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Powerline blog recently published “a pessimistic assessment” of the situation in Iraq, written by an American serving there. While it is labelled a "pessimistic" assessment, it would be more accurate to call it a "realistic" assessment. The fact that it has been put up at a website ordinarily an unshakeable supporter of the war may be that one swallow that doesn't make a spring, or it may mean that at long last, the swallows of more ruthless common sense are now winging their way back to all kinds of mental Capistranos.
For Victory, Rightly Understood, Stands Shining Before Us, if Only We Get Out. When you hear dire predictions of "chaos" and "catastrophe," be sure to ask "but whose chaos?" And "whose catastrophe?" The goals of the Administration have successively been whittled down. The "democracy" is not true democracy, but Shari'a-limited, and so is merely one of purple-thumbed head-counting, which the Shi'a Arabs will gladly support (and dutifully vote exactly as they are told by their leaders) because they constitute 60-65% of the population. The Sunni Arabs remain resentful of the Shi’a, because while they "know" that they are the "largest" group in Iraq, they also "know" (i.e., obscurely realize) that in fact they constitute less than 20% of the population, and to regain power, and then to hold onto it, will require mass intimidation, through terrorism and economic sabotage, of the Shi’a. Just as Muslims were quite capable of believing that 1) the Mossad and the C.I.A. were behind the World Trade Center Attacks and 2) Bin Laden achieved a great thing, did something wonderful, against the Infidels with those World Trade Center Attacks which, however, were committed by the Mossad or the C.I.A., so are the Sunni Arabs capable of understanding that they really do constitute 19% of Iraq's population but at the same constitute 42% of it and are, they believe, the largest group, the group entitled to rule.
I have written about this hundreds of times. We have our Victory in Iraq. The Bush Administration just fails to recognize it, because that Victory is not the “victory” that the Bush Administration has set out, and never swerved, from wishing to achieve -- a “victory” that makes no sense. The real Victory, the one that makes perfect sense, was achieved long ago, and was made certain at the end of 2003 when Saddam Hussein was seized. The time to start removing troops was at the beginning of 2004, and to have them all about by the end of that spring. No dreams of American bases safely tucked here and there into the comforting fabric of Iraq, no fabulous xanadu of a $595 million dollar Embassy (let’s see what they thought they were going to build in their sheer craziness – can we have a picture please?), no Iraq the Light Unto the Muslim Nations, no bringing "democracy" to "ordinary moms and dads" in the Middle East, none of it. Just a sober understanding that the instruments of Jihad are many, that the threat is worldwide (and most dangerously shown in the accelerating islamization of the advanced societies, the cultural heart of our civilization, without which the United States cannot survive in more than a physical sense, the lands of Western Europe). We must therefore exploit, wherever and whenever we can, the fissures within Islam or the Camp of Islam.
There are ethnic fissures: in Iraq the Arab vs. Non-Arab Muslim battle is between Arabs and Kurds. (In North Africa, and especially Algeria, it is between Arabs and Berbers). It is the Kurds, who now see their opportunity for independence, who can help provide an example, if they are successful, of a non-Arab Muslim people throwing off the Arab yoke. And in the effort to do so, the understanding will spread among the 80% of the world’s Muslims who are not Arabs, that Islam has always been, and always will be, despite its universalist pretensions, a vehicle for Arab linguistic, cultural, economic, and political imperialism.
Even more obviously present in Iraq is the main sectarian fissure within Islam, that between Sunnis and Shi’a. This split dates back to the first century of Islam. Those who, like the inimitable Dinesh D’Souza, claim it is “merely” a “political” rather than a “religious” split, appear not to realize that the religious and the political are one within Islam. For as Bernard Lewis never tires of repeating (the same Lewis whom Dinesh D’Souza claims to have read with such attention, needing no other authority), the doctrine of “render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s” is an idea that permits the sundering of political and religious authority in the Christian West, an idea that makes no sense to Muslims, or in Islam. The Shi’a having a long history of enduring, over many centuries, at times only contumely and discrimination, and at times persecution and murder at the hands of the Sunnis. In the history of modern Iraq, it has been mostly persecution, and more recently, murder.
And finally there is the clear economic division between Haves and Have-Nots. The oil-rich Arabs lead lives of luxury and languor, the result of an accident of geology, not of any industry or enterprise on their part. And this is in contrast to the impoverished state of those Arabs and other Muslims who do not possess that oil bonanza, and who, being Muslims, are incapable of the kind of enterprise and energy that the development of modern economies require. For inshallah-fatalism inhibits economic activity. Look at any country where there are significant numbers of both Muslims and non-Muslims. Look at Malaysia, and which group is responsible for economic development in that country, or at Indonesia, or at Lebanon, or at Nigeria. Look at the massive exploitation of the welfare states of western Europe, not by “immigrants” in general (not the Chinese, not the Vietnamese, not the Hindus) but by one specific group: Muslims, and not in this or that country alone, but in every Infidel land of Western Europe, no matter what its history or current political setup, or benefits offered. Despite the fact that the oil-rich Arabs and Muslims have been the beneficiaries of the greatest transfer of wealth in human history, far outreaching anything received by all the colonial powers through all the years of colonialism, amounting since 1973 to ten trillion dollars, it is not they, but we the Infidels, who have somehow become responsible, or who have allowed ourselves, in a moment of distraction or semi-dementia, to think that we somehow should be responsible, for their economic disarray. For we supply money and goods and services of all kinds to the non-oil-endowed Arab and Muslim states. Those receiving such foreign aid take it as by right, and show not gratitude but continued undisguised hostility to those giving them that aid. And the givers of such aid give it with alacrity, an eagerness to please, and with such fear of cutting or diminishing such aid lest the beneficiaries are angered and begin to behave in a manner still more hostile to the donors who have been trying, tugging at their metaphorical forelocks, to comply in every way with what those recipients of aid demand.
For the implication is always, as the Infidels fearfully see it, that if they don’t give such aid, then those Muslim recipients will do them harm, or even more harm than they now do them. Yes, those Infidels convince themselves, we’d better not stop that aid to those inculcated to hate us by their own sacred texts. One can almost hear in the background the aposiopetic threat of Neptune in the Aeneid, Book IV, when the God of the Sea shakes his triton and offers a dire warning, the “Quos Ego…” so carefully attended to in many a third-year Latin class. What we should be doing is not only cutting all aid to members of the Camp of Islam (and spending that money on efforts to alert the peoples of the West to the theory and practice of Islam), but publicly embarrassing the Arabs and Muslims by pointedly making clear that the poor members of the Umma should be seeking whatever aid they need from the rich members of the Umma, given that the Umma al-Islamiyya is the only community, for Muslims, that counts, and where all that blague and blah about “social justice” should be duly noted, and the loyalty of rich Muslims to poor ones should be put to the public test. Yes, why isn’t Saudi Arabia, why aren’t the Emirates, why isn’t Kuwait, really sharing the wealth with the rest of the “Arab Nation” or the “Umma al-Islamiyya”?
Iraq presents us clearly with two of those three main fissures. Those two are, for the thousandth time at this website, the sectarian and the ethnic fissures within the Camp of Islam that long pre-date our entry to Iraq -- pre-date the founding of the American Republic, in fact, by a thousand years. We need do nothing to "encourage" those fissures. We have in fact done everything we can to prevent them, to engender a spirit of sweet reason and compromise that shows how little we comprehend the belief-system of Islam, which nowhere inculcates the spirit of sweet reason and compromise, but everywhere quite a different view of the universe, in which peoples are divided between Believers and Unbelievers -- the rightful victors, and the rightfully vanquished. But of course, our leaders haven't bothered, or are incapable of finding advisers able to explain to them, what Islam's tenets, and attitudes, and atmospherics, are all about. Such people exist -- you can find a few of them right at this website. The government might have saved American taxpayers a cool $500 or $600 or $700 or $800 billion, had it chosen to listen to such people and to begin to fashion policies based on some understanding of the need to identify the instruments of Jihad (and stop focusing on this "war on terror"), and to render them less effective. It might also have then ceased the obsessive and obsessed attempt to make Iraq into something it never could have been, and had it been, had that goal been achieved, it would have worked against the Infidels, and promoted only unity within the Camp of Islam.
It is not, however, too late.
Victory, rightly understood (as being defined as any acts which weaken, by demoralizing, or dividing, and using up the resources and attention that might otherwise be devoted, directly or indirectly to Jihad, the Camp of Islam) Stands Shining Before Us. It has been before us for several years. But Victory, in one of those seeming paradoxes, can only be achieved If Only We Get Out.
Posted by Hugh at April 5, 2007 9:30 AM
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PURE SPECULATION
A US withdrawal from Iraq could result in a plethera of unforseen consequences and outcomes, many of them inimical to the national security interests of the USA.
The vaccuum created by US withdrawal will be filled by the extremists, both Sunni and Shia. They may indeed fight it out with each other. Or, they may come to terms and divide up the spoils of a potentially very rich country.
And leaving Iraq essentially ends any US ability to effect the fate of the Iraqi Kurds. Don't be at all surprised if the ensuing Civil War in Iraq turns out not to be between Shia and Sunni, but between radical Arabs of both persuasions...and the Kurds.
Things may go exactly the way Hugh sees them. But there are infinite variables. There is a distinct possibility that Iraq may become 'Terror Incorporated,' not at war with itself as it is today, but as the center of a new Caliphate, toppling moderate neighbors like King Abdullah in Jordan, that same pro-Western monarch that Hugh sees no benefit in aiding. The implications for Israeli security in such a scenario are hsrd to ignore.
The only thing that can be said for certain is that leaving Iraq to its own devices will save American lives and treasure. Anything beyond that is pure speculation.
Posted by: Cornelius![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 5, 2007 10:01 AM
There's victory and then there's defeat.
Hugh, your counsel is of defeat.
We are not losers.
As the West begins to comprehend the evil at the core of islam, the good thing is that we are less likely to be taken in by "liberation" groups of Iranians, Algerians, Indonesians, claiming projected national enlightenment when their cursed people will "democratically" vote for sharia or some other abomination.
A lot of this is due to this invaluable website.
But victory is not defeat and defeat is not victory.
We will win Hugh, despite your conflicted message.
Posted by: dgene at April 5, 2007 10:12 AM
Hugh Fitzgerald!
Your essay, I believe, has convinced me that sending more Americans to walk before the Jihadists like ducks in a shooting gallery is nuts. Leave now and only come back with hate in our eyes.
The only solution is to let these crazies kill themselves.
The attitude of "more rubble, less trouble," makes a lot of sense. This will be our response the next time these arshes do something here. At least, I hope so.
Happy Easter and God Bless from a fundamentalist Christian.
Posted by: Crusader at April 5, 2007 10:20 AM
I'm not sure I agree with Hugh--it'll take some time to really digest his post but I do take his point that dismantling the iraqi war machine and toppling (and capturing)saddam was a victory.
