The heroic Ayaan Hirsi Ali discusses Obama's campaign pledge to withdraw from Iraq in 16 months. From "Change, but not for better," by Christopher Pearson in The Australian, November 8 (thanks to James):
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, one of radical Islam's astutest observers, was her persuasive best on the subject last week. "The original impetus of Obama's campaign was his pledge to withdraw from Iraq in 16 months. There is little doubt that if Obama were to implement this pledge, jihadis in Iraq and across the world, who see history in the millennial terms of a long fight against the crusaders, would feel victorious ... The message such a precipitous withdrawal would send to the jihadis is the same message Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero sent when he rapidly withdrew forces from the coalition in Iraq after the Spanish election in March 2004: if you hang on long enough, you can scare the West away."
Damned if we do and damned if we don't?
Do you/Hugh still believe the US should leave Iraq?
The US treasury is not a bottomless pit. We need help. It's not forthcoming. Iraqis aren't helping. Europeans, with few exceptions, aren't helping. Why is everything on the US? Are we supposed to fight until we destroy ourselves? There are plenty of others with a stake in the outcome in Iraq. Where are they? Don't put everything on the backs of English-speaking nations.
if you hang on long enough, you can scare the West away.
March of 2004 wasn't "long enough". It was early on. More than four years have passed! Who has picked up the slack? Europeans have no business counting themselves among "the West" if they won't fight for Western values. Put up or shut up.
Newsflash: Despite everything you've been told, Americans are not gods.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is someone who knows all about the ideology of Islam. She knows what Muslims are taught to think about non-Muslims: in Somalia, in northern Kenya, in Saudi Arabia, in the Muslim enclaves within The Netherlands. She knows what they are taught to think about the role of women, about the role of skeptical inquiry, about the significance, or insignificance, of the individual in Muslim theology. She, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is a witness to the effect of that ideology on the lives of women, and men. She is not a geostrategic thinker, and her assumption that a withdrawal from Iraq will give heart to Muslims, encourage triumphalism (as would putting pressure on Israel to surrender more territory) is correct, but correct only if one assumes that America withdraws its troops without more.
But that has steadily been my point about a withdrawal from Iraq. It must be preceded by, accompanied by, and followed by, words and deeds that show such a withdrawal is being undertaken not in order to appease the forces of Islam, but to more effectively, and ruthlessly, divide and demoralize, and weaken, the Camp of Islam. The sentimental messianism of the Bush Adminstration has squandered resources that now need to be husbanded, in attempting to attain goals that are both unattainable, and exactly the wrong goals.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali may not have recognized how many other things can be done, to make sure that such a withdrawal is not misinterpreted. I have written many times about the benefits, not sentimental but geopolitical, of the seizure, for reasons that will be described as "humanitarian," of Darfur and the southern Sudan by American troops (photographs in the world press of smiling and grateful black faces), until such time as a referendum on independence can be held. Susan Rice, a possibly politically-revived Samantha Power, and Barack Obama himself, might find the hard-headed reasons for such an undertaking in the Sudan particularly compelling. Could the Arab League use the U.N. in its time-honored fashion, to attack those rescuing the black victims, Christian and animist and Muslim, from Muslim and, in the case of the nominal Muslims of Darfur, Arab supremacism? And could even Nicholas Kristof, who made his name on the misery of the people in Darfur, find a way to object? It would unite the entire non-Muslim world, and even parts of the Muslim, but non-Arab world, might find the Darfur rescue at least not quite so outrageous as the Arab League, enraged at the foiling of the spread of the Muslim Arab power down the east coast of Africa, would have to mute, for political reasons, its fury.
For in order to extricate American soldiers -- and not just the combat troops, but all of the troops -- from Tarbaby Iraq (and Afghanistan), many other measures must be taken so that the meaning of such withdrawal is unambiguous. That includes, for eample, ending the policy, both stupid and cruel, of attempting to prevent Israel from attacking Iran's nuclear project, but instead, not only offering full cooperation, but showing that it is grateful (as it was, but only years after the fact, with Israel's bombing of the Osirak reactor), but being indifferent to the hysterical reaction of Arab Muslim states that, of course, will be secretly pleased at the setback to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Ideally, however, it is not Israel, which unlike the United States is not a world power, and remains in the Middle East, and no doubt would prefer not to have to attack Iran (but if it must, it must), because when the secular Shah was in control there was a kind of alliance or at least understanding and absence of hostility, between Iran and Israel. This possibility should ideally not be foreclosed, if one hopes for a post-Islamic Republic future for Iran, in which those who have experienced the real Islam, will find ways, by appealing to their own Persian past, to minimize the role of Islam and, in some cases, even to jettison it altogether as an "Arab gift" that they wish to take to the Returns Desk, no questions asked. And in perhaps seeking to appeal to another, non-Islamic identity, memories of Artaxerxes and the ancient aid extended to the Jews by Persia, might be of help, and also help, obliquely, a turn to Zoroastrianism or Christianity or some other way out, for many Iranians, out of the civilizational cul-de-sac that is Islam.
And there is much more. But no one should forget that whatever her virtues, and they are many and great, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is primarily a witness, a truthful testifier as to what Islam is all about, and what its effects are. This does not make her a Metternich, a Mahan, a Mackinder. That is a different thing.
I agree with Hugh about diverting resources from Iraq, which I agreed with invading but not rebuilding, to Sudan and Israel for the purpose of bombing Iran's nuclear program.
In all actuality, regardless of Obama's campaign promises, the plan was to hit all 18 benchmarks and leave. We've hit 16 1/2 of them. I don't foresee the remaining 1.5 taking 16 months. I don't wanna drag out this mess in Afghanistan, though. I want to stop Muslims from acquiring nukes and take a Cold War route.
American auto makers want a huge bailout? Give it to them. Start a Manhattan Project to beat the Japanese to the water vapor car. That's the only way to revive the American auto industry. The only way I would ever buy an American car would be if it would free me from my dependence on foreign oil. That alone would save our economy by stopping the transfer of money overseas, by freeing us from any and all deference to the Muslim world which costs us a fortune in a multitude of ways, by lowering the cost of goods and services, and by reviving a whole sector of our manufacturing base rather than just throwing money into a pit. And it's "green," so even liberals could get behind it.
No one ever said she was a military genius.
Of course she is right, the jihadist will claim victory, but they claim victory when a hurricane hits the U.S., they claim victory when our stock market falls, they claim victory when a president gets elected. My god, if we base our strategy off what the enemy might say, or what they might not say….we will be in real trouble.
The simple fact is Iraq is an unsustainable position, unless you change to objective to the eradication of political Islam, but even if we did that, I doubt the American people at this time are up for that kind of bloody struggle.
Our objectives at this point in Iraq are not worth the treasure, time or troops at this point (cool, the three Ts). That is all that should matter...not what some guy in a cave thinks.
"Damned if we do, damned if we don't?"
One could easily be excused for wondering if jihadwatch sends a double message - on one hand critical of the US presence in Iraq, on the other hand dismissive of those who want to leave. I agree with Hugh's perspective that we shouldn't have gone there and we should leave - but it should be for the right reasons.
I wish someone could ask President-elect Obama, "Mr. President, if it's true, as Muslims claim, that Islam is a religion of peace, and if it's true, as Muslims say, that they are to take care of the Ummah (with the billionaire Gulfies leading the way to help the impoverished Afghanis, Chadians, and Bangladeshis), and if it's true, as Muslims say, that the extremists are only a small minority who misunderstand the peaceful message of Islam, why can't we just leave and allow the peaceful majority to solve the problems caused by the tiny majority - and at the same time, secure our borders to ensure they don't come here?"
The US involvement in Iraq was a mistake, staying in Iraq to save face would be another mistake.
Steam powered automobiles (the Stanley Steamer) were built early in the 20th century. I can't imagine why we don't revive this idea. Nowadays we have the electrical means of heating water very quickly (for the initial hot water needed to start the car), unlike 1910 technology.
Anything to cause the jihad to die on the vine is fine with me. I can imagine that oil prices are causing some heartburn with our friends the Saudis and the others (including the Russians) right now. At least with less $$$ they might be able to make less mischief.
