In "If You Don't Get Islamic Ideology, You Don't Get the Problem in Afghanistan" at The Corner today, Andy McCarthy discusses several things we have pointed out here many times: the policy errors that result from an inadequate, politically correct understanding of Islam and jihad, and the fact that many Muslim condemnations of terrorism condemn attacks by Muslims against Muslims, but say nothing about attacks on non-Muslims:
Adopting the conventional Western wisdom about Islam (which is probably best exemplified by Larry Wright's otherwise worthy history of al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower), General McChrystal and Fred miniaturize what we're up against. By their lights, our enemy is a fringe element of Muslims who hold the controversial view that Muslims resistant to their severe interpretation of Islam are apostates and can properly be killed under Islamic law. The Islamic term for this view, by the way, is takfir. Fred describes it as an Islamic "heresy" although, as Bernard Lewis has explained, heterodoxy is a Western concept that doesn't have a precise Islamic analogue. Because the takfiris are engaged in "anti-Islamic" violence, the McChrystal/Kagan thinking goes, we can exploit their "heresy" and win the majority of Afghan Muslims to our side.
This confuses a couple of very important things. First, the point of disagreement between the takfiris and other Muslims is primarily over the propriety of killing Muslims. The fact that there is discord between them over that point does not mean the majority of Muslims will side with us over the takfiris. We are non-Muslims, and whatever differences Muslims in general have with takfiri Muslims, their differences with us are more thorough-going and profound.
Second, the fact that most Muslims see takfiri violence against Muslims as violative of Islamic principles does not mean that they see takfiri violence (or, indeed, violence by any Muslims) against us as violative of Islamic principles. To the contrary, as I explain in my column, mainstream Islamic ideology (not just takfiri ideology, not by a longshot) holds that infidel military forces operating in Islamic countries must be fought until they are driven out, especially if they are sowing the seeds of Western culture and governance.
It all boils down to this:
"...a central truth about Islam: the unity of the umma, the global Muslim Nation, takes precedence over all. A U.S. strategy built on the premise that mainstream Muslims will be won over to our side against their fellow Muslims in an Islamic country is built on wishful thinking."
Wishful thinking, indeed.
Hugh has been making this exact point in post after post after post. There's no winning the hearts and minds of muhammadans; we can't export our values to them or impose them by force.
As I read here once: "Muhammadans hear with their eyes and think with their feelings."
I would highly recommend "The Closed Circle" by David Price-Jones. I wish I had read this before reading books by Robert and others. "The Closed Circle" is probably the best analysis of the "Arab mind and culture" written in a manner a westerner can understand. Our leadership will never be able to deal with those people until they read that book and take it's lessons to heart.
"Know your enemy" Sun-Tzu
It is depressing when what should be obvious comes as some to a revelation, and a revelation to be resisted not because of its untruth, but because of the burden of thought it places on policymakers. If only it were true -- if only there were this tiny handful or handful or even great big wheelbarrow full of those clearly-identifiable "extremists" (whose "extremism" is never discussed in detail, the differences between the versions of the texts of Islam (Qur'an, Hadith, Sira) and those used by all the orhtodox, that is "non-extremist" Muslims never hinted at, as if there were no need to, it was all so obvious. But of course not only are those differences in texts and tenets not ever discussed, but they do not exist.
What exists is a difference in choice of instrument of Jihad. But the goal of Jihad -- Jihad being the central duty, whose fulfillment is required of all Muslims, to remove all obstacles to the spread and then the dominance of Islam -- whether it is called "offensive" or "defensive" remain the same. That Qaddafi and Boumediene in public can describe what they see as the coming conquest of Western Europe through the wombs of Muslim immigrant women, that the Al-Saud and many of their richest courtiers see the world islamizing through the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars on mosques, madrasas, campaigns of Da'wa, propaganda, and the use of Western hirelings to delay and confuse the Infidels by promting pro-Islamic propaganda and apologetics, in many different forms -- all this seems to be simnply ignored and ignored and ignored, year after year after year.