Another point--our 'surge' may well effectively calm (stifle) some hostilities but when we pull back, won't the bad actors just resume their mischief?
Posted by: turn at April 5, 2007 10:21 AM
BTW, Mr. Fitzgerald, your prose is excellent!
at April 5, 2007 10:22 AM
The first thing need to do is accept the fact that whether we leave tomorrow or in 10 years, the Shia/Sunni civil war is going to take place.
The real question is how do we keep it from spreading out of the immediate area and impacting non-Sunni/Shia combatants.
My suggestion would be evacuate nonmuslims form Iraq, pull our troops to the borders to prevent Iran, Syria, Saudi from getting involved, and protect the Kurds from getting pulled in, and then set up a government with whomever is left.
Altough tragic, the massive loss of Iraqi life is inevitable. So let's try to keep it contained in Iraq.
At least this way, the loss of life will be muslim fighters and not coalition troops.
at April 5, 2007 10:34 AM
"Altough tragic, the massive loss of Iraqi life is inevitable"
....The Muslims do not consider the loss of Muslim tragic....It is considered honorable and acceptable to die as a Muslim...(even if another Muslim kills you)...
at April 5, 2007 10:58 AM
There's victory and then there's defeat.
"Hugh, your counsel is of defeat.
We are not losers.
As the West begins to comprehend the evil at the core of islam, the good thing is that we are less likely to be taken in by "liberation" groups of Iranians, Algerians, Indonesians, claiming projected national enlightenment when their cursed people will "democratically" vote for sharia or some other abomination.
A lot of this is due to this invaluable website.
But victory is not defeat and defeat is not victory.
We will win Hugh, despite your conflicted message."
-- from a poster above
Take that entire posting above. Read it. Re-read it. Try to find in it a single reference to Islam as a world-wide threat. Try to find in it a single mention of the islamization of Western Europe, or a hint of what is happening or has happened in the southern Sudan, in southern Nigeria (during the Biafra War and since), in southern Thailand. See if there is any attempt in that posting to explain just how a "unified Iraq" obviously to be dominated by the Shi'a, could conceivably serve as a "model" for Sunni Arab states or peoples. See if there is any attempt to link the outcome apparently still desired by the Administration -- an Iraq where the parties are capable, though Muslim, of exhibiting a willingness to compromise and sweet-reasonbleness, Western-democracy-style, that no Muslim state or people have ever exhibited, either in dealing with domestic opposition, or with other states, whether Muslim or Infidel.
Try to find in that posting -- which is merely one example of tens or hundreds of thousands that represent the last gasp of the Bush loyalists -- to the specific history and makeup and current condition of Iraq, and its ethnic and sectarian fissures that long predate our entry (by about 1300 years).
Try to find, in that posting, any facts or logic.
Instead you will find such remarks as this, repeated with variants, ad nauseam:
"counsel of defeat...we are not losers..."
And let me end with my favorite:
"victory is not defeat and defeat is victory."
Q.E.D.
Apparently, that does it. Utterly convincing case made, and case closed. We can now all go home.
Posted by: Hugh at April 5, 2007 10:58 AM
“A US withdrawal from Iraq could result in a plethera of unforseen consequences and outcomes, many of them inimical to the national security interests of the USA.” Posted by Cornelius.
In “Yes, Prime minister” Sir Humphrey when asked What unforeseen consequences it would lead to, answers: “They would not be unforeseen if I could foresee them”.
Hugh analyses – Cornelius speculates. Analysis is based on the known facts, speculation is baseless. Notice that Hugh makes a definition of “victory” and none of his opponents does.
Mr. Fitzgerald, you impressed me again. Who reads Virgil in our time?!
at April 5, 2007 11:06 AM
Right on, Hugh. I'd like to see a special pedagogical effort directed at our military men and women who have served in Iraq, who have experienced islamic savagery and treachery up close and personal, and who might want to learn just why they could not, despite their truly heroic efforts, win those hearts and minds. I believe those brave men and women will be some of the best allies we could possibly have in defense of Western civilization.
Posted by: Infidel33 at April 5, 2007 11:06 AM
Although there is much to think about and ultimately to agree with in the above essay, the withdrawal that is proposed does not take into account the situation of the non-Moslems in Iraq. Non-Moslems have suffered from murder, rape and extortion thorughout the region and to leave now would seem to exacerbate an already horrible situation.
What about the formation of an Assyrian homeland in Iraq, an independent region friendly to Western interests in which Assyrians would form the majority and which would be declared a Shariah-free zone? This would 1) provide a safe, or at least much safer, environment for non-Moslems 2) slow and then reverse the flow of the native non-Moslem population form that region 3) weaken the Ummah by reclaiming territory taken centuries ago by force 4) set a proper example for other regions presently seeing a decline in non-Moslem populations due to force and intimidation 5) demonstrate to the adjacent, benighted Moslem populations that progress is possible, but not by means of their ideology. All of this would require military back-up, back-up that the West could provide at considerably less expense than the present case in greater Iraq , with the extra advantage that the West would be provided with with friendly bases of operation should the need arise to deploy elsewhere.
Balkanization in the Balkans is not such a good idea, but I think it's just fine for the Middle East.
Posted by: Chatillon at April 5, 2007 11:10 AM
The gravest single problem western nations face, surely, is the threat from an already esconced vanguard that Islam has been steadily infiltrating into all our countries, by, if there is some such thing as a central planning committee within Islam (eg the Brotherhood or whatever). Although their Koran itself is good enough as a stand alone 'committee' for that purpose I suppose. All they have to do is prevent any further harm to Infidels, playing on our desire for 'peace' at almost any cost - for the time being at least, say one or two generations - allowing time for the not so invisible 'sleepers' to gain strength in numbers, get themselves elected (using our own systems), then when they are in a position to take over, they will. Arab-controlled oil money has, and presumably will continue to permeate as much of our infrastructure as it can, so the process for them should be a cakewalk.
Then God help us.
Posted by: jake
at April 5, 2007 11:22 AM
I disagree with Fitzgerald on Iraq.
Its time to list the +'s and minuses. Not just the minuses.
Saddam would have had atomic weapons within a year of his demise per the Duelfer report and the 9/11 Commission. Do we just deny that?
Who lobbed Scuds into Israel during the Gulf War.
Israel may be off the map by now and we may be fighting China and Russia. Who knows positively??
Mr. Kahn the mad nuclear suitcase peddling scientist from Pakistan would likely still be moving about.
Elections in Lebanon.
Elections in Iraq. Maybe one time one vote but then maybe not. The vote in Iraq. Iraq is not like Saudi Arabia our real insidious enemy.
Kids are going to school. A Hopeful sign
And more........ i.e. Islam is now recognized for the Murderous Cult it is. Witness radio and TV that were afraid to tackle this monster Islamic enemy early on after 9/11 even. They still got a ways to go but a good segment of the American people are wise to this CULT.
We are far ahead in this war and far faster if we had never gone into Iraq. I wish we had done Saudi Arabia also. SCUM! Bander and his traitorous wife are out of business.
If we walk now, Fitzgerald's fears will positively come true in virtually seconds. We may never keep up such pressure on the Islamic world again.
We are embedded right in the middle of the DEVIL.
We would have to start another war to be in this position. The Democrats who are already being taken over by Muslims (Ellison, and sympathizers like Sharpton, Conyers, Jefferson etc) are never going to fight Muslim evil. NEVER!
Posted by: paulc37
at April 5, 2007 11:35 AM
I don't think I'll bother. Ars longa vita brevis.
Posted by: Hugh at April 5, 2007 11:49 AM
Pong,
Hugh has indeed written about this subject many times. While his speculations in the lastest offering are implied, those in his past offerings were very explicit. For example, he forsees...
1) That Sunni and Shia extremists will consume each other in Civil War that will distract the Muslim world from its Jihad against the West
My response: Very possible. Also possible is that they could reach a compromise and divide the spoils...or even unite under a radical that was acceptable to both. The Sunni-Sia divide is indeed religious, but it has been subsumed many times in history over other issues; e.g., Sunni and Shia alike fought together against the Crusaders; Shia Iran is assisting Sunni radicals in Iraq and Palestine. There is no immutable law of history that says they can'r make common cause or at the very least, co-exist.
2) That the USA could withdraw from Iraq and yet protect the Iraqi Kurdish polity that is still emerging from the ashes of Saddam's regime.
My response: Entirely unrealistic. Regardless of how Hugh sees things, once the last helicoptor has evacuated the last embassy employee and Iraq falls into unfriendly hands, the American public will perceive our withdrawal as defeat....and will have no stomach to re-intervene on behalf of the Kurds.
3) The USA can pressure the Turks into not only accepting an independent Iraqi Kurdish polity, but one that lops off the Kurdish portions of Iran and Syria, leaving Turkish Kurdistan as the last unincorporated vestige outside 'Greater Kurdistan.'
My response: Entirely unrealistic. The Turks are not going to kowtow to an America that is running away from its commitments in the region. They are even less likely to help the Kurds establish an independent nation that threatens to eventually usurp the Kurdish portion of southwestern Turkey.
The Turks have an enunciated policy of threatening military intervention should the Iraqi Kurds declare independence. I take their enunciated policy at face value. Hugh apparently doesn't.
Summing up, Hugh Fitzgerald wants to see America withdraw from Iraq. Doing so will save American lives and treasure. I have no problem with this analysis.
What comes after could be anybody's guess. Hugh puts a sanguine spin on it. My own view is much more pessimistic. In my mind, it stands to reason that America's walking away from Iraq will leave the field to the extremists. And that cannot be good for the region or for the world.
Posted by: Cornelius at April 5, 2007 11:56 AM
Should be southEASTERN Turkey of course
Posted by: Cornelius at April 5, 2007 11:59 AM
Anecdotal datapoint:
We went to the neighbor’s last night. They have children in theater and were outspoken about expressing their kid’s thoughts. Two nights ago their son’s patrol cleared 27 ‘homes’, this is a typical number. Filthy conditions, garbage everywhere.
The feeling is that the mission isn’t doing any good and that, if Iraqis want to kill other Iraqis, it is none of our business. The men come back and see the ‘American Street’ as not caring. Reportedly, morale is not good. These parents are under the impression that the feelings are widespread.
Thoughts with the men on the ‘pointy end’, be they British, American, or whoever. They will be national assets as we kick this can down the road.
at April 5, 2007 12:01 PM
"And leaving Iraq essentially ends any US ability to effect [sic] the fate of the Iraqi Kurds. Don't be at all surprised if the ensuing Civil War in Iraq turns out not to be between Shia and Sunni, but between radical Arabs of both persuasions...and the Kurds."
-- from the first posting by "Cornelius" above
Really? So if the Americans are not on the ground in Iraq, they have no way of helping the Kurds, no conceivable way "to effect [sic] the fate of the Iraqi Kurds"?
