Jihad Watch: Fitzgerald: What to do in Iraq (part 1)

June 24, 2005

Fitzgerald: What to do in Iraq (part 1)

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald begins a series of reflections on what to do in Iraq now. There will be some unavoidable overlap in the material in each section, as each will provide a look at the problem from different but interlocking perspectives. Here is part 1:

It has apparently become Holy Writ that the well-being of Iraq (defined by whom?), or the well-being of "Iraqis" (defined as whom?), or the well-being of Muslims everywhere who must be saved from the consequences of their own Lords of Misrule, their own inshallah-fatalism and love of luxury and idleness that explains their economic disarray (so much more fun to pass the time sitting with hubble-bubble pipes, watching Al-Jazeera, and becoming indignant at those terrible Infidels with their billions in foreign aid that is obviously part of their diabolical colonialism or neo-colonialism or post-colonial colonialism (choose 1) – it has apparently become universally accepted dogma that all this is in the interest of Infidels.
This is one of those unexamined propositions that does not stand up.
The best way to deal with the world of Islam, the Muslims who are in dar al-Islam and those who have managed to settle in the Lands of the Infidels, is not to make them comfortable, not to transfer even further wealth -- beyond the hundreds of billions transferred every year because of a grim accident of geology, money which in turn is used to fund various instruments of the Jihad, including mosques, madrasas, propaganda of every kind, bribes and the allure of business contracts, and so on.

If one believes that Islam represents a permanent menace to the wellbeing of Infidels and to their civilizations, such as they are, with all their faults and stupidities big and little, then one must not be fooled into thinking that either "poverty" (what nonsense: the most sinister and threatening Muslim countries are those like Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. and Iran; the least threatening, the impoverished Mali and Mauritania) or "absence of democracy" is what will do the trick. Many of those so-called "reformers," just like the North African lady who recently published a "daring" account of a muslima's sexual life (i.e., more or less an autobiography), may recognize that their own ruling classes are corrupt and depraved. But then on quite a few matters they immediately demonstrate that defensiveness about Islam that is such a feature of even the most "moderate" and seemingly "reasonable" of Muslims, whose mask comes off the minute Islam is seen to be criticized by Infidels in the mildest of ways. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, for example, in undermining the regime of Mubarak and Son, no longer collaborates with the American Copts -- no, he appears to be collaborating more with the Muslim Brotherhood. And of course Ibrahim's views on Israel, his complete inability to see the claim of Jews to their own homeland, with defensible borders, and their legal, historic, and moral claim to all of the West Bank and to Gaza, is something beyond his capacity. He simply cannot get his mind around it-- that is, he remains, for all of his "reform," neither a vocal supporter of complete equality for the Copts (and perhaps a little apology for their treatment, in their own land, by Arabs who conquered, and subjugated them -- no, that is simply an impossibility in Muslim terms), nor someone who is prepared to end the relentless Arab Jihad against the Infidel sovereign state of Israel.

Islam is the problem. The Administration prates about "democracy being on the march in the Middle East" (it isn't) and then tells us, and asks us to take it on faith that somehow, in some way, "democracy in Iraq" (which would mean an end to Kurdish aspirations for independence, which should in fact be supported, and if carried out, would inevitably lead to Shi'a rule over Sunnis) will lead to a new country, a New Iraq where people think of themselves, magically, as Iraqis (oh, some do - perhaps as many as 5% on a good day) rather than as Kurds or Arabs, and among the Arabs, as Sunni Arabs or Shi'a Arabs. And that New Iraq, in turn, in defiance of Iraq's entire modern history, will become a "Light Unto the Muslim Nations." Nonsense on stilts.
But there are others, outside the Administration, who do not buy this. And what do they say? Some recognize that there is a problem with Islam, but they still insist on a modifying adjective: not Islam, but "Wahhabi" Islam, or "Salafist" Islam or "extremist" Islam. Again, nonsense on stilts.

And they tell us that because there is this "good Islam" and these "good Muslims" whom we must under no circumstances alienate, it is important not to seem to be troubled by Islam itself, to try to weaken Islam itself or at least the hold it possesses over so many of its adherents, for otherwise there is "no hope." But "no hope" of what? Infidels cannot possibly continue to be confused by the idea that "moderate" Muslims (never adequately defined, or rather, when they are properly defined in a way that causes them to be no threat to Infidels, they simply disappear, do not exist except in infinitesimal numbers). It is important for Infidels to get things straight about Islam. The promotion of the idea that "moderate Muslims are the solution" muddies the waters, obscures what should be clear, and holds out a forlorn hope which can be an excuse for further inaction. This is true especially in Europe, where the indigenous Infidels need to be much more informed, and thus much more alarmed, than they are, with their dreams of "integration" of Muslims, and their dreamy belief in those same "moderates" that hardly exist, or if they exist nonetheless mislead about the nature of Islam and the prospects for change, or if they do not mislead, can at any time metamorphose into "immoderate" Muslims -- prompted perhaps by personal difficulties that no Infidel is likely to discern or be able to prevent.

It is only once Islam as an ideology is understood, when its tenets are understood, when the example of Muhammad (and the life of Muhammad, in every detail) is understood, when the history of Muslim conquest and subjugation of Infidels is understood (without the myth of Andalusia, without the exaggerations about the "great achievements" of Islamic culture that, looked at closely, become those mainly of transmission, of borrowing, and of relying on the fructifying presence of considerable numbers of Jews and Christians during the first few centuries after the initial Muslim conquest.

Then we will get somewhere, and the nonsense now coming out of those in the Administration who wish to continue the folly in Iraq, when Iraq presents the perfect place to exploit the two natural fissures within Islam: the ethnic (the resentment of non-Arab Muslim for the supremacist Arab Muslims, which in Iraq has been expressed in the mass murder of Kurds by Arabs, and the overwhelming desire of Kurds for an independent state, which they deserve, and which would serve Infidel interests) and the sectarian (the growing resentment that Shi'a feel for Sunnis, not only in Iraq, but in Pakistan, in the eastern oil-bearing province of Al-Hasa in Saudi Arabia, in Kuwait and in Bahrain, and of course in Iran itself, a Shi'a state that can be expected to aid fellow Shi'a while Sunnis, in turn, can be expected to aid fellow Sunnis).

Iraq presents a splendid opportunity. Let us not mess it up by continuing to remain there. Every single division within Islam should be exploited, and can be by simply leaving the place and its largely unpleasant and irremediably hostile people (yes, I know about the very nice pro-American bloggers in Iraq, all five or six of them, out of 25 million people. They do not move me nearly as much as do the American soldiers whose lives have been disrupted, or changed utterly when they are wounded, or ended forever).

We want not to "stay the course" if the "course" itself is based on a faulty understanding of Islam. We want to "change course" if by so doing we can achieve our real aims -- which are to contain Islam, to buy time in order to let other Infidels come to comprehend, despite the vast army of Arab hirelings and Muslim apologists (or rather, apologists for Islam, many of whom are non-Muslims) abroad in the lands of the Infidels, and to help create the conditions in which, I will repeat for the hundredth time, the political, economic, social, and intellectual failures of the Muslim lands and peoples, over a very wide area, and for a very long time, can be seen to be directly related to the tenets, to the attitudes, to the atmospherics of Islam itself, or that Islam naturally promotes.

Will no one in Congress stand up and relate the desire to end the misallocation of resources -- of men, money, materiel, military morale, and attention -- not to the goals of appeasers and pacifists, but to those who want us out precisely because the Jihad is a menace, and the menace is world-wide, and the menace will not be mitigated in the slightest by creating, over years and years, a preposterous Light Unto the Muslim Nations in the Land Between the Two Rivers?

Will no one in the military, or in the Pentagon spring for a ticket for J. B. Kelly, or Bat Ye'or, or both of them to come to the Pentagon and explain exactly why Bernard Lewis and his acolytes should not be taken as the last word on Grand Strategy in Iraq or, for that matter, anywhere else in the Muslim world, or in dealing with Muslims in Europe? Not enough money in the budget?

Here, we'll take up a collection. Those of us -- the growing numbers – who are appalled by the idiocy and the waste now on display in Iraq, and the failure to recognize the real opportunity for demoralizing, splitting, and containing Islam that Iraq presents, will turn our pockets inside out, if only such people can be given a hearing.

Posted by Robert at June 24, 2005 7:30 AM
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Hugh,
You predict inevitabilities.
Lemme analyze your testable predictions one-by-one:
#1: The US ain't gonna stay on in Iraq forever. No prizes for guessing that one.
#2: The moment we leave, the place'll goto the dogs, in all probability. (& so will Afghanistan).
#3: A full-scale civil war between shias (backed by Iran & maybe Syria) and Sunnis (backed by the saudis and Jordan) will go at each other like mad bulls in a mud pit. In Afghanistan its probably gonna be Pushtus (backed by the Taliban, ISI and Al Qaeda) against all other ethnic minorities - Shia Hazaras (Iran Backed), Uzbeks and kirghiz etc
#4: The civil war will go on until death or defeat visits one of the warring parties. No ceasefire worth anything can be possible because there'll be none with enough credibility or authority to guarantee anything anywhere.
#5: Hopefully, the media wil jump in and paint the true nature of barbarism of the 'believers'.
And so on and on...

Posted by: voletti

at June 24, 2005 9:05 AM

Amazing. In 4 short years, I went from being an anti-semitic, Israel-hating, Pro-Palestinian, Koran-reading, Sufism-apologist, to being a totally committed, Oriana-loving Infidel. Actually, it took me but a few hours...on September 11th, 2001. If I, but a woman, can do such an about-face when confronted by horrible reality, why can't our leaders and media? What will it take for academia to start teaching truth?

Posted by: Jauhara Al-Kafirah

at June 24, 2005 9:13 AM

The next step is to stay out of the Islamic world's internal nightmares. Give them no excuses (in the form of a common external foe) for their own failures. Remember that the name of God's Chosen One is Yeshua ha-M'shaich (Jesus Christ), not Uncle Sam. Remember as well that history is going to happen whether we like it or not.

Posted by: Kepha

at June 24, 2005 9:19 AM

The civil war will go on until death or defeat visits one of the warring parties. No ceasefire worth anything can be possible because there'll be none with enough credibility or authority to guarantee anything anywhere. Posted by: voletti

Unfortunately, there will be a victor that rises out of this chaos, and it will likely be the most ruthless, most extreme, blood-soaked, head-chopping, mujahideen factory of the al-zarqawi stripe. And once Iraq becomes the property and tool of the Alpha Jihadist, it will morph into yet another terrorist state along the lines of the Taliban. One more extreme theocracy in the Middle East. One more Petri Dish for terrorism.

