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During the question period after my notorious YAF talk last Thursday, it came up again: one of the students asked if we weren't conferring legitimacy on Osama and Co. by calling them jihadists instead of something like mufsidoon: evildoers. That is just one small indication of how influential this idea has become -- and of course it enjoys great influence in the State Department.
Now one of its foremost proponents, a man named Jim Guirard, who called me up a few years ago and spent a great length of time trying to convince me to get on board with this idea, writes in its defense in Accuracy In Media. He's responding to this excellent column by Walid Phares, about which I commented at some length here.
Guirard affects a cutesy, folksy writing style, beginning with the three question marks and hapax legoumenon he uses in his title, "Is AQ-style Terrorism 'Jihadi Martyrdom' or 'Irhabi Murderdom' ???" Perhaps it is unsporting or invincibly crabbed of me to note such a thing, but I must say I found it incongruous that a man who has the Pentagon's ear and confers with the highest American military officials writes like a lovestruck teenage girl. With all his cuteness and misspellings, Guirard seems practically to be begging not to be taken seriously. But since he is taken seriously, and his ideas are taken seriously, they are worth dealing with again.
In a recent article in the Family Security Matters website -- innocently re-printed by AIM.org on July 18 -- Lebanese expatriot [sic!] Dr. Walid Phares quite sharply, and by name, attacked me and three like-minded anti-terrorism strategists (Dr. Michael Waller of the Institute for World Politics, Dr. Doug Streussand [sic!] of the Marine Corps Staff and Command College and Col. Harry Tunnell of the National Defense University).
That's "expatriate" and "Streusand."
That angry writer's complaint was that the four of us are refusing to follow his (and so many other's) current addiction to Osama bin Laden's self-sanctifying language of so-called "Jihadi Martyrdom" -- namely, the five-word al Qaeda narrative of so-called Jihad (holy war) by purported mujahideen (holy warriors) and alleged shuhada (martyrs) who are supposedly destined for Jennah (Paradise) as a reward for killing all of us kuffr (infidels) and in due course disposing of al-Shaitan al-Kabir (the Great Satan). Dr. Phares insists that this is the one and only valid framework within which to properly and sufficiently attack al Qaeda-style Terrorism.
Phares doesn't say that at all, of course. He says that the concept of hiraba, unlawful warfare, which Guirard says we should use to label contemporary jihadist activity, "implies that a 'genuine' war against a real enemy does exist and that these hotheaded soldiers have simply acted without orders. Hence this cunning explanation puts 'spin' on Jihad but leaves the core idea of Jihadism completely intact." Thus obligingly calling jihadism hiraba could leave us open to having to confront in the near future a jihad deemed genuine by those so anxious for us to relabel Osama's efforts. In other words, it doesn't get to the heart of the matter: the persistence of religious violence arising within an Islamic context. It leaves that wide open as a possibility for the future.
But Guirard doesn't deal with this point. Instead, he contents himself, like Dinesh D'Souza and so many others, with the manipulative little slur of charging that his opponent agrees with bin Laden -- with all the unsavory associations that brings: they're both hotheads, hardliners, fascists at heart, doncha know?
But this sidesteps the questions of why the version of Islam purveyed by Osama and the other jihadists has gained such traction within the Islamic world, and why the jihadist claim to represent "true" or "pure" Islam has so much resonance. And since Guirard and his ilk refuse to acknowledge that that is even happening, they can't formulate any worthwhile response to it.
In sharp contrast, Marine Corps LtG James Mattis has recently condemned this sort of AQ narrative as "tyranny in false religious garb." But when we, the four accused, recommend a new counter narrative which attacks the Salafi-Wahhabi-UBL conspiracy's deceitful self-labeling, Dr. Phares berates us (as he might now General Mattis, as well?) as somehow "representing the views of classical Wahhabis and the Muslim Brotherhood" ( !!! )
Not quite. Phares actually said: "When researched, it turns out that this theory was produced by clerics of the Wahhabi regime in Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood, as a plan to prevent Jihad and Jihadism from being depicted by the West and the international community as an illegal and therefore sanctioned activity." It is, again, a shame that Guirard did not see fit to address that except with a sneer.
But, of course, it is Walid Phares himself, not us, who is so insistently parroting al Qaeda's patently false description of itself and its suicide mass murders as "Jihadi" (Holy Guys) defenders of Allah and the Qur'an.
See, Guirard's fundamental assumption, behind the cutesy language ("'Jihadi' (Holy Guys)" indeed), is that jihad is a good thing, a holy thing, and that the jihadists have appropriated it in defiance of Islamic theology and law. And that therefore, if we start using the terms that actually apply to them and their activities -- criminals, unlawful warfare, rather than jihadists and jihad -- the moderate Muslim majority will feel empowered to rise up against them, and take back Islam.
It would be great if it were true. But unfortunately it's just a fantasy. The imperative to wage war against unbelievers in order to establish over them the hegemony of Islamic law wasn't invented by Al-Qaeda; it is taught by all the Sunni schools of jurisprudence, and by the Shi'ites also. This doesn't mean that every Muslim takes it seriously. But it does mean that it's just whistling in the dark to think that Al-Qaeda's claim to represent Islamic purity can't draw on genuine elements of Islamic theology that encourage bellicosity. Fantasy-based policymaking is never wise.
In sharp and everlasting contrast to this de facto embrace of the enemy's self-serving description of political, cultural and religious reality, this writer's proposed counter narrative condemns the al Qaeda, al Sadr, Hizballah, Hamas and other "Death to America" terrorists as waging Hirabah (unholy war, forbidden "war against society") by mufsiduun (evildoers, sinners and corrupters) and munafiquun (hypocrites) destined for Jahannam (Eternal Hellfire) as punishment for having become al Murtadd al Qaeda (the al Qaeda Apostasy) against Qur'anic Islam -- namely, for having tried to drag all Muslims into a most unholy war against Abrahamic America and the West.