Could have fooled me.
Do you have any recollection, any dim memory, of the Americans not being anywhere on the ground in Iraq between 1991 and 2003, and yet through the mere threat to use its air power, managing to keep Saddam Hussein's forces effectively out of Kurdish territory, for without his control of the air he could not bring to bear his power on the pesh merga?
Does that ring a bell?
Posted by: Hugh at April 5, 2007 12:30 PM
HUGH: "Do you have any recollection, any dim memory, of the Americans not being anywhere on the ground in Iraq between 1991 and 2003, and yet through the mere threat to use its air power, managing to keep Saddam Hussein's forces effectively out of Kurdish territory, for without his control of the air he could not bring to bear his power on the pesh merga?
Does that ring a bell?"
RESPONSE: Indeed. And it was all accomplished out of airbases in Turkey. Isn't it not only possible but probable that the Turks, adamant in their opposition to an independent Iraqi Kurdistan, would deny us their airspace to preclude such an eventuality in a post US-Iraq?
Posted by: Cornelius at April 5, 2007 1:04 PM
The assessment is incorrect in victory or defeat. I will repeat what Fouad Ajami stated in his interviews, in Iraq research and conclusion of actual on the ground happenings in Iraq which he revealed on the BBC World News last week. (This happens to dovetail exactly what my conversations with people on the ground in Iraq are saying as I have not been there in 6 months.)
First, Iraq in the center is now grounded as a governing people.
Second, Ajami in interviews has found that the Sunni and Shia tit for tat is not that great of influence on Iraqi's and will not win out.
Third, The Iraqi's have developed a very strong nationalism for their nation which means they might ask each other if they are Sunni, Kurd, Shia, Christian, but the prefix of all questions is IRAQI Sunni, IRAQI Kurd, IRAQI Shia and IRAQI Christian.
The government in Iraq is no more corrupt, murderous nor insane than the American government which sits today. Pelosi wearing a scarf and sipping tea thinking she is president while talking to a terrorist and making up things Olmert of Israel said is but one example.
The center in Iraq is winning out and is growing. The Kissingers or some dupe publishing their tail between their legs account which feeds a media looking for failure are but shills for the globalists whose sole intent is to put a Saddam back into Iraq so they can rape billions from the oil revenues.
The time period is now coming though that 3000 Americans dying in security operations in 5 years are going to seem a Godsend as WMD's will be unleashed by terrorist states and their proxies because people complaining about Iraq a failure have so weakened President Bush a real war is being fomented to drive America from the region.
This is not about Iraq, this is not about Iran, this is not about Islam. This is about a globalist banking communist cartel of diverse mafia type bodies who joined together to make covert war upon America to drive the US out of the Middle East in their using oil as the weapon to Stalinize all of Eurasia.
These powers will turn loose just enough WMD to pollute the Middle East, so they can send in their fodder to die. The big world war comes after this and America at that point will be hemmed in so much that the Russians will strike with ICBM's to cripple the USA as the proxy invasions will not work.
This is why President Bush is doing what he is doing and setting up policy to prepare for this worse case. I know this, because I have had enough contact with the administration and since that conversation have noted the policies I submitted were in part being put into effect.
President Bush knows what he is doing. Knows this is not Iraq and while 99.99% of the people are discussing the pawn move today by Ahmadinejad, the President, Vice President and other key figures now coming onto station have this chess match planned out 6 moves and 5 years from now.
For the record, the US is already exploiting the fissures and I will not elaborate any further, but this is not just about the one square of Iraq as it entails a global board of which Iraq is a part of. Iraq is a victory. Iraq is a success and as one does not give up a rook once it is in their hands the President is not going to give up Iraq as those Iraqi's might just be an army in a time coming that people will be thankful it is them fighting along side the United States.
The real game is only just beginning.
Posted by: Lame Cherry at April 5, 2007 1:52 PM
Cornelius.
Sunni and Shia are united now against ‘the new crusade” and celebrate death of westerners with an equal enthusiasm. The Sunni-Shia division is not only religious, it is also political. I agree there is no law of history they can not make a common cause, but facts point to another direction.
Kurds hardly need any protection. The situation has changed. No need for Turkey to cooperate. Afghanistan can be a base. Kurds are already independent country as a matter of fact. Turkey understands that, but unable to do anything about it.
The main reason America should leave is that there is no way a democratic nation of Iraq can be established. First of all there is no Iraqi nation and second – there is no concept of democracy.
Iraq and all of the middle east can be made peaceful within a period of a few months. All Muslim world can be made quite if we name the enemy and deal with them as they deserve. We don’t have to nuke them, but they should know that we can do it if needed.
To stay in Iraq could have made sense, if we had the courage to do what has to be done, but we do not. It is not the loss of lives of American soldiers I am concerned about, but the senseless, unnecessary losses going on in the war which can not be won.
at April 5, 2007 1:59 PM
I agree with almost everything Hugh writes but I have a question: What is the reason that official America does not understand all these things,which is the weak point in American thinking.It can not be simply the liberals,or the left etc.Not with this very conservative administration.
at April 5, 2007 2:22 PM
"What is the reason that official America does not understand all these things,which is the weak point in American thinking."
-- from a posting above
Google "Jihad Watch" and "Posted by Hugh" and "Esdrujula Explanation."
To wit:
Timidity
Stupidity
Cupidity
Rigidity
Mix-'n-match depending on the public or semi-public figure involved, from the highest level right on down to the dinesdsouza level:
Here are 23 possibilities, just to get you started:
Jimmy Carter
Zbigniew Brzezinski
James Akins
Raymond Close
Andrew Kilgore
Eugene Bird
Edward Walker
James Baker
John Connally
Madeline Albright
Bill Clinton
Robert Mueller
Michael Scheuer
Chuck Hagel
Joseph Lieberman
Fred Dutton
Lt. Gen. William Odom (ret'd.)
John Esposito
Yvonne Haddad
Dinesh D'Souza
Karen Hughes
Dick Cheney
George Bush Sr.
George Bush Jr.
Your {Senator, Congressman} here
In some cases you may find that only one of the esdrujulas will apply. For James Akins, or Raymond Close, I think "Cupidity" will do nicely (same for Kilgore and Eugene Bird and others in that galere). For Karen Hughes, I think "Stupidity" alone suffices to explain.
In the cases of Cheney and Bush, I would have to go with all four -- Cupidity, Timidity, Rigidity, Stupidity.
Go ahead. Have fun. Add names at will and then assign one or more of the Esdrujula Explanations.
Idea for Party Game:
At your next gathering or soiree, why not have each guest make a list of fifty names of people prominent in American (or if you wish, European or Western) public life. They can be present or past government officials, elected or appointed. They can be journalists. They can have been diplomats or intelligence agents. Now take the various categories of the Esdrujula Explanation, and match each name to one or more of those categories.
Be sure to list, on the 3 by 5 cards that your hosts will conveniently provide along with a supply of freshly-sharpened pencils (either Ticonderoga or Eberhard Faber will do, but they must be #2), the reasons for assigning such and such a category. If you assign "Stupidity" as the reason for Karen Hughes' view of Islam, and her Outreach Plans, you must be prepared to defend your choice, and to accept criticism of it. If you assign "Cupidity" as the reason for John Esposito's decades-long apologetics for Islam, be prepared to offer reasons for that choice.
If, when it comes to the present President, you find you wish to explain his behavior on the basis of Stupidity, Timidity, Rigidity, and also Cupidity, offer supporting evidence for each.
Should be fun. For the whole family. For your wide and growing circle of friends and acquaintances.
Let us know how the evening turns out.
Posted by: Hugh at April 5, 2007 2:59 PM
Here, depressingly (because it's more than a year old, and the Administration nor its fiercest critics appear to have learned a thing about Islam) is a posting that mentions the Esdrujula Explanation:
"That any state that oppresses non-Muslims or denies them equality of rights in any way will receive no American aid whatsoever."
-- from the article above
But what about that Islamic school in Indonesia with all those smiling children (even those cutely hijabbed little girls) who surrounded Condoleeza Rice, and that American taxpayers are so delighted to be supporting, because, she apparently believes, they must share the Bush Administration's conviction that this is the way to go, for "moderate" Islam is always and everywhere to be encouraged. She is quite wrong. The American public is far beyond the Administration in grasping that there is something about Islam that needs to be discussed, and not made the object of ostentatious avoidance or misrepresentation.
The Bush-Rice policy is based on ignorance of Islam, rigidity -- possibly born of embarrassment at the magnitude of the waste and failure of the messianic policy to turn Iraq into a Light Unto the Muslim Nations, timidity about facing up to the kind of responsiblities, especially toward the Europeans, that a full recognition of the nature of the menace posed by the belief-system of Islam would entail, and finally, an inability -- much overlooked and underestimated -- to use words well, so as to frame things correctly, to identify, even using the art of obliquity and indirection where necessary, to get out the right message -- to Infidels and to Believers alike.
Because of this timidity and rigidity and stupidity and cupidity (For Spanish, Press 1. For English, Press 2. Now, whether you have pressed either 1 or 2, do google "The Esdrujula Explanation" and "Posted by Hugh" on your lunch hour. Thank you.) of successive American administrations, it is now established policy, for the current Adminisetration, that nothing can be said or done to offend those "moderates" within Islam so that they do not, in reaction, metamorphose into "immoderates," the current possessors of power in Wahsington have decided that they must never ever identify for the good of the public, the members of that public being those to whom that American government has a duty to protect, and, when necessary, in cases of widespread ignorance and confusion about the nature and scope and duration of the menace, a duty to instruct as well.
Rice is hopeless. Bush is hopeless. They are hallucinators. They did not know a thing about Islam on 9/11/2001. That is okay. That is explicable. But what is not explicable, is that on the Ides of March, 2006, they still appear not to know very much. Not enough. Not nearly enough.
And that is not okay.
That is unacceptable.
[Posted by: Hugh at March 15, 2006 12:25 PM]
at April 5, 2007 3:10 PM
Here, depressingly (because it's more than a year old, and the Administration nor its fiercest critics appear to have learned a thing about Islam) is a posting that mentions the Esdrujula Explanation:
"That any state that oppresses non-Muslims or denies them equality of rights in any way will receive no American aid whatsoever."
-- from the article above
But what about that Islamic school in Indonesia with all those smiling children (even those cutely hijabbed little girls) who surrounded Condoleeza Rice, and that American taxpayers are so delighted to be supporting, because, she apparently believes, they must share the Bush Administration's conviction that this is the way to go, for "moderate" Islam is always and everywhere to be encouraged. She is quite wrong. The American public is far beyond the Administration in grasping that there is something about Islam that needs to be discussed, and not made the object of ostentatious avoidance or misrepresentation.