This is naturally a subject carefully avoided those who wish to continue the war in Afghanistan -- and who still insist that the two trillion dollars spent or committed to the war in Iraq was well worth it, though they never explain quite how, or discuss the exact lineaments of that supposed "victory" that has been achieved. Even worse, the argument for withdrawal from Afghanistan (and instead vigilantly ensuring from the skies, supplemented with some on-the-ground spies, that whatever the Afghans do to each other -- and should we care? -- or whatever the Pakistanis do to each other -- and should we care? -- they will not be in a position to do much more than any Muslim lands or groups of Muslmis, anywhere, can do against the world's Infidels. It is far better to see the natural hostilities, ethnic and sectarian and economic, divide and demoralize the Camp of Islam, and let the world's Infidels spend whatever they have not on making Muslim lives better, not on reconstruction or, more accurately, construction, not on their education, their health care, their anything, not on keeping their countries together, but on Infidels, and especially on energy projects that would do more to weaken the Camp of Islam, diminishing oil revenues and thus the main reason for (temporary) Muslim power, real and perceived, and the ability of Muslims to finance the spread of Islam in a thousand ways.
But what is fascinating is that those who claim to wish that the American forces would leave Iraq and Afghanistan never present the arguments that have been presented at JihadWatch, since late February 2004, when it was already time to leave Iraq. have been given at JihadWatch steadily. Why is that? The reason is that those who wish to leave Iraq and Afghanistan are mainly, it appears, more interested in protecting the world of Islam from American adventurism, and certainly do not want to second the views of those who claim -- as I do, and always have -- that a removal of American forces should be undertaken not because Islam is not a threat, but because it is, a world-wide threat, and the most important theatre of war at present is Western Europe. And it is important to identify, analayze, and exploit whatever pre-existing fissures exist within the Camp of Islam, not only to divide and demoralize but possibly, even, to make Islam less palatable to discrete groups -- for example, non-Arab Muslims who can be shown just how Islam is and always has been a vehicle for Arab cultural and linguistic imperialism, and why they should slough it off. Since 80% of the world's Muslims are non-Arabs, this argument could be a powerful one in undoing the inherited appeal of Islam, not least because the theme of "Islam is a vejicle for Arab supremacism" happens to be true.
All of this has been laid out, in so many hundreds of postings and articles here, with no convincing refutation ever offered, that at this point what is required is not so much intellect, as stamina -- the stamina of repeating, over and over, the same by-now-should-be-obvious matters.
Eventually, reality will break in. In a corner of The Corner, for example, it already has. Now if only those who wish to withdraw from Afghanistan -- such as Barack Obama and his advisors --could come to the realization that they can do so and do so not as appeasers of Islam, but as those who are going to engage in a much more cunning and ruthless war against Islam. It would mean, of course, swallowing the words in that disastrous Cairo Speech, and not only the words, but the thoughts or semi-thoughts or semidemihemi impressions of Islam that Obama has or thinks he has. He would have to do a U-turn on Islam. But he could do it, and he should realize that if he doesn't do so, and doesn't enroll the war against Islam, or appeals to those many who despite our government understand the threat of Islam to the non-Muslim world, he will have no way of winning them over, for example, so that the kind of energy legislation he envisages or wants will be passed. He has to learn, he has to put away childish memories of a school in Jakarta, he has to understand the texts and tenets of Islam without asking Vali Nasr (on Holbrooke's staff), or the likes of John Esposito, or others among the apologists, both Muslim and non-Muslim. He and others making policy have to educate themselves on the doctrine of Jihad and on the effectiveness of the varied instruments of Jihad, and look to rescuing Europe, and leaving Israel, another victim of Jihad, alone, and ceasing to pressure Israel to enter into yet one more Treaty of Al Hudaibiyya. And the officers and men who have seerved in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan and who have come to recognize the waste of attempting to win Muslim hearts and minds, and who have educated themselves, in the field, and later by study, on the nature of Islam, should speak out much more often, anbd much more forcefully, about the current folly.
After nearly 8 years on the ground in Afghanistan I wanted to believe that our political and military leaders where wising up to what drives these wars, but we hear the same old song over and over again saying: "We are trying to bring some form of Western Democracy to the region".