"This writer's proposed counter narrative..." (emphasis added). But do Muslims worldwide, whether jihadists or not, really listen to Jim Guirard's version of Islam? If there were major Islamic sects or leaders teaching this sort of thing and representing it as "Qur'anic Islam," that would be one thing. But there aren't.
Likewise Kilcullen's new lexicon, in Guirard's reprinted article below, is based not on reality but on what we really wish jihad were all about:
In further explanation of this "Know Thine Enemy" frame of reference for understanding who the Terrorists actually are, as opposed to who they falsely claim to be, the following is a "war of words" essay of mine which appeared in the June 29, 2007 issue of the Marine Corps--oriented SmallWarsJournal.com website -- entitled "Petraeus Aide's Call for a New Lexicon." Rather than my trying to paraphrase that carefully constructed truth-in-language thesis, here it is verbatim:In his multi-faceted article, "New Paradigms For 21st Century Conflict," David Kilcullen of General David Petraeus' senior staff in Baghdad recommends five major initiatives to be taken in developing truly effective counterterrorism (COIN) strategies, operations and tactics against al Qaeda-style Terrorism (AQST).
In briefest of terms, these are to (1) Develop a New Lexicon, (2) Get the Grand Strategy Right, (3) Remedy the Imbalance in Government Capability, (4) Identify New Strategic Services, and (5) Develop Capacity For Strategic Information Warfare. While others will comment in learned fashion on all five of these topics in due course, this commentary will concern only the first -- the proposed New Lexicon.
To make a medical analogy, this is an enemy which is not in the nature of a state-based, clearly definable tumor to be neatly cut out by a scalpel but is, instead, an ideology-based cancer which been metastasizing for several decades (particularly the last one) and is attacking far-flung elements of Western Civilization 'round the clock and seeking a "death by a thousand cuts" result.
The first of Kilcullen's five steps toward an effective antidote -- a worldwide chemotherapy-type counterattack -- on the raging AQST cancer is his call for "a new lexicon based on the actual, observed characteristics of [our] real enemies ..."
In so doing, he clearly recognizes that in order to meet Tsun-Tzu's ancient admonition that we must "Know The Enemy," we absolutely must have a truthful common language by which to achieve that end and then to communicate such knowledge effectively to multiple audiences.
Although he does not list particulars of this proposed new lexicon, here are more than a dozen of the Arabic and Islamic words of which he would almost surely approve. They are the words, the semantic tools and weapons, we will need to break out of the habit-of-language box (largely invented by Osama bin Laden himself) which currently depicts us as us the bad guys, the "infidels" and even "the Great Satan" -- and which sanctifies suicide mass murderers as so-called jihadis and mujahideen ("holy guys") and "martyrs" on their heroic way to Paradise.
Importantly, the ubiquitous (It's everywhere! It's everywhere!!) word Jihad is entered four times, in order to more clearly define its several confusing and often conflicting meanings.
irhab (eer-HAB) -- Arabic for terrorism, thus enabling us to call the al Qaeda-style killers irhabis, irhabists and irhabiyoun rather than the so-called "jihadis" and "jihadists" and "mujahideen" and "shahids" (martyrs) they badly want to be called. (Author's lament: Here we are, almost six years into a life-and-death War on Terrorism, and most of us do not even know this basic Arabic for terrorism.)
Hirabah (hee-RAH-bah) -- Unholy War and forbidden "war against society" or what we would today call crimes against humanity. Among the many al Qaeda-style crimes and sins which constitute this most "unholy war" are such willful, and unrepented transgressions as those enumerated in the next section of this proposed glossary of terms.
Jihad al Akbar (gee-HAHD ahl AHK-bar) -- this "Greater Jihad" is a personal and spiritual struggle or striving to become closer and more faithful to Allah and his teachings as set forth in the Qur'an.
Here is the problem with this whole endeavor in microcosm: Hassan Al-Banna (founder of the Muslim Brotherhood), Abdullah Azzam (cofounder of Al-Qaeda) and others argued that the idea of jihad as a spiritual struggle as based on a weak hadith -- a tradition of Muhammad that couldn't be taken as authentic. They gained many recruits by arguing this successfully among Muslims. And so now here come Kilcullen and Guirard, reminding Muslims that jihad is primarily an inner spiritual struggle. How will the Muslims who have bought the argument that all that is based on a weak hadith react? Will they lay down their arms? Or chuckle at the ignorant infidels?
Jihad al Saghir (gee-HAHD ahl Sahg-HEER) -- "Lesser Jihad" can be a physical -- and even a military -- struggle to protect or to free Muslims and non-Muslims from oppression, but only in strict accordance with reasonable and non-terroristic standards set forth in the Qur'an, which provides that only the Caliph (or head-of-state?) can legally declare such a Jihad. Osama bin Laden is neither....
Fine. Until you realize that many Muslim authorities identify as "oppression" anything except a Sharia state. The implications of that for the above statement are clear. And only the state authority can declare a jihad? Unfortunately, there is a difference of opinion on this question among contemporary Islamic scholars. Some argue that Muslims may wage war in order to establish that Islamic state, and then continue to wage war against unbelievers under its aegis. Others contend that the Islamic state must be established by peaceful means, and only then may Muslims wage jihad warfare. The latter position was held by Syed Abul Ala Maududi, the influential Pakistani jihad theorist who died in 1979, Sheikh Muhammad Said Ramadan Al-Buti, and Sheikh Muhammad Naasir ud-Din Al-Albani. The former view is held by Islamic scholars such as Muhammad Amarah and Khair Haykel, as well as by Azzam and, of course, other mujahedin today.