This benefits the world...how???

Posted by: dead_shot

at June 24, 2005 10:08 AM

The insurgency could have, and should have, been crushed long ago, were it not for America's benevolent policy of placing the lives of Iraqi civilians above its own self-defense. Basically, we have put the cart before the horse in the sense that we are trying to build a nation that is still in the throes of war. Before you can have peace, the people must be PACIFIED.

If we are to create a NON-THREATENING Iraqi government (non-threatening to America, that is), we must make the Iraqi civilians who harbor and abet the jihadists understand that, when they aid terrorists, they in fact become terrorists themselves (remember Dubya's creed: "You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists", now a long-forgotten footnote).

Lets stop pretending that the activities of blood-thirsty terrorists go un-noticed by Iraqi residents. If you believe that, then you are delusional.

We should offer handsome monetary rewards to Iraqi informants who identify neighborhood terrorists--and we are probably doing this at the moment, but it doesn't seem to work. That's because our policy amounts to "a lot of Carrot and not enough Stick."

We must impress upon them, the mass rabble of ignorant sheeple that are the Iraqi crowd, that to help jihadists kill American troops or fledgling gov't reps will result in dire consequences. To wit, if a US convoy is ambushed in a neighborhood, or a police recruiting center is bombed, the next day a contingent of US Marines will arrive in that same neighborhood with blow torches. They will march door to door throughout the ghetto and they will seize and confiscate all belongings. Residents will face relocation to stark confines (in other words, concentration camps). Anyone protesting this policy will be summarily executed. After the neighborhood has been scoured and sacked, it will be burned to the ground.

Imagine the result. Will there be any doubt among the goatherds that we now mean business? I don't think so.

To those who are appalled by this tactic, I have this to say: Fighting a compassionate war is immoral. It shows weakness and risks the lives of American troops. Further more, it emboldens our enemies throughout the islamic world.

Have a good day.

Posted by: dead_shot

at June 24, 2005 10:12 AM

"Unfortunately, there will be a victor that rises out of this chaos, and it will likely be the most ruthless, most extreme, blood-soaked, head-chopping, mujahideen factory of the al-zarqawi stripe..."
---from a posting above

If American troops are removed, this does not mean that the American government cannot interdict from the sky all sorts of movements by various factions in Iraq. It does not mean that the Kurds cannot be supplied with equipement and aid, in order to help create an independent Kurdistan which will 1) be a much more solid ally, because the Kurds will know they can never rely on any brand of Arabs to support or protect them, nor Turks, or Persians 2) will raise in the world's consciousness, and in the consciousness of non-Arab Muslims, the whole matter of Arab Muslim mistreatment and denial of cultural and linguistic rights, to non-Arab Muslims. This will reverberate, if properly made much of, among Berbers in North Africa (and in France). It will reverberate among those Malaysian Muslim intellectuals who have already been complaining about the "arabization" of Malaysia, the aping of the ways of 7th-century Arabia by 21st-century inhabitants of the Malay peninsula. The same resentments can be found, or fostered, by those who stand to gain (i.e., Infidels and would-be Muslim "reformers" or "moderates" such as they are) in Indonesia. Finally, in Pakistan, whose benighted inhabitants have Islam, and only Islam, as their identity (with every third Pakistani claiming to be a "Sayeed" or descendant of the Prophet's family -- as if every third American, including immigrants from China and India, were to insist that he, or she, was a direct descendant of people who had been on the Mayflower or the Arbella), there may be some for whom an independent Kurdistan -- and all the discussion that it might engender about Islam as a vehicle for Arab supremacist ideology, will be valuable in dividing, weakening, demoralizing those who work to spread Islam, and to make it superficially palatable, and supposedly "universalist," in its appeal. And even others who have suffered in a different way from their encounter with "the Arabs" -- those Iranians who may need a little help painting Islam as an Arab trojan-horse, the "gift" that Firdowsi resisted linguistically, the "gift" that has helped make the superior civilization of the Persians sink to the level of the "desert Arabs" (a theme that can be exploited, and should be, by Iranians wishing to contain Islam within their own country, once the monstrous Islamic Republic is overthrown or collapses).

So the notion that we should withdraw, and then do nothing, is false. Before the invasion of Iraq, a no-fly zone was enforced over the Kurdish areas. The American military now knows far more about the terrain, the people, the entire area we call, and pretend to believe exists, the nation-state of Iraq.

We are far more likely, as well, to enjoy the spectacle of those in Iraq dealing with the Zarqawi forces with far more ruthlessness than anything the Americans now practice, or ever conceivably could practice. Why not let the Shi'a militia, now straining at the leash, and far more able to deal with Sunni enemies in precisely the way that will hurt (including counter-bombings), to act as they will? We have the power, in the end, to keep whatever side we deem most threatening from taking over -- and that side is probably that of the Sunnis.

It should be akin to the Iran-Iraq War, or the proxy war between Nasser's Egypt and Saudi Arabia in the Yemen. From our point of view, rightly understood, such wars should be allowed to go on, or at least simmer, forever. And the only way that can happen is if we leave. And if we don't leave, the continued misallocation of resources will cause the public to lose heart, and not to wish to continue to fight against the Jihad in other places, with other means -- as to protect Europe from its own folly, and the criminal negligence of a policy that poermitted millions of Muslims to settle in the Lands of the Infidels, in other words behind enemy lines -- in the view of the Muslims themselves, but not, alas, in the view -- as yet -- of the naive, confused, scared Infidels of Europe, who keep hoping that what is staring them in the face somehow just can't be true. But it can. It is.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 24, 2005 10:34 AM

Dear Hugh,

Thanks a lot for a very sane advice that the Iraqis be left to themselves to kill each other in their Kurd Vs Arab and Sunni Vs Shia divisions.

Only thing that bothers me is that 14 centuries back the land of Arabia was a collection of warring tribes and wonder of wonders Islam united them.

So, be prepared for a surprise: for all we know, once the occupation is over, the Iraqis might as well integrate.

I very eagerly look forward to Bush & Co obeying your sane advice!

Posted by: Mohideen Ibramsha

at June 24, 2005 10:36 AM

Great summation of the mess in Iraq and why we need to leave immediately.

I would like to see more of how we can confront and defeat Islam, post-Iraq.

Posted by: Seymour Paine

at June 24, 2005 11:26 AM

Hugh, thank you for the reply. You said:

If American troops are removed, this does not mean that the American government cannot interdict from the sky all sorts of movements by various factions in Iraq.

With all due respect, I find this statement to be quite amazing. If you're suggesting that we can somehow manage the inevitable civil war chaos "from the sky"--I assume through satelite surveillance and predator drones--let me remind you that our world-famous "intelligence" network couldn't even track the movements of large supplies of WMDs from Iraq to Syria and Iran, or wherever they've been hidden. Technology has its limits. It has not helped us locate the terror icons, al-zarqawi, mullah omar, or bin laden. Sorry, I do not share your optimism. The Big Eye In the Sky is nothing more than Pie in the Sky.

Also, have you thought about the long-term ramifications of how the world, including families of Military men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq, will view such a move? Leaving Iraq in a state of chaos will only embolden the Jihad Squad and provide the wahabis with years of propaganda. They will spin this American withdrawal...or more aptly--surrender--as a humiliating defeat for us. Defeat. And in a sense, it is. Things got tough, and we ran. Do you have any idea how crippling this will be for the morale of our fighting forces? If you think they're feeling low right now, this current slump will pale in comparison to the funeral procession of morale after we raise the white flag.

Surrender Iraq, and to what? As I stated in my earlier post, if we pull out now, the worst elements of the terror movement will take over Iraq. Count on it. I hate to think that we've sacrificed so much blood and treasure, only to give rise to another mujahideen petri dish.

Posted by: dead_shot

at June 24, 2005 11:43 AM

"Too bad some people think Islam can be defeated by intellectual activities alone."
--- from a posting above

If that is meant to be a comment on the article above, it is misplaced. The article, like others that have appeared here (often as postings) note s that qital, or combat, is but one of the instruments of Jihad, and by far the least effective. The money weapon, Da'wa (the Call to Islam) aimed at discrete and carefully-identified groups of economically or psychically marginal, and demographic conquest from within (which is occurring in Western Europe)are all part of the picture, and need to be dealt with. The belief that what causes Muslim hostility, what explains 9/11 and a thousand other attacks, and attacks on non-Americans, and non-Christians and non-Jews, all over the globe, somehow has to do either with "poverty" or with the misrule within Muslim states, is easily shown to be false. It is a false proposition.

There are important tasks that can only be accomplished by military means. There is no reason to further delay destruction, even part-destruction, of the Iranian nuclear facilities, spread out as they are. And if one or two raids or missile attacks do not work, they should be continued for as long a period, over as wide an area, as possible. And there should be no ridiculous reliance on the idea of "regime change" or fear of causing the Iranians to "rally around the regime." That doesn't matter; some will, some won't. What matters is to destroy Iran's capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons. Their leaders, or some of them, are clearly willing to use those weapons. They may be willing to hand them off to others. And this attack on Iran's weapons facilities should not be put off even if the regime there starts to crumble. Iran will still be a Muslim country. It will, potentially, revert to type -- and Infidels cannot allow any spread of major weaponry to any Muslim state, or by extension, to any Muslim group or groupuscule. So there is no need to wait-and-see what happens to the regime -- that would be too late.

But what about Pakistan, you will say? What about it? They have a small number of weapons. The Americans and Indians together are not without the means, should it be necessary, to rid Pakistan of that arsenal. It might be done through non-military means. It might be done, without the Pakistani population even knowing about it. It might be done by threatening the complete collapse of the Pakistani economy. There are a thousand things that can be attempted, that have not been.

And as far as other uses of military force, repeatedly here it has been suggested that a small American force could reasonably be sent in to protect the black Africans in the Sudan, both in the southern Sudan (as soon as the government reneges on the farcical "treaty" it was forced to sign, and that it will violate whenever it thinks it can) and in Darfur, where non-Arab and hence inferior Muslims, not-quite-Muslims in Arab eyes, are being raped, pillaged, and murdered. The smiling faces of those greeting the American rescuers would be a sharp contrast to the sullen and whining faces of many Iraqis, who are not grateful, but hostile, to the Americans -- and were so, utterly predictably, after the first few days of exhilaration and relief. The inculcated hostility to Infidels promptly set in, and no amount of American generosity, which under the circumstances (Iraq has the second-largest, or perhaps even the largest, oil reserves in the world, and should be able to borrow against future earnings, not take money from the long-suffering American taxpayers who, strange to say, have a few needs of their own, and do not have such oil reserves to rely on, and most of them, in fact, actually have to work for a living).