I know some people from Sudan, and they have suffered enough. If it could be done effectively, it would be outstanding to stop the Arabs from destroying the south Sudanese.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is someone who knows all about the ideology of Islam.
Is that true? As I recall she has stated that Islam can be moderated and salvaged. That thinking equates to a deep misunderstanding of Islam.
* 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 *
The US involvement in Iraq was a mistake...
If you think of the war (which ended in 3 weeks) and its subsequent benign occupation as a worthwhile experiment to find out whether Islam can be civilized, then it probably made sense.
Trouble is, we got the answer to that question years ago (it cannot be civilized) and should have pulled out then, except for the contingent of heavily armed garrisons kept there to guarantee the security of the Iraqui oil flow, something very important to our gutless and ever-needy EUrabian "allies."
Alarmed Pig Farmer, is that you? I'd wondered where you went...
Were it only to possible to meet Hirsi Ali and shake her hand -- oh what the heck -- what I really want to do is pin a Medal on her, that's how much I admire her courage.
Ali makes an excellent point regarding Obama, a point that only reinforces my own suspicions concerning BO's intentions: and that's to bring about Change that fascilitates Islams cause. Maybe I'm wrong, but time will certainly be the judge of that.
HUGH: "And there is much more. But no one should forget that whatever her virtues, and they are many and great, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is primarily a witness, a truthful testifier as to what Islam is all about, and what its effects are. This does not make her a Metternich, a Mahan, a Mackinder. That is a different thing."
RESPONSE: And we're supposed to believe that Hugh Firzgerald IS a Metternich?...
...based on the following assumptions....
1) that by withdrawing from Iraq prematurely, a prospect that is less and less likely now that the country has been effectively pacified thanks to the surge (and no thanks to Hugh's strident opposition to the surge), whatever subsequent actors that emerge in power in place of the existing Iraqi government will somehow enhance rather than diminish US security
2) Hugh wants us to empower Iraqi Kurds as part of his vision to fragment the Muslim world from its Arabo-centric essence. Fair enough.
And how does he propose to do so?
By encouraging a declaration of independence for Iraqi Kurds at the same time he proposes withdrawing US troops from the country.
Hugh figures we can stave off the disaster awaiting the Kurds - independence is violently opposed by virtually every actor in the region, Arab, Persian, & Turk - through air-drops of supplies and diplomatic pressure exerted on Turkey.
He further postulates that if the Kurds are massacred (as they were by Saddam), it will prove to the larger Muslim world the evils of Arab imperialism.
That's right folks, Hugh believes that Muslims in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Djakarta, Kuala Lampur, all over the world, will suddenly be sensitized to the suffering of one set of Muslims being brutalized by another!
OUR Metternich has suddenly completely forgotten the recent history of the Muslim world.
For example, where is Muslim the outrage today as Sudanese Arabs commit genocide against African Muslims?
Where was the Muslim outrage in 1980 when Syria's Hefaz Assad leveled his own city of Hama, slaughtering at least 20,000 of his own Muslim countrymen?
Where was the Muslim outrage in 1971 when Pakistani Muslims slaughtered 3 million Bangladeshi Muslims?
Where was the Muslim outrage from 1992-2003 when Algeria's civil war consumed the lives of 150,000 in an orgy of Muslim-on-Muslim killing?
I could on and on....
No folks, unlike Hugh, WE know the Muslim ethos; the ummah NEVER gets itself into a lather unless it is the INFIDELS who are killing Muslims.
Hugh's reckless advocacy of independence for Iraqi Kurds at the same time that he advocates US withdrawal from Iraq will only succeed in having everyone - the Arabs, the Iranians and especially the Turks - intervene to crush the current Kurdish polity, one that may not be independent, but is entirely autonomous and self-policing, stable, pluralistic and a place where women walk without head-scarves and are employed in the security forces.
Furthermore, this idea of Hugh's that we can prevail upon Turkey not only to turn a blind eye to their own fiercely enunciated red-line against independence for Iraqi Kurdistan, but for them to allow the Iraqi Kurds to then wrest control over the Kurdish portions of Iran and Syria,...so that Turkish Kurdistan would be the last unincorporated Kurdish population in the region, well, this is so preposterous that it quantifies Hugh as a fantasist.
Turkey's greatest fear is the loss of its own southeast, the largest Kurdish region in the world, both in terms of area and population. The Turkish Kurds have been fighting a violent war for separation since 1984 under the leadership of the PKK.
Independence of Kurdish regions in Iraq or Iran is seen in Ankara as a mortal threat to the Turkish state. But in Hugh's world, all that can be overcome with some assurance from the Iraqi Kurds that once they have their independence, they'll behave themselves.
HUGH: "[Hirshi Ali] is not a geostrategic thinker"
Folks, for all his erudition, neither is Hugh.
Regardless of who is or who isn't a geostrategic thinker, Hirsi Ali is here discussing withdrawal from Iraq in the terms in which the Democrats have framed it, not the terms in which Hugh has framed it -- which are his own, and don't match the stated positions of either party.
As far as withdrawal under the terms that Obama would like carry it out are concerned, it is almost certain that she is right: the jihadists would claim victory. After all, we have seen again and again how their allies who come to this website consistently claim victory in discussion or debate, no matter how soundly they are bested. This is a tendency that is inculcated within them, and there is no reason to believe it wouldn't be the case in this instance.
Whatever the merits may be or may not be of the idea that withdrawal from Iraq "must be preceded by, accompanied by, and followed by, words and deeds that show such a withdrawal is being undertaken not in order to appease the forces of Islam, but to more effectively, and ruthlessly, divide and demoralize, and weaken, the Camp of Islam," this will never happen in an Obama Administration, or any other American Administration that could at this time be conceived.
The democracy project in Iraq is futile and wasteful. I stated why in an article before it even started, in early 2003. That said, it is entirely possible that American troops could be deployed more effectively, not in (largely) doomed efforts to win hearts and minds, but in attempts to interdict and frustrate jihadist movements and activity.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
Alarmed Pig Farmer, is that you? I'd wondered where you went...
Oink.
Hugh believes that Muslims in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Djakarta, Kuala Lampur [sic], all over the world, will suddenly be sensitized to the suffering of one set of Muslims being brutalized by another!”
---- from a posting above
Really? Is that what I said? That the establishment of an independent Kurdish state, or even the mere effort to establish such a state that would be violently opposed by the Arabs, would “suddenly sensitize” all those non-Arab Muslims in “Bangladesh, Pakistan, Djakarta, Kuala Lampur [sic]” to the suffering of one set of Muslims, brutalized by another set? Does that in your view even come close to approximating my statements about raising the consciousness of non-Arab Muslims through the spectacle of seeing Arabs suppress non-Arab Muslims, as they have done in Darfur, and would try to do, if they thought it necessary, in northern Iraq, beginning with Mosul and Kirkuk? Have I ever, in hundreds of postings about this, ever said that the non-Arab Muslims might be filled with pity at the “suffering” of the Kurds? No, I did not. I said they would bethink themselves, and could be encouraged to do so, by Infidel propaganda, about the whole matter of Islam as a vehicle of Arab supremacism. That is a very different thing from being “sensitized to the suffering of one set of [non-Arab] Muslims” being “brutalized by another [Arab set of Muslims].”
This carelessness, this failure to read carefully or to transmit accurately what one has read, these exaggerations – the last one, from the same poster – was all about how I looked forward to a supposed “blood-bath” in Iraq, a claim which I answered and which the poster, uncharacteristically, replied to with an admission that he had misstated. But he can’t help himself. He excuses himself here, and then there, and then comes right back with the same misrepresentation of my actual words and arguments. It’s getting a bit tedious to have to correct him.
APF, I thought that was you. YAAAAAAAYYYYYYY! Glad to see you're back. ; )
"Ayaan Hirsi Ali may not have recognized how many other things can be done, to make sure that such a withdrawal is not misinterpreted."