It is important to note, however, that Maududi and Al-Buti, as well as others who hold this view, don't reject the idea of jihad against unbelievers in order to establish the hegemony of Islamic law. Maududi, after all, wrote that non-Muslims have “absolutely no right to seize the reins of power in any part of God’s earth nor to direct the collective affairs of human beings according to their own misconceived doctrines.” If they do, “the believers would be under an obligation to do their utmost to dislodge them from political power and to make them live in subservience to the Islamic way of life.”
So in other words, this is just a disagreement about means, not about ends.
...Just for starters, imagine the khawarij (outside the religion) al Qaeda's great difficulty in winning the approval of any truly devout and faithful Muslims whatever once these genocidal irhabis (terrorists) come to be viewed by the Umma (the Muslim World) as mufsiduun (evildoers) engaged in Hirabah (unholy war) and in murtadd (apostasy) against the Qur'an's God of Abraham -- and as almost surely on their way to Jahannam (Eternal Hellfire) for their Satanic ways....
Yes, that would be great. But pretending that truly devout and faithful Muslims will follow the lead of non-Muslims in defining these things is naive in the extreme.
Of course, to sustain the validity of such condemnatory labels, there must be a true-to-the-Quran basis for their application to the al Qaeda, al Sadr, Hizballah, Hamas and assorted other Terrorists.
Indeed.
This is readily available in the fact that at the heart of AQST's own false labels and equally false promises of a sex-orgy Paradise is a pattern of plainly satanic and cultic violation of many of the fundamental precepts of authentic Islam -- including such sinful transgressions and such de facto desecrations of the Qur'an as:o Wanton killing of innocents and noncombatants, including many peaceful Muslims
Here we go again. Define "innocent" and "noncombatant." British jihadist Anjem Chaudary says no non-Muslims are innocent. How will this stop him?
o Decapitating the live and desecrating the dead bodies of perceived enemieso Committing and enticing others to commit suicide for reasons of intimidation
Qur'an 9:111 guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah. And that's not suicide, in the jihadist view. How will Guirard's lexicon overcome that idea?
o Fomenting hatred among communities, nations, religions and civilizationso Ruthless warring against nations in which Islam is freely practiced
o Issuing and inspiring unauthorized and un-Islamic fatwas (religious edicts)
o Using some mosques as weapons depots and battle stations, while destroying others
o Forcing extremist and absolutist versions (and perversions) of Islam on fellow Muslims, when the Qur'an clearly says that there shall be "no compulsion in religion"
Qutb and others argue that the "no compulsion" verse does not rule out fighting until "religion is for Allah." Will Guirard's use of this verse change any jihadist minds?
o Distorting the word "infidels" to include all Christians, all Jews and many Muslims, as well -- when the Qur'an calls them all "Children of the Book" (the Old Testament) and "Sons of Abraham," and calls Jesus one of Islam's five main Prophets
People of the Book, not Children of the Book. Anyway, fine, don't call them infidels. They still must be fought and subjugated, per Qur'an 9:29.
o Deliberate misreading, ignoring and perverting of passages of the Qur'an, the Hadith and the Islamic Jurisprudence (the Fiqh)
Such as? The jihadists claim that the peaceful Muslims do this. Guirard claims that the jihadists do it. The real challenge is to refute the jihadist use of Islamic texts and teachings in a way that blunts the force of jihadist recruitment. Peaceful Muslims haven't done it yet.
One final note. Guirard argues that what he is doing here was done effectively during the Cold War:
A look-back lesson from the Cold War argues strongly that we should have done a far better "war of words" job of challenging -- rather than all too often parroting -- the Soviets' and Fascist Fidel Castro's false narrative of so-called "Liberation by purported Progressive Movements and alleged Popular Fronts who were destined for heaven-on-earth People's Democracies as a reward for killing us Reaganite Fascists and disposing of American Imperialism."Recognize the remarkable parallels? Both then and today, the deadly dangerous problem is that of "semantic infiltration," which the late, great Senator Pat Moynihan and Dr. Fred Charles Ikle -- Ronald Reagan's Under Secertary of Defense for Policy, who is today still active at the Center for Strategic and International Studies -- carefully defined in the early 1980s as follows:
"Simply put, semantic infiltration is the process whereby we come to adopt the language of our adversaries in describing political reality. The most totalitarian regimes in the world would call themselves 'liberation movements.' It is perfectly predictable that they should misuse words to conceal their real nature. But must we aid them in that effort by repeating those words? Worse, do we begin to influence our own perceptions by using them?"
Back then, it was a case of Leninist, Maoist and Castroite tyranny wrapped up in false "Liberationist" lingo. Today, it is the neo-Leninist, fascist-Left and pseudo-Quranic narrative of "Jihadi Martyrdom" which General Jim Mattis so correctly condemns as "tyranny in false religious garb" -- while all too many of us continue the "useful idiocy" parroting.
(Le plus ca change, le plus c'est la meme chose !!. N'est-ce pas ??)
Sure. We should challenge the jihadist idea that Sharia equals justice. And we should call it tyranny. But that is not the same thing as formulating some genuine way to counter jihadist claims to represent true Islam. Inventing our own benign little Islam and hoping that Muslims will buy it won't do that.
Posted by Robert at August 6, 2007 3:58 PM
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redefining our way to peace and prosperity .What a grand plan.
