Jihad Watch: Fitzgerald: What to do in Iraq (part 3)

June 27, 2005

Fitzgerald: What to do in Iraq (part 3)

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald continues his series of interlocking reflections on what to do in Iraq with these considerations of what it would take actually to win there.

What would "winning the war" mean? Would it mean ensuring a unified state, so that the Kurds would have to give up the possibility of a free Kurdistan? But a free Kurdistan would give other non-Arab Muslim minorities -- such as the Berbers in North Africa -- ideas, just the kind of ideas we want them to get. A free Kurdistan would hearten them, and hearten other non-Arabs, and cause Infidels to cease to use that inaccurate and dangerous term "the Arab world" which seems to hand over vast swaths of the earth's land mass to one particular ethnic group, as if Kurds, Berbers, Jews, Maronites (who are Arabic-using but not Arabs), Copts, Druse, Armenians, and a hundred smaller groups, including what remain of ancient peoples or sects (Mandeans, Zoroastrians, and so on) or more recent arrivals (Circassians who form the palace guard for the kings of Jordan, who cannot trust their own Arabs, just as the palace guard of the Assad family consist of Alawites, and even a Christian (Armenian) contingent, but never ever of real Muslims (who would destroy the Alawite regime, not because it is corrupt, but because it consists of Alawites).
And what else would constitute "winning in Iraq"? Presumably, having an Iraqi regime where Sunni and Shi'a sit down like the lion with the lamb, and all manner of things are well. Why is that a desideratum for American, or any Infidel government's, policy? Was the Iran-Iraq War a good thing, from our point of view, or a bad thing? It was a good thing. It should have gone on, or at least simmered quietly, forever. And if the Shi'a in Pakistan, intermittently murdered by the circumambient Sunnis, and the Shi'a oppressed by Sunnis in the eastern (Hasa) province of Saudi Arabia, come to feel that they, too, might be inspired by Shi'a power in Iraq, and furthermore, Shi'a in Kuwait and Bahrain have their hearts swell with pride as the o'erweening Sunni get what, after 80 years of lording it over the Iraqi Shi'a, they so richly deserve (and are left with no oil at all, but will have to rely on caravans bringing in oil from outside, on camels supplied by the tribe of the Jabal Shammar), is that a good thing -- from OUR point of view, which is the only point of view that matters, or is it a bad thing?

And what about the "fixing potholes" theory that some in the Administration cling to? You know, if only Iraq can establish a nice stable regime, after a few thousand other Americans die fighting "for Iraq" (not exactly the Battle Green in Lexington, or the rude bridge that arched the flood in Concord, is Ramadi, or Tikrit, or Fallujah), and the military sustains further degradation of the tanks, and the Humvees, and the helicopters, and the planes, and the size and quality of the Reserves, and the National Guard, and the regular army itself as people leave, or are disheartened, and the better potential recruits cannot be recruited, as they might have even two or three years ago.

Saddam Hussein fixed a few potholes in his time. There are no potholes in Saudi Arabia, where the corrupt Al-Saud family, stealing the country's wealth (wealth that neither they, nor the Saudi population, did anything to create, and nothing to deserve), but no one there has any trouble believing in, paying for, engaging in promoting the Jihad -- that is, the spread of Islam worldwide, the deflecting of attention to what Islam teaches and believes about Infidels, and what the history of Islamic conquest and subjugation teaches Infidels about Believers.
Right now, in grim Iran, after the farce of the election, which was followed by the even greater farce of the run-off election, the candidate who was even worse than Rafsanjani, a certain Mr. Ahmadinejad, emerged the winner. By all accounts, he is as fanatical a Muslim as one could wish -- and now that he is in power, will insist that the work on nuclear weapons proceed full speed, a tous azimuths. And Mr. Ahmadinejad won his support as Mayor of Teheran because he was, precisely, a great fixer of potholes, and of everything else. A man who spent his days tirelessly working to make sure that the city ran, taking care of all those little mundane details that big-city mayors must worry about.

And guess what? Mr. Ahmadinejad not only had time for potholes, but he also had time left over in his busy day, and in his fervent brain, for Islam -- not "Wahhabi" Islam (the kind that some people tell us is the only kind that should worry us, including sufferers from Weiss-Schwartz Syndrome), but plain old ordinary Shi'a Islam, the religion of the Ayatollah Khomeini, and his epigones, and of Shah Abbas in the bad old days, which so many charming, and suave people who have come out of Iran, from Ms. Nafisi to Vartan Gregorian, seem not to realize is the real Iran. The Iran of the "Najis" Infidel who cannot even be allowed to go out into the rain (as Jews could not, for if a drop of water landed on a Jew, and then accidentally fell on a Muslim, that Muslim would be "unclean" -- Jews in this century were beaten to death, in rural Iran, for going out when it was raining) is a lot closer to the views of Khomeini than to the Shah and his relatively enlightened, and comparatively benign, regime.

The "pothole" theory won't wash. The Light-Unto-the-Muslims-Project is a farce. The obstinacy with which a few people repeat self-evident nonsense about Islam and about Iraq, simply because they either

1) have not bothered to study Islam or

2) accept the "higher apologetics" and rewriting of history by Bernard Lewis

3) wish to "stand by their man" Mr. Bush, although if the same kind of nonsense about Islam were to be uttered by a Democratic president they would be the first to deride him

4) sensing that the original attack on Iraq was both rational and justified, are fearful that if they admit that this part of the war is wrong and wasteful, the first part will also be called into question, for apparently they are rhetorically and conceptually unable to separate Iraq War #1 from Iraq War #2.

5) have a sentimental belief in "democracy" without understanding the full meaning of that term in the Western world, which goes far beyond mere head-counting, nor how long it took to develop democratic institutions and attitudes, nor in what way Islam not only teaches obedience to a ruler as long as he is a Muslim, that derides the notion that political or any other kind of legitimacy (in Islam, they are all one) can flow from the people rather than from the will of Allah, and that inculcates an attitude of mental submission, of obedience to authority, in every field and in every way, that is inimical to democracy.

Just as Rodney Stark has demonstrated that modern science not only did not develop in Islam, but in the Christian or Judeo-Christian West, not accidentally, but because Islam views Allah as whimsical, rather than as setting the universe going according to laws that could then be discovered by scientific inquiry, we can posit something else that is fairly obvious: democracy is palpably absent everywhere in the Muslim lands except where, as in Lebanon for a time, there was a near-majority of non-Muslims who affected the Muslims, or where Islam had been deliberately and systematically constrained as a political and social force as in Kemalist Turkey, or where both constraints and even attacks on Islam, and the existence of large populations of non-Muslims, at least created the conditions where some kind of democracy might emerge (as in, say, Kazakhstan after Nazarbayev who is, at least, a quasi-enlightened despot in the vein of the late Shah of Iran).

But even if there were to be "democracy" (i.e. elections, head-counting) in Iraq, it would do nothing to help Infidels come to understand the theory and practice of Islam, would do nothing to diminish the two most powerful weapons of Islam -- the money that comes from the oil deposits, and the spread of Islam both through the millions of migrants foolishly, dangerously, rashly, madly, allowed in to Western Europe in the first place, mainly because of the greed for (seemingly) cheap North African labor in France, and Turkish gastarbeiter in Germany. The costs have turned out, especially after all those "family reunions" and those burgeoning families, and then the constant flow of Muslims into both those countries, and elsewhere in Europe, where they have created a situation that is much more unpleasant, expensive, and dangerous, physically and morally, for the indigenous Infidels. How will "democracy" in Iraq help prevent the islamization of Europe?

It won't. It is eating up our money, when every dollar spent in Iraq should be devoted to energy projects to take away not the non-existent "oil weapon" (there isn't one, and there never was: the Saudis and all producers will sell whatever oil they can) but rather, the real "money weapon" that is used to pay for mosques, madrasas, and hirelings all over the Western world. It is eating up our military equipment, for a month in the desert ages that equipment more than a year or two elsewhere. It is eating up our men, who are killed, and wounded, in order that one group of Muslims does not kill another group of Muslims, and American lives are sacrificed so that the very fissures within that three-vilayet "country" of Iraq may be narrowed rather than, as we should sensibly wish them to be, widened.
It is eating up the morale of the present soldiers and preventing others from signing up, and without a draft, the citizen-army cannot be treated as it has been treated. Or rather, it can be so treated, and then no one will sign up, or no one very good, and those now in will never re-enlist, and another generation of the very people who are the ones we rely on, the people who make things run, and protect us, will be disheartened and dismayed, and not quite know why -- but know only that the Iraqis are ungrateful, the Iraqis are meretricious and malingerers and not the wonderful loyal allies the Administration's propaganda machine keeps telling us, despite the evidence (they can't shut up every returning soldier, and the more their story conflicts with the truth, the more they will lose support for necessary, and justifiable undertakings in the future.)

It is a farce. Someone has to tell Bush not only that the invasion was justified, the search for weapons justified, the removal of Saddam Hussein justified, but what has come after is completely unrelated, and not only a waste, but will not, cannot, achieve the ends, rightly understood, of what should be defined not as a "war against terror" (basta con these stupidities -- there is a limit), but a war "against the worldwide Jihad." Iraq is the perfect place to exploit the natural fissures, such as they exist, within Islam.
Instead we are spending money (that should be spent on solar and nuclear and every other kind of energy project, and conservation as well), men, materiel, morale.

Every day shows how stupid this policy is. But reality will only set in once the full malevolence of Islam is understood by a sufficient number of people, and once the inability even of "moderate" Muslims to admit to that malevolence in Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira is recognized. The refusal to give defectors from Islam a major hearing -- who in Congress will invite Ayaan Hirsi Ali to testify, or Ibn Warraq, or Ali Sina? -- is intolerable.

And if the waste and the farce continue, and if the chance to exploit the Iraqi situation in the right way is lost, who will pay for this stupidity? Americans will still not be enlightened as to the nature of Islam. The islamization of Europe will continue, while the Cassandra-cries go unheard (remember that Cassandra turned out to be right).

"Stay the course"? But the "course" at this point is headed toward that iceberg, rather than into the clear waters of lucidity. "Don't cut and run" -- again, a foolish and cheap schoolboy phrase.
Where are the cunning, intelligent, all-knowing people who helped check, all over the chessboard, the agents and propaganda and military might of Soviet Russia? Do such people still exist, or their modern counterparts, or is Islam, with all those difficult Arabic words, and the necessity of learning about it from the very people who are likely to be Muslims and offer sly apologetics (with those liquid brown eyes, and the zarf-and-finjan (nicely wrought in Morocco, no doubt) coffee ceremony along with the verbs, and the nouns.