Or maybe Ayaan Hirsi Ali recognizes how extremely unlikely it will be for these things to be done. So, in the real world, we may have to choose between two unsatisfactory things:
1) remaining in Iraq
2) withdrawing from Iraq
-- both done without those pie-in-the-sky things that "can be done" but most likely won't be done.
Now the question becomes realistically, which is better, #1 or #2?
PMK
"We need help"
This is precisely what the pro-US Iraqi Generals were screaming at the US in their attempts to overthrow. All they wanted was light air support to take out Saddam's tanks and artillery. They could've walked to Baghdad and taken out Saddam, and still kept the status quo, ie rule the Shiai with an iron fist.
Go read (if not already) Robert Baer's "see no evil", he's a long time experienced CIA man.
Instead, for reasons unknown the Clinton government ignored the Pro-US generals, 8-9 years, Bush launched a bloody ground invasion and installed a weak puppet government led by an Iraqi Nuri al-Maliki who had not lived in Iraq for decades and who lived a great deal of his exile in Syria and Iran.
Basically "we" freeded the Iraqis by killing Saddam and now the people that "we" freed are actively killing us as "we" dig their wells and build their homes at a rate of 6 billion dollars a month.
Lastly, why should the Europeans help? They saw what would happen if Saddam was taken out, they knew the "quagmire" which would lead to the downfall of the Western economy and the loss of moral high ground that America held pre Iraq war.
I'm not some screaming liberal but every intelligent person knows that by taking out a bully (saddam) and replacing him with the teachers pet then nothing but trouble will come from it.
I say install a military dictatorship, wipe out the Shia Iran backed high command and pull out.
Hugh: I would not take the gratitude of southern Sudanese for granted if America intervened - not for long, anyway. (For example: "What have white people done for us? Nothing!" a south Sudanese young fellow, recovering in a Red Cross hospital in Juba, said to me...I wonder where he thought the hospital came from. Another south Sudanese said to me, here, in Australia, which has taken him in, given him housing and an income, that when he goes back to south Sudan he will "kick out all the white people". I asked what he would do with the Arabs. "They can stay", he said.)
The Sudanese are rather relativistic about their woes. They all talk about how much they are suffering. Rich, poor, local, immigrant, black, Arab, men, women: "We are suffering". They blame their government, but say the governments of regions such as the south or Darfur are hopelessly corrupt.
America is blamed for all kinds of unlikely things, and there is a constant drip-feed of anti-Americanism in the papers. I really doubt the very concept of gratitude. And now they (or, I should say, Africans generally) are expecting so much from Obama: it is not as vague as "hope", it is "expectation". I suspect they will not be pleased if he doesn't deliver whatever fantastic dreams they are cherishing.
Allright sir....IN YOUR OWN WORDS...
Do you actually believe that "the consciousness of non-Arab Muslims through the spectacle of seeing Arabs suppress non-Arab Muslims...in Darfur"...has been raised in the least during this genocide?
On the contrary, Muslim governments have done what they've always done: express their solidarity with the Muslim government doing the repressing (in this case, Khartoum)...and as usual, the Muslim masses have remained indifferent.
Do you actually believe it would be ANY different for the Kurds of Iraq, if they faced slaughter by the Arabs, the Turks, the Persians, or all three? Do you actually believe the reaction would be any different than when Saddam gassed the Kurds at Halabja in '88 and the Muslim world remained mute?
You want to play games with the fate of the Kurds as part of your larger Machiavellian schemes, but all that would happen if they declared independence (in the absence of an American presence) is that they would be over-run by their neighbors and their experiment in secularism and pluralism would be destroyed, the Muslim world would look the other way (or more likely, would actively support the aggression in solidarity with Turkey and/or Iraq), America would lose a strong ally, and the world would witness anew how America abandons its friends in need...
...(and let's not pretend that after withdrawing from Iraq, America could determine the course of events there).
Your plans for the Kurds resemble your plans for all of Iraq...undermining what moderation there is by a precipitous withdrawal and in the process, empower the most fanatical elements in the equation (Iran and/or Al Qaeda).
This is hardly a recipe for enhancing the security of the United States.
The poster PG (7:22 p.m.) does bring up the one matter that might give one pause about rescuing non-Muslims and non-Arabs which is whether or not they will indeed be grateful, or will become a burden. I admit that his observations certainly ring true, though I have also seen Francis Bok and other "Lost Boys" from the southern Sudan who seem quite different from those Sudanese he has met in Australia. I wouldn't do them any favors, not any "rebuilding" of things that never existed in the first place. But the southern Sudanese, with the Arab rulers in Khartoum out of the picture, could receive revenues from the oil, and the non-Arab Muslim black Africans in Darfur could receive royalties from the mineral wealth (and possibly oil -- I'm unclear as to whether that is part of what is at stake in Darfur) in Darfur, and pay for themselves, and pay for their American protectors too, once the revenue stream starts up. And the Chinese who get some of their oil from the southern Sudan can pay the Southern Sudanese, who can pay us, to stay in very modest numbers, just enough to keep the Arabs at bay.
And what would be the effect of seeing the Arabs try and try again to reassert themselves as masters over black Africans? Not only would this be a salutary spectacle for other black African nations, not only would it help to raise consciousnesses around the world about the Arab slave trade in Africa (and it would be fun to start hearing noises made about demands for "reparations" from the rich Arabs rolling in OPEC money), but it could also help to paint Islam, in an echo of what might happen in Kurdistan, as a vehicle for Arab imperialism, a theme which must start to be repeated endlessly, and never let up on. And that could have effects in countering the campaigns of Da'wa directed at black populations in America and England and even France.
All in all, I think that despite your disturbing (and infuriating) evidence of possible ingratitude twoard, and impossible expectations of, "whites" by some Sudanese refugees in Australia whom you have met, that there are others who clearly do not exhibit such attitudes, and one way to minimize that whole racial business, is for the Pentagon, directed by Obama, to make sure that a high proportion of the American soldiers involved in rescuing and protecting black Africans in the Sudanese south and in Darfur from the Arabsthemselves be black soldiers.
Such an American operation in the Sudan, as just one in a series of events (words and deeds) that should deliberately accompany or precede or soon follow after, an American withdrawal from Iraq, and with the kind of rhetoric from Washington that leaves no room for ambiguity about the intention of this country to wage a war of self-defense, in collaboration with other variously threatened Infidel states (Israel by nuclear weapons, India by internal terrorist attacks, the countries of Western Europe through campaigns of Da'wa and demogrpahic conquest), against "all those who participate in Jihad."
Oh, it can be done, far more effectively, and much more cheaply, than the hasty, sentimental, only-seemingly "tough-minded" efforts in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Hey man,
For the record, I admit I'm prone to rhetorical excess (you're certainly not the first to point that out)....and I apologize for it...
...still doesn't change the substance of our differences over Iraq.
In the interest of fairness, I want to state...
1) you are dead-on in asserting that our machinations in the Muslim world are doing nothing to turn the tide in Europe, a much more important theater (Europe is still within the non-Muslim camp)
2) you are also right that our involvement in Iraq has complicated - to say the least - our ability to effectively deal with Iran and its nuclear aspirations.
You're right about a lot of things, Hugh. Everybody here knows that. It wouldn't hurt to acknowledge it on those rare occasions when you're wrong. The prospective Turkish disposition towards Iraqi Kurdish independence is just such an occasion.
“…the Pentagon, directed by Obama, to make sure that a high proportion of the American soldiers involved in rescuing and protecting black Africans in the Sudanese south and in Darfur from the Arabsthemselves be black soldiers.”
“Oh, it can be done, far more effectively, and much more cheaply, than the hasty, sentimental, only-seemingly "tough-minded" efforts in Iraq and in Afghanistan.”
Posted by: Hugh
Good lord Hugh!!
You have absolutely NO IDEA of what you are babbling on about!
To deploy ANY American troops in any kind of hostile environment (which Darfur qualifies for in spades) all of them must face the threat of death and SOME OF THEM WILL BE KILLED!
Now you imagine yourself to have such insight, as to be able to custom tailor combat units (as one would order a color coordinated suit of clothes) so that your fancy army can match your fantasy conflict. It does not work that way – not even close!