Posted by: KAOSKTRL![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 6, 2007 6:31 PM
I studied world religions and came to the conclusion that the true meaning of jihad was much more a battle within the believer's self. Sort of the Christians version of battling sin and temptation on a daily basis, with harm to none. This new meaning of jihad is nothing more than another terrorist hijacking pro forma semantics. These muslims lack discipline and are hell bent on revenge. ..my 2 cents.
Posted by: Orion'zZzRizing at August 6, 2007 6:42 PM
Back to the books Orion, you have got a clue or scriptural basis to hang that assertion on.
Posted by: KAOSKTRL at August 6, 2007 6:46 PM
This is the problem: How can any mufti, imam, or ayatollah counter jihadist claims to represent true Islam when in fact the jihadists do represent true, unadulterated Islam? The Quran is full of the commandments to subjucate, convert, or kill infidels. On what basis can the transcribed word of Allah be altered or re-studied to give new meanings?
What basis could a Jew who follows unadulterated Judaism choose to only accept seven or nine of the Ten Commandments? I know, Jehova misspelled should. Thou should not commit adultery. Thou should not covet thy neighbor's wife, and so on. They are really the Ten Suggestions.
What basis can a Christian reject any part of Jesus' sermons?
This is a tough problem. The Quran is not vague, and there is no allowance to interpret the Quran in the context of 1300 years ago.
Everyone should know that there is no room for dabate in Islam. There is only one place to end the current resurgence of Islam, and it will be on the battlefield not in the ivory towers of the Pentagon or the White House.
at August 6, 2007 6:52 PM
The fallacy is that we are infidels. As infidels we have no authority to tell a self-proclaimed muhammadans what is and what is not holy in that most unholy cult of muhammadan idolatry, islam.
Do not play the Jihadi game.
There are no good Jihadis.
There is no good Jihad.
Islam sucks. Period.
Posted by: Ynkedoodl2 at August 6, 2007 6:54 PM
Back to this again. (Jihadwatch.org had a feature on this topic just a short while ago -- July 17, 2007 -- under the topic of "Preventing the West from understanding Jihad.") I recall reading the National Post article, by Streusand (the prof at the U.S. Marine Corps) "Don't call them jihadis." yeah, sure. More Saudi money at work?
I happen to be re-reading "The Clash of Civilizations: remaking of World Order" by Samuel P. Huntington (1996). Huntington attempts to explain the propensity for Muslim violence. He notes the following: "First, the argument is made that Islam has from the start been a religion of the sword and that it glorifies military virtues. ..The doctrines of Islam, it is argued, dictate war against unbelievers, and when the initial expansion of Islam tapered off, Muslim groups, quite contrary to doctrine, then fought among themselves...The Koran and other statements of Muslim beliefs contain few prohibitions on violence, and a concept of nonviolence is absent from Muslim doctrine and practice..." Huntington next suggests the "spread of Islam" led to peoples who were "conquered and converted" with the "legacy" of this process remaining (ie., that Muslims are in proximity to non-Muslim groups). The third source of the violence Huntington suggests is (what one statesman referred to) as "the indigestibility" of Muslims. (they don't merge or assimilate.) Thus, it's "militarism, indigestibility, and proximity to non-Muslims" which explain the "Muslim conflict propensity."
I think Huntington about sums up the problem. Starting with the Number One causative factor -- the Koran which teaches Jihad against Infidels.
Posted by: J.S. at August 6, 2007 7:15 PM
Brilliant analysis by Robert Spencer. Totally destroyed Guirard.
Guirard's terminology would at best have some use as a disinformation tool to temporarily fool a few Muslims here or there who've never paid much attention to Islam.
What if a couple of Muslim intellectuals were to take up, toward Christianity, a position similar to Guirard the non-Muslim's position toward Islam. What would those Muslims say about Christianity? Something like this: "Christians don't really believe God is a trinity, and one shouldn't buy into the trinitarian language, since that will only strengthen the trinitarian extremists who have hijacked Christianity from its mainstream pure monotheism."
In short, the ignorance of Guirard about Islam is astounding.
We are in such trouble if the Pentagon listens to such nonsense as Guirard is spouting.
Posted by: traeh at August 6, 2007 7:21 PM
Town Hall blogger Hugh Hewitt spanks Rep. Tom Tancredo for revisiting the concept of promising the world that Mecca and Medina will be destroyed in the event of an Islamically-inspired WMD attack on the United States. In the process, he demonstrates his lack of understanding as to what the "War on Terror" is all about.
[Excerpt:]
"Tancredo's position is endorsed by no one else on the American political stage and for good reason: We are not at war with Islam. Our enemies want us to be at war with Islam because that is how they see the battle, and they wish us to embrace their disfigured vision of the conflict. They want every Muslim to believe that America is on a crusade to destroy Islam. They want the peoples of Turkey, Pakistan, Jordan and Indonesia as well as of every other Muslin on the globe to believe America hates Islam and is bent on destroying it. Tancredo has given our enemies a huge gift, one that increases the dangers to all of our soldiers, and which insults every Muslim serving in the uniform of the United States, but denouncing him diminishes that propaganda bonanza, and I hope every Republican candidate does so and soon."
[Excerpt ends]
Who are "our enemies," Mr. Hewitt? Please identify them with precision.
There's that dirty word, "Crusade," again, whose MSM definition Hewitt seems to accept without challenge. Any effort to make Islam abandon its organic lust for conquest by the only means Islam responds to -- force -- is a war of aggression perpetrated by "Crusaders."
What we "want every Muslim to believe" is that America will react with unimaginable violence to another 9/11 attack, and that the holiest sites of Islam should absolutely NOT be considered safe. If "good" muslims believe that, let them prevail upon the "bad" muslims in their midst to desist, or just kill them, and remove the risk.