With C.I.A. agents at the comical intellectual level of Mr. Scheuer, who was actually for a while in charge of the "Bin Laden desk" (the very title expresses the misunderstanding of what is at stake), with an F.B.I. that takes instruction on Islam from sensitivity trainers helpfully provided by C.A.I.R., with a Secretary of State who keeps prating about what a great religion Islam is, and how much we respect it (she need not tell the truth about Islam; she need only remain silent on the matter -- why this insistence? It is intolerable if she thinks this is clever policy, and even more intolerable if she believes it).

We have had it. Up to here. Do gorla. Au ras bord. Non ne possiamo piu.

Will someone, in Congress, in the Administration, anywhere -- someone who can distinguish Iraq War #1 and Iraq War #2 -- please stand up?

Posted by Robert at June 27, 2005 9:42 AM
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Hugh, how right you are!

I also noticed on part II someone was criticizing you for moving ahead with your argument without first getting a majority of Americans to accept that there is a problem with Islam.

I recall a conversation I had with the publisher of a prominent conservative magazine. His beef with my argument was, "well, if what you say about Islam is true, then what do you propose to do about it?"

We've spent every waking minute since 9/11 trying to find the acknowledgement that our real trouble might be with Islam. The administration denies it, major conservative publications deny it, even major "Orientalists" deny it. AND part of the reason they give for denying it is that there is no answer to "what if it's true?"

Now, we're formulating lots of options to ponder regarding "what if it's true" and then folks complain that we're carrying them too fast.

Can't win for losin'

You're doing fantastic work!

Best, Rebecca

Posted by: rb

at June 27, 2005 11:04 AM

"Emad Alaabadi, a Saudi citizen who converted from Islam to Christianity, was arrested in December 2004 and has likely been tortured."

Please send a letter to your congresmen and president requesting the secure release of this and other prisoners of conscience in the Saudi gulags.

Posted by: 2pacshakur

at June 27, 2005 11:05 AM

I just want to make a small correction. Arabs are not an an ethnic group, but a linguistic and cultural one. Most of my Maronite, Druze and Coptic friends would be offended by the claim made here that they are non-Arabs.

Posted by: Chan'ad

at June 27, 2005 1:10 PM

My dear Chan'ad:

I can't speak about the Druze, but I know personally many Maronites and Copts, as well as Melkites and other Lebanese, Syrian, and Jordanian Christians who identify themselves as Arabs, as well as many who do not.

Generally I find that those who do identify themselves as Arabs tend to share the Islamic political and cultural perspective, while those who do not, tend to reject the "Arab" designation.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch

at June 27, 2005 1:20 PM

I agree with you completely Mr (Darth) Spencer... there are those who call themselves Arab, and those who do not. I just think this ambiguity should be made clear, rather than the unequivocal use of the "non-Arab" label to describe them all, as done here.

Best regards

Posted by: Chan'ad

at June 27, 2005 1:48 PM

Excerpt from an article by Steve Sailer that is relevant to Hugh's piece (http://www.isteve.com/cousin_marriage_conundrum.htm)

----

The fractiousness and tribalism of Middle Eastern countries have frequently been remarked. In 1931, King Feisal of Iraq described his subjects as "devoid of any patriotic idea, ? connected by no common tie, giving ear to evil; prone to anarchy, and perpetually ready to rise against any government whatever." The clannishness, corruption, and coups frequently observed in countries such as Iraq appears to be in tied to the high rates of inbreeding.

Muslim countries are usually known for warm, devoted extended family relationships, but also for weak patriotism. In the U.S., where individualism is so strong, many assume that "family values" and civic virtues such as sacrificing for the good of society always go together. But, in Islamic countries, loyalty to extended (as opposed to nuclear) families is often at war with loyalty to nation. Civic virtues, military effectiveness, and economic performance all suffer.

Commentator Randall Parker wrote, "Consanguinity [cousin marriage] is the biggest underappreciated factor in Western analyses of Middle Eastern politics. Most Western political theorists seem blind to the importance of pre-ideological kinship-based political bonds in large part because those bonds are not derived from abstract Western ideological models of how societies and political systems should be organized. ? Extended families that are incredibly tightly bound are really the enemy of civil society because the alliances of family override any consideration of fairness to people in the larger society. Yet, this obvious fact is missing from 99% of the discussions about what is wrong with the Middle East. How can we transform Iraq into a modern liberal democracy if every government worker sees a government job as a route to helping out his clan at the expense of other clans?"

Posted by: angry_kafir

at June 27, 2005 2:29 PM

The comment just above -- especially that last comment by Randall Parker -- makes an excellent point. Soldiers who have witnessed, or pariticipated in, projects to help "Iraqis" have found that in this or that city, or village, or street, have no interest in collaborating with others outside their family or at very most, their tribe or larger clan. The idea of the greater good escapes them altogether. This doesn't mean that they do not learn to mouth certain phrases once they realize that is what "the Americans" want -- oh, they are very good at that -- but it does mean that the reality, the narrow selfishness of Iraq's population, one that has to do with a history of depotism (and the influence of Islam, which conditions people to accept despotism, and to reject -- especially if it comes from Infidels, or is associated with them -- the very idea that legitimacy of a government must come from the will of those governed. This, to Muslims, is a deeply disturbing view; all legitimacy must come from Allah, who may be mercurial, or whimsical, or seemingly unjust. That is what inshallah-fatalism is all about. Allah disposes. As for "Man proposes" -- well, that doesn't even come up.

The inattention to the specifics of Islam and to the history and makeup of Iraq, makes one wonder, yet again, about the quality of those who make policy. They may leave for work at 4 a.m. (one is not impressed); they may be busy all day, with meetings and policy-planning and phone calls, and interviews, and reviews of those 5-page or even 6-page "memoranda" that, with bullets more appropriate for some presentation in a first-year business school class, purport to sum up the situation.

One would dearly like to circulate a memorandum among the top 100 officials dealing with Iraq. List the books on Islam you have read. List the books on Iraq you have read. What -- too busy to read a book, much less books? You rely on your staff. Well, what about that staff? How many experts do you have? Are they all trained by Bernard Lewis, or might there be some who have actually read the scholars of Islam from 1880-1960, whose work does not date because Islam, its tenets and its history, have not changed?

Anybody happen to read Philip Ireland? Elie Kedourie? Anyone look into the Letters of Gertrude Bell, to see what it was like at the beginning, when the Iraqi state was formed, most artificially, from three distinct Ottoman vilayets?

Tell us who you have been relying on, and what they have been studying up on. Degrees don't matter. Having nice Muslim friends -- Fareed Zakaria, or Aboul-Enein, or Fouad Ajami, or nice Ambassador Francke, or Ahmad Chalabi, or Ms. Nafisi, or even learning all about Iran from some of its jeunesse doree, who appear to believe, just the way that some Indian Muslims think it was all Akbar and no Aurangzeb, that the history of Iranian Islam was unexceptional, even mild, and that only bad only Khomeini came along to break the record of uninterrrupted bliss for non-Muslims. They might just start with the chronicler Arakel of Tabriz who records how Shah Abbas forced, overnight, the mass conversion of Jews and Armenians in Tabriz, and go from there. They might investigate how Jews could be killed merely for going out in the rain, as najis, for a drop that fell on such a Jew might then taint a Muslm -- and that would be unendurable. The Shah and his father were the exceptions; those in the line of Khomeini were the rule.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 27, 2005 3:23 PM

rebecca,

"Now, we're formulating lots of options to ponder regarding "what if it's true" and then folks complain that we're carrying them too fast."

I'm the main (or only) one who has taken issue with Hugh on this problem.

It's not that I fault Hugh for adumbrating a game plan based upon the appropriate premise that the problem is Islam.

What I object to is the fact that he, and Robert, never seem to factor in one major component of the overall Problem of Islam: the overwhelming prevalence, in Western culture today, of West-bashing Islamophilia.

Hugh and Robert repeatedly treat this component as sort of a curious oddity in the corner, something they have to keep stepping over in order to get back to the business of criticizing Islam. But it's not just a minor inconvenience: it is a massive and gigantic impediment.

I realize that the dhimmiwatch.org section is often devoted to exactly what I am talking about -- and I'm glad. However, it only underscores my point: Robert, Hugh, yourself, and all the people who contribute substantive and encouraging comments through dhimmiwatch.org are presenting and analyzing a mountain of data, but treating the data as a circus freak show -- "look at this Western guy whitewashing Islam again, what a dhimmi!".

But this kind of de facto dhimmitude is not a freakish oddity that we have to step around in order to keep getting back to the business of criticizing Islam: this de facto dhimmitude is the MASSIVE and OVERWHELMING NORM in our Western culture today. This is a staggering, mind-boggling, screamingly weird and tragic fact. Just 100 years ago, such dhimmitude would have been a queer and tiny minority in the West. The norm would have been, and was, mostly of one mind about Islam: that it is regressive, barbaric, and hostile to almost everything the West holds dear.

100 years later, we now find ourselves in a West that has undergone a sea change. The Western norm now is pathological and irrational with respect to questions concerning why the West is good, why it is superior to other cultures, and why Islam is the worst culture for humankind.

Bottom Line: In such a civilizational situation, Hugh's otherwise good prescriptions and templates will have little chance of pragmatically taking hold and WORKING.

Posted by: metaxy

at June 27, 2005 4:19 PM

Metaxy,

I must say that I find your comments puzzling in the extreme. I have written extensively about the problem to which you refer: the dhimmitude that has seized the minds of the West and overwhelms popular discourse about Islam and jihad. In fact, I have written about it so much and so often that I have sometimes opted NOT to write about it, in order not to be unduly repetitive and tiresome.

Then just now I happened to read you saying that I seem to treat occurrences of this problem as a curious oddity, not as a massive an endemic problem in itself. I can only conclude that you must not be reading my articles or posts on any consistent basis, but that is ultimately irrelevant -- what I really want to know is, if I were dealing with this problem in what you would consider to be an adequate way, what would I be doing that I am not doing now?

This is not a rhetorical question.

Many thanks.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch

at June 27, 2005 4:28 PM

It is eating up the morale of the present soldiers and preventing others from signing up, and without a draft, the citizen-army cannot be treated as it has been treated. Or rather, it can be so treated, and then no one will sign up, or no one very good, and those now in will never re-enlist,

Did you watch the Congressional hearings Hugh? According to Gen Abisade(sp)(who commands all forces in the ME) his soldiers believe in what they are doing in Iraq. What's affecting "morale" is the idea that the American people do not support their efforts.Gen Abisade(sp) says some soldiers are beginning to ask him if the American people still support them.As long as the soldiers believe the American people are behind them they will succeed in Iraq. What would be devastating to the soldiers "morale" would be to pull out of Iraq before a stable democracy is established after 1700 lives have been lost.That is the reason behind the President's speech on Iraq tomorrow.