It was in fact much more precise then that early on in this war, but those lofty ideals have been dramatically toned down to something that a true democracy or republic in Afghanistan is almost unrecognizable.
An obvious analogy that an aircraft can find its way through blinding weather is in thanks to Global positioning satellites (GPS) and various radars.. The same is true when it comes to the training that was supposed to have been part of the curriculum at West Point (Know your enemy and know him well) But we don't see the kind of radar and GPS that should be applied to Islam, we simply don't see or hear Generals and politicians openly applying the use of a system that could give answers to why it is so difficult to try and fight the same war that the Russians lost well over 20 years ago.
The technologies are there and they are called the Qu'ran,the hadiths, and the syra and not to use and understand them is fool hardy at best. But we ignore it because the technology is branded as, shall we say religious technology, thus through are self induced blindness because of a foolish adherence to the perversion of multiculturalism and political correctness we go on fighting a war not clearly understanding why the enemy is so persistent on the growing battlefield.
The umma knows what it is fighting for and on behalf of because it does apply the religious technology that is the the Qu'ran. Remember how the allies broke the German codes during WWII, It is the same here, we have see and understand what drives Islam otherwise we will continue floundering.
Would you fly an airliner today without the aids of GPS and radars? of course not and yet are military is doing precisely that when it comes to clearly understanding what drives Islam.
I think one thing that keeps people from admitting the obvious in regards to this, is the fact that you have to realize that we have invited a vampire into our house, which will consume us eventually. The process of fighting it very well could destroy our house ... you can have peace with the vampire as long as you let it suck you, but eventually you will have to fight it off. It is a form of denial in the face of the obvious, trading time for comfort, because you know the real fight will be very messy.
McCarthy makes a key point that our multi-cultural politically correct elite cannot fathom. Muslims are not remotely like us.
I'll say that again, Muslims are not remotely like us. A stock broker on Wall Street has more in common with an Amazonian tribesman who has yet to be exposed to another culture than he does with a financier in the UAE. Atheists have more in common with Baptists than they do with Muslims. Bill Gates has more in common with an Inuit than he does with King Abdullah.
It is also hard for our modern intellectuals to truly understand that there are evil individuals that lack the neurological structure in their brains to be empathic and humanistic. I recall reading an news blurb about a woman who had a quarrel with her boyfriend. She took the couple's infant child, placed it in a microwave oven and cooked it.
Is this an act of evil? Yes. Is this woman evil? Yes. Is this woman a sociopath? Yes.
To this individual, her own child was an object with no more significance than a table or chair. Her baby was just an weapon to be used to damage her boyfriend. Do we see similar behaviors in the Qur'an, aHadith and the Sira? Yes, even more dangerous to us, we face a war with an implacable foe that does not even possess the common humanity that all individuals on the planet have.
Am I saying that all Muslims are sociopaths? No. Muslims are the first victims of Islam. What I will say is that Islam is a "religion" that was formulated by sociopaths, benefits the sociopaths in the Ummah and forces normal people to behave in a sociopathic manner.
If you have being following the global jihad at all, you have no doubt heard of the methods Al-Qaeda used to ensure the loyalty of the Sunni Muslims in Iran. Infants and children were beheaded in front of their parents. In some cases, small children were baked alive in ovens to convince villagers to obey Al-Qaeda. Mentally retarded women had explosives strapped to them. They were turned loose in a popular market and the explosives detonated by cowards lurking around the edge of the market. This is what jihadis do to their fellow muslims, what will they do to the despised infidels?
We know. For some reason the international press has decided to suppress the information. The children at the Russian school in Beslan were raped, sodomized, tortured and killed. The same treatment was delivered by the murderers at Mombai. Jewish journalists have been beheaded and videos of their suffering distributed on the internet. The popularity of these videos indicates another form of Islamic pornography.
There is no question in my mind that the author(s) of the Qur'an was a sociopath. Mohammed's opponents are lied to, killed, tortured - even Mohammed's own family members. There are no episodes where Mohammed (or Allah, who seems to be nothing more than Mohammed's celestial servant) forgives any enemy or pardons victims of Islamic slaughter.