Simple enough, seems to me.
RSI
Posted by: RedStateInfidel at August 6, 2007 7:22 PM
The "indigestibility" of Islam ultimately reduces all protracted muslim-infidel conflicts into civil wars between the minority muslims and the majority, as the host of fear-incentivized native dhimmis and reverts waxes large enough. This is what happens instead of assimilation. Look at the history of Persia, al-Sham, Turkey, etc. Q.E.D.
Posted by: Emerson Twain at August 6, 2007 7:34 PM
In the interest of bring both sides to the table, how 'bout we call them mufsidoon jihadists?
Posted by: Goob at August 6, 2007 7:34 PM
Streusand (the prof at the U.S. Marine Corps) in the article published by the National Post (titled: "Don't call them jihadis") wrote: "Al-Qaeda's transformation of Islam into a totalitarian ideology is a pronounced deviation from the historical mainstream of Islam in practice and theory.."
The other day I was listening to a Da'wa program about "extremist" Islam...the Da'wa fellow (remember now, this is a Muslim "teacher" of Islam) explained that a pure, literal interpretation of Islam goes all the way back to Islam's origins...Ibn Taymiyyah.
at August 6, 2007 7:37 PM
Hugh Hewitt's attack on Tancredo is puzzling. For a radio talk show host who expends much energy on religion, he does know Shi'ite about Islam.
Posted by: doug at August 6, 2007 7:38 PM
I don't know if Tancredo's policy is the right one, or if his announcement of it is wise. But at least he's thinking about the problem of how to deal with the risk of a nuclear detonation in a U.S. city. I think most politicians are disgustingly complacent and altogether asleep to the problem. A combination of inertia, self-absorption and stupidity blocks them thinking about it. The world and we Americans are in denial about the rising possibility of a nuclear detonation. I found it hard to believe responsible people were not considering the problem, until I started broaching the question here and there, and discovered it had barely crossed "responsible" persons' radar. That's true even of the Republicans, as one could see to a certain extent from the reactions of some of them to Tancredo's comment at the most recent Republican debate.
Well, maybe Tancredo's comment will have some deterrent effect. Maybe the Muslim world will wake up and realize that what would be the loss of a city, or a few cities, for the U.S., would mean utter destruction for the Muslim world. Not so much out of anger or revenge. But merely out of self-defense.
Posted by: traeh at August 6, 2007 7:46 PM
Ah, so there's good (legitimate) jihad and bad (illegitimate) jihad. How silly of us unbelievers not to know the difference and condemn the entire Islamic religion for intolerance, unremitting violence and a disinclination to respect basic human rights. If only we had known that Islam is indeed, after all, a religion of peace and loveliness. How foolish we have been. I wonder if that enlightened portion of mankind known as the Islamic world can ever forgive those of us who have ever criticized the true faith, Islam. Gee, I sure hope so.
Posted by: Wellington at August 6, 2007 7:49 PM
Robert Spencer was featured on hour 2, segment 3 of the Savage show tonight. Excellent.
Posted by: pez at August 6, 2007 7:50 PM
I like Hewitt, but he's a legalist and will always come down on the ethical side that will offer to preserve his intellectual status quo, i.e., in which Western law governs. He still thinks his (our) laws can continue to exist on their merits alone and be respected within a world where the only law that matters on a day-to-day basis comes out the barrel of a (jihadi's) gun. War, unfortunately, is not so neat. He truly misses the point and is guilty of the worst sort of wishful thinking. I expect that he will take up the hirabah line.
Posted by: Emerson Twain at August 6, 2007 7:54 PM
In the interest of bring both sides to the table, how 'bout we call them mufsidoon jihadists?
Posted by: Goob at August 6, 2007 7:34 PM
I'll stick with islamic murderers, thank-you-very-much.
See, Guirard's fundamental assumption, behind the cutesy language ("'Jihadi' (Holy Guys)" indeed), is that jihad is a good thing, a holy thing, and that the jihadists have appropriated it in defiance of Islamic theology and law. And that therefore, if we start using the terms that actually apply to them and their activities -- criminals, unlawful warfare, rather than jihadists and jihad -- the moderate Muslim majority will feel empowered to rise up against them, and take back Islam.
It would be great if it were true. But unfortunately it's just a fantasy. The imperative to wage war against unbelievers in order to establish over them the hegemony of Islamic law wasn't invented by Al-Qaeda; it is taught by all the Sunni schools of jurisprudence, and by the Shi'ites also.
This doesn't mean that every Muslim takes it seriously. But it does mean that it's just whistling in the dark to think that Al-Qaeda's claim to represent Islamic purity can't draw on genuine elements of Islamic theology that encourage bellicosity. Fantasy-based policymaking is never wise.
Truly amazing; the lengths you guys have to go through to coddle the members of the most murderous ideology in history.
Why should we have to worry about defining or redefining anything on account of islam?
While you are splitting hairs over what this or that means or implies; the muslims are planning your destruction in the courts, in the media, in the airport rest-rooms, in the beltway, and on the battlefield -- and they don't mince words about your inferior status.
Guirard's is obvious PC/Multiculturalism at its finest, but I'm not clear on what Mr. Spencer's end game would be?
Perhaps, he would have us all "live in peace," but given what he knows about islam -- is that even realistic?
If so, how?
Please explain it to me very slowly, how this clash of a religous islam and the secularist (so-called "Judeo-Christian") West, is NOT going to end badly.
I fail to see how this ultimately does not end with the absolute destruction of one or the other.
Maybe Spencer or someone has an answer?