It is illegitimate to misstate the arguments for leaving Iraq above. It is illegitimate to say that we will not, from outside Iraq, be able to interdict weaopnry, to supply weaponry, to otherwise heavily influence the military course of events. But without the huge expenditures, and without the continued loss of morale, as reflected not only in public opinion polls, but in the enlistment rates. There is only so much damage that the army can be expected to inflict on itself, as its officers and men gallantly attempt to make a democratically silk purse out of the sow's ear of triple-vilayetted Iraq. It can't be done, and the attempt is wasting our resources, physical and immaterial, without which the very long, possibly endless, effort to contain Islam cannot be properly conducted.

The language employed by our rulers is a false language, a misleading language. It is not a "war on terror" but a war of self-defense against the JIhad, against all who believe in the Jihad to spread Islam, by whatever means, with whatever instruments, come to hand. The language of "winning the war on terror" is equaly bad, or perhaps even more so. It gets hopes up. It gives people short-term expectations. It frames the situation incorrectly. It deludes even those who have a hint, a glimmer, that they themselves are not stating things correctly -- but in official Washington, who dares even to begin to state things properly?

Those who are loyal to the "mission" and who parrot the official line are not being loyal to the officers and especially the men who may be properly impressed with their own efforts, with the American efforts, but have also taken a good look at how the Iraqis behave, or how those people whom we too lazily call "Iraqis" but are, in the first place, Kurds and Arabs, and Sunni Arabs and Shi'a Arabs (and some Chaldeans, and some Turcomans), and whose interest is in helping themselves, and their families, and their tribes, and then if there is anything left over, to their own ethnic or sectarian group, but not to a phantom called "Iraq" -- whatever largesse, and it has been quite a spectacle, that bonanza, the Americans keep doling out and the ungrateful but occasionally smooth talking Iraqis (see Jaffari's little performance in Washington today) Iraqis keep pocketing, and acting as if it is theirs by right, and has to keep coming.

Not the Seven Percent "Solution" -- but the Somalia Solution. That would be ideal. The Americans came to end the violence, to bring food aid, to clamp down on the warlords. They were attacked; some killed, bodies mutilated and dragged through the streets, to the great delight of so many people in Mogadishu. The Americans retaliated. They killed hundreds. And then they left.

And what happened? Somalia disintegrated into chaos. It is now a hell-hole. It is also no threat to Infidels. It simply is. One need not advocate a descent into chaos, or do anything to encourage it. But nor should American efforts continue to be so skewed in concentrating on helping what has always been a doubtful nation-state, and is far more unlikely a state now, after decades of Sunni persecution of Shi'a (and mass murder in 1991), and Arab persecution and mass murder of Kurds. There are some reasonably good people -- Kanan Makiya comes to mind. But it is a question of how many, and how much power they have, and whether they share the Infidel view that Islam itself helps to explain the despotism which, now using modern technology, has metamorphosed into something far more intrusive and unpleasant for the Muslim subjects of Muslim governments. How many Muslims, even the "moderates," even the quasi-not-quite-ready-to-apostasize Muslims, are willing to connect the absence of free and skeptical inquiry in Islam, the habit of mental submission, the imprimator of approval given to despots as long as they are Muslims, the example of Muhammad, whose own rule, taken as a model, was not that of a parliamentary democrat. For that matter, how many Muslims, even "moderates" or quasi-not-quite-ready-to-apostasize Muslims, are able to see the connection between the inshallah-fatalism that Islam encourages (even the Muslim phrases and allusions that, in every conversation, constantly reinforce the "islamic" nature of everyday life, lest anyone forget) and the failures of Muslim economies, and the grotesque reliance either on oil wealth (for which nothing was done to deserve), or on the amounts of foreign aid that can be extracted fro Infidel countries, and that is regarded by Muslims as their un-interruptable due (and the American government, especially with malevolent Egypt, has internalized this preposterous Egyptian attitude, as if it is simply unthinkable to cut off entirely this aid which should never have been given to Egypt, or to any Muslim country or group, in the first place).

Everything is finite. Money, soldiers, the weapons of war, the morale of those soldiers, and would-be soldiers, and the families of those soldiers. Finite, too, is the attention and understanding of the Infidels throughout the Western world. This is a chance to exploit the situation in Iraq not for the benefit of the locals, but for our own benefit. We have done quite enough, spent quite enough, on those locals. And the smiling Jaafari, uttering a few words about the "blood of Iraqis and Americans" being blent together, possibly a phrase that helpful Americans suggested he say, should be taken with a grain of salt. This is a man who belongs to an Islamic party, who believes firmly in Islam, and who does not have a soft spot at all for Infidels.

But if he can keep those Infidels there, handing out money, fighting the Sunnis for him, taking casualties, wearing down the materiel of the American army (what does Jaafari care?) and the morale of American soldiers (what does Jaafari care about American soldiers, and their well-being? Nothing at all.), he will even utter phrases that sound good, and should be taken with the granary full of salt that they deserve.

Oh, there is one problem. And that problem is this: if and when the American government decides to leave, realizes that what has been suggested here makes sense, it will be able to frame the matter delicately.

Here, let's make it easy. Let's write the speech ourselves:

"My fellow Americans. We can all be proud of what has been accomplished in Iraq. Our soldiers have liberated an entire country. They took out a ruthless regime, that had been in power for 35 years, and that had murdered a large number of the citizens of Iraq. That regime was prepared to stay in power for another 35 years. But it is gone now, and Saddam Hussein sits in a Baghdad jail, waiting for Iraqis themselves to subject him to the rule of law, and the just punishment he deserves.

No one else could have removed the burden of Saddam Hussein from off the backs of those ordinary Iraqis, who want freedom as much as we do. Because everyone in the world wants freedom, the freedom to think the freedom to vote, the freedom to speak out about everything. We have stood by the Iraqis. Our soldiers and civilians have built and rebuilt a hundred hospitals. They have built thousands of schoolrooms. They have outfitted those hospitals with modern equipment, and given those schools not just a fresh coat of paint, but desks and chairs and blackboards, so that little Iraqi children, too, can learn the way our children do, the way all chidlren want to do. You've seen, I've seen, we've all seen those pictures of American soldiers handing out the candy and the soccer balls to those smiling children. Those smiling faces do not lie. Those smiling faces show that we have millions of young friends made in Iraq, children who will grow up to remember those tall soldiers, with those ready smiles, and the memory of those soccer balls and candy will remain with them always.

And we have done more. We have repaired or rebuilt power grids. We have built roads. 4.5 million Iraqis who never had potable water before, have it now -- thanks to the Amrican soldiers and civilians.

And along with building the physical structure of Iraq, we have helped create a modern society. We have brought democratic ways, ways which are new to the region, ways which some people, some naysayers and nervous nellies keep telling us that Muslims would never accept. Well, there were those naysayers and nervous nellies. And we could have answered them. But we didn’t. Instead, the good people of Iraq, marching one by one, and in groups, toward those polling places, each person having, in a sense to dodge a bullet in order to cast a ballot – well, that wasn’t our doing. It was theirs. And they showed, those Iraqis, as they bravely cast their ballots, one by one, for their individual choices, that democracy is a yearning in the hearts of everyone, whether they wear shoes or sandals, whether they wear desert robes or business suits, dresses or other garb.

It wasn’t us who created the new rebirth of freedom in Iraq. We just got rid of the dictator, and helped create the conditions for democracy. And it is the Iraqis who’ve done all the rest. No one can fail to be stirred by the sight.

Of course, we helped during those elections. We stood guard. And we helped as a new government was patiently assembled. And we continued to conduct our operations against the terrorists who are so terrified of democracy, because they know that when the good people of Iraq speak, they will speak as one voice against those same terrorists, who do not represent anything but themselves, and certainly not the great religion of Islam.

And as that government was chosen, and deals made, some people here might have gotten a little patient. But anyone who knows how a real democracy works, or even how a political primary works, knows the kind of friendly wheeling and dealing, the kind of horse-trading that people in my part of the country know is part of life. And that’s what the Iraqis did. They learned how to compromise after the election, how to horse-trade. Why, maybe I should have invited Prime Minister Jaafari down to the Crawford ranch, and then we could both have seen some horse-trading in places nearby. I think he’d get as much of a quick out of it as I do.

And we didn’t stay just for that. We decided we should stay until they had written their constitution. Well, it’s not so easy to write a constitution. Ask James Madison. Or Thomas Jefferson. Even our Founding Fathers knew it wasn’t going to be easy. It took them time. So let’s not be critical of those Iraqis, because they took time.

And some people say that the Constitution shouldn’t have recognized the Sharia as the model for legislation. Some people say that the Sharia is just a kind of Islamic law that our soldiers should not have fought and died for. Well, all I can say is – last I looked, Iraq was a Muslim country. Why shouldn’t they want Islamic law as a model for legislation? I mean, wouldn’t it be strange if they didn’t? Let’s not get too anxious right now. Let’s wait and see where this is going.

Well, democracy is on the march. Once it gets going, its hard to stop. Its going gangbusters in Iraq. And so now it is time for Iraq to stand on its own two feet. The Sunni and the Shi’a, the Kurds and the Arabs – those are the two feet, or this two kinds of two feet, which makes four feet, that this new Iraq will stand on.

In a way, I kinda feel like the Marshall in the Old West who comes in to town, and clears out the bad guys, and then straightens things out, and then gets back on his horse, and heads out of town. And the townspeople are grateful, and they set right to work, putting their town – that before the bad guys came, was doing just fine – right on course.

It is now time for the good people of Iraq to be just like those townspeople. We are riding out of town. We have other places where people need help. We have done our bit. And now the good people of Iraq, with their new freedoms, and their new elections, and their new constitution just ready for approval, can take over completely. No guest should outstay his welcome, not even in the famously hospitable Middle East. It is time to go.

So I announce today that American forces will pull out of all cities and villages, and by the fall of 2005, the troop strength will decline to 50,000, and then, by January 1, 2005, a minimal force of 20,000 troops will remain in the Western desert, near Syria – but only with the express agreement to fund such troops by the Iraqi government, borrowing against future oil revenues, and only until May 1, 2006, at which point all troops will be out of Iraq. We have cancelled or transferred to non-American contractors a series of undertakings that the Iraqi government has informed us it does not wish to have, if it has to pay for them itself. But as you can well understand, we have already spent nearly $300 billion on Iraq and Afghanistan, and things have to change. I’m sure the American taxpayers will be glad to hear of this.