As far a recruiting goes the Army is not meeting their recruiting goals. All other services are meeting or exceeding their recruiting goals and re-enlistments are up.

Posted by: Roxane

at June 27, 2005 5:23 PM

I cannot believe that Mr. Fitzgerald actually says the Iran-Iraq War was a good thing. It is hard to imagine that the gruesome slaughter of one million human beings, including tens of thousands of teenage boys who were sent to their deaths, is a good thing.

Posted by: Rebecca 2

at June 27, 2005 5:24 PM

Hugh Fitzgerald has made the point several times that from an Infidel perspective the Iran-Iraq war should have never ended. Accepting this conclusion is not an easy thing to do given the unimaginable brutality and death of that war.

Surely Hugh cannot mean this in a moral sense, that the war was 'good'. The war itself is utterly immoral and horrible and the parties directly responsible for the war are blameworthy. But, I take it he means that, in a qualified sense, from an Infidel perspective, given the circumstances, the war can be considered instrumentally good in the sense that equal or greater suffering would be visited upon non-Muslims, and people generally, if the war did not occur.

The reasoning is hypothetical and based on complex factual assumptions. From a moral point of view, we should feel a little uncomfortable about the claim, even if he is correct.

But what about the claim that the United States should not now hinder the emergence of such a Shia-Sunni conflict? Given that Sunni mujahedin in Iraq willfully murder Americans soldiers, while others outside the country plot WMD attacks against the United States, and the fascist, Shia republic of Iran threatens to acquire nuclear weapons to confront the United States, the point that the US should not stand in the way of a conflict between two such enemies is not exactly imprudent. And what would be wrong in just getting out of the way? Does the United States have a moral obligation to try to stop such a conflict at considerable expense in American lives and resources?

Whether or not one accepts Hugh's claim that the 'Infidel perspective is the only one that matters' (and he is surely being a little rhetorical here) the case that Americans do have such an obligation, given the circumstances, will require a martyr's reasoning, a Christian martyr that is.

Posted by: JTF

at June 27, 2005 6:07 PM

Metaxy,

Robert is doing 'his bit' by alerting some of us who happen to stumble on his site. He advertises his site as much as his limited resources will allow, but what are we doing?

JW can only do so much, the rest is up to us. We will never prevail by doing nothing. Western Gov. must be made aware that (in case of religious vilification laws, etc) this is a line they must not cross.

Example, BBC news: Islam is better equipped to accomodate science (obviously reporter told about Bucaille etc 'wow I stumbled on something!' how Notting Hill) - Patricia Jowell (culture minister!), Islam "clearly the thinking man's religion". This kind of nonsense can't be allowed to go unchallenged, we must challenge it. Write to them & newspapers expressing our disdain.

Just ten years earlier in the aftermath of ther Rushdie affair, the late Lord Jenkins was reported on C4 news as saying it was a mistake to allow muslim immigration into the UK. A year later Melvyn Bragg (South Bank Show) asked Akbar Ahmed why muslims were so violent, a few weeks and much taquiya (the muslim taquilla in order to inebriate the mind) later Bragg announced if only people knew what he knew and hey presto multicultural uptopia here we come.

They have been reaching/buying key opinion forming strata in society for decades and its finally bearing its rotten fruit. This needs to be undone, the Braggs of this world need to be exposed to the real islam.

No society can place a barbarism like Islam at its heart or foundation and reamin civilized. I for one would support whole heartedly the gov. program of keeping the infidels ignorant and waiting for the muslims to change by making them more 'confident' etc, but its not going to work.

It can't work, when the Turks raise the age of marriage, by which intellectual anchor is this done by, not one the Islamicists or any of the muslim peoples recognize. There is no anchor in the case of democratization of the ME or any muslim state for that matter just a vain hope in some cases downright deceit in others.

There are a hundred even a thousand other things we can do, but our numbers must grow.

Posted by: jv

at June 27, 2005 6:07 PM

Mr. Spencer,

Your question is a good one, and it gave me pause.

On the level of the concept that everyone has their role to play and that no one, however accomplished they are, can do everything, I don't have cause to find fault in what you are doing. In fact, you are performing a valuable service and doing it excellently.

Still, I have lingering misgivings, for two reasons:

1) You protest that you in fact consider dhimmitude as a massive and endemic problem in itself. But dhimmitude is merely a symptom of the problem I was referring to, it is not the problem in its enormity. Dhimmitude is now the most serious symptom (because of an Islam more Redivivus post-911 even than it was pre-911) among many other symptoms, this is true; but it is not the root problem. The writings of yourself, Hugh and Rebecca (as well as numerous commentators on this site) seem only to see the large tip of dhimmitude but rarely expand their analyses or criticisms (or even awareness) to the massive cultural iceberg supporting it.

2) As a consequence of #1, your (plural your) considerable criticisms and analyses of dhimmitude seem to lack concern or interest with WHY there is this massive cultural iceberg supporting dhimmitude in the West.

Getting back to your good question, what would you do given my #1 and #2 that you are not doing now? Well, I suppose I have only a modest, but I think subtly significant, response: insinuate frequent references to the paradigm the West has lost: the paradigm of Western Civilization as superior to all other cultures -- not in a barbaric way like Islam or Genghis Khan, but in a beneficent and humane way, with the aim to civilize the world and help its multi-cultural variety thrive and flourish to the extent that it does not contradict our Western epiphany of human rights. Without our wholehearted embrace of this paradigm (which classical liberalism once championed) purged of the post-modern pathology of morbidly excessive self-criticism, we will never be able to get beyond the superficial problem of Western dhimmitude to the deeper philosophical and psychological structures that solidly support it.

So, in summary, I'm not asking you (and Hugh and Rebecca, and other commentators here) to do much more than at least integrate an awareness of this into your ongoing mission. I'm hoping to spark this awareness in people such as yourself and Hugh and Rebecca who are already most of the way there, in the hope that it will become second nature and thus slowly, here and there, become woven into your speeches, interviews, articles and posts.

Posted by: metaxy

at June 27, 2005 6:36 PM

JV,

I agree with you that Robert is performing a specific function -- and performing it excellently -- and that he is, after all, only one man: he can't do everything.

I also agree with you that all of us who still have our heads screwed on straight should never cease to communicate our disagreement with the idiocy of whitewashing Islam wherever it rears its head.

However, when you say "they [Muslims doing taqiyya] have been reaching/buying key opinion forming strata in society for decades and its finally bearing its rotten fruit" -- it is not principally fault of the Muslims doing their taqiyya that explains why most of the news media, pop culture, politicians, schools, academe etc. are receptive to that taqiyya: the explanation is deeper and lies in a general pathology in the West.

Without the fact that the modern West has undergone a philosophical & psychological sea change over the past 60 or so years, by which the idea that the West is bad and must perpetually apologize for its history and culture has replaced our former idea that we were the superior light to all other cultures to help them flourish in their multi-cultural variety as long as they did not contradict our epiphany of human rights -- without this sea change, taqiyya and dhimmitude would have no nourishing soil to grow.

(Note: when I speak of the West as being superior to other cultures, etc., of course I don't mean we were and are perfect and have not made serious mistakes along the way.)

Posted by: metaxy

at June 27, 2005 6:45 PM

Fitzgerald wrote:

It is a farce. Someone has to tell Bush not only that the invasion was justified, the search for weapons justified, the removal of Saddam Hussein justified, but what has come after is completely unrelated, and not only a waste, but will not, cannot, achieve the ends, rightly understood, of what should be defined not as a "war against terror" (basta con these stupidities -- there is a limit), but a war "against the worldwide Jihad." Iraq is the perfect place to exploit the natural fissures, such as they exist, within Islam.

Bush and Company have botched the 2nd Gulf War, just as pretty much the same crew botched Gulf War I. The rabid right is louding proclaiming the beauty of Emperor's New Clothes and denouncing anyone who does not appreciate their beauty as traitors.

Traditionally, the Republican establishment has been Arabist in cast ('tilting' towards Pakistan vs. India, etc), mainly because of oil, but formerly because of Cold War concerns.

One aspect of the Emperor's New Clothes is the fact no one in Washington dares to address is the fact that the War on Terror is actually the War Against Islam. This is actually the Tenth Crusade (Benedict XVI should travel to Clermont-Ferrand in France and invite the leaders of Europe to hear him preach a sermon).

We need to develop alternatives to wean ourselves from our addiction to Islamic oil. Basically, we need to triple the number of nuclear power plants (we get more than 20% of our electricity from these aging facilities). Sooner or later, the Saudi oil fields are going to become unavailable to us (and perhaps anyone).

Posted by: Loxias

at June 27, 2005 6:47 PM

Metaxy:

You ask why I don't consider why this cultural iceberg, as you aptly term it, has formed. It's true, I don't consider this in most of my writings. That's because I consider what I do to be analogous to what a fireman does: I am trying to put out the fire. If I (along with others far more capable than I) am successful, investigators will have the leisure to determine what started the fire. But the fire must be put out first.

However, I completely share your view that we must promote "the paradigm of Western Civilization as superior to all other cultures." Perhaps I have not done this as much as I should have, but I make some effort to do it forthrightly in my forthcoming book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)." I am not trying to sell you a book, but just to let you know that I agree with you that this should be done, and that I am trying to do it when possible.

In fact, I just remembered that in 2002, after completing my book "Islam Unveiled," I sketched out a follow-up that would explain why the West was worth defending, and why the relativist multiculturalism that would value all cultures equally had to be rejected as part of this defense. But circumstances intervened, and that project never got beyond the sketch. Maybe someday.

Thanks for your valuable insights.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch

at June 27, 2005 7:14 PM

"According to Gen Abisade(sp)(who commands all forces in the ME) his soldiers believe in what they are doing in Iraq. What's affecting "morale" is the idea that the American people do not support their efforts.Gen Abisade(sp) says some soldiers are beginning to ask him if the American people still support them.As long as the soldiers believe the American people are behind them they will succeed in Iraq."
-- from a posting above

I must be talking to all the wrong soldiers. As far as the "morale" problem goes, if everyone believed in the end result, there would be no problem with enlistment in the citizen-army, nor in the regular army. The Marines are different: those who go into the Marines are a special group, by and large, and thank god, for our sakes, that they exist. But the problem remains: why are we there if not to make Iraq whole, to keep it together, to make it flourish so that it will be model for others?

And that result is one that, in any case, would be an improvident use of American money (Wolfowitz, before the war, noted that "$30 billion" -- which he spoke of as a hideously large sum -- containing Saddam Hussein, and that America could not be expected, could it, to endure having to spend another $30 billion? Well, what has it been -- $300 billion or getting close. And what could be done with that $300 billion, if properly spent on energy projects, to diminish the wealth, and hence the power to spread Islam, and hence make our lives as Infidels safer, of Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Kuwait, Iran, Libya, Algeria, and so on and so forth.