From everything that I have seen since 911 the only winners are those who manufacture coffins.
at August 6, 2007 8:03 PM
Guirard is a fool to think that his take on islam would be endorsed by the "moderate muslim" aka unicorn, heard of them but have yet to actually see one. Robert you are great at dissecting the ignorant and evil muslim appologists. All infidels need to take heed of the wise words of Robert and JW staff!
Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at August 6, 2007 8:05 PM
Soooo then---We "jihad" watchers are just "watching" these jihadi "holy guys" practice their religion. Soooo--Whats wrong with that? Maybe we can all learn something and then we can just all get along.
Posted by: guide inside at August 6, 2007 8:21 PM
When it comes to Islam, a fool and is life are soon parted.
Posted by: Pelayo at August 6, 2007 8:24 PM
After i hear people like this moron talk and i know he feeds his crap to the higher ups contributing to action and policy i keep wondering why it is that i don't form an inner struggle against them as much as i want to against those they attempt to coddle and legitimize?
Food for thought
Because the way i see it it is up to me to protect me.
I see the threat all the way around and i will be damned if the few take the many.
In EITHER camps.
Posted by: Dar al-harb at August 6, 2007 8:26 PM
Who will the first brave muslim willing to look Allah right in the eye, and say, "There are things in your book that are no no longer socially acceptable, so I want to change them". "Yet I know, 'oh compassionate one', that no muslim dare touch your holy words, so if You will it, I have hired an kufr named Jim, to do it for us". "Sort of a ghost writer"..."You dont look happy, Oh my Allah"...maybe we should talk about this some other time, Oh my Allah"..."What are you going to do with that"??... 'Oh My God"....
Posted by: duh_swami at August 6, 2007 8:30 PM
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master----that's all."
Guirard's approach would have a (snowball's) chance of working if its source was the "moderate" Muslim clergy. Coming from infidels it can't fail to be viewed as stupid kuffir arrogance.
How dare we tell them how to frame their arguments? What are we trying to do; start a fight?
Posted by: USBeast at August 6, 2007 9:05 PM
From a posting -- Jihad not Hirabah -- on June 24, 2006:
"Two analysts at the National Defense University have recently recommended that the West use the word “hirabah” instead of “jihad” to describe the actions of Osama bin Laden and Co.
It is not hard to figure out where the word comes from. It comes from Muslim regimes and their apologists, eager to protect certain regimes that are attacked by local "truer" Muslims for their corruption and misrule. The obvious example is Saudi Arabia, where a family, the Al-Saud, has for decades been stealing, not merely skimming off the top, large amounts of the nation's oil wealth. Those who dislike this, naturally, cannot raise a revolt against the ruler for mere appropriation of wealth; in Islam, the despot is owed submission. He (or his family, or his family-and-friends plan) can be opposed, in the moral and mental universe that Islam posits, only if he is not a Muslim, if he is an "Infidel."
The assorted terrorists or would-be terrorists captured or killed in Saudi Arabia need to be described. They, those enemies of the Al-Saud, and even greater Protectors of the Faith, think of themselves as engaged in Jihad against the false Muslims, the pretend Muslims, the so-corrupt-and-terrible-they-must-be-called-Infidels Muslims. Their word is "Jihad." This, of course, cannot be permitted; it is a danger to the Al-Saud, a danger to all the corrupt ruling families, a danger to Mubarak in Egypt (with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Ikhwan al-islamiyya, a permanent worry). So the Saudi rulers, and other threatened rulers, now employ the word "hibarah."
And of course, they are quick to suggest, these ever-helpful people, and Muslim apologists of the slyest variety with contacts in the American civilian and military, that the same word should be used by the Americans. And some Americans, not thinking through the matter, apparently agree. They think the avoidance of the word "Jihad" and adoption of the word "hibarah" is just the thing.
But it isn't. For the Americans have needs and interests that are quite different from those friendly would-be advisers who are Muslim, whether in the diplomatic corps, or American citizens now possibly employed by the American military. For they want to avoid at all costs the word "Jihad," knowing perfectly well that that word is central to Islam. If they can persuade the American government to think of the worldwide Jihad (that is, the Greater Jihad that is merely the sum of all the Lesser Jihads) not as part of Islam, not a duty of Muslims, but instead as "sinful warfare," the kind that is not permitted, that is not legitimate. The Saudi rulers spend great time and effort trying to de-program, as they see it, captured Saudi terrorists. No doubt they will do the same with Saudi citizens sent back from Guantanamo. They do not object -- why should they? -- to attacks on bona fide Infidels, the Americans, Israelis, Europeans of every kind. But they want to make sure that these people, before being released back into society, have had drummed into their skulls the idea that violence against those hardworking, good Muslims, the Guardians of the Two Noble Sanctuaries, the promoters of Islam all over the world, the Al-Saud, and their hangers-on at court, are opposed only by those who have been led astray, led to commit the crime of "sinful warfare" or "hibarah."
But it is not "sinful warfare" to make war on the real Infidels -- that is, us. The word "hibarah" will not do. Use of the word, as Streusand and Tunnell recommend, would get in the way of American comprehension. It would merely deepen the misunderstanding of what the origin and scope of the menace of Jihad is, a misunderstanding that largely explains the topsy-turvy farce of tarbaby Iraq, where the stated goals of the Administration (Sunni Arabs and Shi'a Arabs and Kurds all getting along in a nation-state made prosperous by lots of help from America, best of allies to these presumably "moderate" Muslims as they march forward to create that Light Unto the Muslim Nations) will do nothing to weaken the camp of Islam, but instead will be an attempt to prevent the very outcome that ultimately will come to pass (but after how many more American resources squandered in Tarbaby Iraq?) and that is likely to establish as the fault line between Sunni and Shi'a in the Middle East a line running slightly off-center through Iraq.