The 1400 years of Jihad read like the Qur'an's accounts of Islamic warfare. The story is repeated over and over again. Jihad warriors invade an infidel country, slaughter and loot: then give the remaining people the "choice" of becoming Muslims, living as "dhimmis" (in everything but name, a slave of the Muslim conquerors) or dying. Thus, Islam was spread by the sword not by the "merits" of the "religion".
Know your enemy. Do not pretend that Islam is anything different than it's scriptures, history, exegesis and practices indicate it is.
Resist evil, do good.
Let's hope the new paradigm diverts from old paradigm.
Stages of Submission
1. Denial — "Islam is fine. This can't really be happening, not to us. It can't happen here."
2. Anger — "Why us? It's not fair!"
3. Bargaining — "Just let me live to see my children emigrate. Tell us what to do so we can survive for a few more years."
4. Depression — "It's too late. Why bother with resistance.
5. Submission— "It's going to be okay."; "I can't fight it, I may as well submit to it."
=================
Oooops. Forgot number 6:
6. Death
And from the Opinion Section of the Christian Science Monitor:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1006/p09s02-coop.html
OPINION
A Muslim solution for Afghanistan
Let Muslim nations, not Western coalition, lead the mission to bring peace there.
By Arif Rafiq
from the October 6, 2009 edition
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HERNDON, VA. - After eight years of US involvement in Afghanistan, a strategic crossroads within Asia, the country remains a deadly conflict zone. In fact, this weekend insurgents attacked two US military bases along the Pakistani border.
Helping Afghanistan stand on its own – an imperative for both regional and Western states – is a task that will take decades. But it is increasingly clear that it is not one that the West can perform.
On one hand, a Western-led occupation force in Afghanistan has brought the most stability and progress the country has had in three decades.
But the US-led coalition's very presence in this land between the Indus and the Oxus rivers in Central Asia fuels an indigenous insurgency. It keeps the flame of transnational terror alive and blocks the return of Afghan refugees to their villages. The US presence also curbs the flow of potential energy pipelines, and, most critical, the forging of a permanent peace.
The Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan is gaining ground and Western casualties are mounting. The attack this past weekend was the deadliest since last year, killing eight Americans and four Afghan security officers. The Pentagon's solution is an expensive, population-centric counterinsurgency that involves more nation-building than warfare. But such a move is out of tune with domestic developments.
A majority of Americans, particularly Democrats, oppose the US war in Afghanistan. They tend to see little connection between Afghanistan and their own security. Opposition to involvement in Afghanistan among other NATO member states is even greater. And the resolve of America's coalition partners is nearly exhausted.
However, a precipitous Western withdrawal from Afghanistan would leave a major void in the state.
Afghanistan is factionalized, pockmarked by ethnic and tribal divisions. Its government's sole success is an election rigged in its own favor. Warlords run much of the country. The national Army and police are years away from being able to secure the country on their own. Other state institutions lack the minimal human and financial resources to function without external crutches.
US and Western troops should leave. But because Afghanistan will remain dependent on international aid for development and security, troops cannot leave without something to fill the vacancy.
The solution? Muslim and regional states must fill the void.
Much of the Afghan insurgency is oriented against the presence of non-Muslims in this almost exclusively Muslim land. Taliban statements, for example, describe the US-led coalition as "crusaders" and equate it with previous invaders, such as the British. Sensitivity to the non-Muslim military presence in their homeland gives Afghan insurgents common cause with Al Qaeda, which directly threatens the US at home and abroad.
But the most intransigent of Afghan rebels will be receptive to peacekeeping and nation-building with Muslim states as long as their factions are included in a power-sharing arrangement in Kabul.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference, the association of more than four dozen Muslim states, should set up an Afghanistan contact group, led by Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The group would lead a coalition of Muslim states responsible for political reconciliation, peacekeeping, economic development, and governmental capacity building in Afghanistan.
Wealthy Muslim states such as Malaysia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates can provide funding. Members of NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes China and Russia, can also contribute donations and offer expertise.
But the military presence must be limited to personnel from Muslim states. Given Afghanistan's problematic relations with its neighbors, peacekeepers should come from nonneighboring Muslim states, including Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, and Turkey.