The Bush-Rice policy is based on ignorance of Islam, rigidity -- possibly born of embarrassment at the magnitude of the waste and failure of the messianic policy to turn Iraq into a Light Unto the Muslim Nations, timidity about facing up to the kind of responsiblities, especially toward the Europeans, that a full recognition of the nature of the menace posed by the belief-system of Islam would entail, and finally, an inability -- much overlooked and underestimated -- to use words well, so as to frame things correctly, to identify, even using the art of obliquity and indirection where necessary, to get out the right message -- to Infidels and to Believers alike.
Because of this timidity and rigidity and stupidity and cupidity (For Spanish, Press 1. For English, Press 2. Now, whether you have pressed either 1 or 2, do google "The Esdrujula Explanation" and "Posted by Hugh" on your lunch hour. Thank you.) of successive American administrations, it is now established policy, for the current Adminisetration, that nothing can be said or done to offend those "moderates" within Islam so that they do not, in reaction, metamorphose into "immoderates," the current possessors of power in Wahsington have decided that they must never ever identify for the good of the public, the members of that public being those to whom that American government has a duty to protect, and, when necessary, in cases of widespread ignorance and confusion about the nature and scope and duration of the menace, a duty to instruct as well.
Rice is hopeless. Bush is hopeless. They are hallucinators. They did not know a thing about Islam on 9/11/2001. That is okay. That is explicable. But what is not explicable, is that on the Ides of March, 2006, they still appear not to know very much. Not enough. Not nearly enough.
And that is not okay.
That is unacceptable.
[Posted by: Hugh at March 15, 2006 12:25 PM]
at April 5, 2007 3:11 PM
Another appearance of the Esdrujula business, in a past posting, about choosing people to fill faculty slots in Departments of Middle Eastern Studies, that refers to the Esdrujula Period of academic existence, when the Muslim dabashis and massads and saids and bahranis and safis and their willing non-Muslim collaborators, the espositos and ernsts and sells and beinins and all the rest, still dominated and manipulated the agenda at what they all regarded, these academic uomini d'onore, these calculating tenured goombahs, as MESA Nostra.
Here it is:
September 06, 2006
Fitzgerald: Take the very best one
TEHERAN, Iran - Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on Tuesday for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from the country’s universities, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported in another step back to 1980s-style radicalism.
"Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities," the agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during a meeting with a group of students. – from this news article
Take the very best one. Take the one who is close to recognizing that the problem is not the regime, nor the "mullahs," but is rooted within Islam itself, and what Islam does, and the attitudes and atmospherics that Islam creates. Take the real thing, the "moderate" who is on his way to becoming Ali Sina, rather than the "moderate" who is on his way to continuing to seek for that demmed elusive "true" Islam -- the Islam that has no Jihad, no claim to stake on the entire world, no division of the universe between Believer and Infidel, no right to so cruelly mistreat all non-Muslims according not to a cruel ruler's whim but according rather to the Holy Law of Islam, the Shari'a. For civilized people now understand and view it as just that: cruel mistreatment.
Take that person and bring him to, say, Columbia University. Make room for him by getting rid of at least one or two of the "construction-of-Palestinian-nationalism" boys. Get rid, for example, of as-yet untenured Joseph Massad. Make conditions for the others who managed to be tenured in the Esdrujula Period, that period of timidity and cupidity and stupidity during which there was a wholesale failure to detect, much less oppose, the Long March of Propagandists, both Muslims and non-Muslims (Carl Ernst, Michael Sells, Bruce Lawrence) for the Lesser and Greater Jihads through the ranks of MESA Nostra -- until American universities, and their students, must endure the situation in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies that we all know so well today.
It is hard to slowly divest oneself -- off, off, you lendings from the PLO office in Beirut -- of such people as Khalidi and the inimitable panegyrist Hamid Dabashi, but perhaps they can be forced out, the way, one suspects, the permanently nasty and far too un-Lebanese Rami Khouri has been eased out of "The Daily Star." His disgraceful views on Hezbollah must have gotten to Michael Young. But of course he will now be heading a specially funded Arab propaganda effort, one more of those pretend think-tanks designed to support Islam and the local Jihads.
With the money no longer going to the likes of Massad, or possibly Khalidi and Dabashi, hire that one Iranian. Let him show the students that there is more to the culture of Iran than the movies that Dabashi likes to show. (And what would Kierostami think of Dabashi's Ode to Edward Said?) Let him actually give the students Sa'adi, Hafiz, Firdousi, Omar Khayyam to read, and also explain how very un-Islamic most of them were, and how they detected the Arab supremacism within Islam that made it so antipathetic to them.
Don't choose, please, one of those mere "moderates" who just thinks the rabble has gotten the upper hand but who believes, with Daniel Pipes, that "moderate Islam" is the "solution." Take someone whom you are sure is almost there -- almost at the point of recognizing not that "Islam itself is not the problem, but only those who misinterpret it" (in some always unspecified way) but that core elements of Islam are the problem, and will always be the problem. Such an Iranian professor may be on his way to something else. He may possibly be in the process of rediscovering Zoroastrianism, for the purposes of having that damned "identity" that everyone in the Muslim world thinks everyone has to have, including himself, or perhaps of finding Christianity (on converts from Islam it always looks good). He may even be tasting the perils and pleasures of the obstinate non-believer.
Make room for that kind of hopeful duckling. But only by getting rid of at least a few of those myrmidons of MESA Nostra, taking up time, taking up space."
[Posted by Hugh at September 6, 2006 03:05 PM]
at April 5, 2007 3:16 PM
One more [ast appearance of Esdrujula, in the as part of the "Esdrujula Explanation of Current Affairs":
Fitzgerald: The "Palestinian" election, Iraq, and Iran:
"The election is between those who believe in the Lesser Jihad (Slow Version) and the Lesser Jihad (Fast Version). The Europeans contributed billions to Arafat, and were then joined by the Americans, who helped contribute a few billion more, with both promising more billions over the next three years (a promise that should be forgotten -- let the rich Arabs send the money to fellow Arabs, and have a bit less for mosques in the capitals of the West). In doing so they have only damaged the "Palestinians" -- if a Hamas victory is regarded as "damage" -- by supplying the very money that allowed the corrupt Arafat and his corrupt followers (every single one of them, including Abbas at the top of the list) with the money with which to be corrupt. If no pot of gold had been supplied to the "Palestinians," there would have been no corruption and stealing of greater or lesser shares of that pot.
It is amusing that among the unintended consequences of those disgusting jizyah-payments by the E.U. and the inveigled Americans is the strengthening of Hamas, which has thereby lessened, rather than increased, the plausibility and hence the appeal(for the outside world), of the camouflage of "Palestinian nationalism" provided to the Lesser Jihad. The dominance of Hamas, the flight of even those local islamochristians who thought that if only they parrotted, and deeply believed, the Muslim Arab hostlitiy toward Israel, that they would be safe (one more vain attempt by Christians within Dar al-Islam to protect themselves), helps to rip the pseudo-nationalist "legitimate-rights--of-the-Palestinian-people" veil right off the dead-to-the-world face of the Jihad beneath. That Jihad, the Lesser Jihad against tiny Israel, did not require much in the way of resources, and began long ago. It began, that is, before the three things happened that permitted the Arabs and Muslims to openly demonstrate their aggressive intent. Those three things were: one, the trillions in unearned, unmerited oil revenues; 2) the foolishly permitted migration of millions of Muslims behind enemy lines (to the Western world, to Infidel lands, to the Bilad al-kufr); third, technological advances made in the West and exploited by Muslims (audiocassettes, videocassettes, satellite channels, the Internet) helped make a reality of the permanent dream of a Greater Jihad.
So is it to be the Good-Government boys, with their bombs (put back in the rucksacks for now, so they can get on asking for more Infidel jizyah), or will it be the Bad-Government boys, Abbas and his crooks, whose only saving grace is that they are a little cleverer? Their timetable for Israel's destruction is somewhat less impatient, and their preferred means not the suicide-bomb, but everything and anything else. These means include demographic conquest, and steady pressure, diplomatic, economic, political, so that the Israelis will forget their own legal, historic, and moral claims, and forget -- as much of the rest of the world has too-easily allowed itself to forget -- that they are in the right, and the Muslim Arabs, with a thin veneer of islamochristians to present their case to the outside world -- in the wrong, the wrong, the very wrong.
And one wonders, too: if in the end Israel is thrown to the wolves (Iranian bomb, yawn some in the chanceries, and newspaper columns, of the West -- "we can learn to live with that." What do you mean by "we"?), just how indifferent will the West prove to be to the loss? What will the West say about this second mass-murder, in full view of everyone, of the Jews, the most persecuted, and most unoffending tribe, in human history?
And one more little question. Jerusalem and the rest of what Christians used to call (and some still do) the Holy Land might be erased by Muslim (perhaps Iranian) bombs, or be seized through conventional conquest, which might merely limit access to these lands that are so important to Christians everywhere. These lands can only be preserved for unimpeded Christian visits if Israel remains in existence, and in possession of those territories. The Western world shows no signs of wishing to field an army to protect those areas from Muslim destruction or seizure itself; so it will have to rely on Israel. And if the Holy Land is again taken over by Muslims, now with the full ideology of Islam let loose upon the world and within the minds of Muslims all over the world, what would such a loss mean for Christian morale, wherever Christians exist? What will it do to black Christians, for example, in sub-Saharan Africa, who are under constant pressure from local Muslims? What would it do in China, where many are interested in Christianity, pondering what it is that they need or think they need as solace against the unchained rush for riches in a China where Cupidity has become the new Party Line?
After nearly 2000 years, Jews in-gathered from Europe and the Middle East itself and rebuilt, against fantastic odds, their tiny country. They made Hebrew a living language. They did all those things the books say they did. They made the desert bloom (see "Palestine: Land of Promise," by Walter Clay Lowdermilk, agronomist from Liberty, North Carolina). They rescued Jews who were survivors of the Nazi death camps, and Jews from Baghdad and Yemen, Syria and Egypt, Ethiopia and Soviet Russia. That was the second Jewish state in the Land of Israel. If it is destroyed, there will be no third.
And what will this "Palestine" look like? It will look like Gaza. It will look like Ramallah. It will look like Yemen. It will look like Ramadi. It will look like what all the Arab oil states would look like if they didn't have that oil. It will take a while, but whatever had been built up will be destroyed.
Or, in the alternative, Iranian bombs, made possible by American stupidity and cupidity and timidity and rigidity (the Esdrujula Explanation of Current World Affairs) will destroy the land utterly. Americans, however, persist in putting all their eggs in the silly Iraqi basket, but the Easter Bunny in question has turned out to be related to Bre'r Rabbit. The big American "boots on the ground" effort to bring peace and harmony in Iraq, to make Kurd lie down with Arab and Sunni lie down with Shi'a, rather than leave and exploit those very ethnic and sectarian fissures that could resonate everywhere in the Muslim world, serving to divide and demoralize our permanent enemies, and help lead at least some of them (especially among the non-Arab Muslims resentful of the Arab supremacist ideology within Islam) out of the jihad nexus -- all this makes us, the mighty United States, into something of a Baby Huey figure, unwilling to figure out what is really going on, or what we should do. Or not Baby Huey, but -- to continue with the Joel Chandler Harris theme -- we have been transformed into Bre'r Bear himself.