When you send real live men into a real live battle, team spirit, camaraderie and faith in leadership matter more than you could EVER know. All of these things are absolutely essential for any kind of success to be possible. These things are delicate and they must be carefully nurtured and constantly reinforced – they do not happen by whim or accident.
An American combat unit purposely composed of mostly black troopers so that the locals won’t be offended?
As one who has carried a rifle in combat, I am sure that I have heard more foolish ideas - I really just can’t remember when.
I do not oppose withdrawal from Iraq if it is a strategy, and not a surrender.
'Surrender Hell'...I wonder if Presidente Obama saw the movie...?
I do not see why the ragtag Janjaweed not-quite-irregulars, with their rifles and jeeps, and the Sudanese army whose capabilities can be imagined, and the Sudanese "air force" that could be destroyed on the ground within minutes, are in your estimation so formidable, the cause of so much anxiety.
As for the suggestion that for propaganda purpooses it might make sense to have a higher-than-usual proportion of black American soldiers in the force that would rescue black Africans, why is that so strange or so outlandish? Is the American army, or the American government, not allowed to take any note of the propaganda effect of this, to our benefit if handled correctly? I'm not sure what it is of which I am so ignorant.
Are you suggesting that such a thing cannot be done, for in today's army any race-consciousness in assignments, even in order to further military and propaganda goals, is unwise or unacceptable? Is that your point, or were you making some other point?
Armies are not required to send, to every battle or every front, a random selection of troops. They can, if they wish, for the purposes of propaganda or other purpose, choose to have this or that force composed of people of a certain ethnic or religious or linguistic background. Don't you think it made perfect sense, during World War II, for many of the Jewish refugees from Hitler who were in the army to be placed in intelligence units where their linguistic and other skills could be fully exploited in interrogation and intelligence work?
I still don't understand your objections, and I repeat that there are all kinds of effects, from making clear that we are not withdrawing from any fight, but merely have chosen to fight more effectively, and cunningly, and with a far smaller expenditure, than the vain bringing of "freedom" to "ordinary moms and dads" in Iraq, and Afghanistan (and who knows -- possibly we will have to add Pakistan to that dreamy list), and keep those countries intact, and make their populations permanently prosperous, lest they become those "failed states" we hear so much about, and that of course inexorably lead, so we are told, to becoming centers where terrorists can successfully not only plot against us (as apparently they are incapable of doing in London or Paris or outside Washington, D.C.), but also find, in these "failed states," the perfect training ground, the places without which -- so we are expected even now, in 2008, to believe -- they couldn't possibly function. This is nonsense.
The Sudan would be a place to draw not only a line against Muslim Arab imperialism, but also a place to hearten black African Christians, from Nigeria to Kenya, and down to South Africa, and what's more, to underscore the way in which Arab supremacism finds its most powerful vehicle in Islam itself.
And all of this can be achieved while fulfilling a "humanitarian" mission that no one at the U.N., no one at the World Council of Churches, no one at the Huffington Post, can possibly object to.
Tell me again what is so wrong with this notion, beginning with the power and might of the Sudanese army.
We "liberated" the Iraqis from a psychopath slaughtering Kurd and Shia alike, and what did it get us, except for a theatre, FAR from our own streets, to take out as many jihadists as possible. Not too much gratitude when we "asked" them to stand up for themselves. Only when their own tribes were attacked did they side with us as a matter of convenience..NO, I don't think the "black, non-arab muslims" would be grateful - just the opposite. The Kaffir would be within the dar al islam, and arab or not, that is just unacceptable, even if we ARE there stopping the killing fields on their behalf. Leave a country which soo much blood and treasure has been spent, that actually HAS a multitude of resources (that we could exploit if necessary), and strategically located near the hitler of our time, and pour even MORE of our blood and treasure into an area historically hostile to the west, especially the US, which has given more aid than the rest of the world combined, to that continent...I'm sorry, it just doesn't make sense. Either way, B O won't do anything about it - he supported a murderous, corrupt regime on that continent already - why would he NOW do the right thing?
You start a fight, you finish the damned fight, or it finishes you.
Every jihadi knows that.
Rework the tactics but also know your ultimate goal: defeating the radical, tyrannical, intolerant, terroristic Islam and its dogmas that threaten Civilization.
profitsbeard
"You start a fight, you finish the damned fight, or it finishes you............
Yeah, WE used to know that too..........
The word "defeat" is not quite right. Islam remains. More than a billion people do not disappear. What one does is attempt to keep the threat of Jihad manageable, as it was, say, in 1930. This can be done, by identifying weaknesses in the enemy camp and exploiting them. It can be done by using the same technological advances, made in the West by non-Muslims but exploited by Muslims to spread the full message of Islam, to spread the message that Islam is a vehicle for Arab supremacism, and spelling out exactly how it is, with examples. Every non-Arab Muslim will find it hard to ignore the truth of that statement, and its elaboration, and the evidence for it. And if the non-Muslim world grasps that it is theatened by the same thing, though not always in exactly the same way (local circumstances vary, the proximity of Muslim states, or the size of domestic Muslim populations, all vary as well) there can be more support shown, each for each.
Finally, if enough non-Muslims grasp the ways in which Islam itself explains the political despotisms and economic backwardness (OPEC revenues are deceptive) of almost all -- not quite all (see Turkey, for an exception that proves the rule)-- Muslim states and societies, and also explains the social, intellectual, and moral failures of those societies, that will force intelligent and aware Muslims to recognize the same truths, and that will not only help to render less sure of itself the Camp of Islam, but cause internal questioning that can only be to everyone's benefit, both Muslims who would wish for a way out, a way to tame or lessen the power of Islam, and for non-Muslims. But this goes on forever, and there is no "defeating" but merely holding in permanent check, or possibly here and there also pushing back, what the poster above calls, perhaps a tad too hyperbolically with the piling up of epithets, "the radical, tyrannical, intolerant, terroristic Islam and its dogmas that threaten Civilization."
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"spread the message that Islam is a vehicle for Arab supremacism..."
Sorry Hugh, but we have all seen how the ulema put the blinders on when it comes to islam. Arab or not, you attack one, you attack them all. I agree that a publicity campaign, of sorts, MUST take place (so far, the west has been completely incompetent at this), but first they MUST be demoralized, in the only way they understand, which is militarily. I also agree, with both yourself and Mr. Spencer, that WE need to change, ourselves, as western societies, and quit burying our heads in the sand. The muslims, arab or not, at least at this point, do not have the capacity to rethink 1400 years of wrongness, no matter the propaganda. They will need to come to this understanding via their own survival within today's world.
Therefore, once US troops are withdrawn from Iraq - whatever the pretext - can't one look forward to the geopolitical consequences playing out? After all, if we expect internecine fighting to break out between Shia and Sunnis, and think that it's a good thing, why would anyone think that Shia and Sunni would confront each other if we withdrew as a strategy, but not confront each other if we withdrew as a surrender? Regardless of what we did, they'd initially assume that it's the latter, and after that euphoria of a victory has played out, they'll be at each other's throats. All that the US would have to do is stay out of that fighting.
And if, as has been speculated, Ikhwan branches from Egypt, Syria, Jordan and KSA start pouring into Iraq, while Hizbullah and Basji brigades from Lebanon start joining in to join the Mahdi Army, the fact that Obama wouldn't have a strategy given his outlook wouldn't matter. If he is busy enough with trying to nationalize the US economy or take over the nation's health care, he's not going to have time to see that Shia and Sunni don't end up fighting each other, and being Black, he's not going to have clout with those Mohammedans, who don't respect Blacks to begin with. So it's more likely than not that all that oil money that has been used to promote dawa in the West will be diverted in this internecine jihad, and hopefully, what happens in Iraq will spill into Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE, Bahrein and other places.
So I fail to follow the logic of those who denounce unilateral withdrawal as surrender - don't you foresee the laws of unintended consequences kicking in?
Also, while I agree with Hugh on withdrawal from Iraq, I disagree with him about leaving any troops in Darfur or South Sudan. Taking out the Sudanese air force and bombing their combat units in the West and South, I'm okay with, but beyond that, nothing. It'll be upto the Muslims of Darfur and Christians of the South to do whatever they perceive in their interest.