There is time to “stay the course” and time to “change the course.” The ship’s captain who doesn’t notice an iceberg, or a blinding sandstorm, isn’t a very good ship’s captain. Well, I want to be the best ship’s captain I can be. I’m staying the real course, the course of the anti-Jihad. And I and Vice-President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condi Rice all agree – it now makes a lot more sense for us to leave Iraq, than to stay.

May God Bless America, and all those who truly wish America well, in Iraq and elsewhere.

Goodnight.”

Posted by: Hugh

at June 24, 2005 1:27 PM

"Too bad some people think Islam can be defeated by intellectual activities alone."
--- from a posting above

Here, let's make it easy. Let's write the speech ourselves:

May God Bless America, and all those who truly wish America well, in Iraq and elsewhere.

Goodnight.”

Posted by: Hugh

at June 24, 2005 1:28 PM

Robert has made a reference to this many times, but the Sistani Web site and what it says about things najis (unclean) deserves more publicity.

So here we go again:

Go to:
http://www.sistani.org/html/eng/main/index.php?page=3&lang=ara&part=1

Scroll down and click on najis, and you get:

"84. The following ten things are essentially najis:
Urine
Faeces
Semen
Dead body
Blood
Dog
Pig
Kafir
Alcoholic liquors
The sweat of an animal who persistently eats najasat."

Then click back and scroll down to get the definition of 'Kafir'; in true Islamic form, the Ayatollah, the authority, must tell us exactly what to think about this. Here it is:

"107. An infidel i.e. a person who does not believe in Allah and His Oneness, is najis. Similarly, Ghulat who believe in any of the holy twelve Imams as God, or that they are incarnations of God, and Khawarij and Nawasib who express enmity towards th e holy Imams, are also najis. And similar is the case of those who deny Prophethood, or any of the necessary laws of Islam, like, namaz and fasting, which are believed by the Muslims as a part of Islam, and which they also know as such.
As regards the people of the Book (i.e. the Jews and the Christians) who do not accept the Prophethood of Prophet Muhammad bin Abdullah (Peace be upon him and his progeny), they are commonly considered najis, but it is not improbable that they are Pak. Ho wever, it is better to avoid them.
108. The entire body of a Kafir, including his hair and nails, and all liquid substances of his body, are najis.
109. If the parents, paternal grandmother and paternal grandfather of a minor child are all kafir, that child is najis, except when he is intelligent enough, and professes Islam. When, even one person from his parents or grandparents is a Muslim, the child is Pak (The details will be explained in rule 217).
110. A person about whom it is not known whether he is a Muslim or not, and if no signs exist to establish him as a Muslim, he will be considered Pak. But he will not have the privileges of a Muslim, like, he cannot marry a Muslim woman, nor can he be buried in a Muslim cemetery.
111. Any person who abuses any of the twelve holy Imams on account of enmity, is najis."

Such humanity from the great, moderate, well-respected Ayatollah, a true representive and authority of the religion of tolerance and peace.

Posted by: JTF

at June 24, 2005 1:41 PM

The chaos in Somalia is not totally without consequences for the Infidel world. During 1990ies, hundreds of thousands Somali Muslim refugees have streamed to Europe, all granted asylum as "civil war refugees" and nearly all of them utterly hostile toward their Infidel hosts, although willing to accept their welfare checks. With large families and spouses for the young imported from home, Somalis contribute to the demographic Jihad more diligently than many other Muslim groups. Obviously, also an Iraqi civil war would accelerate the Muslim influx into Europe; EU would feel obliged to give asylum to Iraqi Muslims from all groups once they are classified as refugees of civil war, even if it otherwise had agreed, under terrorist threats and citizen pressure, to slow down on Muslim immigration a little.

Posted by: rahel

at June 24, 2005 1:53 PM

Hugh, I second your thoughts on striking Iran's nuclear facilities. Lets hope this time the Isrealis don't beat us to the punch.

As for your call to withdraw from Iraq, that strategy simply reeks of defeatism. And it will be used as such by the propagandists, just as they did with our retreat from Beirut in '83.

Iraq has become the SuperBowl of Terrorism. We need to move the ball forward, and by that, I mean that we must draw back the Mailed Fist and when it hits home we must not apologize for it, as that is the only thing these sandworms understand: FORCE. I'm all for keeping our troops there, if only to kill more jihadists. We have not killed enough of them. Killing the enemy is what our Military are trained to do, and are very good at doing. If only they would be allowed to do it. Our crippling rules of engagement continually hamper our ability to make the enemy heel.

Victory, clear and undeniable, for us, and complete and utter defeat for them, is what we need.

Posted by: dead_shot

at June 24, 2005 2:15 PM

"EU would feel obliged to give asylum to Iraqi Muslims from all groups once they are classified as refugees of civil war..."
-- from a posting above

Oh no they wouldn't. Nor would they, or we, feel "obliged" to offer refuge to more Somalis. Those days are over.

It is true that Muslims will try to slip into our countries illegally, often using Libya as the point of disembarcation for the boats that bring many (especially Egyptians, but a motley crew) to Italy, unless they are intercepted by the Italian authorities and taken, as a boatload or two or three is almost every day or every week, to Lampedusa for repatriation back to Libya.

At the moment Khaddafy is demanding as the price of his cooperation that the government of Italy agree to build, at its expense, a coastal road from one end of Libya to the other -- some 1800 kilometers, I think (it would not be straight).

The Italians have not taken kindly to this demand, which like all of Khaddafy's demands is preposterous. He will have to be bludgeoned into further cooperation, perhaps not by Italy, but by the United States. It can be done. There are things he needs. A free coastal road is not one of them. It would just help make the movement of would-be illegal immigrants from Algeria and Morocco on one side, moving through Tunisia to Libya, and from Egypt on the other, that much easier. And we don't want that.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 24, 2005 2:54 PM

"Also, have you thought about the long-term ramifications of how the world, including families of Military men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq, will view such a move? Leaving Iraq in a state of chaos will only embolden the Jihad Squad and provide the wahabis with years of propaganda. They will spin this American withdrawal...or more aptly--surrender--as a humiliating defeat for us. Defeat."
--- from a posting above

O no they won't. In fact, when it is clear that the American forces are leaving, and it is clear that they are doing so not in defeat but out of a new realism, a new and far more cunning understanding of what needs to be done, the forces of the Jihad, and all their supporters, will be horrified. Who do you think will be screaming loudest about how the Americans cannot do this, cannot avoid their responsibilities, must stay to help Iraq because, as that idiot Tom Friedman liked to say in one of the memorable examples of his idiotic phrasemaking (so attractive, apparently, to those audiences of businessmen who believe him to have special insight and authority, and think nothing of paying $45,000 -- his horrifying going rate -- to hear his platitudes and shallow plongitudes), "We broke it, we fix it."

No, we did not "break" Iraq. Iraq never really existed. Ask Gertrude Bell, or see her letters. Read Philip Ireland's 1937 book on Iraq, reprinted in 2004, which is still one of the best books on the situation. Read Elie Kedourie. Iraq, pace Bernard Lewis, was always a preposterous concoction, put together out of three Ottoman vilayets (Mosul, Baghdad, Basra), for various reasons. In Mosul there were considerations involving the Assyrians, who had previously fled the Turks (you know how the Turks treated the Christian Assyrians, and Armenians, and Greeks, and other non-Muslims, don't you?); Basra in the south was included becuase the Government of India (that means the British authorities, despite the name) wanted Basra as a bread-basket on the sea route from Blighty to India.

And since modern Iraq was founded, since the 1933 massacre of the Assyrians, since the "Farhud" or pogrom against the Jews in June 1-2, 1941, since the pro-Axis coup and then the counter-coup, and the palace plotters, and that celebrated "strong man" and hero of a thousand would-be coups Nuri al-Said, since the farce of CENTO, and the 1958 coup (where the "strong man" tried to escape dressed as a woman, and his mutilated body was dragged through the streets of Baghdad, to the delight of spectators), the coup in which the young Faisal was killed, and then the latter coup in which Qassem was killed, and then the resistible rise of Saddam Hussein, and the hanging of innocent Jews (and a Christian or two, just to remind them to obey) as "Zionist spies" in the main square of Baghdad, and then the Anfal campaign (named after a Qur'anic sura) of mass murder against the Kurds, which almost no Arabs objected to, and the deliberate arabization of Kurdish cities and lands, and the campaign to wipe out the southern marshes and with them, the Marsh Arabs, and the campaign of mass murder of Shi'a in the south and.... well, you get the idea. There was no Iraq to "break." It was a monstrous place, politically. And all that talk about the "large well-educated Iraqi middle class" -- well, that is only by comparison with other, even more benighted though often less violent, Arab countries. That's the real Iraq as it was, and is, and will be. And it is not our job, and certainly not right now, when all efforts have to be bent to rescue Europe from its own folly (and if we could, Israel from Sharon's folly of withdrawal), to make Infidels aware of what Islam's tenets are all about, and what the history of Islam demonstrates conclusively, and then to create the conditions in which Muslims themselves will have to begin to ponder the unpalatable fact that the political, economic, social, and intellecutal backwardness, and failures, of Muslim countries, are directly attributable to the tenets of Islam, and the habits of mind, including the habit of submission to authority, that encourage despotism, and the inshallah-fatalism that makes indolence so common, and creates a desire to live off of oil wealth or the jizyah of Infidel foreign aid (which is taken for granted, and not the object of gratitude -- the Infidels "owe it to us" as Jaffari's little remark at the press conference today showed in parvo).

"Defeatism"? The surest way to cause real defeatism is to fail to make real use of, to exploit, the fissures that Iraq presents. And that can only be exploited by our withdrawal.

I do not like being told that I do not know the "real situation" in Iraq, when I have close relatives who have served there, friends who have served there, and others who have managed to contact me, and agree with me. I have simply read Bell, Ireland, Kelly, Kedourie, and a hundred others. History matters. Islam matters. These explain behavior. These explain attitudes, that cannot disappear. These explain the real nature of Iraqi society, and what is going on -- which bears little resemblance to the sentimental nonsense about everyone "wanting freedom." Oh no they don't. And where they get it, does not imply that they will hate the Infidels any less, or drop their support for Muslim goals.

There are a hundred things that could be done contemporaneously with an American pull-out. Let the attack on Iran proceed without delay. Let the seizure of southern Sudan and Darfur be considered. Let the bombing of Al-jazeera, and the jamming of all such Der-Stuermer-cum-Tass propaganda outlets, be threatened, or mysterious accidents happen to satellites, if such is possible. There are many things that can be done.