And thanks to our monomaniacal and obstinate refusal to see how to pluck a kind of victory from the tarbaby of Iraq, and in sticking with this Light Unto the Muslim Nations Effort, we are missing the chance, missing the boat. You don't really think that our man "Zal" -- Zalmay Khalilzad -- could promote an exit so as to weaken Islam through those fissures he is trying to prevent from widening, do you? Why should anyone who claims to be a Muslim, no matter how weak or etiolated his faith, possibly be able to think in terms of weakening, dividing, demoralizing Muslims in order to further Infidel aims and secure Infidel goals? It is sheer madness to have a Muslim-American involved right now in Iraq -- oh yes, he's doing a heck of a job, as someone once said, but that heck of a job just isn't the job that should be done.
Result: Iraq dithers and so do the Americans, waiting to be told -- by the Iraqis -- when they "can leave." And Iran builds, and builds, and builds. And if they were Western rational men, as the Soviet rulers were, then one could perhaps believe that they would, if faced with retaliatory destruction, not ever use the bombs they may acquire. But that would be crazy. The entire history of the Muslim world shows a willingness to spend huge amounts, hundreds of billions, to focus every effort on the Jihad. The assumption that such people are "just like us" in the end is disproven by every suicide bomber and by every statement of Ahmadinejad and his fellows. When someone says he doesn't care about the casualties because the Islamic world can withstand a loss of a few millions or tens of millions, and it's worth it to destroy Israel (or anyone else similarly thought to be an affront to Islam), believe him. He means it. Khomeini meant what he wrote before the Islamic Revolution, and did exactly what he said he would do. Stop assuming that it isn't meant.
If Iran gets this bomb, think now of what Jerusalem and Bethlehem and Nazareth may look like in some not-distant future. Buildings in decay. Ruin and desolation, reminiscent of the kind universally reported on by Western travellers to the Holy Land in the early and mid-19th century. Possibly the lingering effects of radiation (half-life of Strontium 90 is 47.7 years, if memory serves) -- so if an intrepid reporter chooses to visit what is left of Jerusalem, he should be sure to bring his geiger counter. What Jews survived have departed, in those ships that took them wherever they could go -- oh, how embarrassed, how ashamed, were so many in the Western world. But -- they didn't know the Iranian government meant it. They couldn't believe it. They had no idea.
But it's not completely empty, that Holy Land. Around the ruins of the Temple Mount and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the one built on the site of the one destroyed upon the order of the Caliph al-Hakim in 1009), and the Mount of Olives, and Bethlehem, and all the other important sites, Jewish and Christian, there may be heard voices in chorus reciting Qur'anic verses or pseudo-Qur'anic verses of triumph. And now here they are, line after line, passing along in ranks in some imaginary parade-ground of your mind, coming closer still, goose-stepping in their black balaclavas and smartly clutching their kalashnikovs, while the handful of Jews and Christians who remain somewhere on the sidelines mutely cower, permanently cowed."
[Posted by Hugh at January 25, 2006 09:55 AM]
at April 5, 2007 3:33 PM
In any event I value criticism from you more than most, despite my disagreement.
Victory is when the other side cries uncle.
amen, let the military lose and destroy any trace of islam.
Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at April 5, 2007 4:13 PM
PONG: "Kurds hardly need any protection. The situation has changed. No need for Turkey to cooperate. Afghanistan can be a base. Kurds are already independent country as a matter of fact. Turkey understands that, but unable to do anything about it."
RESPONSE: Afghanistan is not contiguous with Iraqi Kurdistan. We would have to violate Iranian airspace to reach it. So that is an option that doesn't exist, or exists only insofar as it might breach war with Iran.
And Iraqi Kurdistan is NOT an independent polity, at least not formally. The Turks have drawn a line in the sand at a formal declaration of independence. I'm inclined to believe them. They'll accept an autonomous region as part of Iraq, but that's the limit. A premature US withdrawal from Iraq in all probability would mean either the end to the unitary state (facilitating Turkish intervention, either alone or in cooperation with Iran) or the triumph of a radical Islamist leadership that would preserve the state by repressing Kurdish (and other) freedoms.
I'll reiterate: If one wants to end the expenditure of American lives and treasure in Iraq, then Hugh's proposal makes perfect sense. If one wants to affect outcomes in the region, including the fate of the Iraqi Kurds, then withdrawal is hardly the mechanism to do so.
Posted by: Cornelius at April 5, 2007 4:16 PM
>Cornelius: And it was all accomplished out of >airbases in Turkey. Isn't it not only possible but >probable that the Turks, adamant in their >opposition to an independent Iraqi Kurdistan, would >deny us their airspace to preclude such an
>eventuality in a post US-Iraq?
Not to be too harsh, Cornelius, as I think you are on the same side as myself. However, I would advise you not to drink the koolaid that Turkey or Jordan are somehow "moderate" or friendly countries. Mein Kampf is a continual bestseller in Turkey, Jordan supports Hamas. If the Turks deny us airspace, we simply take it. We can cut off their aid, apply economic pressure to keep them out of the EU, and most importantly, cut off arms sales to them. "Turkey won't like it" simply isn't reason enough to keep us from making an independent Kurdistan a reality. F___ Turkey.
>I agree with almost everything Hugh writes but I >have a question: What is the reason that official >America does not understand all these >things,which is the weak point in American >thinking.It can not be simply the liberals,or the >left etc.Not with this very conservative >administration.
You make a very good point. Put simply: oil money. The recycling of petrodollars into the American corporate structure. The buying of influence by Saudis like Prince Waleed by buying shares in AOL and Fox Corp, from their oh-so-Pro-American allies like Murdoch. Wacky PC college professors have little clout, not nearly as much as folks like Bin Mahfooz, Soros, Othman, and the others who purchased clout with the Bushes through the Harkens and Arbustos of the world. Grover Norquist and Karl Rove are not leftists the last time I checked, nor is Brzezinski, or James Baker of the Iraq Study Group. The Juan Coles, Ward Churchills, ANSWER coalitions, Lynne Stewarts, Karen Armstrongs of the world would be like a fart in space if not backed by the Mighty Wurlitzer of very conservative, very connected, very corrupt CIA officials who are on the Saudi payroll. Read the book Terrorist Hunter by Rita Katz for more (a book that should be discussed and promoted by jihadwatch by the way). Look into Operation Green Quest and Talat Othman and Grover Norquist. Google Cat Stevens invitation to the Bush White House in his effort to channel "faith-based charity" money into certain Muslim "charities".
at April 5, 2007 4:19 PM
"'Esdrujula Explanation.'
To wit:
Timidity
Stupidity
Cupidity
Rigidity"
Timidity, stupidity and cupidity each can account for a particular action or inaction, a motivation or lack of coherence in motivation. Rigidity is of course not a motivation at all but is an outcome from the other three qualities, depending upon circumstances or people involved. It is not a stand-alone vice. When it is, it is simply a variation of stupidity. I therefore propose to replace "rigidity" with "treachery," although this may not fully satisfy the esdrujula segment of the explanation. But do any of the words on the list satisfy the esdrujula? No matter.
While there are individuals who are treacherous due to their greed and avarice, others who inadvertently become so because they're too silly or lazy to gather and consider facts before embarking on courses of action --or disembarking for that matter-- or there are those who through wishful thinking are willing to declare "Peace in Our Time" and thereby betray the possibility of peace in their time; while all of these possibilities exist, the origins of treachery are so plentiful as to make it worthy of list.
Posted by: Chatillon at April 5, 2007 4:34 PM
Zena:
I hope you meant let the army loose.
at April 5, 2007 4:55 PM
Just a brief aside, here. What I really, really fear is not so much the Bushites (GWBush will be President for only a little while longer -- then, he's gone) -- it's those OTHERS -- it's those Nancy Pelosi's who dress up in the hijabs, it's those screamin' Cindy Sheehans, it's the Michael Moores, etc, etc, etc. They, I consider, as part and parcel of "the jihad". They further and enhance the advance of Islamic jihad. And, what would happen in a speedy and hasty withdrawal from Iraq? wouldn't this be an instant energization of the Sheehans, and the Anglicans, and all the other (millions?) of Islam's appeasers/Dhimmis?
You know, I've read Hugh's prescriptive advice on how to defeat (or at least disrupt) the tide of Islam/Islamism sweeping the world -- it's excellent -- but, seriously, what chance at all exists that suddenly people will "get it"? As I laugh -- hey, the reality (and I'm not being "defeatist" -- just look around!) -- the Sheehans and the other Islamophiles (who just love Islam), will be multiplying, not dwindling. Thus, one can imagine the following scenario -- the Iraq civil war continues, unabated. and the Obama in office decides to let in gazillion "refugees" since, after all, the illegal war against Islam was started by Americans -- hence, Americans (according to the bible written by Ted Kennedy) are owing Iraqis. Thus, the U.S. (thanks to the newly elected Dhimocrats) gets a flood of Iraqis. And thus, the "quiet" jihad advances a hundred-fold...
I just don't want to see the Dhimocrats scoring a victory and prancing around saying, "I told ya so!" followed by yet more appeasement and "dialogue" to and with the savages.
Posted by: J.S. at April 5, 2007 5:02 PM
"Just a brief aside, here. What I really, really fear is not so much the Bushites (GWBush will be President for only a little while longer -- then, he's gone) -- it's those OTHERS "
The "others" could also be seen to be those with connections to Saudi oil, as the Bush family has, as James Baker has. Isn't is just possible that the next Republican candidate will have reached an entente with Saudi interests, even as the Democratic candidate will have? My fear is that Saudi money may be playing both sides against the middle in Western politics.
We're confronted not only with sanctimonious proponents of womens' or religious rights who somehow overlook egregious violations of same in dar al Islam. We're treated on the other side by declarations from our leaders that we're bringin' freedom to Iraq, while our leaders' own independence from Saudi influence is anything but clear.
Posted by: Chatillon at April 5, 2007 5:28 PM
ABU LAHAB: "Not to be too harsh, Cornelius, as I think you are on the same side as myself. However, I would advise you not to drink the koolaid that Turkey or Jordan are somehow "moderate" or friendly countries. Mein Kampf is a continual bestseller in Turkey, Jordan supports Hamas. If the Turks deny us airspace, we simply take it. We can cut off their aid, apply economic pressure to keep them out of the EU, and most importantly, cut off arms sales to them. "Turkey won't like it" simply isn't reason enough to keep us from making an independent Kurdistan a reality. F___ Turkey."
