION; Western Europe
Expertise by Issue:
American Defense Policy; Islamic Religion, Culture and Law; Military History; Military Power and Strategy; Strategic and Security Issues; Terrorism; Weapons of Mass Destruction
Background and Education:
Served as associate professor of history at Yale University; coordinated the Yale Russian Archive Project to facilitate access to documents in the former Soviet archives; recipient of the 2001–02 Morse Fellowship; Ph.D., history, Yale University
Publications:
Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror (2006); Storm of Steel: The Development of Armor Doctrine in Germany and the Soviet Union, 1919–1939 (2003); Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War, co-editor (2001); The Great War and the Twentieth Century, co-editor (2000); Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military, consultant (2001); contributed to The Journal of Military History, The International History Review, Journal of Modern History and other journals
Does this look like the resume of someone who has spent a long time immersed in Islam, not only reading but assimilitating the texts, and not only the texts, but also the history of Islam, everything from Abenarabi's "Fotuhat" to Oleg Grabar on Islamic Art to Mutannabi, as well as all the scholars of Islam listed, for example, in Robert Irwin's useful book-length evisceration of Edward Said's pitifully simple-minded and grotesquely inaccurate "Orientalism"?
These presto-chango makeovers just won't do. And they won't do even if one is a "conserviatve" and a "Republican" (whatever those words mean these days). One has to not only have read things, but had the time to have them make sense, the time to thoroughly assimilate them so that aspects of the problem today can be better understood.
Of course, along with Habeck, there are many others who have taken this route. Everyone and his brother, everyone and her sister, knows all about Islam. Martha Nussbaum does. Just ask her --no, actually there's no need to ask her. She'll tell you in a book what she thinks -- about everything. Amartya Sen knows all about Islam -- after all, he is from India, so he must be an expert on the tenets of Islam, and on Islamic history -- he picks it up from the atmosphere. Timothy Garton Ash is an expert on Islam, because he was at St. Antony's College in the East European and Russian wing, so had a chance to speak with all those convincing people -- such as Tariq Ramadan, and before him others who the late Albert Hourani carefully brought for their diploma-mill D.Phils (no course, no waiting, and try to write, if you can, about something to do with "Palestinian Identity" but whatever you do, don't you dare study Islam too closely). Ian Buruma, Ash's friend, also knows all about Islam -- and because his heart is in the right place about Jews, you see, he is exempt from the need to actually study the matter, and so he can give Ayaan Hirsi Ali what-for, mocking her right and left. Karen Hughes knows all about Islam. She knows that "public diplomacy" requires winning Muslim hearts and Muslim minds by never saying anything that might offend Muslims -- because how can you win hearts and minds if you offend? Mary Cheney, Cheney's daughter, deeply involved in that "democratization project" apparently also knows all about Islam, just as her father does, and her father's boss George Bush. Generals know all about Islam. They know that Islam is a fine thing, if only the extremists can be dealt with, and they know -- they just know -- that the "mission" can succeed if only we apply sufficient force along with a sufficient winning of hearts and minds, over about...well, did you know that according to General Petraeus, and all those counter-insurgency Gaululites around him (the late David Galula providing, with his long-overlooked book on the Lessons of the Algerian War a Magic Answer to All Insurgencies, Wherever They May Be). And since they "know" that Islam is no problem, they don't need to bother with Jihad, or the other instruments of Jihad aside from warfare -- as the money weapon, Da'wa, and demographic conquest of European lands -- but can "fulfill the mission" without ever questioning the mission they are so busily, and so vainly, attempting to fulfill.
And then there is Condoleeza Rice, dutiful graduate student, dutiful professor. Not brilliant, not especially anything. Dutifuly plodding, dutifully without any flashes, without showing herself to have the ability to grasp a new sitatuion and understand that she did not understand, and would have to learn -- but in this respect she is no different from all kinds of people, including Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, who still are unrepentant about the Iraq fiasco, still unwilling to recognize their own ignorance about Iraq and about Islam.
Mary Habeck is not worse than these others. She's better than most of them. But for her to suggest that Jihad as a doctrine comes and goes is absurd. For her not to recognize the three things that brought Jihad back as a possiblity (hint: ten trillion dollars in OPEC money since 1973, millions of Muslim migrants now settled deep within the Lands of the Infidels, and finally, the exploitation of Western technology, including the Internet and satellite channels and videocassettes, to disseminate the message of Islam, and propaganda for violence as an instrument of Jihad) is not acceptable.
Everyone knows about Islam. Bush, Cheney, their loyal generals (the ones who are not brave enough, to quit and denounce the war's squandering of men, money, materiel, in the manner of Major-General, Batiste), everyone who studied the Kremlin and now wants in to the Long War. Everyone in the think tanks and consultancies that are making out like bandits. You too can start one. Just select one or two words from among the following, then arrange them with the articles and prepositions of your choice: "Center" and "Security" and "National" and "International" and "American" and "Security" and "Foreign" and "Strategic" and "Studies" and "Future" and "Conflict" and "Resolution" and "Peace" and let's not forget "War."Now you've got yourself a Think-Tank-cum-Consultancy, and you're off to the government-money races or is it, perhaps, a trough.