Everything is finite. If you spend $300 billion on this, you don't spend it on that.

Soldiers -- it makes no sense to keep bringing up the enormous one-day losses in the Pacific, or at the Battle of the Bulge, and to imply that now we are all a bunch of whiners. That is silly. World War II was necessary. The campaign in Iraq was never necessary, though the first part (the invasion, the overthrow, the seizure and destruction of weaponry) was rational, and probably a wise thing. But it is the second movement of this piece that is raucous, discordant, and without form and void. It does not make sense to refuse to exploit the fissures in Iraqi society that have been handed to us on a platter, and which, instead of battening upon, we throw carelessly away.

And why do we do this? For a number of reasons, but first because our leaders or rulers or "those in a leadership role" if one may wax business-schooly for a deplorable minute, keep calling it a "war on terror" and refuse to call it anything that might give the teeniest-tiniest offense to Muslims, such as calling it (nudge nudge wink wink) a "war of self-defense against the Jihad" or "a war to stop the Jihad." I would go with that. It evokes Islam for Infidels, but Muslims cannot deal with it unless they are willing to deal with the unpleasant -- for them -- fact that Jihad is central to Islam, not tangential, and that it means not so much a spiritual struggle (as some keep pretending, using a minor and late interpretation, hardly accepted) but rather aggressive warfare against the Unbeliever, should that Unbeliever in any way put up any obstacle to the spread of Islam.

Without that clarity, the subsequent confusion of goals, follows.

The last phrase from the poster above is this:

"As long as the soldiers believe the American people are behind them they will succeed in Iraq."

But we are behind them. We are so much behind them that we do not wish them to risk their lives unnecessarily, for a stupid and ill-conceived mission that has not been thought out to reflect the real world-wide problem (Jihad, and not "terror" which is merely one, and not the most effective, instrument of Jihad), and which furthermore is based on an almost wilful ignorance both of the reality of "Iraq" (that three-vilayet state, never to become a real nation-state -- not next year, not in five years, never)--and on the perfectly sensible kinds of measures, some of them repeatedly put forth on this website, that could, from cutting Saudi revenues to limitiing Muslims allowed behind enemy (Infidel) lines, to ending the jizya of foreign aid and forcing the poorer Arabs to extort what aid they can, instead, from the richer Arabs -- thereby encouraging intra-Arab resentment, envy, and strife. And again I will repeat: the resentments of the Kurds, based on, among other things, a history of persecution and murder inflicted on those Kurds -- should lead to a free Kurdistan. It is in our interest. It would be a permanent sign that non-Arab Muslims not only exist in the Middle East and North Africa, but deserve their own state. It would point up the Arab supremacist ideology of which Islam is a vehicle. It would inspire other non-Arab Muslims -- including most obviously the Berbers in North Africa, but hardly limited to them (think of the spectacle of the Arab Muslims massacring the non-Arab black African Muslims in Darfur -- that needs to be publicized, to be stressed). Even in Malaysia and Indonesia there are those who do not relish the aping of the customs and manners of 7th century Arabs.

And the other fissure -- that between Shi'a and Sunni -- offers the best hope for weakening Iran (along with the need to destroy whatever elements of Iran's nuclear project can be destroyed -- and the supposed need to "placate the reformers" has just ended forever, with the election of Ahmadejinad, not that the argument ever made real sense. For Infidels, it is disarming Iran that matters, not in worrying about the effect on nationalistic Iranians who might -- might -- be offended just as the mad mullahs would be, and might -- might-- someday come to power and end the nuclear program themselves, or might -- might -- possess those weapons in a responsible fashion. Nonsense. No Muslim state, beyond the one (Pakistan) that managed to steal secrets from the West, can possibly be allowed to acquire such weaponry. Whether that state, or a group within that state, or a group outside that state, gets hold of those weapons, does not matter. It is the same danger, and a great one.

The idea that people should be bullied into supporting a stupid and self-defeating policy -- no, on second thought, let's give Jaafari that "Marshall Plan" he asked for the other day. I mean, he joined the Islamc Da'wa Party back in 1968. And he was so polite, and he read from the scripts more or less correctly, and did you see the picture of him sitting in the Oval Office -- he couldn't believe it. There he was, right next to the American President. He was overjoyed. And you what else overjoys him? The idea that American soldiers will take out the Sunnis, and perhaps even build some nice big bases that can be swiftly taken away from them once they are completed, and used by the Iraqis, and that if Jaafari et al. play their cards right, they can get another few tens of billions in aid not from their "Arab brothers" whose OPEC cups runneth over, and how, but from those willing Infidels. Can you believe it? Aren't those Americans stupid? Isn't it wonderful?

We owe the soldiers support -- individual support. We do not owe, and should not give, support to a policy that recklessly and needlessly endangers them, damages the army, degrades the equipment, wastes gigantic sums, and takes attention away from the world-wide expressions of Jihad, and from the need to sit down, and figure out a few dozen discrete measures that can be undertaken, or at least discussed, which should accompany what one hopes will soon be an announced pullout, but that only makes sense if very obvious measures intended to combat the Jhad (including cutting off aid to Egypt and Jordan and the P.A., and explaining sweetly that "the American government believes that the Arab states should help each other" as a kind of preliminary step to future unity, blah blah, and given the extraordinarily sudden rise in OPEC revenues, we are sure that Egypt, Jordan, the "Palestinains" will be able to receive sufficient help from their fellow members of the Arab League who have so much money, and not merely sympathy, to give."

Phrase it however you want. It's a speech I'd love to write.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 27, 2005 8:04 PM

The last phrase from the poster above is this:

"As long as the soldiers believe the American people are behind them they will succeed in Iraq."

To which FrontPage would add this:

I'm sure you are following the Durbin flap and O'Reilly's comment that Democrats have crossed the line between dissent and treason. So in your opinion, what is the proper way for those critical of the war and our handling of detainees to state their case?

Phil

My answer:

A Patriot will begin by regcognizing that is we who have been attacked by the Islamic jihad not the other way around. A patriot will begin by recognizing what a great and humane country this is, that we're in a war with an enemy who has shown no human decency towards those they have attacked, who will use any means to destroy all of us, every man woman and child because we do not share his religion. A patriot will begin by understanding that war is hell; that as a nation we behave better in war than any other country with the possible exception of Israel; that atrocities are endemic to wars and unlike Arab and Muslim states we don't celebrate our atrocities but condemn them; that we prosecute those who commit crimes on our side; that we are probably treating our prisoners in Guanatanamo better than they deserve and who, having joined a terrorist force to kill all infidels combatants and non-combatants, women and children alike actually deserve nothing; a Patriot will probably understand that if we weren't fighting these bastards in Iraq we would probably be fighting them in Washington and New York, and that is why we must win and to win we must destroy them. Above all a patriot will modify and shape, and set the tone of his criticisms out of respect for our men and women in harms way and for the men and women whose responsibility they are, out of concern for our safety here at home; a patriot will want to take care not to give ammunition to our enemies or to demoralize our brave young men and women on the front or declare a behind the lines war on their leaders, as Dick Durbin and Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy and Al Gore and Jimmy Carter and John Kerry and the New York Times and 60 Minutes or leftists like Michael Moore and Mark Danner and Michael Ratner have already and unconscionably done. A patriot will make clear that the enemy is the enemy, and not us. Then he or she can make whatever criticism they may, suitably framed by these understandings and loyalties, suitably framed by their commitment to a military victory for our side in this war.

Posted by: Gary

at June 27, 2005 8:30 PM

Gary,

You quote David Horowitz from Front Page: "A Patriot will probably understand that if we weren't fighting these bastards in Iraq we would probably be fighting them in Washington and New York, and that is why we must win and to win we must destroy them."

I tend to agree with Hugh that this was true of the initial phase of the Iraq invasion and capture of Saddam, but that it no longer makes sense in terms of the ensuing months of spending billions of dollars and our soldiers' lives trying to build a democratic "nation" out of the abstract "Iraq". As much as we may emotionally support the ordinary Iraqi who just wants stability, it is not our fault or responsibility that his Islamic culture, with all its fundamental tribalisms and anti-democratic roots, continually and profoundly undermines this effort. As much as we may emotionally support the ordinary Iraqi who bravely stood in line to vote, this should not blind us to the fact that it is his Islamic culture which resists the freedoms and liberal live-and-let-live philosophy which must be the primary soil for any democracy.

Unless we are in Iraq to impose a Western democracy in the grand style that the British imposed decency and rationality upon the Muslim and Hindu Indians in the 18th and 19th centuries -- no matter that the Iraqis, the Muslim world, and the Leftist West may gripe and moan about it -- we should pack up and leave.

Posted by: metaxy

at June 27, 2005 9:00 PM

Mr. Spencer,

Thanks for your clarification. I am even more encouraged by your efforts now than I was before.

Posted by: metaxy

at June 27, 2005 9:03 PM

Perhaps you are speaking to the wrong people or maybe you should have watched the recent Congressional hearings on Iraq.Gen Abisade(sp), Gen Casey, Gen Myers and Sec Rumsfeld all testified under oath before Congress. Gen Abisade who is there commanding troops in Iraq, said that his soldiers believe in what they are doing. He cautioned that "morale" is affected if those soldiers feel they are not being supported by the American people.

The Marines, Air Force and Navy are meeting or exceeding their recruiting goals and re-enlistments are up not down.It is the Army that is not meeting it's recruiting goals.Army recruiters are working to turn that around by the end of the year. The army could still meet their overall recruiting goals by the end of the year.

Posted by: Roxane

at June 27, 2005 9:24 PM

The poster immediately above wishes to make an argument from authority. She appears to believe that if General Abizaid, "under oath" (I would have trusted him anyway), in testimony before Congress, says that "his soldiers believe in what they are doing" and further "cautioned that 'morale' is affected if those soldiers feel they are not being supported by the American people."

But what does it mean to "believe in what" they "are doing"? Does it mean all of these soldiers are well-versed in Islam, have studied the various instruments of Jihad, understand taqiyya and the amazing way in which Islam retains its hold even over those who are born into it, but scarcely even believe in God, yet feel they must, simply must, defend Islam, protect Islam, lie about Islam to avoid embarrassment or damage to its image. Do the soldiers know what "they are doing" in the sense of the long-term strategy? How many of them have the leisure, or the inclincation, to think it all through? Some do, and apparently it is those some whom I have talked to, and who, once I got going, appeared not to take issue but to agree completely. Perhaps they were just trying to make me feel good. But I doubt it.