And if they are not done, the Republicans will lose the election, and those who replace them will, in any case, promptly remove those troops but not, as I argue, as part of a considered anti-Jihad strategy (I am still waitiing for a new Henry Jackson to appear -- if you espy him, let me know), but as real defeatism. The presidential primaries are only two years away. Is that what you want? A mess, and real defeatism, or an intelligent exploitation of the situation, based on a knowledge of Iraq, and a knowledge of what the war is -- and it is not, or should not be, a "war on terrorism."

If that isn't clear, you have come to the wrong website.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 24, 2005 3:15 PM

Hugh:

I suspect the 'Somali-solution'... would be the same as when the West left Afghanistan to themselves:

A failed state became a Taliban-experiment and the playground for OBL and all the worlds Jihadi's. Same is happening in Somalia now, any doubt about it?

To leave Iraq to itself is fine by me, but the refugees will come, just like they come out of Africa in ever larger numbers. And to buy goodwill from Arab regimes like Khaddafi or Mubarrak will only last a short while, as their insatiable demands will increase by the day.

To let other Islamic nations collapse economically, (like Pakistan, Aegypt) by withdrawing aid and trade and any other concessions etc. which you often advocate:

Basically, while I like the idea, it would equally worry me that all these places then degenerate into terrorist havens which will be self-destructive, but will do anything possible to destroy us as well.

Would be nice if you could elaborate and take these thoughts a little further.

Posted by: Terminator

at June 24, 2005 3:28 PM

"I suspect the 'Somali-solution'... would be the same as when the West left Afghanistan to themselves.."
-- from a posting above

No, it would not. What makes you think the entire Western world is incapable of learning from its past mistakes? Never again will we be as lax as we were with Afghanistan, and the Taliban which was, as you know, created by and supported by "friendly" Pakistan (shall we invade Pakistan? No. We have other ways to control or handle the situation in Pakistan, and I merely suggest that those ways, or other ways that do not involve American soldiers directly on the ground, can be employed. Failures of imagination and calculation lead to unnecessary wasting of American lives and American money. Failures to identify the enemy properly lead to wasing of lives and money as well.

We saw what happened in Afghanistan. We now know that we must constantly intervene, but not necessarily with ground troops, or at least with American ground troops, to incessantly disrupt enemies -- and those enemies are more likely to be dangerous to us right smack in Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, with functioning though corrupt governments, then in Somalia or places like that. Have we learned nothing? Are we not to learn that the ideology of Islam is the problem?

The focus cannot be so maniacally on terrorism. For Muslim terrorism will be as strong as Islam. We have to weaken, demoralize, divide the Muslim world. This can be done. We have to educate Infidels, or to create situations where Infidels will educate themselves. Withdrawing from Iraq, even as such withdrawal is couched in terms that seem unexceptionable, and that seemingly have nothing to do with a grand and many-pronged strategy against the forces of Jihad (i.e., of Islam for the real believrs, of whom there are many), will promptly lead the real defeatits and appeasers to howl in protest.

How can we, how dare we? We took a perfectly wonderful and solid country, Iraq, and now we are leaving it in shambles. How can we, really?

Crap, all crap. To be dismissed without more. Meanwhile bring the troops home. Start talking and talking, about the Jihad. Deprive Iran of its nuclear weapons. Tell the Iraqis to ask the rich Arabs to cancel those debts they promised Baker they would, but so far appear not to have done so (remarkable silence about those intra-Arab debts, long after the Infidel lands were persuaded by the United States to cancel nearly $100 billion in Iraqi debts - a present from the Infidels to the Muslims of Iraq. How nice. Perhaps fellow Muslims will finally follow -- but if they don't, tell Jaffary and Company to go knocking on their door, not on ours. We've had it.).

Seize the southern Suden if the opportunity presents itself. If a movement of Christian NIgerians to break away from the northern Muslims should arise, this time do not abandon a new Biafra to the fate of the old one (the "Jihad" of which Col. Ojukwu spoke). Everywhere, befriend non-Muslim states, encourage black African Christians, and oppose whatever helps to make Muslim power, the Muslim influence, the Muslim presence in the Lands of the Infidels stronger. Make it weaker. Make it hard to be a Muslim behind enemy lines, not easy. It can be done, and perfectly legally.

In Europe, do what was done in the Cold War. Supply financial support to those who write the truth about Islam. Support radio stations and satellite channels that are run not by "nice" Muslims, but by ex-Muslims, apostates, defectors from Islam. They are the truest informants. They are not bound by filial piety, or inhibited by embarrassment. They will not, in the end, steer us wrong, as even "nice" Muslims in government service (see the "report" such as it is, of Lt. Aboul-Enein -- an exercise rather in ignorance, one suspects, rather than deliberate misinformation, for Aboul-Enein, whose report was sponsored and distributed by the Army War College, makes statements about Islam that are wrong, and if believed, dangerous.

There is so much to be done. Sit down yourself, and you think of things. I can think of a dozen or two dozen more, but I will not publish everything here. Think of all the ways that the Communist threat was parried. Think of all the clever tricks played on the Nazis during World War II. Are we dumber than we used to be? I don't think so. It just takes time to adjust, time to come to the realization that something that we too easily call a religion can also be a mortal threat to our political and social understandings, and to our physical safety. But people are learning. Let's make that learning curve just a bit steeper, shall we?

A free Kurdistan, internecine warfare between Shi'a and Sunni -- both can only help us, and harm thopse who are taught to hate us, and many of whom, it has become apparent, have been very attentive students indeed.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 24, 2005 3:53 PM

Hugh:

See Carol Basri's recently released documentary, The Last Jews of Baghdad. The most recent wave of systemic persecution of Iraqi Jews started about 100 years ago, and, obviously had naught to do with the establishment of any Jewish settlements in . I suspect there was also a significant wave of persecution behind the settlement of "Baghdadi" Jews, led by a David Sassoon, to India in the 1700s.

Posted by: waterdragon52

at June 24, 2005 4:05 PM

You can glean much from a strategy, whether military or political, by looking at those who actually support it.

With that in mind, I'd like to offer congratulations to Hugh Fitzgerald. You, sir, have managed to garner the support of a holy hypocrite.

I very eagerly look forward to Bush & Co obeying your sane advice! -- Mohideen Ibramsha

Of course you do, Mohideen. But not for the reasons you would have us believe. The seeds of freedom that are planted in Iraq represent a major threat to your vile religion, and you'd like nothing better than to kick the American troops out of Iraq. How clever, then, that you should cling to the prophesies of Hugh Fitzgerald who advocates that very plan. One can only imagine Hugh's chagrin at the thought of such a strange bedfellow.

You're a quick study, Mohideen. I gave you a link to a page about the deceptive practice of Taqiyya, and you absorbed that information like a sponge.

For those who don't know, Mohideen, like so many muslim dissemblers, poses as a 'moderate' muzzie who clogs cyberspace with cut'n paste ramblings of other mild-mannered practitioners of the religion of peace [sic]. All of it intended to apologize for and deflect blame from islam.

Go here and see for yourself.

Note where Mohideen refers to the Bush admin: "Let us hope that the Americans remove the war mongers from power: the sooner the better."

War mongers? Bush and Co.? Jeez, if only that were true!

Posted by: dead_shot

at June 24, 2005 6:50 PM

And Hugh, speaking of strange bedfellows, you said...

It is illegitimate to say that we will not, from outside Iraq, be able to interdict weaopnry, to supply weaponry, to otherwise heavily influence the military course of events.

You mean the same way we influenced certain nefarious 'allies' such as the Afghan freedom fighters (of which Usama bin Laden was a part) during the 80s, or Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran? And ultimately ended up creating monsters whom we later had to fight ourselves.

Taking this a step further into Hugh's Very Big and Complicated Iraq Civil War, and taking into account the wild, geopolitical flux of our times, we could very well find ourselves supplying weapons to someone like...

...Muqtada al Sadr.

How does that strike you?

Posted by: dead_shot

at June 24, 2005 7:22 PM

Hugh-
What did Jaffari say?

Posted by: treehugger

at June 24, 2005 7:50 PM

I disagree. While one can ignore any remark, by anyone, from Ward Churchill to Winston Churchill, for which no evidence, logic, or articulate argument is offered (we can all agree that the former never offers the any evidencde, logic or articulate argument, and the latter often did), I think the Muslim poster in fact, if read properly, reveals a kind of fearful bravado, a worry that my sensible suggestions for combattinig the Jihad properly, through both a husbanding and a more intelligent deployment of resources, and that if this misallocation continues, people who should not lose heart, but gain understanding of Islam and gird themselves, will fail to do so, and trivial Iraq may be trivially improved, while Europe steadily islamizes, the chance to create a non-Arab Muslim sovereign state which might inspire other non-Arabs (e.g., the Berbers) toward such moves, will be lost, and the American soldiers would be risking and in some cases losing their lives to narrow the Sunni-Shi'a fissures rather than to withdraw and allow them to widen.

I think the tone, and the contents, of that Muslim poster show someone who doesn't know what to make of my arguments, does not know how to deal with them, actually knows that they are true, and because they are true dangerous to his cause, and he devoutly hopes that no one will take them seriously.

I know, to a certainty, what it is that the war-planners knew about the nature of Iraq and the nature of Islam. I know whom they relied on, and whom they rely on still. I know how little some of them know, and the embarrassed obstinacy, and the cliches, that they keep repeating. They can deal with the appeasement and nonsense from the left. They cannot deal, in any way, with those who point out how ineffective and how wasteful, and how unimaginative, is the current "strategy," and the current refusal to define the threat correctly, nor to consider the many other steps that must be taken.

Would an Administration that thoroughly understood the menace posed to the Western world by the admission of Turkey to the E.U. continue to support, and even apply pressure, to get the members of the E.U. to support such admission? Would an Adminitration that was familiar with Oriana Fallaci, Bat Ye'or, Yvan Rioufol, Anne-Marie Delcambre, Jean-Paul Charney, Magdi Allam, Alain Finkielkraut, Alain Besancon, Charles Moore, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Pavel Kohut, Geert Wilders, and a good many others who should be enrolled in an anti-islamization campaign as well-financed and well-publicized as the anti-Communist campaigns that America financed in the late 1940s and early 1950s in Europe -- would such an Administration continue to press on behalf of a Turkey that is transiently Kemalist and "secular" and permanently Muslim, with all that that implies?