In the time of Louis XIV, le roi soleil, the Courtiers at Versailles had least had to display a sooterkins of wit as they strolled the grounds or attended a levee or a ruelle. Not now. High seriousness, the furrowed brow, the portentous voice, is in permanent fashion. Displays of wit, or general cultivation, not allowed. The glass of fashion and the mold of form is a Kagan or a Cordesman. Portentous as hell.
Go ahead. Be an Instant Expert on Islam. Write the book on What Needs to Be Done. Run it up the flagpole. Everyone -- or rather almost everyone --will salute.
Hugh: relax man ...
View Mary's lecture that I posted in one of the first comments. She didn't sound so equivical back then. Perhaps there's stuff going on in her personal life that has forced this sudden wishy washyness.
(I'm just trying to assume the best of her)
Without knowing more, I think it's sloppy to be so strident against her. But that's my opinion.
Islam want me for a Dhimmi.
Enough said.
Vince,
Robert's original posting referred to an interview Habeck gave at Front Page magazine. The interview contains enough substance for all to take issue.
But, in that interview she was asked the reason for writing her new book "Knowing the Enemy".
Her answer in part:
..."After two years of waiting, I decided that academia wasn't interested in this issue and if a book on the subject was going to be written, I'd have to do it.
.... So there are no academics who have the training, intellectual tools and desire to put together religion and 9/11."
That is a pretty bold and brazen statement. I am unaware of Hugh's curriculam vitae and whether he is published and formally part of "academia", and frankly, I don't really need to know ( though he surely sounds like he's quite aware of the politics, and the who's who in, academia) Same for others who write on their appreciation and insights into the history and nature of Islam and Jihad (see the Books section on JW menu bar). All were published before Habeck's book. All (except those that might be deemed repetitive on a certain theme or topic) would be required reading in any class of study designed to learn about Islamic Jihad if I were designing the course. Thus, there were books available to "academia" before hers, maybe not to her liking, but they did exist.
So, now according to Ms. Habeck, there is, finally, an authoritative statement for "academia" on all things relating to Islamic Jihad.
It is one thing to claim exclusivity and speciality in a in a field of such vital importance when such exclusivity of expertise is simply not thwe case, but it is quite another to hold oneself out to be such an expert and be so WRONG or, IGNORANT. As Robert noted, he did pass a correction of information to Habeck on a particular topic, she acknowledged it and yet wrote something she admitted was at least questionable, if not completely false. One must question the motivations in her writing something she admitted was incorrect.
There is great danger here in allowing persons who hold themsleves out as "experts" in this field of Islamic Jihad when that expertise can be called into question. In the presidential debates, did any of the presidential candidates show that they had studied Islamic idealogy in any meaningful way ? Perhaps Tancredo, but the others are repeating the same mantra, tropes and sound bites we hear from GWB. If Guiliani is elected, where will he seek counsel when Europe comes calling for assistance in dealing , perhaps, a majority of muslims are about to take over in a major city? Mary Habeck? Mary Cheney? Hugh Fitzgerald?
Hugh has pointed out in numerous essays the error of ignorance by GWB in a) not making sufficient effort to learn thy enemy by studying the nature and history of Islam, and b) appointing persons wholly unqualified to make decisions since they too, failed to really do anything to "know thy enemy".
I've not seeen Habeck on the news talk show circuit yet, but she'll get the call (and will get an agent too) some day and she'll be asked her expert opinion on this issue and that. People, maybe quite important people, who are thirsty for knowledge on Jihad since they never took the time to study it themselves (eg , GWB), will rely on her expert opinion. If so, she'd better be right.
I support Hugh's critique of Habeck's credentials.
I emailed her today and suggested she visit JW and throw in her 2 cents now & again. She stated that she does look in here once a day but declines to post. She should. I think her perspective would be welcome. It migh also make her a better "expert" when the news producers come a calling after the next Jihadist attack in the U.S., and, if she is teaching the next generation about Islam and other Advanced issues of International Study, she ought to get it right, very right, don't you think?
I heard Mary Habeck on the Dennis Prager show too. She sounded quite effective to me in her presentation that the attacks by the Islamofascists are religiously motivated. For example, from "Knowing the Enemy"
I imagine she is receiving criticism from others in the academic community (middle east studies) for this book. Noticeably, she was somewhat vague about what policies the West should pursue given the nature of our enemy.
The "Popularity Effect"
I'm an expert on Islam - no me too - and me ..
Like "I am Spartacus" - but too late, with too little conviction and with no trust from their audience.
The word "bandwagon" springs to mind - as do "focus politics" and the idea tha "I only have beliefs that other people force on me"
I put my trust in the anti-jihadis who have been swimming, salmon like, upstream against media opinion (and of course "media opinion" is the "truth" after all ...) and discussing these issues for many years ..
rather than changing course in midstream ..