The soldiers need not worry about not being "supported" at this forum. They are supported to the hilt. But no matter how many times anyone attempts to make us confuse support for troops with support for the latest phase of not-so-grand strategy, one that is the exact opposite of what now, in Iraq (and outside Iraq) should be done -- moving heaven and earth to weaken Islam, divide Islam, demoralize Islam, take away or diminish or divert (into staples and development of poorer Arab countries by the rich ones that pour their discretionary income into funding the Jihad, when they should be buying bread for Cairene masses, or fixing the sewers in Alexandria, or things to that effect).

One can repeat once or a thousand times words about "morale" and about "supporting our troops" and about "staying the course" and not "cutting and running." It is bullying rhetoric; it gets in the way of thought, of intelligence and imagination and low cunning that need to be applied to the ruthless, though essentially primitive,adherents of a primitive belief-system, that has done a great deal of damage through time and space, and is fully prepared to do much more.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 27, 2005 10:07 PM

"insinuate frequent references to the paradigm the West has lost: the paradigm of Western Civilization as superior to all other cultures -- not in a barbaric way like Islam or Genghis Khan, but in a beneficent and humane way, with the aim to civilize the world.."
-- from a posting above

And you don't find that something like this (without the "paradigm" part) is going on, here and there, as postings deliberately remind us that, over there in that corner, in the black trunks, is Islam, and over here, in the white trunks, is Western Civilization....

Surely some of the allusions, some of the reminders of what we have and they do not (not only the Gatling-gun, but Shakespeare, Leonardo, Dennis Potter, Fats Waller, and so on) help remind everyone of that -- or isn't it working?

Posted by: Hugh

at June 27, 2005 10:26 PM

....And again I will repeat: the resentments of the Kurds, based on, among other things, a history of persecution and murder inflicted on those Kurds -- should lead to a free Kurdistan. It is in our interest. It would be a permanent sign that non-Arab Muslims not only exist in the Middle East and North Africa, but deserve their own state. ...

Hugh, this is the best thing we can do by far. It would be so fitting, a major thumb in the eye of these arab elitists. The Saudis would have a fit. I think it would be great.

Posted by: reset

at June 27, 2005 10:29 PM

hugh wrote: "But even if there were to be 'democracy' ... in Iraq, it would do nothing ... to diminish the two most powerful weapons of Islam -- the money that comes from the oil deposits, and the spread of Islam ... through the millions of migrants ..."

the point of planting a big fat democracy in iraq is to create an IDEOLOGICAL COMPETITOR to islamic fascism, one that, like a computer virus or bio-weapon, will spread on its own.

whereas i agree that the core of islam is unfortunately jihadist, the misery of the masses in the mideast also plays a big part in recruitment. think about how hamas operates.

democracy offers hope, if offers an alternate pathway out of the squalor, one that doesn't involve blowing yourself up.

and ironically it does what you suggested doing earlier, mr. machiavelli, it divides the muslim community.

it also provides a platform around which moderate muslims, should they ever arise in large numbers, could rally. (they certainly can't rally 'round the koran for their reforms, now can they?! ;o)

so some would say the fact that democracy stands starkly in contrast to many of the more fascist elements of islam isn't the problem, it's the point. the point is to tempt the islamic world away from the jihadi precipice by offering the prosperity and proven track record of democracy.

btw, re: your assertion that democracy in iraq is pointless, not worth fighting for, would do nothing etc., i'd say you've clearly left planet earth! ;o)

democracy in iraq could be the best thing in terms of effecting change in for example IRAN. (also, syria may be up for grabs if junior keeps up the all-thumbs approach to statecraft.)

the fact that you just happened to omit this tiny little detail kinda calls into question your objectivity, doesn't it?! ;o)

remember, the problem isn't necessarily the oil money or the immigrants, as you contend, it's the ideology they support ... injecting a competitor to islamic fascism is therefore well within our interests.

containment is fine, but we need to attack islam ideologically, just as we did during the cold war, and democracy is a great platform for doing so. do you have a better one?

your thoughts, when you get a moment, would be greatly appreciated :o)

Posted by: fishboy

at June 27, 2005 10:51 PM

Some say that our enemies "want to establish a new caliphate". Sounds like the problem is islam, to me. Not islamism, muslimism, or islamists -- just plain 'islam'.

Let's announce that:

1. islam Is the problem.

2. We hold islam and its adherents in contempt.

3. We will destroy any number of muslims to end terrorism.

Mecca, Riyadh, and Tehran should be close to the top of our target list. When the origin of our adversary encompasses more than states, we need a response more massive than what W currently envisions. A response more massive than state-on-state warfare.

I have lost all confidence in George W. I still like Condi, but she is out of her league at either State or NSC. We need some people up there who know how to make an omelet.

Posted by: Havoc

at June 27, 2005 10:58 PM

"the point of planting a big fat democracy in iraq is to create an IDEOLOGICAL COMPETITOR to islamic fascism, one that, like a computer virus or bio-weapon, will spread on its own."
...........
"btw, re: your assertion that democracy in iraq is pointless, not worth fighting for, would do nothing etc., i'd say you've clearly left planet earth!"
...........
"remember, the problem isn't necessarily the oil money or the immigrants, as you contend, it's the ideology they support ... injecting a competitor to islamic fascism is therefore well within our interests."
--- from the posting above

What is a "big fat democracy"? Would it include guaranteed rights for minorities, such as the Kurds?

And we just had a very nice election in Lebanon, where a great admirer of Saudi Arabia, Saad Hariri, was elected, and where, if the previous confessional arrangement by which the Christians had more power than they are now, by population, entitled to, is done away with, the Christians, especially the Maronites, will be politically crushed -- how does that weaken Islam?

Islam may not be a natural fit with "democracy" even if that "democracy" is interpreted to mean mere head-counting at election time, without all the rest of what our Constitution offers, and what our civilization promotes and justifies, but the adherents of Islam are perfectly capable of conducting political campaigns, and in many ways the more fanatical Muslims are less corrupt than the less fanatical. Hamas consists of mass murderers; they may also be running clinics and so on, and not pocketing all the foreign aid the way that Arafat and his cronies, including the monstrously corrupt Abbas and Qurei, both have.

In Iran, we have elections. And guess who was the People's Favorite a few decades ago, not by election but by popular demand -- it was, returning triumphantly from his exile in Neauphle-le-chateau, the Ayataollah Khomeini. And just this week there was an election in Iran. And who won? Why, a fervent Muslim and former Basiji, Ahmadinejad, who was a kind of good-government mayor of Teheran, but also a fervent Muslim.

And what, aside from half-Christian Lebanon (or at least it was half-Christian before the Muslims multiplied, at which they are very good), where else might there have been an example of "democracy" in the entire Muslim world? In one place: Turkey, after the 80 years of Kemalism, after all those things that Ataturk put in place to systematically constrain Islam within Turkey, and to put in its place a Turkish national myth (the "Sun-People" theory, etc. which Ozal then continued -- see Speros Vryonis, "Clio and the Grey Wolf"), and a cult of personality around -- Ataturk himself.

Did it work? Did Turks give up on Islam? Did Islam disappear, or was it so wounded as to longer be a threat? Not at all. The reverse. Islam keeps coming back. And here it is, again -- with Erdogan, and all the cunning of his associates and followers. Ask a secular Turk -- the real secularists, who do not lamely call themselves "Muslims" as so many people, even those who declare that they are atheists, insist on doing (e.g., Magdi Allam, in his "Lettera aperta a Oriana Fallaci" in "Vincere la paura").

Islam is stronger than, can handle and swallow, the shallow idea of "democracy." It is a false hope.

The ideology of Islam can only be weakened if Muslims themselves begin, in sufficient numbers, to begin to have their doubts. If they can see that their own societies' distempers and disarray and disappointments and despotisms and dismal arrangements of every kind, are the result not of Infidel machinations, but of the mental habits of Islam itself, the inshallah-fatalism, the submission to authority that is part of Islam, and because Islam pervades and influences and affects every part of life, ineluctably flows into every capillary of Islamic life, the life of Muslims.

So let us not be an obstacle to the comprehension of Islam's failures. Let us stop giving aid that is a disguised jizyah. Let us stop trying to make the Muslim states better, and consider that things might ultimately be better if first they are worse.

Of course, the main thing is to deprive these states of the wherewithal to do us physical damage. They cannot be allowed to buy, produce, or otherwise acquire not only weapons of mass destruction, but even arsenals of planes. Anything sold to them by the Western governments should be jimmied so that they may be susceptible of being sabotaged from afar -- like the supercomputers sold to the Russians with the deliberatey defective software that, at the appropriate moment, on cue, malfunctioned, with highly desirable results.

And another thing is to diminish their oil revenues, by plowing the sums now being squandered in Iraq, on Egypt, Jordan and the PA, and on all sorts of silly projects which involve still more mixing it up with Muslims, who simply learn skills that may be used against us -- and one of those skills is the art, at which they are past masters, of blending personal charm and dissimulation in the service of their own, or of the Arab, or of the general Muslim agenda. The less we have to do with them, the better -- not for them, but for us.

"i'd say you've clearly left planet earth!"

No. My feet are planted Antaeus-like firmly on the ground. My mind is rooted -- figuratively, it's true -- in the reality of Islam and of Iraq, and not given to flights of wishful fancy, unlike those "realists" who have made policy based on ignoring both Islam and the real nature of Iraq and the right way to encourage division and dissension within Islam -- in fact, the last seems not even to have occurred to anyone in Washington as somethingto work towards, in any and every way.

"remember, the problem isn't necessarily the oil money or the immigrants, as you contend, it's the ideology they support..."

This remark makes no sense. The ideology has existed for a long time, some 1350 years (or a little less, if we wish to date from the time that it hardened into unassailable and immutable dogma, with whatever variations possible dependent not on different texts, or different interpretations of the same texts, but rather on the laxness with which individual Believers observed, or received, or believed in, those texts, and the tenets they inculcated).

The problem is that this ideology now has two unusual supports.

The first is that oil, and the revenues the oil supplies that would not otherwise exist. Imagine Saudi Arabia just as malevolent as ever, but without hundreds of billions of dollars to foster the Jihad through mosque-and-madrasa building, the propaganda spread worldwide, the agents -- both Muslim and non-Muslim, of Saudi Arabia, the newspapers owned, the media companies in which the Saudis have deliberately acquired major holdings, and so on.

The second is that the presence of millions of Muslims behind enemy lines, and their active campaigns of Da'wa (the Call to Islam), and their fantastically large families, often supported by the generous welfare systems that Infidels set up, and almost entirely pay for -- so that they are paying for the "seeds" (in more ways than one) of their own destruction.

You do not answer my suggestions.