Would an Administration that understoood that though the ideology of Jihad is a permanent and central feature of Islam, that cannot be interpreted away, the wherewithal to conduct Jihad depends very much on OPEC oil money, and that every effort should be made, an effort not left up to the so-called Free Market (did the "free market" produce the Manhattan Project of Fermi? Los Alamos? The bombs dropped from the Enola Gay and the plane over Nagasaki -- all the result of the free market?). Anyone who truly was alarmed by the world-wide onslaught of Islam, and particularly within the Infidel lands, would have an energy policy that would combine conservation, and high taxes on gasoline (had these been imposed, and increased incrementally, from October 1973 on, it is we who could have saved a few trillion dollars in the recapture of oligopolistic rents, but everyone, in both parties, apparently did not understand Saudi oil policy, and kept thinging they would "do us favors" when, as an article in Policy Review by Douglas Feith showed long ago, Saudi Arabia's pricing strategy has always been that of a rational economic actor, at any point in time attemptin g to maximize the total value of current Saudi production and of the reserves that happen to lie under the sand of Saudi Arabia).

Though I have taken care to answer, at great length, every objection, made on this thread, there are those who still cannot bear my arguments, and I take that as a tribute. They worry. They alarm. They do not come from the left. They accept the menace of Islam. They argue that the Administration fails to recognize fully that menace, and fails further to recognize the unique opportunities to divide Islam, or the Islamic peoples, through an exploitation of the Iraqi situation that can only be undertaken by leaving, not staying in Iraq. They dislike my refusal to join in urrah shouts about how wonderful it is to "stay on course" when I think the "course" is silly and self-defeating -- and that does not make me a defeatist. They don't like to be reminded that all resources are finite, and that those resources -- whether it is soldiers, or war materiel, or money, or the morale of both soldiers and civilians that must be maintained at a high level for the decades (at least) that will be needed to thoroughly constrain Islam (unless one sees nothing wrong with it, unless all one really worries about is some so-called "war on terror" -- in which case, Jihadwatch is not your cup of tea, and perhaps you will prefer reading some of those Bright Young Conservative Things who swan about Washington, with a blonde on the arm, and the conviction that we must not only "stay the course" but mustn't "cut and run" and besides, we are "winning" (whatever that could conceivably mean, if we do not exploit the fissures in Iraq that will weaken Islam's appeal in the Infidel world, and weaken Islam's strength as a coherent body).

Let me repost the entirety of one Mohideen Abramsha's post above. Apparently another poster, this one who thinks we can "win" in Iraq (what does it mean to win in Iraq? Stay to rebuild a Muslim country for Muslims, and pay for it all? Stay for a few more years to ensure that those who are defeatists and appeasers will win the primaries and then the election, iin 2008? Watch as more Infidel countries rall all over themselves in confusion and despair, and keep hoping that "integration" will work (the equivalent, within Infide Europe, of the American hopes for Iraq, that somehow Islam can be made okay just as long as the Iraqi government can be kept busy "fixing potholes" -- well, the sinister former mayor of Tehran, as islamically fascistic or fascistically Islamic as they come, was a whiz at fixing potholes and Keeping Tehran Clean, and still had time left over to want to impose the full sharia, and destroy the Infidels. For a good Muslim, there is no such thing as not enough hours in the day, when it comes to hating and harming Infidels).

So here is what Mohideen Abramsha posted:

"Dear Hugh,

Thanks a lot for a very sane advice that the Iraqis be left to themselves to kill each other in their Kurd Vs Arab and Sunni Vs Shia divisions.

Only thing that bothers me is that 14 centuries back the land of Arabia was a collection of warring tribes and wonder of wonders Islam united them.

So, be prepared for a surprise: for all we know, once the occupation is over, the Iraqis might as well integrate.

I very eagerly look forward to Bush & Co obeying your sane advice!

Posted by: Mohideen Ibramsha at June 24, 2005 10:36 AM"

Does that sound to you like someone who is genuinely delighted that I have proposed withdrawal from Iraq? That I have answered a Muslim's prayers? Not to me he doesn't. No, he sounds like someone who wants, through a mixture of crazed bravado and nonsense -- going back to Muhammad "uniting" (by attacking and killing) the Arab tribes of the Hijaz in the 7th century -- and predicting that an American withdrawal would somoehow lead the Sunnis and Shi'a to suddenly unite.

But that's nonsense, and we all know it. And for someone above to take this seriously, and solemnly as some kind of indication that, if a Muslim welcomes my plan (but he doesn't -- its the usual Muslim blague, the bluster that ill-conceals a fear, the real fear that my perfectly sensible, rational, historicallly-based, and logcial suggestions, not one of which over the past three years of constant posting do I feel the need to modify or retract in any way -- a record that may be compared with the predictions, the giddy "democracy is on the march" excitement of so many so-called "conservative" commentators whose idea of being "conservative" is to cheer-lead for things which, if they were being proposed or carried out by Democrats, they would roundly deplore.

Islam is a threat. The Jihad is a threat. It has many weapons. The Islamization of Europe proceeds. Last year George Bush called Karamanlis of Greece and put pressure on him to vote for Turkey's admission to the E.U. -- long after Turkey had denied the American army the right to invade Iraq from the north with one division, and long after the Muslim malevolence of the Turkish press, and of sly Erdogan, was clear to many. As it is, three divisions, not four, took all of Iraq in a few weeks. The Cold War is over. Turkey's bases and listening posts to be used against Russia, its historic enemy, are no longer needed. We have truer, non-Muslim friends in Bulgaria and elsewhere -- countries that have suffered from both the Ottomans, and the Soviets. Turkey will not be admitted, not today, not ever, into the E.U., and the Turks now know it, and they had better get busy blaming not "Christian Europe" but the Arabs who have given "Islam such a bad name." They have no place else to go. And that is why they have muted their enmity,and invited critics to Ankara and Istanbul, and tried to make nice. It will not work. And that is why we can, with this new reality (that Turkey has to rely on us, unless it wishes to throw in its lot with the hated Arabs, and the Turks will get nothing in return, and not even be allowed to divert the headwaters of the Euphrates), allow a free Kurdistan to be created out of the old vilayet of Mosul, and to forget about offending Turksih sensibilities and interests. It's a new world. The Administration has some people in it who repeat mantras about "democracy" and "freedom" that do not fit the case, and that get in the way of clarity.

They need to start reading about Islam, and about Iraq, and stop relying on their "good Muslim" informants and those charming and plausible, and altogether delightful but totally non-representative representatives of Iraq, from tough Allawi and louche Chalabi to Ambassador Francke, and think not about what America can do for these nice Iraqis who speak English so well, and are soft-spoken, and seem to share the hopes and dreams we all share -- and think carefully about the menace of Islam, and the strengths, and the weaknesses, of Islam, and plan very carefully.

Husban those resources. Deploy them carefully. Prodigality in the service of obstinacy and ignorance cannot be condoned.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 24, 2005 8:02 PM

One more question for those who take issue with me. Just a yes or a no will do.

Was the Iran-Iraq War a good thing from the viewpoint of Infidels, or a bad thing?

Yes, or No?

Posted by: Hugh

at June 24, 2005 8:20 PM

A full-scale civil war between shias (backed by Iran & maybe Syria) and Sunnis (backed by the saudis and Jordan) will go at each other like mad bulls in a mud pit.

Absolutely! Each will follow the commands of their own Koran - which is fighting - which is prescribed by their own book.

If I, but a woman, can do such an about-face when confronted by horrible reality, why can't our leaders and media? What will it take for academia to start teaching truth? Posted by: Jauhara Al-Kafirah

Decent hearts

No, we did not "break" Iraq.

The massive amount of mass graves filled by Saddam and his regime - is proof enough of that.

It is the shame of the whole world that the focus isn't on those crimes....but rather how prisoners' korans are being treated.
Have we learned nothing? Are we not to learn that the ideology of Islam is the problem?

We either learn Hugh - or we suffer the consequences.

Was the Iran-Iraq War a good thing from the viewpoint of Infidels, or a bad thing?

Yes, or No?

Posted by: Hugh

Sorry for not giving a yes or no - but I will give this:

Luk 6:44 Every tree is known by his own fruit.

Posted by: Beth

at June 24, 2005 9:05 PM

After Blackhawk down and the killing of the Marines in Somalia, Osama Bin Laden told his followers to prepare for a long hard fight with the Americans. Bin Laden was shocked when Clinton withdrew American soldiers. It was after that withdrawal that Bin Laden came to believe that Americans were soft and that we could be defeated. Wars are won on the battlefield not by retreat and withdrawal. Germany no longer starts world wars and Japan has stopped all suicide bombings because they were defeated. More important they came to believe that they were defeated and that they could not win against the United States.

After investing $200 bil and 1700 lives it would be a Huge error to withdraw prematurely from Iraq. Any withdrawal from Iraq would be spun as a victory by the jihadist who already talk about their "conquest" of New York.It would only embolden the enemy to attack again. Iraq had it's first elections in Jan a constitution is to be completed by Aug with the next round of elections is in Jan 2006. Meanwhile the insurgents have not been able to stop anything.If the insurgents cannot stop the push to democracy in Iraq they will be defeated and more important they will know that they have been defeated which is why the stakes are so high.

I also think a precedent is being set in Iraq.The old model was to tolerate Arab strong men and even fascist regimes like the Taliban as long as they confined their activities to the ME. But that strategy did not work as Muslims attacked the US and killed thousands. So Muslims are not going to be left alone again.In Iraq Muslims are being given the same chance as the Japanese and Germans after WW2, to build a prosperous democratic society and to become allies of the US. The US is investing much in blood and treasure in Iraq so if it does not work there this will never be tried again.Iraq is the last chance for the Muslim world, no more treasure will be invested in the Muslim world but Islam will be stopped.

Posted by: Roxane

at June 24, 2005 9:48 PM

"Wars are won on the battlefield not by retreat and withdrawal."
---- from a posting above

But this is not only, and not even primarily, a question of a military threat -- as long as we insure that Muslim states and groups do not get their hands (beyond what Pakistan already has) on major weaponry.

"Wars are won" in all sorts of ways. Hot wars are won on battlefields, by destroying the enemy. But the Cold War was not "won" on a battlefield, but by a long and expensive process of checking Soviet power everywhere, and even outspending the Soviets so that, in the end, a sufficient number of intelligent people, Party members and Party officials, came to realize that the Soviet system was a failure. That failure led them, from the inside, to dismantle, in ways that were sometimes precipitous -- and they were not aided by such shallow Western "experts" as the loudmouth and self-promoter Jeffrey Sachs, who does a good imitation of the comic Irwin Corey and his "World's Greatest Authority" act.