“Tell me again what is so wrong with this notion, beginning with the power and might of the Sudanese army. “
Posted by: Hugh
O.K. Hugh for your benefit as well as others:
“I do not see why the ragtag Janjaweed not-quite-irregulars, with their rifles and jeeps, and the Sudanese army whose capabilities can be imagined, and the Sudanese "air force" that could be destroyed on the ground within minutes, are in your estimation so formidable, the cause of so much anxiety.”
RESPONSE:
This is one of the most simple and basic rules of war, but one that the many intelligent and thoughtful people frequently completely fail to grasp. A failure to understand this rule will inevitably lead to defeat.
When we fought the Viet Cong, many years ago, they were not nearly as well equipped as the Janjaweed. With our well-trained modern army, massive firepower, artillery and air support, we killed them by the thousands. Yet still they came, day after day, month after month, year after year to die – but every once in awhile a VC bullet hit its mark and another American trooper paid his last full measure. On a balance of force level, there should have been no contest at all, so many military wizards thought. What they and you failed to include in their analysis was the WILL of the enemy to fight – and continue fighting despite the overwhelming odds against him and despise his own massive casualties.
The Viet Cong had daily propaganda pep talks to drill into their minds that they fought for their own country free of “round eyes”, Socialism, and Uncle Ho. For these things they fought the most powerful army in the world and eventually prevailed. Not because of any military might or even victory, but because of WILL, which they maintained and we eventually lost. We lost our WILL because the question “why are we here?” was asked one too many times.
Contemplate the above Hugh; give it some serious thought before you decide. Then you tell me, do you think that maybe, just maybe the “ragtag Janjaweed not-quite-irregulars” with their Islam and their head banging 5 times a day and lust for Infidel blood just might bleed us a bit here and there? And WHY would we be in Darfur? Not for oil, not for any strategic military purpose but for the flight of fancy to MAYBE put a smile on a few African faces. Tell me Hugh, as they die 100 or even 1000 to our one, who’s WILL will run out first do you think, theirs or ours?
Hugh: PG again here. By mentioning ingratitude, I did not mean that we should not help the south Sudanese. The southern Sudanese, with their defiance, did much to stop (or defer, or lessen) the spread of Islam southwards and southeastwards into Kenya. They needed help, and received much less than was warranted considering what has turned into a matter of global urgency. The reluctance of the world to help them has no doubt been bad for Kenya at least, with Somalians feeling free to expand their operations of jihad.
My mention of two examples of ingratitude, one in Sudan and one in Australia, was not indicative, I hope, of the attitude of south Sudanese generally.
The south Sudanese government already receives more than $US40m a month from the oil, or so the vice-President told me. It doesn't seem to go very far. They now have made "investment" agreements with the Chinese, something I warned them not to do... they have enough problems with the Islamists, let alone getting locked into dependence on the Chinese.
Last year, I think it was, the Khartoum government insisted only African Union soldiers be deployed in Darfur rather than UN soldiers. I think they would hate American soldiers whether black or white.
The US would be up against the Arab world and Chinese as well if it decided to intervene in Darfur. Everyone blames the US for so much, even for the duration of the Darfur situation. Considering the US can't spread its resources too thinly, perhaps imminent recurrence of hostilities in south Sudan (separation referendum) would be the time to start quietly helping the southerners. It benefits us all if they are protected: although I imagine the refugees to our countries must wonder if we are complete lunatics, fighting terrorists overseas while ushering them so politely into our own countries to become citizens and instruct us in the matter of conversion to their religion.
Don't you foresee, you've only factored in one set of "unintended consequences".
There could very easily be others...
1) the most radical elements of Shia and Sunni in Iraq coalesce to defeat what moderates there are, particularly our allies in Kurdistan, replacing Barzani and Talabani with the likes of Ansar al Islam - a ready-made Kurdish militant group waiting in the wings to impose its fanaticism on what is now a pluralistic, secular region
2) one side (probably the Shia) rapidly vanquishes the other and invites Iran in to help consolidate its power, dramatically expanding Iranian regional influence, and validating the mullahs in Tehran to such a degree that what domestic secular opposition exists evaporates completely
3) after some initial fighting, the two sides agree on partition, with an Al Qaeda regime in Anbar and Mosul, and a Shia theocracy in the south
All of these outcomes are just as likely as a prolonged Shia-Sunni civil war, and ALL are inimical to the interests of America and the West...
...unless you consider the spread and empowerment of the most fanatical elements in the Islamic world to be IN OUR INTERESTS.
Unintended consequences, indeed.
Davegreybeard: I don't think the Janjaweed are as determined as the Vietcong were. I get the impression there is a lot of confusion in Darfur regarding loyalties. And they are all Muslim. On some occasions the militia, having been given weapons by Khartoum, have changed sides. It is a mess, and has much to do with tribalism as anything, and yet it is possible that the lot of them will eventuelly turn on Khartoum.
Davey,
In Vietnam, we weren't just facing the Viet Cong, we were facing a formidably trained and equipped North Vietnamese Army that did much of the fighting in the south and that made the Janjaweed look absolutely para-military by comparison.
Having said that, I agree with your basic hypothesis; after the Sudanese air force is destroyed and the Janjaweed are quickly scattered, then the suicide-bombing and IED campaigns begin. Jihadis from around the world will make their way to Khartoum and then Darfur, and along with plenty of militant locals, will seek martyrdom.
And just as you say, one by one, they will start to bleed America.
Hugh doesn't want to fight the Jihadis where we are fighting them today - in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he considers it a squandering of blood and treasure. But he anticipates the potential fight in Darfur as somehow being different. Why, I don't know. But it is a glaring inconsistency.
Hirsi: "if you hang on long enough, you can scare the West away."
The "tug of war" metaphor that Hirsi uses to describe the West's intervention in Iraq does not seem to fit here.
The Arab world understands the military strength of the west, especially the military prowess of the U.S., which has been on display more than any other western power during this past century.
The resolve of the U.S. military to "hang on" to Iraq at the expense of the health of the U.S. economy and the cost of struggling Americans is absurd and misguided.
The U.S. economy is in the greatest finiancial meltdown it has experienced in decades. Simply put, the majority of Americans see little benefit to keep pumping billions of borrowed money to nation build in Iraq when the infrastructure of the U.S. is in peril and in need of being rescued.
The cost of the Iraq war is too great at this point in time to keep American troops sustained there for mouch longer.
Americans know this.
Obama is right with his policy towards Iraq. Although I lean to the right on many political issues, I am with Obama on this one.
“As for the suggestion that for propaganda purposes it might make sense to have a higher-than-usual proportion of black American soldiers in the force that would rescue black Africans, why is that so strange or so outlandish? Is the American army, or the American government, not allowed to take any note of the propaganda effect of this, to our benefit if handled correctly? I'm not sure what it is of which I am so ignorant. “
“Are you suggesting that such a thing cannot be done, for in today's army any race-consciousness in assignments, even in order to further military and propaganda goals, is unwise or unacceptable? Is that your point, or were you making some other point?”
Posted by: Hugh
What seem to be unaware of is what it takes to achieve and maintain force cohesion and how fragile this is. Also you are not cognizant of the necessity to maintain the WILL of the American public to support its Armed Forces and the conflict(s) in which they are engaged.
An army cannot function and succeed if it is perceived by those in it to be arbitrary, unfair and not following its own established order. It is not without good reason that it is difficult to find a more racially “equal” society than the U.S. Armed Forces. This is because what may be required of its members is extreme depravation and suffering up to and including death. On the battlefield, absolute trust and teamwork mean life and the lack of it greatly increased odds of death. Ponder the above for a moment.
The surest way to destroy morale and faith in the army “system” is to single out one group for a greater share of the combat load than another. This is particularly incendiary if the division is along racial lines. Paradoxically, it will aggravate both ways, blacks will resent bearing a disproportionate number of combat deaths and wounded and whites will resent the lack of combat opportunity.