I will offer one more. Punctuation is next to godliness. Those who do not punctuate or, in the postings, capitalize correctly, are offending the gods of the copybooks, if not of the copybook headings.

It doesn't look good on bellhooks. It doesn't loook good even on e.e.cummings (yes, the devil and e.e.c. made me do it) whom keen and attentive readers of Jihadwatch will recall, could look out from his window, where he may have typed on an Underwood, to view the house of William James just across the street.

For more on this, google "Underwood" and "jihadwatch" and "Posted by Hugh." A little fun, to take your mind off Islam.

We all deserve that, once in a while -- don't we?

Posted by: Hugh

at June 27, 2005 11:29 PM

My brother happens to be in Fallujah as I type this. He is a Marine. He has told me many times that moral is still pretty high even with the fighting everyday over there. One problem is the soldiers are so confused. Once Iraq fell and the war (part 1) was over, they thought the Iraqis would be so happy..almost like a prisoner who was falsly imprisoned then freed..they would run to the side of the men who sacrificed so much to free them and embrace as friends..maybe brothers. In some occasions it was just like that. He has watched the hardest men cry because these people were just so happy to be free...something we take for granted everyday, but on a majority of occasions it was just the opposite...he said alot of guys in his unit were extremely hurt and confused. He said to me on one occasion that bringing freedom to these people was like force feeding a bulimic. There is so much hate over there. If the Americans were not there they would just slaughter each other instead of listening to what the other has to say. Our soldiers will never get used to it because most of us were raised to respect another mans opinions and learn from each other. We debate and they blow themselves up along with woman and children ON PURPOSE for what..because they disagree? Its sad. He said to me..."you would think that all us soldiers hate it here and just think it is a hopeless wreck, but we dont think that way...we cant think that way. We just pay attention to the only ones who really like us here..the kids." He said they hang out with the children alot and give them gifts or candy. The innocence of a child can soften the hardest Marine and make the worries of that day fade away. I send beanie babies over there because the kids love them. The soldiers really fear the day the children dont want to be their friends anymore because of the hate drilled into their heads daily. He said if he could just keep one Iraqi child from turning to hate and commiting vile acts in the name of Islam his life would be worth it. I completely agree with Hugh...I guess I just wrote this to give you guys some insight to whats on one soldiers mind everyday while the people he freed try to blow him up. This has got to be the greatest webpage I have ever been to and I just want to thank "Freakin Batman" and the entire crew for everything. Thanks for backing our boys over there and extra thanks for using common sense and acurate knowledge to try and bring them home. God Bless

Posted by: pocadon

at June 28, 2005 12:36 AM

fishboy,

I don't think democracy is possible where the majority of the people are Muslim.

A democracy is (more or less) "rule of the people". If right now you were to let "the people" take over Pakistan and topple their dictator Musharraf, the result would not be democracy as we understand it. The result would indeed by a rule of the people -- but the people would want Islamic law, which is hostile to human rights.

Wherever you have a region permeated by Islamic culture, you cannot have a democracy.

If we want something resembling true democracy in Iraq, we will have to IMPOSE it upon them. Some say that is absurd, to "impose" a democracy upon a people. That may be, but it is far less absurd than having a Muslim populace choose a democracy. The grass-roots will of any Muslim people is for theocracy.

Posted by: metaxy

at June 28, 2005 12:52 AM

I am sorry, but you do not know what you are talking about. Most Copts know that they are not Arabs; even the peasants with no education know that as clear as night and day. To them the term Arab means a Muslim. I guess that a very small percentage, less than 0.1% Copts still buys the Arab nationalism crap of Nasser and they are getting fewer everyday. Druze is just a heretical Muslim sect from the middle ages and its members are descended from Arab tribes. The Maronites and other Christians in the Levant (Greater Syria) have believed their own lies about an imaginary Arab nation in their attempt to forge a common identity with their Muslim neighbors in the post Ottoman era. Most Copts, Assyrians, Chaldeians would be furious about being called an Arab. However, some would be tired of explaining that to feeble western minds who do not grasp the rudiments of their history, much less that of others.

Posted by: have_mercy

at June 28, 2005 3:17 AM

Does the United States have a moral obligation to try to stop such a conflict at considerable expense in American lives and resources?

Posted by: JTF

Good post!

America did not create their wars. And they HATE America - ONLY because they are taught to hate America - not because of 'policies' - but because of the never-ending regular preaching of the imams.

008.039 And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah altogether and everywhere. [Throughout the earth} 004.101 ]

033.061 They shall have a curse on them: whenever they are found, they shall be seized and slain without mercy.

And Muslims believe non-muslims have a 'desease' in the heart?

It is Islam - and it needs to be confronted

But no matter how many times anyone attempts to make us confuse support for troops with support for the latest phase of not-so-grand strategy, one that is the exact opposite of what now, in Iraq (and outside Iraq) should be done -- moving heaven and earth to weaken Islam, divide Islam, demoralize Islam, take away or diminish or divert (into staples and development of poorer Arab countries by the rich ones that pour their discretionary income into funding the Jihad, when they should be buying bread for Cairene masses, or fixing the sewers in Alexandria, or things to that effect).

Posted by: Hugh

Could NOT agree more!!!!

For the record - I believe Veterans Day is most likely one of the greatest days America has set aside [right up there - with Thanksgiving]

It is a day to reflect on how others have made great sacrifices so we could have the blessings we have [I for one find that day a very solemn day - and one taken for granted too much by this nation]

But I also feel exactly as Hugh does - in that it makes NO sense to sure up any Islamic government and army.

To help any people who are being brutalized by a tyrant - Yes! But to strengthen Islam in any way - is foolish. How long will it take before 'allah's' message kicks in and they're right back at it - only this time - better equiped?

It doesn't make any sense

Posted by: Beth

at June 28, 2005 3:43 AM

metaxy,

what you say is indeed true re: pakistan, an "elected" gov't probably would be worse than
the current musharraf gov't.

and i agree that any "elected" gov't in the islamic world would tend toward theocracy w/o "guidance" from the west, & suspect we had to provide similar "guidance" to japan after WWII? ;o)

however, i strongly suspect in the case of IRAN, especially given recent sham elections & consolidation of power to the hard-liners, any truly "elected" gov't would end up being a very worthwhile improvement.

that being said, i do recall for example the islamic jihad / hezbollah / hamas terrorism conference awhile back in iran where the "reformer" khatami in his opening address accused the jews of inflating holocaust casualties to garner world sympathy for the creation of a jewish state, and so i have no illusions that an "elected" iranian gov't would be acceptable by western standards.

but just as we have to worry about creeping dhimmitude, the islamic fascists have to worry about western values infiltrating islamic society.

and the very notion of an election in iran or iraq, even if it degenerates into a theocracy in a very real way, does attack and wound the islamic fascists, because it instills that very dangerous idea that the legitimacy of the gov't comes from the consent of the governed, NOT from the traditional religious hierarcy / appeal to authority. this idea directly threatens any future caliphate.

i also really do think democracy could provide the platform for any reformist muslims to rally around given the problems w/rallying 'round the koran ... what do you think about this?

btw, thanks for replying :o)

Posted by: fishboy

at June 28, 2005 3:51 AM

Islam and Arabism are they greatest frauds committed on mankind on a scale that far dwarfs Communism and fascism, the other two great totalitarian movements. Islam and Arabism go hand in hand in destroying the cultural roots of the civilizations they take over much like a virus that uses an invaded cell to reproduce copies of itself. It is a cancer that has metastasized in the body of humanity threatening the death of all the redeeming qualities of civilization.

I have come to believe that all efforts to combat Islam are in vain as these efforts fail to see the spiritual and supernatural side of this conflict. Islam is one of the many embodiments of evil on earth, and a spiritual counter-jihad needs to take place to save the soul of the west.

Monitor every Mosque in the west, open large-scale tribunals to try and deport Jihadists, construct a thousand Gitmu, invade a dozen countries, and we would accomplish very little. The west is in a deep moral and spiritual crisis, which is getting progressively worst. Yet I no longer feel despair because I believe in the existence of a higher power, the mutability and mortality of this world. Muslims serve a waking call to the post-Christian west from its self-induced slumber.

Posted by: have_mercy

at June 28, 2005 3:56 AM

pocadon,

Thanks so much for your post. It's great to have a ground-level eyewitness feel for the situation over there. Refreshing and lucid.

With prayers that your brother and the guys make it home safely.

Posted by: skidd

at June 28, 2005 4:45 AM

Hugh:

"But we have the model, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil, Muhammad himself."

'Al -insan al-kamil"- does that mean the 'insane camel?' I don't speak Arabic, but it sure sounds like it. Clearly, Mohammed was insane, but was he a camel?

(so much for nonsense)

As for the above posts between RS, Hugh, Metaxi: The West with it's ideological bankruptcy is clearly palying into the hands of the Mohammedan scourge. The Germans had such a debate about "leitkultur' a few years ago. In other words, the conservatives wanted to introduce a bill to give guidelines as to what is culturally and morally acceptable. The howling and screaming of the red-green multi-culti brigades killed it in its infancy.

Lately I been hearing similar rumors again, but they are but a whisper. Remains to be seen what happens when the conservatives come to power later in the year.
Here in OZ the conservatives are caving in again to the multi-culti scourge, the detention centers kept many out, but now they want to process them 'faster'- in other words: more!

We shall see...

Posted by: Terminator

at June 28, 2005 5:29 AM

Fish writes "i also really do think democracy could provide the platform for any reformist muslims to rally around given the problems w/rallying 'round the koran ... what do you think about this?"

I think you're correct. But you also need to be careful what you wish for sometimes.

Its good to prod Arab nations onto the road to democracy. Its bad to push to fast. Do we really want Mubarak, Abdullah and Assad flushed down the toilet so quickly?

Cuz what will replace them are some unholy combination of the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad and God knows what else.

You suggest that any democracy at all would be stick in the eye of the Islamofacists..

I doubt anything could be further from the truth. Nobody is calling for elections more loudly than these people. And once they get power, "consent to govern by the governed" will be so narrowly construed as to be meaningless.

THe US needs a strategy here, not blah blah blah democracy is good... THe way Bush has been pushing this, its like a bull in a China shop. We need to do all we can to foster and strengthen truly democratic elements in those societies. And then you really push hard towards democracy.

Posted by: Crusher

at June 28, 2005 5:30 AM

Fish writes "i also really do think democracy could provide the platform for any reformist muslims to rally around given the problems w/rallying 'round the koran ... what do you think about this?"

I think you're correct. But you also need to be careful what you wish for sometimes.

Its good to prod Arab nations onto the road to democracy. Its bad to push to fast. Do we really want Mubarak, Abdullah and Assad flushed down the toilet so quickly?