The war is one of self-defense. We do not wish Islam to spread. We do not wish Musliims to overbree, or outbreed, Infidels in the very lands of dar al-Harb, into which millions of Muslims have been foolishly allowed, and even to settle and to make themselves quite comfortable and aggressive -- just look at what is happening all over the Western world, and even in this country where only 1% of the population is Muslim (about 3 million, at most, and most of them not-quite-orthodox Black Muslims). We wish to check it, and to create the conditions in whcih the failures of Islamic countries and peoples will be understood, by a number of intelligent people born into Islam, to be connected to the belief-system of Islam itself, that is such an enemy of music, painting and the plastic arts, and which inculcates habits of mind, ways of thought, that simply do not permit of free and skeptical inquiry. Islam stunts mental growth.

The major weapon of the current Jihad is money -- not money that Muslims have earned, but for the most part money that comes from an accident of geology. And whatever enormous sums the Arab and Muslim oil states have acquired, they have used not to build modern economies, but to buy hundreds of billions of dollars in arms. And their thieving ruling classes -- not to be opposed as long as they are Muslims -- have their own special expenditures, what with endless villas in Marbella, and apartments on Avenue Foch and on the French Riviera, and in London and the Home Counties, and in Aspen, and McLean, Virginia, and so on. And then there are the armies of call girls, and the corruption of Western government officials, intelligence agents, diplomats, academics, and all the others on the Arab or Muslim payroll, direct or indirect. Even a well-financed lecture series, with a gigantic honorarium (up to hundreds of thousands of dollars) can be a way to reward an American political figure. Kuwait paid the senior Bush something like a million dollars on his visit to that country once it had been rescued. There is a lecture series at the Fletcher School at Tufts, paid for by an Arab, that has managed to send large sums Clinton's way, and to others as well. If you want to distribute Arab and Muslim largesse, there is no paucity of ways to do it. And it has its effect -- just look at the absence, over the past 30 years, of any attempt to recapture oligopolistic rents from OPEC, that might have kept 1-2 trillion dollars from flowing to the oil-producing nations, and remaining with the oil-consuming ones.

Everything is finite. We have an army of a certain size. We have a citizen-army, that is rapidly degrading in size and quality, given that few people are being recruited. We have Humvees, Bradley fighting vehicles, helicopters, planes -- all of them overworked, and degraded prematurely in the desert of the Land of the Two Rivers, Iraq. We have a certain amount of money, and the money spent in Iraq which might be spent on an energy program instead, to deprive the Saudis and other Muslims of the wherewithal that is critical to the Jihad -- are you quite sure that the $300 billion spent in Iraq would not, if we knew three years ago what we know now about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, have been better spent on solar and wind projects, and on nuclear reactors? Quite sure?

"Retreat and withdrawal"? I am not advocating "retreat and withdrawal." I am, in fact, of the opinion that remaining in Iraq is a sign of weakness, of a failure to understand the real enemy (not "poverty" and not absence of democracy -- we are gettiing "democracy" in Iran and look who just won; we are getting "democracy" in Iraq and Jaffari, an old-line Shia Islamist wolf in Western sheep's clothing, now rules the roost, the front man for the clerics who, we are told, do not want an "Iranian-style Islamic rule." No, they want an "Iraqi-style Islamic rule," where the imams do not rule directly but Islam, and the imposition of the Sharia, are the guiding principles.

It maddens me that such words as "defeat" and "retreat" and "withdrawal" are used by some who do not know quite how to deal with my criticisms and my argument. They can deal with Kennedy, or Dean, or other appeasers who do not see what Islam is all about. But they cannot allow themselves to break free from blind loyalty to a policy that has been constructed by people they think must be supported, whatever the cost. Nonsense. That is a silly kind of loyalty.

Loyalty should not be to a policy, or even to an Administration. This is too menacing a threeat, for anything other than the truth as a basis for policy. And the truth is that the Jihad is world-wide, and we should be moving heaven and earth to split, demoralize, constrain, and tie up the forces of that Jihad -- that is, of Islam.

We are not only misallocating resources now in Iraq. We are doing exactly the wrong thing by remaining, killing Sunnis for the incipient Shi'a dictatorship, and forcing the Kurds to stop their re-kurdification of lands the Arabs forcibly arabized, when we should be supporting a free Kurdistan, and letting the Sunnis and the Shi'a settle their differences in any way they choose, wihtout our soldiers, our money, our equipment, our attention, being drained away by the farce of "democracy-on-the-march" in Iraq.

And never again should anyone base policy on the smooth assurances of clever "reformers" and so-called Muslim good guys, using American power for their own ends. We should have gotten out a year ago, or after the election. Now comes the Constitution -- let that be the terminus ad quem, the final point. If we continue beyond that, the next elections will bring to power those who refuse completely to deal with Islam, and that cannot be afforded.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 24, 2005 10:32 PM

"the push to democracy.."
-- from the posting above

No comment. You, reader, you look at that phrase "push to democracy" and answer it yourself.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 24, 2005 10:33 PM

Sir, can we at least agree to disagree, without you resorting to remarks such as "perhaps you will prefer reading some of those Bright Young Conservative Things"? As you can see, I'm not the only dissenter on this thread, which is a good thing. These are important issues and they need to be debated openly and freely, without the threat of being banished to Sean Hannity's Fan Site.

"Muslim Bravado?" Not at all. But maybe you didn't read his ramblings from a previous thread. Either way, I'll stick to my story about our resident Taqiyya Practitioner.

Was the Iran-Iraq War a good thing from the viewpoint of Infidels, or a bad thing?

At the time, it seemed like a good thing since we had issues with Iran and Saddam Hussein provided a thorn in their side. Unfortunately, Saddam became a thorn in *everyone's* side. I guess the point to remember is, "today's 'allies' might be tomorrow's enemies." And that's why we should be careful who we deal with. Having said that...

You didn't address my concerns: during a messy, bloody Iraq Civil War, you advocate supplying arms to all the combatants for the purpose of maintaining a War Zone in Iraq for an unspecified amount of time...maybe, wishfully thinking, until the crazed combatants kill each other to the last man.

Would you feel comfortable supplying arms to an intractable, radical, America-hating thug like Muqtada al Sadr? It is a very real scenario, should the Sunni goons gain the upper hand. In your rush to send Iraq into a tailspin, you have not pondered the ugly facts of having to arm, train, strengthen and toughen through constant war a hodgepodge of militant clans that would eventually turn their attention away from fighting their fellow muslim brothers, and look to the Great Satan as the real prize. How long do you think it would take before they wised up?

With a Military presence in Iraq, we have the opportunity to impose our Will, and we can only do this with Boots On The Ground. Personally, I would take a much more authoritarian (some might call it "brutal") approach to eliminating the trouble-makers. Bush and Co. have walked on eggshells in dealing with the terrorists, and it is immoral and inexcusable. Nevertheless, we can still impose our will, and it is through the march of democracy in Iraq. The fact that Iraq has become the SuperBowl of Terrorism is a testament to how much they fear democracy's rise. The jihadists are desperate. And they show their desperation every day on the news. Withdraw the troops now, and the jihadists desperation will turn to jubilation.

You can spin it any way you want, but your plan still amounts to surrender, pure and simple. Spray it with every scent of Denial you want, the stench of Defeatism remains. You have not addressed the issue of troop morale which would drop like a runaway elevator should we pull out of Iraq and leave it to the wolves. And I repeat, the worst elements of the terror network *will* take control, and no amount of micro-managing through high-tech surveillance Pie in the Sky will prevent this from happening.

The unintended consequences from a messy Iraq Civil War are far too frightening to ponder.

Posted by: dead_shot

at June 25, 2005 1:10 AM

I mean does one have to publish a book with every post??? Posted by: Bill in Virginia

Since you brought it up, my sentiments, EXACTLY.

Unfortunately, writing and editing require different skills--skills that are rarely found in the same person.

Posted by: dead_shot

at June 25, 2005 1:18 AM

Hugh - You are right on the mark with that statement! Why can't the masses get this?

Posted by: Beth

at June 25, 2005 1:37 AM

I believe the moral to the story is that if “we” understand Islam, we’ll be able to make better decisions in every sphere – military, economic, etc. I’ll leave the battle plan to others. Interesting debate, nevertheless! Now, to wake people up ...

Posted by: JasonP

at June 25, 2005 7:58 AM

"You didn't address my concerns: during a messy, bloody Iraq Civil War, you advocate supplying arms to all the combatants for the purpose of maintaining a War Zone in Iraq for an unspecified amount of time...maybe, wishfully thinking, until the crazed combatants kill each other to the last man."
--- from a posting above

What? Read the entire thread. Where did I advocate "supplying arms to all the combatants for the purpoose of maintaing a War Zone, etc."?

Nowhere. That is your misreading. I said we had the power to influence the battle. I did not say, and never would have said, that we should "supply arms to all the combatants." I wrote that we had a stake in a free Kurdistan, because a free Kurdistan would, unlike the Arab parts of Iraq, give other non-Arab Muslims reason to think that they, too, might throw off the yoke that the Arab supremacism that is part of Islamic ideology, and that they might even, in fact, begin to do what intelligent Iranians are doing -- considering Islam as a nightmarish Arab import, from a primitive people to a sophisticated one (that is how some Iranians like to see it).

Offer up right here, in the posting below, the passage where, you claim, I swuggested that we "supply all sides" in Iraq. If you can't find it, let us know that too.

I will not be misquoted or wilfully misunderstood.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 25, 2005 8:05 AM

"You can spin it any way you want, but your plan still amounts to surrender, pure and simple. Spray it with every scent of Denial you want, the stench of Defeatism remains. You have not addressed the issue of troop morale which would drop like a runaway elevator should we pull out of Iraq and leave it to the wolves. And I repeat, the worst elements of the terror network *will* take control, and no amount of micro-managing through high-tech surveillance Pie in the Sky will prevent this from happening.

The unintended consequences from a messy Iraq Civil War are far too frightening to ponder."

"Surrender, pure and simple?"

Seizing the southern Sudan when the occasion permits.

"Surrender"?

Cutting off all jizya-foreign aid to those Muslim states -- Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan -- and terrorist entities attempting to crawl into statehood with American and European money (the "Palestinian" Authority).

"Surrender"?

Urging the American government to spend money, as it did in the late 1940s and early 1950s in Western Europe, to support parties, individuals, newspapers, magazines that would offer facts about Communism, and that, especially with the testimony of defectors from Communism ("The God That Failed") helped to persuade enough people -- remember, after World War II the largest political parties in Europe were the Communist parties of Italy and France -- that Communism was, and is, a bad thing, and a permanent menace.