RESPONSE: Utter nonsense.
1) Jordan is indeed comparatively moderate compared to alternatives in the region. It is a country that has signed a peace treaty with Israel, that has established and maintained diplomatic relations with Israel, and has engaged in economic trade with Israel. Replace Jordan's government with a regime like Assad's Syria or Iran, and see how dynamics in the region would change for the worse.
2) F___ Turkey, eh? You aren't interested in fighting a rag-tag group of radical Islamists in Iraq, but you apparently are willing to go to war with the Turks, ostensible allies and armed with advanced American weaponry, over Iraqi Kurdistan. You might be, but the American public would never be.
Sorry, your views are so far from reality that they don't warrent serious consideration.
Posted by: Cornelius at April 5, 2007 6:46 PM
"Isn't is just possible that the next Republican candidate will have reached an entente with Saudi interests, even as the Democratic candidate will have?" Quite possibly. I guess it remains to be seen who will be running for the Republican party.
I think that there are some -- some even living in the United States -- who really hate the United States, and they hate the U.S. so much that they align themselves with Islam/Islamists. (You hear their thoughts all the time -- from the media), and I suspect that in their worldview (which tends to be very simple, very stark -- vivid blacks and whites -- Islam is perceived as being an "aggrieved" but "virtuous" victim, struggling to defend itself from "smears" and "violence" -- and the "bully" -- the evil and hideous and dark, but aggressive "wrong-doer" -- is the U.S. This is the "world" as perceived by many "liberals" (along with CAIR-types). And just because a GWBush leaves office -- the "jihad" mentality against the U.S. will not stop. Those who hate the U.S. will continue to use the "boogeyman" of GWBush to paint "Islam" as the "victim." (In this respect, I could only imagine the whining, given a civil war in Iraq, and how much the U.S. would be held up to blame -- no matter if GWBush is no longer in office -- the "evil" done to the "innocent" people of Iraq, is all America's "fault" -- and furthermore, this "evil" must be "rectified", must be "remedied" and we all know several means by which this could be accomplished (it'd would be a field day for CAIR -- "let's get iran the bomb -- that's the least we can do!! make the world safer for Islam! and, while we're at it, let's get more of those Muslim visa-students and refugees into the U.S., don't we owe it to them, after all we've put them through?"
Posted by: J.S. at April 5, 2007 7:01 PM
Cornelius....You obviously miss the BIG picture.This isn't about iraq and iraq alone.This is about ALL of islam.Every stinking one of them,individuals and states and nations.
It's about letting them foot the bills for thier own lives.How can an islamic King be a king when they provide for none than but themselves?
By us handing out aid and fistfulls of money turn after turn we have kept islam afloat,we keep breathing life into the monster that shouldn't be.
If we stopped providing for these people they will be forced to look toward thier leaders for what we give them now.That means instead of Saudi arabia building mosques here they are forced to feed thier people there.That means instead of these freak terrorist running around in other lands reaking havoc they will be doing so in thier lands against thier masters who choose to dictate every aspect of thier lives.
We have given it the old college try.We allowed them to come here and better themselves instead they took offence that it's not up to (or down to) islamic standards.Perhaps they have a mistaken ( where does this come from) idea of what our aid is for? Obviously our leaders forget what aid is for.Aid is to help uplift someone from dispair,to get them back on thier own two feet.IT IS NOT a way of life.And you surely shouldn't expect others to foot the bill for those who wish to have a basketball team for a family.
We (the west) circle the toilet because we didn't bother to flush decades ago.We continue to use the toilet with no plans on flushing in the future either.Who will pay this price?All of us.Dems,reps,liberals,lefts ,rights and those who couldn't care less at all.
You surely do miss the big picture because if it was really desired we could end this whole thing and regain our respect back and then some.
Like i always say islam is surrounded with it's back to the sea.All we have to do is find the right people with the clue and stand up.
I don't know about you but i don't feel the need to be the worlds hero or even islams hero,especially islams hero.It's a title that i fear doesn't wear well with someone with an iota of morality and self respect.
Heres one for you.Israel probably cares more for and gives more to the palistinians than saudi arabia or iran or kuwait or egypt does.Yet it is these people who claim to speak for the palistinians.Who demand israel to give in to thier demands.The only money recieved by palistine from these fools is blood money,war money, suicide money,The west IS palistines economy.Why don't the arabs and persians and kuwaities foot this bill? Why us?For how much longer? Shouldn't we own palistine by now?Wheres the American flag soaring over the castle in palistine?It's American blood sweat and tears keeping it afloat,not palistinians not saudies,not egyptians.
The whole picture is to leave islam to islam and the ones here are given ultimatams.To intergrate,become productive and upstanding citizens,clean up the mosques and islam itself or get out.
It's easy to get over hurt feelings they have five prayers a day to help them through it.It's not possible to get over being dead,nevermind dieing for ingrates and unappeasables.
Also the money spent on the wars could have been a great start to leaving the oil behind,leave the black gold with the black hearts.
Posted by: Dar al-harb at April 5, 2007 7:11 PM
Agree with Hugh about Iraq & Afghanistan.Always
have & know he has taken a lot of flak from redneck posters with his honest views of a hopeless situation-King Canute could no more hold
back the waves than the U.S establish a Western Style Democracy among Moslems.
Get Real,folks!Let 'em fight out & reduce pool of Jihadis in 'fragrant blood sacrifices' just as their Demon Allah wants.
Let the Kurds have a Homeland at last.Turkey is neither secular or democratic but does have threat of 70 million pious Islamists waiting to establish a new Ottoman Empire.Saudi Arabia's foul & corrupt Royals should be toppled also.
When this merry lot of Moslems are weakened by their slaughtering is time to move iN and RECLAIM
CONSTANTINOPLE from Turks-guess Armenia NEEDS HER LAND BACK TOO.
at April 5, 2007 7:56 PM
It's not about "red-necks." It's about the Pelosi types deciding that Americans should pay war reparations to the iraqis for the "harm" done to them (don't like paying billions to U.S. contractors in Iraq? well, how about handing over the dough -- sans restraint to Iraqis, no questions asked). Whether Americans are in or out of Iraq -- the same appeasements (probably much, much worse under the Democrats) will continue. think it's bad now with Condi? try a Pelosi. Anyway, all I have time for now.
Posted by: J.S. at April 5, 2007 8:01 PM
I have been through all of this, and a good deal more, with Cornelius over the past few years. He used to object to everything I proposed. Sometimes my replies would get him to concede, begrudgingly, a point. Sometimes he would concede that point, and then a day or a week or a month or a year later, present the same objections, to which I would then offer the same reply.
Recently he has been quiet. But there is something about my tone that he doesn't quite like, and something about my suggestions that he won't quite buy, even if (as I suspect) if he came to them himself, or heard them from someone not at JW, he'd be more ready to agree.
I'm too tired to go over yet again how Turkey can be made to cooperate. But I will post here a few, just a few, of the many discussions of the rightness, from the American point of view, of an independent Kurdistan, dependent on the United States, but also far more friendly to the United States than any Arab Muslim state could possibly be, for reasons discussed in at least one of the postings below.
So here goes, with the cutting and the pasting:
Three previous postings, with a great deal of overlap and repetition, just from the past year, on the matter of Kurdistan. Many more, including many in 2004 and 2005, could be ferreted out if I had time. But these should be enough.
#1.
If the American government misses the opportunity to help in the establishment of a free Kurdistan, the mere existence of which would not only lead to the creation of a state that would weaken or threaten the stability or borders of Iran and Syria -- countries that have sizable Kurdish populations -- but also cause Turkey, which has no place to go but to the United States (for the Turks now now they will never be admitted to the E.U., and if the secularists in Turkey have their wits about them, they will be careful to blame not the West itself, for being "anti-Islam," but the horrific behavior of many, as they can plausibly if not entirely truthfully present it, non-Turkish Muslims, especially the despised Arabs and hated Persians. And that would be a good thing for secularism in Turkey, which is to say -- a good thing for Turkey.
As to Turkish worry about what will happen to the Kurds in Anatolia, the American government can make clear that the existence of a free and independent Kurdistan need not necessarily, in all cases, be a threat -- that in the case of Turkey (but only Turkey) the Americans will make sure that the Kurds do not attempt such an enlargement, that in any case Kurdish oil is likely to have to flow northwards in a pipeline through Turkey and will require continued Turkish goodwill, and that the moral case for the autonomy of Kurds in Antatolia becomes less compelling with the existence of a free Kurdistan, to which Kurds if they insist on living in a Kurdish state may move.
But all this is not realized in Washington, which is crazily convinced that a free Kurdistan is not a good idea, because there is such fear of redrawing borders, and fear of Turkish reaction. There need not be. It is the Turks, whose media have been intolerably anti-American, and for that matter intolerably anti-Infidel, that need to be read the riot act. Turkey has had a long run, during the Cold War, and it was the spoiled child of American foreign policy for a long time. When the American army was forced to take Iraq with three divisions rather than four (in a few weeks), it was because of the Turks. But Russia is no longe rour mortal enemy, though it remains the historic enemy of Turkey. Those bases, those listening posts in Turkey, now have a new use -- to proejct power against Islamic states. If Turkey doesn't like it, too bad. If Turkey does not like the idea of a free Kurdistan, too bad -- what else can they do, especially if the American troops leave Iraq, but in so doing, preposition equipment in Kurdistan, where as all American soldiers in Iraq know, they have the only Middle Easter allies outside of Israel.
A free Kurdistan will inspire other non-Muslim Arabs to bethink themselves. Berbers in North Africa, and of course the Iranians who, fed up with the Islamic Republic, need to be encouraged to see the Arabs in a new light, not merely as despised primitives, but as despised primitives who brought the poisoned chalice of Islam to Sassanian Persia, a primitive belief system which overwhelmed a more highly developed and sophisticated and far more interesting civlization. That, too, may be encouraged if Islam is identified, more and more, with the Arabs themselves, and all attempts to modify Islam's message, or to jettison it altogether, are identified with the non-Arab populations of North Africa and the Middle East.
All of these are developments that can be encouraged by the establishmenbt of a free Kurdistan. Anwar Shaikh and Ali Sina and Ibn Warraq and many others have noted that Islam is the Arab religion, the vehicle for forced arabization, cultural and linguistic, and that the Arabs have, through their use of Islam, have been the most successful imperialists in history.
Helping the first non-Arab Muslim population in what the Arabs call, quite inaccurately, the "Arab world," to throw off the Arab yoke, would make sense.
Perhaps someone in the Pentagon can take a second look, and not be so dismissive of the idea, which is hardly fantastic and from the Infidel point of view makes sense, to prevent another Arab attack to crush Kurdish aspirations. If guarantees for the Turcomans are necessary, the Americans can obtain them -- and deliver them to the Turks.