Cuz what will replace them are some unholy combination of the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad and God knows what else.

You suggest that any democracy at all would be stick in the eye of the Islamofacists..

Posted by: Crusher

at June 28, 2005 5:30 AM

"Where are the Mandeans?

Where are the Zoroastrians?"
--- from a posting above

Gone with the wind, as Irene Dunne sang in "The Awful Truth" as her skirt fluttered up? No, their numbers have much diminished over time, under the inceesant pressure of dhimmitude, the small and large cruelties, discriminations, persecutions, murders -- all the things that over time have caused much larger populations of non-Muslims, everywhere that Islam has conquered, to gradualy islamize -- and not, as Muslims would have it, because of the sheer wonderfulness and "rightness" of their belief-system, with its totalitarian total regulation of life, total explanation of the universe. There is nothing innately attractive about Islam; it is for the simple-minded, and nowadays, fits the bill for those who feel disaffected from their own societies and want to embrace something that they care little about but know is a vehicle of protest, opposition, and rage. That's what it is, and the economically and psychically marginal are the most likely targets of Da'wa.

There may be 60,000-80,000 Mandeans left in the world, half of them in present-day Iraq. See the link provided on the left to a Mandean website at JW. A year or two ago Muslims (I think Shi'a) took the occasion to burn up one of the last, and most important, Mandean libraries. It did not receive a single bit of attention in the Western world, where everyone was consumed with berating the Americn soldiers with "standing by" etc. as the "Baghdad museum" was "destroyed." As we know, the Baghdad Museum was not "destroyed," the tales of mass theft were greatly exaggerated, much of what was taken (and some of it was an inside job, or done with the help of insiders) has been recovered by the American soldiers (remember Capt. Bogdanus?).
But who cares about the Mandeans?

As for the Zoroastrians, there may be 150,000 people, or double that, still openly calling themselves Zoroastrians in Iran. And there are the hundreds of thousands of Parsees, the Zoroastrians in India (particularly Mumbai), the descendants of those who early fled the Muslim invaders of Sassanid Persia. A few decades ago the well-known historian of Zoroastrianism, Mary Boyce, went to live with them, and described how their Muslim neighbors made their lives miserable. Dogs are important in Zoroastrianism -- is that why, perhaps, Muslims are taught to hate dogs, not to keep them as pets (and in the Western world, have been known not merely to recoil at the sight of dogs, but to kill the dogs of Infidels in order to eliminate what for them is intolerable). Boyce describes how even kindergarten-age Muslim children would come up to Zoroastrians and deliberately beat their dogs, with impunity of course -- no Zoroastrian could possibly react.

The Maronites held out, just, in the mountains of Lebanon (or "The Lebanon" -- i.e. Mont Liban or Mount Lebanon). The Copts, aware -- how could they not be -- that they are the descendants of the original Egptians, that Coptic is the language of Egypt and Arabic the language of invaders, and who have remained sufficiently large a group, and coherent, for some still to exist -- possibly 8-10 million (Muslim figures are of course much lower for all non-Muslims, just as they are always grossly inflated for numbgers abroad -- the other day, in The New Duranty Times, an Arab girl who wrote an idiotic piece of self-pity that told of how she, in a gym at the Kennedy School of Public Adminisration at Harvard, and feeling sorry for herself and all the stares she claimed her hijab caused her to receive, dropped something that was picked up by a sweaty, but gallant -- Al Gore! What a story to waste precious space on in The New Duranty Times. But what was most significant was the way the girl tossed off a line about "10 million Arab and Muslim Americans" -- a gross exaggeration, and one which claims descendants of Lebanese Christians, who make up 70% or more of all those so wrongly lumped together as "Arab-Americans" (a deceptive category), who fled Muslim persecution to go to America, as they did to Australia, Canada, South America, even as traders to West Africa.

You seem to think there is something inevitable about the disappearance of peoples, who must in the end be dissolved in the Arab Muslim flood. No. Nothing is inevitable. The Copts and the Maronites are still there, though under siege. There are still Assyrians in Iraq, though under siege. The Jews managed to hold on, in a few cities in the Land of Israel (as Israelis call it) throughout the years of Arab conquest and then the Turkish overlords, and to resurrect the ancient Jewish commonwealth which, as Indro Montanelli wrote, was possibly the only great thing to come out of the 20th century.

And once this hideous regime in Iran is overthrown or otherwise done away with, what must once have seemed unlikely -- a return, by hundreds of thousands or even more Iranians, to the religion of their ancestors -- now seems possible.

Why? Because even some who started out as revolutionaries and then became "reformists" have had the chance, without intervention from any Infidels, to think about things, to realize that the behavior of those running the Islamic Republic are not some aberration in Islam, and what is most disturbing in Iran flows logically from the texts, taken seriously and applied fully.

There is a Dr. Seuss book, possibly Horton Hears a Who?,in which a tiny creature sits on an elephant and is kept there because "a person's a person, no matter how small."

Well, a group is a group, "no matter how small." Under the onslaught of homogenizing and aggressive Islam, the greatest force for lack of diversity in human history (and don't we all like, not the "diversity" forced down our throats, but real variety in our humans, and doesn't Islam want to make everyone in the whole wide world into, more or less, little imitators of 7th century Arabs, with Arabic names, and sacred texts ideally read and memorized in Arabic, and the whole wide world one vast islamized and arabized place? Yes, they do.

And that is why, because not only Horton Hears that particular Who, but so do I, that I think one should not overlook small groups because they are small, but seek to preserve them. That goes for religions, cultures, and especially, perhaps above all, languages. But don't get me started on Dorothy Pentreach, last speaker of the Cornish language, expired circa 1780. It is too sad.

We should not forget, but remember, and try to preserve, all those indigenous peoples whose lands were conqueed by invading Muslim Arabs, Some of those ancient peoples remain in place, others now live in the civilized countries of the world, and deserve to be heeded, not ignored.

________________________________

Posted by: Hugh

at June 28, 2005 8:01 AM

"I am sorry, but you do not know what you are talking about. Most Copts know that they are not Arabs; even the peasants with no education know that as clear as night and day. To them the term Arab means a Muslim. I guess that a very small percentage, less than 0.1% Copts still buys the Arab nationalism crap of Nasser and they are getting fewer everyday."

"The Maronites and other Christians in the Levant (Greater Syria) have believed their own lies about an imaginary Arab nation in their attempt to forge a common identity with their Muslim neighbors in the post Ottoman era. Most Copts, Assyrians, Chaldeians would be furious about being called an Arab. However, some would be tired of explaining that to feeble western minds who do not grasp the rudiments of their history, much less that of others."

AND from the very same posting, this:

"I just want to make a small correction. Arabs are not an an ethnic group, but a linguistic and cultural one. Most of my Maronite, Druze and Coptic friends would be offended by the claim made here that they are non-Arabs.

This confuses. Is the author saying that Maronites, Copts, and Druze are NOT Arabs and "would be furious about being called an Arab" in one paragraph, and then immediately below, suggesting the opposite ("Most of my Maronite, Druze, and Coptic friends would be offended by the claim made here that they are non-Arabs.")

One cannot respond to self-contradictory comments.

But one comment can be added. Islamization carried with it, necessarily, arabization. Older, wealthier, more settled, more advanced, populations of Christians and Jews were conquered. Some converted at once, some converted over time as the pressures of dhimmitude would cause anyone, anywhere, to wonder about clinging to one's traditional or inherited beliefs when the price to be paid was so high.

Arabization proceeded mainly linguistically. It was necessary (until the past century) to read the Qur'an only in Arabic. Even now the Qur'an is supposed to be read and memorized in Arabic, no matter what the native language of those madrasa students studying it. Arabic was the language in which the Qur'an was dictated to the "best of peoples." It was the language of the conqueror.

The "Arabs" (many of whom, of course, are simply the descendants of Christians, and Jews, and no doubt among the Christian ancestors are Copts, Maronites, christianized and pagan Berbers -- just as Pakistanis are merely the islamized descendants of Hindus who converted under intolerable pressure, but Pakistanis do not like to dwell, not even for a minute, on their own pre-islamic pasts -- it would not do) like to consider as "Arab" anyone who uses the Arabic languge.

But this would be as silly, and is as silly, as say the English proclaiming as "English" everyone who uses English as a first language, from Canada, to Nigeria and Uganda and Kenya, to many in India. It seems to be a generous claim -- we grandly extend to you the right of calling yourself an "Arab" with all the rights and benefits appertaining, but in fact it is an act of the worst kind of cultural imperialism, the kind that makes those conquered forget their own pre-islamic and pre-arabized pasts, or what is worse, to despise it, and to despise as well those who clung to the old faith.

Think of how many "Arabs" in North Africa busily suppressing the Berber culture and language of Tamazight are, if the DNA tests were done, would turn out be Berbers themselves? How many of those "Arabs" in Egypt inflicing petty or large cruelties on Christian Copts are in fact of Coptic descent? And so on.

It might be good to make all those quasi-Arabs aware that they are not necesssarily required to continue to think of themselves as Arabs.

They are free to undo what the Arab conquerors imposed. They are even free to slough off Islam.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 28, 2005 8:44 AM

Hugh:

Purim is a not-so-minor Jewish festival that commemorates the preservation of Iran's Jewish population through the machinations of a Jewish queen, Esther, wed to the Persian king, in the face of persecution orchestrated by the dread first minister, Haman. Memory fails as to what the timing was. And the Jewish colony in Kaifung, China that died out in the 1800s due to intermarriage with the Han Chinese (and not persecution), was founded by 90 families of Persian Jews who travelled the Silk Route in the days of Marco Polo. Possibly they were only seeking better economic opportunities, but it is just as likely that they were fleeing oppression.

Posted by: waterdragon52

at June 28, 2005 8:52 AM

A posting that does not require an answer:

"My brother happens to be in Fallujah as I type this. He is a Marine. He has told me many times that moral is still pretty high even with the fighting everyday over there. One problem is the soldiers are so confused. Once Iraq fell and the war (part 1) was over, they thought the Iraqis would be so happy..almost like a prisoner who was falsly imprisoned then freed..they would run to the side of the men who sacrificed so much to free them and embrace as friends..maybe brothers....

"...he said alot of guys in his unit were extremely hurt and confused. He said to me on one occasion that bringing freedom to these people was like force feeding a bulimic. There is so much hate over there. If the Americans were not there they would just slaughter each other instead of listening to what the other has to say. Our soldiers will never get used to it because most of us were raised to respect another mans opinions and learn from each other. We debate and they blow themselves up along with woman and children ON PURPOSE for what..because they disagree? Its sad. He said to me..."you would think that all us soldiers hate it here and just think it is a hopeless wreck, but we dont think that way...we cant think that way. We just pay attention to the only ones who really like us here..the kids."