Many of those nations have valuable experience to offer. Bangladesh, for example, is a leading troop contributor to United Nations peacekeeping missions. Turkey (a NATO member) and the UAE already have a physical presence in Afghanistan. Peacekeeping in Afghanistan would be a natural extension of their present foreign missions.
Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey have the most developed bureaucracies and armies among Muslim states. They can help train the Afghan civil, foreign, and security services. A Muslim-led mission in Afghanistan would offer middle powers such as Egypt and Turkey an opportunity to revitalize regional leadership roles they once had. It would also provide regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia with a platform to constructively resolve a problem integral to their security concerns and interests.
And a number of international organizations, such as the Islamic Development Bank as well as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, should help continue to rebuild Afghanistan's economy.
Through the auspices of the Pakistani Army and Saudi royal family, this plan can be presented to the leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Muhammad Omar. Via his official spokesman, Mullah Omar has made clear he is willing to talk to the Kabul government, but only in the context of the US-led coalition's withdrawal.
His representatives and those of other regional militant commanders can be joined with a wide scope of Afghan political, religious, and tribal leaders in a loya jirga, or grand council. It could take place in Kabul or another Muslim capital, to set up a transitional coalition government amid a phased Western withdrawal.
In the interim, the US, in concert with Pakistan, must continue to root out the foreign jihadi presence along the border with Afghanistan.
Having Muslims lead the mission to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan would create a wedge between Afghan insurgents and transnational jihadists, such as Al Qaeda, the elimination of which is the Obama administration's major goal in the region.
Ultimately, Al Qaeda will be given a decisive blow when Muslim states rise to the challenge and bring stability to Afghanistan.
Arif Rafiq is president of Vizier Consulting, LLC, which provides strategic guidance on Middle East and South Asian political and security issues.
I just wonder why did it take so long for someone so smart as McCarthy to state something that has been so obvious for such a long time for a common like myself?
I also wonder how much longer more will it take for the message to percolate into the consciousness of the American international (and national)policy makers.
And, of course, I also must wonder when, and if, the message is finally acknowledged by their minds will they dare to dump these stupid, suicidial policies and face the truth of the fundamental incompatibility of our imperfect civilization with islamic, absolutely evil, one.
Or rather, for ever faithful to their PC Moloch, continue to throw away American lives in a never ending, tragic farce of reaching the hearts and minds of mohammedans.
as common as me fo such a long time.long time to even such to so many even to
OOps, Please disregard the last line. I don't now how did it get there.
Baby Bush was accused of "overreacting" to 9/11. The truth is, he kept misreacting, misreacting, misreacting from the start. Israel, the one and only nation that knows how to deal with the jihadists, was told it should "stay out of it", to not be seen or heard. Instead, W began "reaching out" to Muslims. Calling Islam " a great religion". Inviting poisonous Islamists such as Abdurrahman Alamoudi and Muzzamil Siddiqui to the "Interfaith Service". There, Siddiqui delivered a televised sermon, concluding it in English with: "and save us, Lord, from any evil". The perceptive Charles Krauthammer remarked: "but whom he considers evil?". What he did not know, but I do, coming from the Muslim culture, is that this is a line well known to Muslims worldwide, and Siddiqui intentionally left it unfinished, to keep the "infidels" in dark. The full prayer is: "Save us, Allah, from any evil by the Yellow-Haired Giaour". "Giaour" means "Christian", and "Yellow-Haired Giaour" refers to the Western crusaders many of whom were blond, which was very alien to the Arabs. So, Siddiqui had sent a message to the Muslims in the United States and the rest of the world, who understood exactly whom he considers evil. It was like telling an American: "It's not over till it's ... ". But W and other high-positioned infidels there did not get it, and profusely thanked Siddiqui. Yes, the Islamists are this brazen. Yes, the infidels are this stupid. Coming from the Muslim world, I know that nothing invites Mulim aggression more than display of cowardice and stupidity. And the Americans were displaying both, excessively. Just as Carter and Brzezinski did right before
the Iranian hostage crisis. Just as Reagan and his sociopath puppeteers did right before the Beirut blow-ups. For more than 3 decades now, the United States has suffered from a bad case of BL, Bad Leadership.