The resentment and animosity generated between the races by such a scheme as you suggest would not only greatly weaken our Armed Forces it would spill over and infect race relations in the civilian population as well. In the Viet Nam era this very issue was a MAJOR problem, as it was “perceived” by some that poor black boys were dying in greater proportion to white boys. This perceived disparity contributed to our loss of will to fight in Viet Nam, albeit in a minor way. This issue has not gone away and is still with us as it cropped up again when the Iraq conflict wasn’t going so well.
Dividing our army along racial lines as you describe is a foolish and very dangerous thing to do – both for the Armed Forces sake and the sake of the American population as a whole.
In the case of Kurdistan, it'll be an ethnic attack on them from Arabs, Iranians and possibly Turks. That's the only part of Obama's policy differences with Hugh where I see a negative result, but I'm not exactly of the opinion that American blood is cheaper than Kurd. But do you think Shia in southern Iraq will be more interested in joining Sunnis and invading the north, rather than cleansing Southern Iraq and Baghdad of the Sunnis, and making sure that their oil doesn't contribute to the prosperity of Sunnis? Similarly, do you think Sunnis will be aggressive about expelling Kurds from Mosul and Kirkuk, rather than protecting themselves in Baghdad and southern Iraq from Sunnis?
You are assuming that one side will be allowed to vanquish the other, with no intervention from the surrounding Sunni states. You think the Ikhwan will quietly just let Iraq go Shia, regardless of whether Iran intervenes? You think that GCC Sunni states like KSA, UAE, Bahrein and Qatar will let Iraq go Shia, and thereby encourage their own Shia populations to revolt if Iran does intervene? They'll do whatever they can to prevent that, like trying to get the US to prevent that, and failing that, if Obama refuses to confront Iran, including sending Jihadis from their countries and Egypt and Syria into Iraq to fight the Shia.Secular democratic opposition is not there even today - which is why Iraq's constitution is based on Shariah. The only opposition to the Iraqi government is the non-majority ethnic groups, be they Kurd or Sunni. If Iran takes over, it's the Ikhwan Sunni factions in Iraq that will be the center of opposition. In other words, al Qaeda.
The moment you have an al Qaeda regime anywhere, you can be sure that any US administration will bomb it. Obama was opposed to war with Saddam, not al Qaeda - after all, this is the argument the Dems use. A Shia theocracy in Najaf would be more a threat to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, although the Israel would feel threatened when there will be escalated co-operation between Sadr and Nasrallah. But Israel's situation vis a vis Hizbullah is ugly anyway thanks to the blind eye the Bush administration has turned on Syria and even Iran, as far as their policies towards Israel goes.No, a feeling of discomfort in Riyadh, Cairo, Sharjah and Doha is not inimical to the interests of the West, much as they'd like us to believe. I've never bought the theory of a lot of Conservative analysts that Shia regimes in the region are problematic to the West, but Sunni regimes, such as the ones mentioned above, are okay. Both need to be destabilized. If Iraq ceases to exist as a country and becomes a pure battlefield, that's not a problem for the West. If the rulers from Cairo to Muscat start sweating about the turn of events, that too is not a problem for the West.
You need to learn to distinguish our interests i.e. the interests of the Infidel West (including Israel) from that of Islamic, and ostensibly 'pro-Western' states like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. They are not the same.
Unintended from the POV of the Obamas. Very much intended from us. Namely, the undermining of Islam by letting them play out their takfir games against each other - who's more Islamic!
The unity of myriad Islamic forces only happens when there is an Infidel entity there, as there is in the case of Israel, but which nothing can be done about. Otherwise, you have intra-Islamic conflicts everywhere, whether it's religious (Shia vs Sunni), ethnic (Arab vs Kurd, Arab vs Barber, Pashtun vs Tajik, Panjabi vs Sindi in Pakistan, et al) or economic (Socialist Muslims from oil poor states like Egypt, Jordan, Syria vs bourgeouise Muslims from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrein and Qatar.
Not only is the fact that they can't come together not our problem, but it's a boon. Look at it this way - when 2 Mohammedans are at each other's throats, that means 2 less Mohammedans aren't at your throat - or mine.
I like it that way. Don't you?
Hugh:
You state that pulling out of Iraq, so long as we do some other things, will not embolden the Jihadists.
We both know that Obama is NOT going to do any of those other things. To the contrary, Obama will end up saying every possible wrong thing. We can look forward to hearing about how poverty, U.S. foreign policy, the N-S divide, rich-poor gap, etc. cause terrorism.
Isn't it time to operate within the world of reasonable probability? Obama may or may not pull out of Iraq, but there is a 0% chance he will do ANY of the other steps that would prevent our departure from being perceived as a loss.
0%.
Given those facts, an abrupt departure would not be desirable. The good news is, things seem to have quieted down enough where we can draw down, claim victory, and get out. If we do so in a way that makes it look like we lost, we are going to be in trouble.
First, about this seize-Darfur-and-southern-Sudan possibility and some misconceptions about what I offered. This was only one of many suggestions I put forth in past posts. It was never meant to be "the" policy that must accompany, or precede, a withdrawal from Iraq. It is merely one,
and I offered what I thought, and think, are reasons why it makes sense, symbolic and real. It offers a "humanitarian" mission that will be very hard for others to oppose (continue the honeymoon with Obama and America, by all means for as long as possible). It draws a line in the Sudanese sand beyond which the Arab Muslims will not be permitted to go. It denies them the revenues from oil already being produced in the southern Sudan, and from whatever further natural resources may be discovered and developed both there, and in Darfur. It allows black African Christians, some of whom noticed when the West showed itself indifferent to the Nigerian Christians during the Biafra War forty years ago (1967-1969), a war that Col. Ojukwu, the leader of Biafra, described as one of self-defense by the Christians (predominantly but not exclusively Ibo) against a "Jihad" from the Muslim north. The Arabs felt no compunction about supporting the Muslim side, and Egyptian pilots strafed Ibo villages at will.
In the Sudan, the American forces could quickly dispatch whatever the Sudanese put up. The terrain is not exactly fit either for Viet Cong, or in places where there are very few roads, for I.E.D.s. Furthermore, the local populations would have no desire -- unlike in Iraq or Afghanistan - to support Arab attacks on their American saviors.
The one thing that does worry me is the problem of staying, and becoming responsible for the aftermath. The American military, and its civilian leaders, always prove too kind, and too generous, in remaining around to make everything right, in places where things can't be put right. The American forces may initially be used, but it should now be up to the European members of NATO, who have contributed so little relative to what the Americans have, save for Great Britain, in both Iraq (which admittedly was looked upon by other states, even those that did contribute small forces, as folly) and, more disturbingly, in Afghanistan, where all claim to see this, or did until reality recently sunk in, to see this, in contradistinction to Iraq, as a mission worth participating in.
Ideally, one would like European forces, or European forces with, at this point, a symbolic contingent of African forces, take over from the Americans and run the referendum, with lots and lots of publicity, on the sole question: do you wish to be independent of the Khartoum government, that is the Arabs of the north. The answer will be Yes. At this point there should be no promises, and no hint of promises, of any infusion of American or other Western aid, of anything at all except help in receiving payment for the natural resources, including the oil that is already being produced, that can be found undre the ground. There might be some supplying of rifles and jeeps to local troops. And from afar, intermittent but steady attacks on any Muslim forces from the north that seemed intent on disrupting things, or re-seizing part of black Africa as one more act of Arab imperialism -- now on display for the whole world, not least for people in black Africa and who identify with it.