But of course, as long as the will-o'-the-wisp of "democracy in Iraq" is the official goal, and a strong viable nation-state (where none can possibly exist, not now, not in decades to come, and the American army does not have decades, does not have even one more year -- unless the Bush Administration wishes to ensure the election of those who do not even recognize a problem with Islam, and wish for appeasement, which is even worse than the naive current policy of establishing a "Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations" in Iraq.
[Posted by: Hugh at August 7, 2005 10:25 PM][
2.
“Once the United States has come to its senses and removed its troops, the troops now within easier reach of Iranian retaliation, from Iraq, it should without further inhibitions deal with the Iranian project, which can only be stopped, or set back, by missiles and bombs, and if it turns out that the Iranian project is not completely destroyed, then,like staggrered booster-shots years after the initial inoculation, further damage must be inflicted in the same way.
Meanwhile, the Kurds are entitled to some forms of assistance and protection, so that they may move from autonomy under those they do not and should not trust (the Iraqi Arabs) to independence. The realization of an independent Kurdistan will require that the Americans run interference with a hostile Turkey. This is not impossible. It is Turkey that has failed, and failed again, to be an ally, and has caused even former admirers of, even registered agents of, Turkey, such as Perle and Feith, to see Turkey quite differently. The Cold War is over. We do not need Turkey to help us against Russia. We may, rather, one day require a semi-ally, Russia, to help suppress the forces of Islam in and near the Caucasus and the Black Sea. And we have noted, all of us, the popularity of certain movies and books (among them, "Mein Kampf") and the anti-American, anti-European, anti-Israel (all of which sums up as "anti-Infidel") rhetoric coming either from Erdogan or those allied to him. The larger American public may not yet have grasped the change in Turkey, but many in official circles have done so. Though Brent Scowcroft is now on the Turkish payroll, he is no longer of any weight, given his record of un-realistic-"realism" -- unrealistic because it ignored, in the Middle East and in other Muslim countries, the central significance of Islam, and of course never took into account the menace of Islam. Scowcroft, like so many others, like Dennis Ross or Edward Djerijian, or Tom Friedman, is one of Yesterday's Men, "yesterday" being defined as the day before Islam was taken into account as it should be.
In exchange for American support, the govenment of Kurdistan could undertake to fulfill a commitment not to make territorial claims on Turkey, while not merely reserving the right to make such claims on Syria and Iran, but encouraged by the Americans to do so.
An independent Kurdistan would not go unnoticed just across the border, in Kurdish-populated areas of Iran. Putting down its Kurdish population, in Kurdish lands, would not be easy for the Iranian government, especially if it were also involved in helping Shi'a in Iraq but worrying about internal dissension that might follow upon the humiliation of an American destruction of nuclear facilities. And it could never be sure, at the same time, when the Kurdish model might also inspire Azeris (why should the government of Azerbaijan not wish to incorporate Azeri-populated northern Iran into its own state?), Baluchis, and Arabs in Khuzistan.
The enthusiasm of the Kurds for the United States is known to every American soldier in Iraq; Kurdish territories were the place for rest and recreation within Iraq. The Administration has been unduly fearful of Turkish reaction to an independent Kurdistan, not quite sure how to break it to them gently in Ankara. They needn't worry. It is the Turks who should be moving heaven and earth trying to make up for their refusal to let Americans from American bases enter Iraq from the north in March 2003. It is the Turks who have some explaining to do, not least about the remarks by Turkish politicians comparing Americans in Iraq to Nazis, and having the Americans suffer by the comparison. It is the Turks, with their movie depicting the American soldiers as those Nazis, and with "Mein Kampf" becoming a best-seller in Turkey, who have some explaining to do about the meaning, and permanence, of Kemalism. Neither the United States, nor any other Infidel member of NATO, is a friend to an ectoplasmic shape called "Turkey." It is a friend to Kemalist, secularist Turkey, a Turkey that shows in word and deed (and if the army has to impose that word and deed, until the secularists within Turkey rise aggressively to the defense of Kemalism and put the blame, for Turkey's woes, on the "other Muslims" -- especialy the Arabs. For in truth, Turkey now has no chance to be admitted to the E.U., and its secularists should prepare now to blame the "Muslim Arabs" for giving the Turkish version a bad name. Guilt by association, that sort of thing. Use the rejection not to whip up further resentment by the Turkish masses against Europe as a "Christian club," but against Arabs as the historic butt of Turkish contempt, so as to widen the fissures within Islam. That is, if you are a true Turkish secularist, intent on weakening Islam within and without Turkey, and not merely the kind of beneficiary of Kemalist constraints on Islam who wants Turkey to be admitted to the E.U. so that the power of the Islamic Party supports may be diluted -- may become the general problem for all of Europe's Infidels, because Turkish secularists don't want to deal with the problem themselves. Too bad -- they gained much from Kemalism. They have not been sufficiently aggressive in supporting and defending it. Perhaps now they will, when the there is no longer any chance of passing the problem on to the European Community.
How could the American government prevent the Turks from militarily squashing an independent Kurdistan? Well, American warplanes, if known to be guarding the borders of that Kurdistan, can do much. And the Turks can be made an offer they can't refuse. The Americans can guarantee to the army in Ankara that no Kurdish claims will be made to land now part of Turkey, and that Turkey, now that the Cold War is over, is not needed nearly as much by the United States as Turkey, now needs the United States. Turks are beginning to realize that the bloom is entirely off this particular rose, in Gulistan or elsewhere, and that without entry into the E.U., they can either throw in their lot with the Muslim Arabs, hope for a pittance to be thrown their way, or they can try to carve out a role for themselves, not the grand pan-Turanian schemes by which Turkey would have become the model and natural leader of the five former Soviet stans, but possibly, if it returns to the path of Ataturk, at least the ally of the least Islamic among them, and might even begin to figure out ways to collaborate with Kurdistan rather than to attempt to throttle it. In the end, between them Kurdistan and Turkey might keep both Syria and Iran quite worried, and quite busy.
If the Americans get out of Iraq, support the Kurds, destroy the Iranian nuclear project, they may find that the Islamic Republic of Iran will come apart at the seams, losing the Kurdish territories, and then the Azeri-populated territories, and then the Baluchis may fight for autonomy, and who knows what will happen in the mess of Khuzistan and the once-and-future vilayet of Basra.
[Posted by Hugh at March 6, 2006]
3.
“This is an outcome full of possibilities, all of them good for Infidels, none of them good for either the Islamic Republic of Iran, or indeed, given the need that the oil of Iraq, whether in the Kurdish or the Shi'a-populated lands, is almost certainly going to be exploited by others than the Sunni Arabs who once ruled the roost, for Saudi Arabia and other Defenders of the Faith against those practically-infidel Shi'a.
And while all of this is going on, and the Infidels watch, and learn, those in the United States or in Europoe who screamed and marched, and marched and screamed, for the Americans to "get out of Iraq," will have a hard time suggesting that the Americans should not, not, not leave Iraq, or if they already have, should go back.
In what other time, about what other place, can the Americans do the most useful and clever thing, the least sentimental thing, the most damaging-to-Islam-overall thing, and yet get away with it without any of the usual suspects here at MoveOn.org or i soliti ignoti in Europe, being able to complain, being tongue-tied, being confused, not knowing quite how to react?
My god, it takes a real idiot not to jump at the chance. Bush, and some of his advisers, are proving equal to the task.”
[Posted by: Hugh at March 6, 2006 05:29 PM]
4.
“This northern preserve can and should be a semi-autonomous region, connected to an independent Kurdistan. Unlike the Arabs, the Kurds have another identity, other than Islam, to appeal to, and their mistreatment by the Arabs (including the mass murder of the al-Anfal campaign, which elicited not a syllable of protest from any Arab government or the Arab League, or indeed from any Arabs at all, save for Kanan Makiya and possibly another writer or two publishing in London). Many Kurds are genuinely and not unfeignedly grateful, and possibly for quite a while -- for the American protection against Iraqi air power from 1991 to 2003, and for the removal of Kurd-murdering Saddam Hussein and his Arab regime. If Sunni-Shi’a strife could preoccupy the Arabs, this would give the Kurds their best chance to achieve an independnet Kurdistan, and that independent Kurdistan, in turn, would or could inspire Kurds in Iran and possibly Syria to revolt, and not only Kurds in Iran, but also other non-Persian minorities -- Baluchis, Arabs in Khuzistan, Azeris. Thus an independent Kurdistan would threaten in different ways both Iran and Syria. And an independent Kurdistan would also not go unnoticed by Berbers in North Africa, especially in the Kabyle, or for that matter by Berber immigrants to France, who make up most of the membership of the secular groups such as "maghrébins laiques" (and who, to the extent that they can be encouraged to regard Arabs with hostility, are more likely to collaborate with the French security services, and even, perhaps, in France, to jettison Islam altogether).
The problem for the American government is that it cannot be flexible, cannot admit to itself that the original policy in Iraq --- to do everything possible to keep the country together, to force the Kurds to remain within an "Iraq" that most cannot bear to endure any longer -- was wrong. Partly it is a matter of simply wanting to save face, of not being able to take in new information -- about Islam, about the islamization of Europe that is far more threatening than anything that happens, or does not happen, in Iraq and the Muslim Arab states. And partly it reflects the want of imagination and timidity that inhibits American policy -- especially, in this case, timidity towards Turkey.
But it is perfectly possible, given that the United States would be the diplomatic and military supporter of Kurdistan, for the American government to extract from that government a promise not to make territorial demands on Turkey (with Iran and Syria, however, the sky's the limit), on threat of having all military supplies cut. And then the government of Turkey, in turn, would not be asked but told that the American government would be the guarantor of Turkey's borders, and that instead of threatening to invade Kurdistan, the Turkish government should see the wisdom of acquiescence, and of using this new nation-state as a vehicle for weakening both Syria and the Iranian menace.
And there is one other promise to be extracted from the Kurds. And that is that the Kurds must guarantee the continued existence, and help to protect against the Arabs, Sunni or Shi'a, a Chaldo-Assyrian autonomous region, that would be created in northern Iraq, and to which Christians who do not flee elsewhere, could move and retain their ways, their customs, their traditions, and Christianity would still have a presence, albeit a reduced one, in Iraq. During the past century, constant pressure of Muslims has reduced the power and presence of non-Muslims in all the Muslim lands -- Christians in Lebanon and Turkey and North Africa and Egypt have suffered declines in power and relative numbers, and in the same way, for the same reasons, Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh have been harried, persecuted, driven out, murdered.
It may be that Christians will wish to leave Iraq altogether, and try to swell the ranks of Christians elsewhere in the Middle East -- perhaps Lebanon would be the best choice, now that Syria's Alawite despot, baby Assad, has apparently thrown in his lot with the Shi'a of Iran, and of Lebanon, and even permitted Shi'a missionaries to work among not only the Sunnis (understandable from his point of view) but also (and this is amazing) among the Alawites, those entirely unorthodox Muslim worshippers of Mary, as well.