The word "hibarah" applies to situations within Muslim-ruled lands, a word used to denounce the fomenters of revolt against the (often cruel and corrupt) rulers. Useful to them. And since the word is applied to Muslim countries, it refers to "warfare" in the classic sense -- qital, or combat, that is violence of all kinds. The word "hibarah" does not include the main instruments of Jihad today -- the use of the "money weapon" (to pay for the spread of Islam through mosque-and-madrasa building and upkeep, propaganda, armies of apologists, including non-Muslim apologists), Da'wa campaigns, and demographic conquest.
But if the American government, and its military, cannot see that this "war" is far more than mere tanks and guns and bombs, and that in particular, the most dangerous theatre of this war is now Western Europe, where through those largely non-violent means -- Da'wa, demographic conquest, and the money weapon -- the forces of Islam become ever stronger when they should be held up to close and critical scrutiny, their moves constrained, their gains reversed, by Infidel peoples and polities intent on defending their own laws, customs, understandings, and civilizational legacy.
The word "Jihad" however, is not limited to the instrument of violence. Muslims write all the time about the varied instruments of "Jihad" to spread Islam: "pen, speech" (propaganda, or Da'wa), "wealth" (the money weapon, from boycotts and bribes, to the building of mosques, to the buying of armaments that Muslims cannot produce, to the buying up of Western hirelings to promote the goals of Muslims, both in Dar al-Islam and in Dar al-Harb). And, most recently, over the past 30 years, all the discussion about the weapon of demographic conquest, which was openly mentioned by Boumedienne at the U.N. in 1974 ("we will conquer you through the bellies of our women" or words to that effect).
The word "Jihad" is the correct word, the word that does not hide, but helps reveal, all the instruments being used to spread Islam until it everywhere dominates, and Muslims rule. The word "hibarah" hides this from view. It diminishes, rather than increases, the likelihood of understanding among a still largely ignorant, and confused, Infidel public. Not as ignorant, however, and not as confused, as many of those in the government who are wedded to earlier constructs that they have difficulty in shedding, and who, by their very positions, come into contact with the most plausible, clever, smiling representatives of the Muslim world who frame things as artfully as they can, offer their own spin, in order to obtain what they want from people whom, to most of those Arabs and Muslims, seem limitlessly gullible.
The example of this I like best is not that of Carter (and Brzezinski, and Gary Sick) failing completely to comprehend Khomeini (a "fellow man of faith" for Carter, who felt they therefore must have so much in common). Nor Carter a few years earlier, when he took the side completely of Saint Sadat against homely, sentimental Begin, who insisted "they [Sadat and Carter] really like me" as he gave away the store, day by day by day, during those hideous sessions at Camp David. No, nor is it those successive Treasury Secretaries who through the 1970s and 1980s kept rushing off to Saudi Arabia to obtain the "cooperation" of our "staunch Saudi allies.” Nor the various Presidents who started the tradition of paying the Jizyah of foreign aid to any Arab or Muslim country that forgot to be born rich with oil -- Egypt, Jordan, the PLO as "representative" of the "Palestinian people" in its, and their, various embodiments, Pakistan (that started long ago, with the love affair between American generals and those ramrod-straight Terry-Thomas mustachioed Pakistani generals, so straight-talking, so pukka-sahib, so...so "just like us"). No, nor is it Eisenhower, puppet of John Foster Dulles in foreign policy, the Dulles who believed in CENTO (the curtain came down on that farce in 1958, when Nuri al-Said's mutilated body was dragged through the streets of Baghdad -- "strongman" Nuri al-Said, "pro-Western" Nuri al-Said). No, it is not Carter, not Eisenhower, not Nixon, not any of them who stand out as absolutely the worst in their failure to begin to have a glimmer of what Islam is all about. No, the answer is that they all must share the prize.
Nothing extenuate? No, let's extenuate. Let's make their case. After all, in the midst of the Cold War, who knew about the belief-system of Islam except that it should be called a "religion" and that it was somehow, for some reason we were never offered in detail, a particularly strong "bulwark against Communism" -- even if Nasser and others in the Arab and Muslim world apparently found the Soviet Union far more to their liking than they did any of the liberal democracies of the West.
Those CIA agents, who thought they were doing god's work in Afghanistan during the Soviet period, who proudly remember their deeds of derring-do in helping the local mujahedin, appear not even now to begin to consider the possibility that possibly they were not doing something in the long-term interests of the United States or the rest of the Western world, by supplying money, weapons including thousands of Stinger missiles, and looking on benignly as the Saudis also provided aid, and then just as benignly, looking on as the Taliban were raised up in Pakistani madrasas, and then, again with Pakistani and Saudi support, and then diplomatic recognition, establishing their rule all over Afghanistan. Meanwhile, who was paying attention in Washington, or elsewhere in the West, to the sinister I.S.I.[i.e., Pakistani intelligence services]-supported Dr. A. Q. Khan? Who noticed what he was doing in Western nuclear laboratories in Holland? The Soviet Union was within a decade of collapse, whatever happened in Afghanistan. Gdansk workers in Solidarity, decades of programming from Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe, those in Hungary who remained true to Imre Nagy and Pal Demeter, those in Czechoslovakia who remembered Dubcek, those in East Germany who could look over the border and see what goods and services capitalist Germans could produce – all that was leading to its collapse. And of course there was the Russian nomenklatura itself, now having its doubts, and more doubts. Those doubts hardly required the Americans to hand support the mujahedin in Afghanistan to exist.