I'm not eager to find places for the American military to go, and believe the war (without end) of self-defense against the Jihad can most effectively be addressed by diminishing the oil revenues the Arabs and Iranians receive, raising the cost to them (and at times denying them altogether) for Western goods and services. Some kind of collaboration between the Pentagon and the State Department and the Treasury Department should have all kinds of imaginative and relentless people working to figure out how to separate Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and other places from a lot more of their allowance. Campaigns of Da'wa should be monitored, shut down where opinion has shifted enough to allow such a ban, and counter-Da'wa should be conducted in two ways:
1) to immunize the very target populations, the economically and (with greater difficulty) the psychically marginal, by such things as discussing the ban, in Islam, ban on most forms of artistic expression and music, and on free inquiry, and the Total Regulation of Life (this is the kind of thing linkely to repel some, but attract others eager to submit to that Total Regulation, but there are ways to present the latter so that it is deprived of its allure
2) to use ex-Muslims, just like the two Christians Rashid and Ahmed, who in their television program are so effective in making a case that undermines faith in Islam. That is real counter-Da'wa, and there are now enough ex-Muslims around in the West so that they should be found, vetted, and enrolled in the common effort. They understand what will appeal to Muslim minds, and even to subsets of Muslim minds.
Then there must be tightening of restrictions on Muslim immigration to Europe. When there is violence, let the airlines "temporarily" shut down flights (as the British have already done with Pakistan), and be in no hurry to reconnect Muslims living in Europe with their home countries; don't make it easy for them to travel back and forth, to bring in relatives, to marry young girls there and bring them into Europe, swelling Muslim numbgers. And when there is other kinds of trouble, shut down those consulates and embassies in the Muslim countries where such disturbances occur, or from which threats emanate, and keep them closed. It makes it much harder to obtain visas. This at least for now, until such time as the whole problem of Islam's texts, tenets, attitudes, and atmospherics, and the impossibility of integrating large numbers of Muslims into non-Muslim societies, without damage, and great danger, for the latter --- can be freely, and much more widely and intelligently discussed, and understood, than it is today.
I haven't read with care all of the objections above, and no doubt I have missed a few, or many. But I wanted to at least reply to the most important and potentially convincing of those objections -- which is that we could get stuck, do-gooders forever, in the Sudan. That must be avoided. That would be terrible. The American task must be limited to the initial use of force and then, at most a few months of destroying, at greater leisure, any remaining bits of the Arab forces in Darfur or the southern Sudan. Then a hand-off for the referendum, to other members of NATO (including those who most enjoy lecturing America on every occasion, or whose elites have demonstrated a wilful indifference to the matter of Islam -- say, Norway, and perhaps even Sweden, though Sweden is not a member of NATO, should be invited to take over in this rescue of black Africans (Muslim and non-Muslim) from Arabs, so that the reports in their media would make clear what Muslim Arabs do to non-Muslims and to non-Arabs.
It should by now be a hard-earned and hard-learned principle of American policy that while attacks on certain military sites, and especially attacks to prevent any future acquisition of weapoons of mass destruction by any Muslim state, make sense, it does not make sense to invade and then remain in any Muslim country. But the southern Sudan is peopled not by Muslims but by victims of Muslims, and Darfur is peopled by nominal Muslims who are victims of the real, full-fledged Arab Muslims of the North. It is a place to make a point, a point about Arab supremacism and Arab racism, and that is a point useful for the larger war of self-defense. It could deprive the Arabs of more oil revenues, and worry some of them mightily that if they don't change their behavior, their oil installations could be seized.
We want, after all, to change the behavior of Saudi Arabia. The Al-Saud can build as many palaces for themselves as they wish inside Saudi Arabia, and they can gamble away money in Monte Carlo, in London, and Las Vegas. But they have to be told that the days when they can, with impunity, send tens of billions of dollars into Western countries, to build mosques, madrasas, to pay for campaigns of Da'wa, to buy up assets including small armies of well-connected Western hirelings in the capitals of the West -- that must stop. And the seizure of territory the Arabs think of as "theirs" forever, and as a base for further designs in Africa -- Egypt, for example, wants to make sure that Ethiopia is weakened, through internal islamization, so that the Ethiopians will be afraid, and submit to Egyptian demands that the headwaters of the Nile not be diverted for irrigation by Ethiopia itself; for Egypt, Arab Egypt, thinks the Nile belongs exclusively to it.
There's much more. But most of it is somewhere in the Archives, or in my head, or in your head. Anyone, everyone, is free to consider the pros and the cons of this. And everyone, you and I and the man on the street (provided he's just come from the library, where he's been studyiing Islam and the history of Islamic conquest), can come up with ideas, some foolish, some clever, some a bit of both, that might be just the thing, the very arrow, to add to the Infidel quiver.
I have never suggested simply leaving, without more, Iraq. Nor is the Sudan the only or even the most important of the opportunities that might be seized (possibility putting one in mind of the moneyed rogue of the Gilded Age who famously explained: "I seen my opportunities, and I took 'em").
Here, for example, is one early posting listing a number of things that could be done while leaving, or before or after leaving, Iraq.
"In leaving Iraq to its own devices, which I devoutly hope will happen soon, the American government has to do certain things to ensure that the Muslims of the world understand that this is not a retreat, but now a war in every direction, using more cunning, and no longer a misallocation of men, money, and materiel to win unwinnable hearts and minds. Some of things that should be done:
1) The "money weapon." Raise taxes on gasoline, and announce that they will continue to go up, and that this is a measure undertaken deliberately to capture some monopoly rents from OPEC, to make other energy sources more attractive, with the declared aim of depriving "Jihadists" of income to pay for arms and those "institutions" (the words "mosques" and "madrasas" can be left unsaid but understood) that help to spread Jihad.
2) Infidel foreign aid to Muslims.Cut off all American id to Egypt and Jordan and other Muslim countries. Let Pakistan be made to understand that after the years of double-dealing, and of A. Q. Khan and the ISI scandal, Pakistan is lucky to be left unscathed.. Let the economic failures of Islam be apparent, and require Muslims to work for their money, or at least not to be able to blackmail ("give us the aid or we'll turn radical") the West any further. The $60 billion already sent to Egypt has already been wasted; no more. If they want aid, let them rely on rich Muslims rather than extorted "zakat" from Infidel states
3) Re Arab propaganda: eliminate, or at least damage, the ArabSat network, so that Al-Jazeera and similar stations no longer run, or at least cannot be beamed into the dar al-Harb -- 180,000 subscribers in the U.S. alone to Al-Jazeera are 180,000 enemies of Infidels; there is no other conceivable interpretaton.
4) In Europe, take money that would otherwise have gone to Iraq, and spend it in conducting campaigns to establish a centrist, rational, appealing anti-Islamic immigration movement, that focuses on the threat of Islam to skepticism, rationalism, the artistic achievements of Western civilization -- and that make the lives of Infidels in their own countries more unpleasant, expensive, and dangerous than they would be without such immigration. All measures, including expulsion, should be discussed in a reasonable and unintimidated manner. Subventions to newspapers, journalists, other media outlets, and to political figures -- on the model of what was done with the anti-Communist left and right after World War II in western Europe --- as well as promotion, and wide distribution and broadcasting, of the testimony of former Muslims as to the reality of Muslim doctrine and Muslim practice (ex-Muslims who were either born into Islam, or for some reason, such as marriage, converted into it). Let everyone have dinned into his skull the reality of Islamic tenets, the complete, nearly totalitarian, regulation of human life that it purports to prescribe, the immutability of its texts, both Qur'an and hadith, and the inculcated hostility, even hatred, for all Infidels. The American government may wish to sponsor studies of those students and faculty who will study aspects of Jihad, in time and space, and of dhimmitude under different Muslim regimes. In that way, a cadre of experts -- quite different from the army of apologists, both Muslim and non-Muslim, who either mislead as the nature of Islam (Esposito, Yvonne Haddad, John Voll, Michael Sells, etc.) or try to deflect attention away from the tenets of Islam to the "Palestine" problem (Rashid Khalidi, Fawaz Gerges, Shibley Telhami) as the putative source of Arab hostility, and not 1400 years of Islamic teachings about Infidels, and Muslim fury that they do not "dominate" as, by rights, they should. If most universities have now entrenched and tenured apologists, then institutes funded by the government and private foundastions can supply the experts who are needed, so that they, and not the apologists, will appear on NPR, the BBC, and everywhere that opinion can be molded, by the truth, or by nonsense and lies.
5) Bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. Nothing should get in the way of this, not embarrassment over the WMD business in Iraq, not worry that it might be used by the current Iranian regime to rally support (actually, the attaining of such weaponry would guarantee their permanence in power; the removal of such weaponry would be a blow to their public image from which they would not recover).