"The soldiers really fear the day the children dont want to be their friends anymore because of the hate drilled into their heads daily. He said if he could just keep one Iraqi child from turning to hate and commiting vile acts in the name of Islam his life would be worth it. I completely agree with Hugh...I guess I just wrote this to give you guys some insight to whats on one soldiers mind everyday while the people he freed try to blow him up. This has got to be the greatest webpage I have ever been to and I just want to thank "Freakin Batman" and the entire crew for everything. Thanks for backing our boys over there and extra thanks for using common sense and acurate knowledge to try and bring them home. God Bless."
--- from a posting by "pocadon" above

For the stark relief of those remarks, much thanks.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 28, 2005 8:52 AM

"The West with it's ideological bankruptcy.."
-- from a posting above

I'm part of that West. I don't feel "ideologically bankrupt" and don't even know what the phrase means. Are you part of that West> Do you feel "ideologically bankrupt"?

But since the word "bankrupt" has come up, let me once again extend my hand in a spirit of "alms for the poor" (and I mean it) and ask if there is not one, or several people among those who derive profit and pleasure from Jihadwatch and who, instead of contributing to the Development Office campaign at the university or hospital or do-good institution that keeps dunning them, and dunning them, might for god's sake direct their largesse hitherwards.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 28, 2005 10:14 AM

Waterdragon,

The time frame for the Purim events was approximately 400 BCE.

Hugh,

Again it comes down to this: You believe containment and pragmatism is the best strategy to manage the islamic menace. I disagree, as this is merely putting band-aids on the disease but not curing the cancer.

However, you are correct to doubt the Bush doctrine of democracy being the cure-all for islam. While I do believe Democracy is the end answer, we are putting the cart before the horse when we try making islamic nations democratic.

What must be done before democracy, before westernization, before nation building of any kind, is to destroy and rebuild islam from the ground up.

This must be done by force, without mercy and without compromise. All of islam, everywhere, must be flattened with military might and intensive domestic policing.

Your plan, Hugh, may be the best plan short of the destruction of islam, but the 2nd best plan is not good enough. As long as islam is allowed to live it will be the greatest threat to civilization everywhere it festers. You think in today's world we can just lock them in the basement and everything will be ok?

Think again. We live in a global, nuclear age, where containment strategy will one day come up short, as it did on 9/11, and the ramifications on that breakdown may be armageddon. We must eradicate this wretched evil from the earth, destroy it from the roots not the branches, if we are ever to have a safe and secure future.

What is the price of such an undertaking? Whatever it costs, whatever it takes, no matter the cost in life or dollars. This is survival, ours or theirs, one but not both, as their purpose for life is our death, and they will not stop until they succeed or are themselves destroyed.

The koran is mein kompf, it is the sick twisted crime against humanity that will eat us alive unless we crush it first. Don't you see this? Don't you understand it to be true? Surely you must, but it is too horrific for most to accept. The price is so high, the war so brutal, that the majority simply denies or rejects the truth to avoid the unspeakable pain.

But the pain of letting islam continue, letting it breathe and breed, is worse than any casualties of war to defeat it could ever inflict. We are at the crossroads. It is us or them, and today we have the power and the technology to make it us. What we do lack is the will, but, God forbid, the moslems someday get the power and technology to devour us, make no mistake, they will NOT lack the stomach to wipe us off the face of the earth.

We must not wait for that day to happen.

-MZ

Posted by: Madzionist

at June 28, 2005 11:36 AM

hahaha @ ideologically bankrupt...perhaps Plato, Aristotle, Voltaire or the queen of youthful determination Ayn Rand skip your mind.
As for superiority of Western culture to all other cultures...umm....why dont I invite you to India for a summer vacation? Perhaps with your bankrupt professors teaching "Greek genius and superiority" you would not know that Nalanda and Takshashila are the oldest universities KNOWN TO EXIST...and that is before the Christian era..(or BCE for those who prefer the jargon)...400-500 years before...and Shiva (Lord) knows how many had been destroyed completely by the invading Arabs and Turks. And FYI Logic, Philosophical systems, mathematics, the Vedas and Buddhist sutras including Yoga was taught at these universities....so forget Bologna, Paris, Madrid or those terrible madrasas of Timbuktu. Yes the West is definitely worth saving and cherishing, but merely focussing on Islam and its colonization does not mean you forget your own....perhaps youd like to read about one Inquisition that wasnt taught? The Goa Inquisition. Look it up, gentlemen.
Happy reading

Posted by: Tushar Saxena

at June 28, 2005 11:47 AM

"You think in today's world we can just lock them in the basement and everything will be ok?"
-- from a posting above

Does that reflect, in the slightest, the set of proposals I made? To wit: to diminish oil revenues through a shift of the money being squandered in Iraq entirely to energy projects, including conservation, mass transit, solar and nuclear energy, battery technology, what-have you; until those revenues are sufficiently diminished, to find ways to relieve the rich Arabs of that discretionary income with which they, and especially the Saudis, naturally -- it would be unnatural for them not to -- pay for mosques, madrasas, Western hirelings and "international business consultants" (see Alistair Crooke, Raymond Close, James Akins, the late Fred Dutton, and a cast of tens of thousands, each with his hand in the till, directly or indirectly -- even a consulting "contract" or lecture series will do it -- of Arab largesse), including ending all Infidel foreign aid to Muslim states and pretend-states (the P.A.) and shifting the burden from Infidels, who should not be supporting Muslims at all, anywhere, to the rich Muslim states. That will use up their discretionary income, and since there is no possiblity that they will be anywhere near as generous as Europe and the United Statees have been, resentment among the poorer Arabs for the richer (more primitive) ones, will have the desired effect of splitting rich and poor, and causing all sorts of difficulties within dar al-Islam. A good thing.
And so on, on and on.

And this you choose to sum up, though again and again -- google "Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations Project and read how many times, and with how many variants, detailed suggestions have been offered -- to dismiss this as "just locking them up in the basement and everything will be ok."

That is nothing like what I said. It is reductionism run riot. It is unfair. It is untrue. It mocks the effort. It proposes only the unattainable: let us smash, crush, destroy, etc. Islam. Well, that won'thappen, and that won't do. It is hard enough to get people even to begin to learn what Islam is all about.

Posted by: Hugh

at June 28, 2005 12:16 PM

Hugh,

You were very selective in taking an isolated quote as the basis for my entire commentary. I addressed your entire theory, both isolation and pragmatic sanctions, and explained why they would not work. Why you chose that single line as the entire summary of my thesis only you can answer, but I have my suspicions.

Anyway, you failed to address the heart of my point adequately. The point that islam cannot be placated or defeated passively. That you still cling to the idea that witholding money and luxuries from the wealthy shieks and ayotollahs has any bearing on the nature of our islamic foe is incredible to me.

When did you determine that our economic and political boycotts would do a damn thing to stifle the moslem jihad? This is what I expect to hear from the naiive, the uneducated, the utopian optimists, but never from people who grasp the enemy to be islam as you state you do.

I am absolutely floored that you believe there is a solution short of total islamic destruction that will defeat islam. Pragmatize the barbarian? Suicide bombing jihadists in Gaza and Bagdhad will somehow become moderate once we stop giving them money? You have got to be kidding me.

The end answer is, I will never believe the moslems are vulnerable to such Western projections. They are not concerned with money, toys, political gain or any other modern offering we could possibly withold from them. They want our ass on a platter, they want us to convert or die, they want us buried in dhimmitude, and they want NOTHING ELSE.

Islam is all conquest all the time. There is no other answer but destruction... ours or theirs. You can play word finesse all day with this fact, but you'll never change this reality.

-MZ

Posted by: Madzionist

at June 28, 2005 1:01 PM

How does one play "word finesse"? Is it something like "Dictionary"?

Posted by: Hugh

at June 28, 2005 1:19 PM

Hugh, Robert I don't know if you will see this, but if you do. I would like to see a project,exposing the canard of Arabism, or pan Arab and the inappopriate use of the word Arab.

I daily get called a "racist" or a hater for merely stating facts about Islam, and mentioning the fact that Islam is Shari'a, and Shari' is not compatible with western secular democracy (secularists aka atheists either become muslms or get beheaded, Christians and Jews can accept dhimmitude).

But "demonize" Islam and one is called a racist, because Islam is of course Arabism, Arab Imperialism disguised as a religion, and converts even call "Islamophobes" racist. Yusuf Al - Cat Stevens accused the U.S. of racism.

Islam is not even a religion, it is ideology dressed up as a religion, if it were a religion it would be the Five Pillars and nothing more, but Shari'a makes it an all ecompassing cradle to grave ideology, economic, social, poliitical and religious.

Muslims consider themselves Arab, or Arab by extension. I can't speak to Malays or Indonesians but I can speak (from experience) with Anglo Saxon converts to, mid east and No African Muslims.

Iranians are insulted if you suggest they are Arab, but in truth they were Arabized when they adopted Arab religion ideology, Arab writing, Arab Names and Shari'a.

But on to the question of what is Arab. Damn few are Arab,the Saudis are Arab, most Iraqi's are Arab (now not at the time of conquest) Syrians and Lebanonese have some Arab blood, but are mostly Assyrian, Phoenician, Macedonian Keltoi, Hittite.

Jordanians are Arab, Egyptians are not, Sudanese are not Arab save for some admixture, Libyans, Algerians, Tunisians, Morocco are not Arab.

The define themselves as Arab solely on basis of native tongue and of course their imposed and adopted ideology of Arab Imperialism - Islam.

Arab is not a race, it is multi racial, Islam is not a race it is an ideology, yet Muslims call "Islamophobes" racist.

And that brings up the now troublesome term of semite and antisemite. Semite is merely a language group, like Indoeuropean, it is an insult to intelligence to think that someone could hate or be against a language group. Yes I know that antisemitism has become a synonym for Jew hatred, but the term has had unintended adverse consequences.

David Kimche, head of Israeli Council on Foreign Relations, at the OSCE conference on antisemitism, addressed the first ever meeting of "Arabs" at the conference, Kimche is also former deputy head of MOSSAD. He said to the "Arabs" "If someone is an antisemite they are also an Islamophobe".

Antisemitism is not racist either, for semite is NOT a race, a language group, the word semite is derived from "Noah's" son Shem, which was not literal, but merely an adopted and adapted version of the Babylonian creation myth, which the Babylonians inherited from the Sumerians, the hero of which in their flood tale was Ziusudra/Utnapishtim - Noah in Hebrew, all the names have similar meanings "Righteous one".

The dilemna for Jews has been caused by Jews, by using the term racist for antisemites, they