If we would stop kidding around with the notion that we have to cultivate, and must do nothing to offend, so-called (and ill-defined) "moderate" Muslims, and instead rally all those who have suffered from, and would suffer in the future, from the islamization of Europe and other areas, and publicized, supported, distributed, encouraged, the testimony of articulate "defectors" from Islam, such as Ibn Warraq and Ali Sina -- who do not get one-hundredth of the attention of such publicity-hounds as those phony Bright Young Muslim Reformers such as Irshad Manji (the kind who always draw back from the obvious conclusion that Islamic texts are immutable, and that Islam can only be constrained, not re-interpreted or changed, certainly not in a way that would command belief from the hundreds of millions of Muslims).

"Surrender?"

Is blinding following a course of action that is based on a wilful mis-definition of the conflct -- calling it, absurdly, a "war on terror" and compounding the error by actually acting as if that is all it is, and thereby directing the attention of Infidel peoples away from the systematic campaigns of Da'wa all over the Westren world, and the demographic conquest that is steadily creating, within Western Europe (look at Holland, look at France, look at England) where it becomes impossible to speak the truth about Islam, where those who do must have permanent armed escorts of 5-6 guards, where Muslims attempt to remove crucifixes, change the property and marriage laws, set up their own Shari'a courts, and fight every step of the way, in Europe as here, against the most sensible and modest security measures.

Do you deny that the islamization of Europe is far more worrisome than whether or not the Iraqis feel "good" about themselves, or ever manage to show real gratitude to us for all that our soldiers have done for them, removing a tyrant they could never have removed?

"Surrender"?"

Because I argue that the American effort to hold Iraq together, to do for the so-called "Iraqis" what they should do for themselves (but there are very few who believe in the nation-state of Iraq, and the Americdan soldiers know this -- they cannot be fooled by the party line indefinitely, and they come home, and they talk to others, and the mindlessness attempt to get the more thoughtful among them to believe that the current effort in Iraq makes geopoliticfal sense, just won't wash.

"Surrender"?

Because I argue that we must not waste more money on the Muslims in Iraq,and realize that those funds -- now near $300 billion for both Iraq and Afghanistan -- could be put to far better use in the counter-Jihad if we put all of it into energy and conservation projects. The Jihad is part of Islam. It will not change. There were many Jihads --- in West Africa in 1804 (Sokoto), in North Africa (Abd el-Kader, in the 1830s), East Africa (the Mad Mahdi in the Sudan in the 1880s); in the Philippines (see the unvarnished accounts by the Americans who reported back on the implacable hatred of the Moros, and the way they made war, and the ways that the Americans learned they had to employ to deal with them; in Constantinople, in 1915, when a world-wide Jihad was declared.

But the Arabs and Muslims lacked the wherewithal. Forty years ago, they did not have the vast sums that they acquired only because they happen to sit on hundreds of millions of barrels of oil (after receiving, since 1973, nearly ten trillion dollars in OPEC money, not a single Muslim oil state has managed to create a real economy, where people actually produce things of value). But that OPEC oil money has been used -- as of course it would obviously (but not to our political leaders, who kept prating about our "staunch ally" Saudi Arabia and instead of sensibly taxing ourselves to recapture oligopolistic rents, we allowed our energy policy to consist of Carter's little sweaters, and faith in the "kindness of strangers" -- and the Saudis, indeed, turned out to be strangers whose motives and malevolence many in official Washington still do not comprehend, and do not connect to the tenets of Islam -- not "Wahhabi" Islam, but Islam.

I argue that $100 billion or $200 billion or $300 billion is better spent on energy projects so as to diminish the revenues of rich Muslim states, rather than expend still more in Iraq to replace desert-degraded equipment (including that supplied to the Marines) in Iraq, and certainly not to keep "reconstructing" their country -- after all that has been done, let them reconstruct their own damn non-existent country, 95% of whose inhabitants (save for the Kurds) do not wish us well, wish us-- indeed -- ill, because we are Infidels.

Do you consider the imperative need to lower Saudi, U.A.E., Kuwaiti, and Iranian oil revenues a mistake? Do you consider it a "surrender"?

Do you think that the only kind of war that counts is the rootin'-tootin' kind, where real men go out and fight, and that taking away the money, and the mosques, and the madrasas they support, and educating Infidels everywhere as to the real nature of Islam, is inconsequential, doesn't matter, isn't really war?

And finally, what do you say about the point that has been repeatedly made: that Iraq is not the place for a Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations Project for two reasons.

The first reason is that such a project is silly to begin with. There is, or has been, such a "Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations" for 80 years. It is modern Turkey, where for his own reasons (to save Turkey), Kemal Ataturk systematically constrained (for he could not change) Islam. It didn't work. Islam is still there, a permanent force. To the extent that Turkey has a renewed Islamic identity, one carefully cultivated by the people who have proved far more durable and cunning than the roughly 25% of the Turkish population that considers itself "secular" and Western (perhaps just a bit optimistically), and precisely to that extent, Turkey will be not our friend and ally -- just look at the venom that spills out against us in the Turkish press, after decades of unstinting American diplomatic and political and economic support, of every kind (including the Bush Administration's pressure on certain European leaders to drop any opposition to Turkey's admission to the E.U.).

And the second reason is more important. Iraq presents a perfect opportunity to exploit, not by doing something but rather by doing nothing, the twin fissures that exist in Islam. Both are present in Iraq. Both are ready to be exploited, and we need not spend a cent, need not risk more lives, nor use up more equipment, nor diminish the morale of soldiers (the ones who do not only fight, but also think about the nature of Iraq, Iraqis, and the larger menace -- which of course requires the leisure to ponder the tenets, and history, of Islam).

These are:

1) The resentment of non-Arab Muslims for Arab Muslims and for the Arab supremacist ideology and forced arabization that accompanies islamization. A Kurdish state, or even the attempt to create a Kurdish state, will bring this matter to public consciousness -- the consciousness of both Infidels and Muslims.

A successful Kurdish effort might inspire Berbers in North Africa to attempt the same, or at least to encourage their own anti-Arab resentments. It might encourage Iranians, many of whom must, after this last election, realize that Islam is the problem, and that they have to make that step that Shirin Ebadi and other "reformers" are unable to make -- out of Islam altogether, and if they need to slip on some other identity (as seems so important to many people) then the pre-Islamic faith of Zoroastrianism is there to be renewed and revived.

And the fury of the Shi'a over their treatment by Sunnis -- a fury not confined to the Shi'a in Iraq, for in Pakistan Shi'a mosques are frequently attacked, and Shi'a blown up, and in the al-Haza province of eastern Saudi Arabia, several hundred thousand Shi'a have harbored their own resentments against their Wahhabi Sunni masters, who treat them with -- well, you know how the Saudis treat people who are not fellow Wahhabis, don't you?

"Surrender"?

What nonsense.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 25, 2005 8:39 AM

Where did I advocate "supplying arms to all the combatants for the purpoose of maintaing a War Zone, etc."? Nowhere. That is your misreading.

The fault lies with you, sir, as you have made some troubling statements that raise many red flags. Such as:

It is illegitimate to say that we will not, from outside Iraq, be able to interdict weaopnry, to supply weaponry, to otherwise heavily influence the military course of events.

"Interdict weaponry, to suppy weaponry," to whom exactly??? I'll go on record and say that if we wish to supply weaponry to the Kurds--and ONLY the Kurds--I would support such a policy 100%. However, you begin to muddy the waters with statements such as the following...

Why not let the Shi'a militia, now straining at the leash, and far more able to deal with Sunni enemies in precisely the way that will hurt (including counter-bombings), to act as they will? We have the power, in the end, to keep whatever side we deem most threatening from taking over -- and that side is probably that of the Sunnis.

"Whatever side we deem most threatening," which implies very clearly that you would be more than willing to supply weapons to, say, Muqtada al Sadr, or even worse--Abu Musab al Zarqawi--if the situation deems it necessary, i.e. a Sunni offensive that threatens to overwhelm the Shi'a, or vice versa. Personally, I have a problem with this, insofar as the Shi'a militia have no shortage of nefarious characters, including Muqtada al Sadr, a religious militant if there ever was, whom we, the US, will have to fight and kill sooner or later. And, of course, on the Sunni side, we all know about al Zarqawi.

Obviously, it would be far more advantageous to engage a weaker al Sadr, or al Zarqawi, rather than one who has fortified himself on a secret pipeline of weapons, emanating from God knows where.

Now, have I misinterpreted your statements?

Why don't you go on record once and for all. In a dirty Civil War conceived and manipulated behind the scenes by Hugh Fitzgerald, would you, or would you not, supply arms to Muqtada al Sadr or Abu Musab al Zarqawi? Simply answer the queston, yes or no. I await to see if you have the courage to do this.

From our point of view, rightly understood, such wars should be allowed to go on, or at least simmer, forever.

Endless wars require an endless supply of weapons and ammunition. Where will the combatants, many of whom represent virulent ideologies, get these weapons? Answer: Hugh Fitzgerald.

Slowly, the fog of war sweeps in.

Posted by: dead_shot

at June 25, 2005 12:23 PM

Surrender?

Defeatism?

Insofar as YOUR policy of immediate withdrawl from Iraq, yes. Cut and run. Raise the White Flag. Give up on Freedom. Give up on Democracy.

In other words...surrender.

Posted by: dead_shot

at June 25, 2005 12:34 PM

At what point do we go after Islam with an onslaught of truth about the teachigs of the Koran?

As long as the Koran is given free reign - bloody wars will continue - because the Koran will keep sending those who are determined to Murder the 'infidels'

The 'self defense' lie that Islam uses is what the 'infidels' are using in the word - military might.

The 'sensibility respect' that Islam demands [especially with military personal checking Muslim women] is a sham - considering Muslims rape and kill the 'infidel' women they capture.

At what point is America [and the international body for that matter] going to take it upon themsleves to condemn the vicious teachings of the Koran? that violate ALL so called 'humanitarian' laws?

Or would the west rather keep on fighting? as the Koran keeps on sending?

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out

Posted by: Beth

at June 25, 2005 1:00 PM

"Why don't you go on record once and for all. In a dirty Civil War conceived and manipulated behind the scenes by Hugh Fitzgerald, would you, or would you not, supply arms to Muqtada al Sadr or Abu Musab al Zarqawi? Simply answer the queston, yes or no. I await to see if you have the courage to do this."
--- from a poster above

Of course I would not have the American government supply arms to Muqtada al Sadr or Abu Musab al Zarqawi. That you could possibly even ask such a thing shows a misreading so complete not only of the article with which this thread begins, but of everything else I have written about Islam and about Iraq, that I have to rub my eyes in disbelief.

Or perhaps you are simply having fun. I hope that is the explanation.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 25, 2005 11:50 PM