There is one more possibility, mentioned here on many occasions. That is to provide for a continued Christian presence in the Holy Land (right now it is only the government of Israel that guarantees continued Christian access, and the Israelis are under a state of permanent siege, that Lesser Jihad conducted against it that has no, can have, no end) by moving some Assyrians and Chaldeans to the "West Bank."
Room would be made for them, and the Israeli government agree, only if there were to be the kind of population exchange that that took place between Hindus and Muslims at Partition in 1947-48, or between Greeks and Turks in 1922. Arabic-speaking (but non-Arab) Christians from Iraq would settle in those places from which Arab Muslims, who could hardly be pleasant neighbors for those fleeing Muslim Arab persecution, would be removed, to go to the Arab Muslim country of their choice -- Jordan, or for that matter western Iraq, to swell the ranks of the Sunnis, and possibly to dream of sharing in that oil wealth that, of course, will never come to them if they continue to live, and plot, in the place so absurdly renamed the "West Bank."
[Posted by: Hugh at October 31, 2006 12:29 PM]
Whew. I'm plumb tuckered out. Think I'll get into this rocker and set a spell.
at April 5, 2007 8:03 PM
I have been to busy to comment on anything the last few days. It still does not mean I am not reading this masterpiece of strategy.
Hugh is a master strategist of the first order. Why is it so hard to understand for some people the concept of divide and conquer? Why do people claim it is "PURE SPECULATION"? Hugh is basing his strategy off facts from the history, culture, RELIGION, and the current situation in Iraq. That is not speculation but a very strong theory.
Pure speculation is what we are doing now in Iraq.
Posted by: greatcometof1577 at April 5, 2007 8:38 PM
Hugh, while you are resting ...can I get you some sweet tea?
Posted by: pismopal at April 5, 2007 8:49 PM
Zena:
I hope you meant let the army loose.
Posted by: turn
omg, yes the extra o means quite a bit.. let the army loose, no more confinement, let them take down the enemy and make the enemy beg for mercy. islamist cannot fight like men, but are cowards and kill unarmed civilians and by ambush. There has been many mistakes, and last one was the Brits allowing the iranians to make them look quite stupid and weak. it would not be too difficult to take down iran, destroy their nuke sites, navy, etc. take them to their cherished eight century.
Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at April 5, 2007 9:33 PM
flak from redneck posters with his honest views of a hopeless situation-
Morganne it will be the "rednecks" who save the country from the islamists and keep your free speech intact.
Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at April 5, 2007 9:39 PM
Dar al Harb,
I don't believe in a 'fortress America', not in a globalized age. It is simply no longer feasible.
I don't believe in treating all Muslim regimes the same. I believe in differentiating between them. Some are more supportive than others; some are more adversarial than others. There is no one size that fits all.
I don't believe in cutting ties and cutting aid to friendly regimes (and I emphasize the word friendly, because some of our "friends" are no such thing, but Jordan certainly qualifies).
We are in a war for civilization. We need all the allies we can get. To suggest that there would be no difference between King Abdullah of Jordan and a radical Islamist regime ruling there is just nothing short of myopic.
Posted by: Cornelius at April 5, 2007 9:45 PM
My God Hugh. Brevity becomes you.
I'll try to read it tomorrow.
Posted by: Cornelius at April 5, 2007 9:50 PM
"...Islam has always been, and always will be, despite its universalist pretensions, a vehicle for Arab linguistic, cultural, economic, and political imperialism".-Hugh
At its core Islam is Arab Imperialism. All empires, all nations are set up, to one degree or another, via the the conquest, the subduing, the Dhimmification, and often the extermination of some lately "indigenous people". The Arabs are no different in that pattern. Eventually, the history of such conquests is rewritten (by the conquerors) to create a myth of the conquests "goodness". Islam has been very effective in oppressing and then making the oppressed embrace the conquerors rationalization for conquest-and making all bow to the Arab Mecca. It's still, at core, Arab Imperialism.
Even today, in the Sudan we see that. It is obvious that many of the people exterminating the Africans in Sudan also have African ancestry. Yet, the exterminators identify with their Arab-Semite-Caucasian masters. It's quite amazing. The Arabs are indeed the most successful Imperialists in history.
---------------------------
Hugh-Re the problems in Western Europe: What bothers me is my intuition that Muslims there will eventually cause the rise of fascism. That is why they must be made to deport themselves. Muslims are incompatible with a pluralistic democracy.
Hitler will have won after all if they are not deported before it is too late. Fascism will come back with a vengeance 100 years after it came to Berlin in 1933.
Posted by: Frank at April 5, 2007 10:16 PM
hmmm....sometimes I suspect that certain people do not understand the sheer perfidy (? perhaps the wrong word here), the sheer hatred of the U.S. -- the depth, the extent, the degree. Maybe it's just that I've been around "liberals" (the fascist-variety) for too long...I just see things very differently.
I never thought about the ability of Americans to "democratize" iraq (c'mon, what a joke -- get real -- since 2003, since the beginning of the "war" -- Democracy?? heh, forget it -- there was an article published before the Iraq war, about how the author didn't see any "Perestroika goin' on in the Arab world" -- and i completely agreed...Islam and Democracy? -- naw, ain't gonna happen...but that doesn't mean "we shouldn't have gone to war..." because democracy won't work, does not lead to a "pacifist" "solution" -- or "let's 'dialogue' with the Saddams!")
Establish an independent Kurdish state? yeah, great, no problems with that notion. but why would the establishment of an independent Kurdish state require the withdrawal of U.S. troops? i don't get the connection.
What I fear is that a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would lead the Arab/Muslim world to conclude that the U.S. is 1) weak 2) a "push-over" which only requires a bit more "rough treatment" to gain even further concessions 3) would re-invigorate the demented Democrats.
Some, I guess, figure that a withdrawal from iraq would deflate the Cindy Sheehans and the Kos Kids' balloon (silence the KKK'ers). i say, "not likely." A withdrawal would precipitate the Ramsey Clarks to immediately allege that the iraq war was "illegal," "immoral" and now the "Iraqi people" require "redress." Hence, the anti-war marches would be replaced with "war reparations" marches...Then, you'd have CNN broadcasting 24/7 heart-rending stories about the war wounded Iraqis and how horrifically they have suffered, and how they need "relief" and "financial aid monies" from the Americans. (oh, yes, and "the building of "hospitals" -- that's always a fine location to store munitions...) Anyway, that's my take...(also, anything the UN or EU advocates -- hey, it's gotta be bad...and they advocate unilateral surrender and withdrawal of the U.S. from Iraq.)
Posted by: J.S. at April 6, 2007 12:04 AM
As much as the militant Sunni jihadis hate the militant Shi'ite jihadis, the both hate the ever-lovin' infidels even more.
Once they sort out their own power struggles, they'll be coming back at us.
Fight them wherever they give you a chance to.
But fight them like the survival of our civilization depended on it.
Not like the next election did.
Posted by: profitsbeard at April 6, 2007 12:12 AM
Oh, speaking of CNN, they did a "report" about some Yale fellows. they burnt an American flag -- I could not believe the "reporter." She had the look of a deer staring into the head-lights -- just could not grasp what these fellows were "thinking"...yah, it was just so "incomprehensible." (this was unintentionally hilarious...) What was particularly "unfathomable" for this "reporter" was that one of fellows had served as a translator for U.S. troops!! and to think that said Muslim would burn a U.S. flag (!!!) while attending Yale University !!??? omg -- will wonders never cease??? as I laugh (ok, cynically).
Posted by: J.S. at April 6, 2007 12:13 AM
Many of the "we are winning", "We could win if we turned the military loose crowd", and others, hold the belief it seems, that this war could be won by military might alone! If that were the case yes we would win it hands down. We could bomb the crap out of and kill all the existing radicals everyone of them in Iraq and Afghanistan and leave just a minority of moderates there to re-populate. And if we had the political will to do it it would certainly stop the Muslims in their tracks for maybe a decade or more.
But that misses the broader points about Islam that Hugh consistently talks about. The ideology and those in control of that ideology will not be deposed by our bombs. They will always resurface and reform the Islamic structure. And that is because we cannot bomb it out of them, nor can we stay indefinitely to see that they follow the principles of Democracy(With Sharia Law added mind you)which we so desperately want them to follow.
Feel good stories of schools being rebuilt, shops opening and thousands of moderates who apparently want us there does not change the dynamic actively in control in this population of 25 million people. That dynamic is Islam. We are spending assets we do not need to spend because the results we seek are not acheivable through the use of force of any kind, despite our good will and good intentions! Germany and Japan had changes in "philosophy" after WWII as to the role they needed to play in the world. There were not 1 billion or more of them (their philosophy) in the world who for hundreds of years were inculcated with that philosophy. I see no chance of a change in"philosophy" happening for the over 1 billion Muslims of the world because we kicked the crap out of Iraqi and Afghanistan Jihadists. We are also not going to stay there for decades to maintain any pseudo peace initially achieved by our " military victory" and we can be certain that Islam will be rebuilding and become a threat once again as history has shown.One more thought: I do not know whom to attribute this quote to but here it is: "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still!" I like Hugh's tactics better!
Posted by: kwg1 at April 6, 2007 3:31 AM
Thank you, Hugh Fitzgerald. What must have been boring for you to write was useful for me to read and understand.
As someone said about old TV shows, they're only "repeats" if you have seen them before.
What would be a good way to find your more detailed positive recommendations, and any other people with detailed good, winning ideas, especially on how get the best attritional bang for a buck in Africa? (Or are you still stuck trying to convince people that this is the right aim in the first place?) Do you have a post of your posts of concrete ideas on how to do fight actively and effectively, or something like that?
Anyway, thank you again.
Posted by: David Blue at April 6, 2007 6:54 AM
"What I fear is that a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would lead the Arab/Muslim world to conclude that the U.S. is 1) weak 2) a "push-over" which only requires a bit more "rough treatment" to gain even further concessions...
-- from a posting above
"Precipitous withdrawal"?
After remaining in Iraq for more than four years, only one of which made sense, while the last three years have been dogpaddling, while shots and bombs are aimed at our hapless troops sent on a fool's errand, to keep Iraq "unified" and to "reconstruct" it (better: to "construct" it) and to do so with those troops kept as unaware of the menace of Islam, and the real nature of most (not all, but almost all) of those "ordinary moms and dads" they are being sent, and sent, and sent again to bring "freedom" to, with the "Iraqis" themselves even at this point, in a nation of 27 million, apparently unable to fight for that "democracy" or "freedom" themselves.
And you repeat, again, the business of a withdrawal being taken to demonstrate that America is "weak" and a "pushover." This is the same old elementary-s
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