Just last year, we had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to break this curse and have not just a good leader, but a great leader, Rudy Giuliani. It did not take the Republican primary voters any time to destroy that chance. They voted for anybody except Rudy. What a horrible blunder. That was the last nail in the coffin of the Republican Party, and a disaster for the entire nation.
The nightmare continues, without end in sight.
Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.
"That was the last nail in the coffin of the Republican Party, and a disaster for the entire nation."
--Ruslan Tokhchukov
For me, the nail in the coffin is Sarah Palin.
For me, the nail in the coffin is Sarah Palin.
Well, I am not American, so my opinion may be quite wrong, but I think the coffin was already tightly shut and nailed long before the appearing of Sarah Palin. A conservative quitting the Republican party because of Palin is more concerned about good impression conservatism makes on liberals than his conservatism. But, as said, I am not American.
Yankel
send Sarah Palin four things. Send her Theo Van Gogh's and Ayaan Hirsi Ali's "Submission"; send her Nonie Darwish's "Cruel and Usual Punishment" (discusses sharia, with a particular focus on what sharia does to women); Rosemary Sookhdeo's "Secrets Behind the Burqa". and Hannah Shah's "The Imam's Daughter". Maybe throw in Aaron Klein's 'Schmoozing With Terrorists" on top.
She's the quintessential soccer mom. She also knows how to handle a gun.
*All* she needs to do is to get it through her head that she and her daughters and every non-Muslim woman in America (and indeed every free woman in the entire infidel world) is standing in the crosshairs of jihad...viewed simply and solely as their (the Muslims) future house slaves and/ or sex slaves (depending on age and nubility). That these bearded sociopaths see us free women of the world as whores and there-to-be-raped, because we walk free in the sunlight with our hair and faces uncovered. And that to any free woman, the prospect of living as women do under sharia in the Ummah is such as to resemble a living death.
Then she might move heaven and earth to get herself to a position where, armed and dangerous, she can OBLITERATE said bearded sociopaths exactly as she would obliterate a rabid wolf or a rogue grizzly.
Your last paragraph above reads more like a prayer than anything I ever read from you, Mr Fitzgerald.
Reality is that Obama is on the other side of the fence, his sympathies lie with Muslims and all his actions are directed against us, against the US and Europe.
Could be.
In my Book of Contented Atheism God is normallyinvoked most consistently during times of illness (my own and those of others), and also, of course, on landing and takeoff (in every sense), indeed to continue the aeronautical theme, at times of turbulence. These are times of turbulence. That last paragraph was prayerful.
Years ago, on a dark cold night, the late Pierre Pascal (at one time a Soviet agent, and later a fierce anti-Communist and devout Christian) gave me a signed copy of his translation, into French, of Avvakum: La vie d'Avvakum. It is said to be a masterpiece of early Russian prose, but I read it in French, and I remember what I think was the last line: "Prie Dieu, prie Dieu, prie Dieu derechef." That for me is itself a molitva, a mitzvah, a memento mori, an everything-and-anything-you-need-or-want rolled up into one.
Obama's War. He hasn't started talking about peace yet...
Supposedly since 2007 he's been studying Afghanistan. He was chairperson of the Foriegn Relation committee overseeing NATO. Yet he's still green with a utopian vision of tomorrow (that's not surviving the first hurdle of politics - corruption)
His Afghanistan even without Islam would still be an indecisive mess.
I see only one outcome, Proclamations of Peace can't be too far off.
Until the malignant ideology of Islam is faced and examined and understood as an existential threat to the free world, we in the West are being 'led' by derelect-in-their-duty-to-their-sworn-oaths absolute fools and p.c.-delusional imbeciles who are even crazier than the mullahs and ayatollahs and imams who are nakedly trying to impose their totalitarian theocratic tyranny upon the Earth.
Led over a Cliff, literally.
Until many of our fellow citizens are killed because of these leaders' lunacy, the tribe of multiculti sleepwalkers will march into the meatgrinder of militant Islam, chanting "Religion of Peace... Religion of Peace..." like zombies in a bad '50's horror flick.
Jim Jones or Charlie Manson?
Huh?