6) And finally, coming back to the beginning, by swerve of bend in the Finnegans Wake manner, the Sudan. Here no more than 5,000 American soldiers could seize the southern Sudan, and protect the southern blacks, and now those in Darfur, from further persecution, rape, murder, enslavement, and deliberate mass starvation. And what would the UN do -- could Kofi Annan, who did nothing during the Rwandan massacres, dare to object? Could the Arab League demand that Americans leave becaue the northern Arabs have a divine right to rape and kill the southern blacks? Could the EU regard the southern blacks in the Sudan, as they have allowed themselves to regard the Israelis (who also have suffered 56 years of Jihad against their tiny Infidel state), as unworthy of sympathy and support? While the Israelis have been depicted as "European colonialists" (nonsense, but effective nonsense) it is a lot harder to do that with the Dinka, the Nuer, and the other black tribes of southern and western Sudan.
By seizing the southern Sudan, with very little expenditure of men, money, and materiel, and protecting its people until, after a referendum, they can establish their own independent state carved out of the south, with its own oil deposits, its fertile agricultural land, which might in turn help, with American effort, the Ethiopians. An American base in this new state would, so close to the MIddle East, allow Americans to leave Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and from this new base, cover both the Middle East and North Africa much more effectively. And in the future, if and when Egypt, for example, attempts to threaten Ethiopia over its planned diversion of the headwaters of the Nile for irrigration projects, American forces in this new country, deliberately and spectacularly carved -- for humanitarian purposes, mind you, that are as obvious as they can be -- out of what the Arabs see as dar al-Islam -- will hearten African Christians in Kenya, Tanzania, all the way across to Nigeria (where the southern Christians may yet again have to demand their independent Biafra).
These five measures, if undertaken, will do far more than any "democracy" that might, after another fifty years of American effort, and hundreds of billions of American dollars, and tens of thousands of American casualties, and the wearing-out of American helicopters, Humvees, and tanks, and the dangerous fixation on "democracy" and not on Islam itself as the source of the problem, an Islam that can and must be contained because it cannot, by its very belief-system, be reformed, be established in Iraq.
The Sudan, not Iraq, is the place to do something that will actually hearten Christians in Africa, help to diminish the appeal of Islam in Africa and elsewhere, threaten physically with American bases the greatest sources of our danger (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria), and get our men further away from Iran, which will give Iranian reformers more space in which to work their own brand of de-islamization (and perhpas, who knows, also bring it to the benighted Shi'a of Iraq).
[Posted by: Hugh at May 11, 2004 5:20 PM]
RESPONSE: Not true. Sunni-Shia history has been checkered, with periods of peace punctuated by episodic violence. Muslims are motivated by self-interest, just like everyone else. Let's not fall into the trap of drawing rigid lines around the actors in this drama; such thinking precluded the early acceptance of Iran's cooperation with Al Qaeda in the Khobar Towers bombing in Dahrain in '96 and the bombing in Riyhad in '95.
Furthermore, just because the USA will be removed from Iraq does not mean that infidels will not be just over the horizon and will not continue to loom large in the Muslim psyche.
You cannot rule out a Shia-Sunni condominium any more than I can rule out a major civil war.
IP: "You think the Ikhwan will quietly just let Iraq go Shia, regardless of whether Iran intervenes? You think that GCC Sunni states like KSA, UAE, Bahrein and Qatar will let Iraq go Shia, and thereby encourage their own Shia populations to revolt if Iran does intervene?"
RESPONSE: The Gulf Arabs are fabulously wealthy and militarily toothless. They are utterly helpless in the face of Iran, which is why the USA is so welcome in their countries.
As for the Ikhwan, it is a stateless entity. They are capable of organizing terrorism, but have no army or air force. Sure, we can anticipate a Sunni terrorist campaign in the aftermath of a Shia victory, but it most likely resemble today's...episodic in scope and strategically non-consequential.
Sorry friend, but if Iran commits itself, their is no indigenous force in the region that can challenge it accept Turkey...and the Turks may be very eager to accept a quid pro quo, Kurdistan to the them, the rest of the country "independent" under Iran's orbit. Or the Turks may just decide to sit it out.
IP: "The moment you have an al Qaeda regime anywhere, you can be sure that any US administration will bomb it."
RESPONSE: Not necessarily...particularly in a political atmosphere where the new President - showing all the inclinations of orchestrated retreat and a man ho was elected on a promise to wash his hands of Iraq.
Both of us are speculating, which is the only way to try and read the crystal ball of "unintended consequences".
I'm ready to concede that the post-withdrawal scenario could play out exactly the way Hugh predicts...a Shia-Sunni civil war that will consume the energies of the Arab-Persian world and give us infidels a respite. Proponents of such an policy might readily and realistically concede that there are several other alternative outcomes, some of which would empower the most fanatical elements in the Islamic world.
"We both know that Obama is NOT going to do any of those other things. "
Do we? Hugh seems to keep writing things that show he thinks Obama is actually capable of becoming practically a Jihad Watcher. It would be more useful to sit around and wait for cows to sprout wings and fly.
It would be more useful to sit around and wait for cows to sprout wings and fly.
Posted by: DenverRodeo
Very funny, LOL!
If one assumes that the current administration is as feckless, ignorant, and hopeless as the last, and that there is nothing at all one can do to present the very arguments that would provide justification, and even political cover, for what that administration or incoming President wishes to do anyway, then one is abdicating responsibility. There is no reason to let up, even for one minute, no matter who is in power, and no matter what one suspects may -- until now at least -- have been their views, possibly half-formed, and possibly half-formed out of an ignorance that can, in some cases, be corrected.
Hugh:
Engineers have a concept referred to as "directionally correct." For the actions you are referring to, Obama is a directionally incorrect move from Bush.
There were a couple things Bush did right that Obama will undue.
There are few serious anti-Jihad politicians, but they are all on the right. Tancredo and the woman from North Carolina whose name temporarily escapes me are the only two Congresscritters who deserve an A on the issue. Many of the others would be hard pressed to receive a gentleman's C.
Given Obama's past pre-campaign innuendo on the Israel-Palestine issue and a VP who after 9/11 proposed giving hundreds of millions of dollars to Iran as a gift, there is 0% of Obama doing anything better/more aggressive than Bush and a 100% of doing some things worse.
In that context, yeah, I don't trust Obama to implement a pull out.
I don't trust Obama to meeting with the Iranians either.
I think we need to be realistic about what is going to happen over the next four years. Obama becoming a Jihadwatch reader is NOT one of them.
Government action is not going to be of any assistance in the next four years. When Obama appointees are placed on the secret FISA court, we can look forward to all sorts of mischief. The only light at the end of the tunnel is the growing public awareness (temporarily overshadowed by the economy) and the fact that there is apparently some good media reaching Muslims and challenging them on their own theology.
Hugh:
Engineers have a concept referred to as "directionally correct." For the actions you are referring to, Obama is a directionally incorrect move from Bush.
There were a couple things Bush did right that Obama will undue.
There are few serious anti-Jihad politicians, but they are all on the right. Tancredo and the woman from North Carolina whose name temporarily escapes me are the only two Congresscritters who deserve an A on the issue. Many of the others would be hard pressed to receive a gentleman's C.
Given Obama's past pre-campaign innuendo on the Israel-Palestine issue and a VP who after 9/11 proposed giving hundreds of millions of dollars to Iran as a gift, there is 0% of Obama doing anything better/more aggressive than Bush and a 100% of doing some things worse.
In that context, yeah, I don't trust Obama to implement a pull out.
I don't trust Obama to meeting with the Iranians either.
I think we need to be realistic about what is going to happen over the next four years. Obama becoming a Jihadwatch reader is NOT one of them.
Government action is not going to be of any assistance in the next four years. When Obama appointees are placed on the secret FISA court, we can look forward to all sorts of mischief. The only light at the end of the tunnel is the growing public awareness (temporarily overshadowed by the economy) and the fact that there is apparently some good media reaching Muslims and challenging them on their own theology.