The Soviet forces might have installed a regime that would necessarily have been antipathetic to Islam, and might have constrained it, or tried to, as Ataturk had done in the 1920s in Turkey. It might have been a start. But surely the aid extended to the Mujahedin, military and financial, was not the unalloyed triumph that the CIA officials involved in it complacently still allow themselves to believe. They, like their civilian bosses then and today, did not know enough about this longer-lasting (1350 years), and much more powerful force. Communism failed on its own terms; Islam can never fail in that way -- it can only be seen to have failed politically, economically, socially, intellectually, in this sublunary world, not in the dream-world of the Muslim paradise promised to those who march in lockstep on the path of Allah, by that selfsame Allah."
Posted by: Hugh at August 6, 2007 9:36 PM
I say apple they say bomb. Wow there is a diff...
Posted by: threatofislam.com at August 6, 2007 9:39 PM
"They are the words, the semantic tools and weapons, we will need to break out of the habit-of-language box (largely invented by Osama bin Laden himself)..."
The language of Jihad and making war upon Harbis is as old as Islam.
Posted by: Cornelius at August 6, 2007 10:11 PM
I must say I found it incongruous that a man who has the Pentagon's ear and confers with the highest American military officials writes like a lovestruck teenage girl.
Could be worse. One could give an entire policy paper in txt msg style:
"R U jihadi or irhabi?
lolol
Kthx!
Posted by: MarisolJW at August 6, 2007 10:28 PM
I agree that we mustn't fool ourselves with rhetorical devices, but I think that there is a particle of legitimate concern underlying these recommendations, at least from the perspective of the military people who are fighting in Muslim lands.
As long as our military is fighting against self-described jihadists in Iraq and elsewhere, it will be desirable to have as much intelligence cooperation as possible from the not-yet-openly-violent population. The military concern is that in its dealings with Iraqis, to call the jihadists by a term which has favorable connotations may make people more reluctant to provide information on them. The proposal is that in dealing with Iraqis, the militants be called by a term, such as "harbi", that has an unfavorable connotation. It seems to me that this is simply a proposal to employ intentionally deceptive language as a kind of baseline "psychological ops" protocol.
I don't think that the intention (at least from the standpoint of the military people) is to fool ourselves into supposing that the jihad ideology is not a mainstream Islamic conception.
Posted by: Dhimmisoftheworldunite at August 6, 2007 10:38 PM
Just when people start to get an understanding of the problem, they decide to change all the words describing it. Just dandy.
We have plenty of words already to describe the Enemy and their activities. Their proper use in reporting this conflict would go a long way in improving the situation.
Like- US Forces killed 32 out of uniform Jahidists today while 18 of their co-religonists supporters were also killed in the crossfire.
or
Today, a truely faithful Muslim set off a Car Bomb in a crowded market filled with Muslims of precieved lesser Faith. 59 muslims were killed. It is not clear at this time if any or all will make it to Paradise.
It is not the words themselfs that are so important. It is how one chooses to string them together that counts.
The average person in the World only has so much money to invest in 5 Dollar words. So please, enough with the inflation already. It is value we want, not something you put on the shelf destined to collect dust.
Posted by: flowerknife_us at August 6, 2007 10:45 PM
What a great idea...get a bunch of infidels together, learn a dozen Islamic catch-phrases, imbue them with our choice meaning (or borrow that meaning from the worst jihadists of all, the Ikhwan, and fling this new interpretation of islam around in the Islamic world like you know what you're talking about. The Islamic world should really welcome being told how to interpret their text by such articulate Americans. This is sure to get the muslims on our side, supporting American "aggression" in Islamic lands, and will win the hearts and minds of 1.3 billion muslims, who after all don't know their faith as well as Guirard. It's only a matter of distributing leaflets with this new interpretation all around the world, and voila! a new Islam that doesn't want to make war until Sharia is over all the world. I have a nagging doubt about this, but I just can't put my finger on it...
/sarcasm
Posted by: Archimedes2 at August 6, 2007 10:55 PM
"Simply put, semantic infiltration is the process whereby we come to adopt the language of our adversaries in describing political reality. The most totalitarian regimes in the world would call themselves 'liberation movements.' It is perfectly predictable that they should misuse words to conceal their real nature. But must we aid them in that effort by repeating those words? Worse, do we begin to influence our own perceptions by using them?"
This is a joke right?
The use of the term "liberation movements" by communist is not analogous to "jihad" used by muslims. However he seems to have missed the similarity between communist rebels and muslim jihadist which is many muslim jihadist do use the term "liberation movement" (see Fatah).
He seems to be confused...
Fatah is not a liberation movement and thus to use that term for them would be incorrect.
Fatah is a jihadist movement and thus to use that term for them would be correct.
I hope that clears up his confusion (like he is really reading this but what the hey..). Ok now where is my government check for this service..
:)
at August 6, 2007 10:57 PM
Back then, it was a case of Leninist, Maoist and Castroite tyranny wrapped up in false "Liberationist" lingo. Today, it is the neo-Leninist, fascist-Left and pseudo-Quranic narrative of "Jihadi Martyrdom" which General Jim Mattis so correctly condemns as "tyranny in false religious garb" -- while all too many of us continue the "useful idiocy" parroting.
Wow, this guy Guirard is really clueless about islam! If he isn't the king of useful idiots, I don't know who is. I love his word, "pseudo-quranic"; apparently he has never studied the qur'an or he would know that bin Laden is following it to the letter.
I hope this new campaign to portray islamic terrorists as illegal fighters misrepresenting "true islam" falls flat on its face. I suspect that Walid Phares is far more knowledgable about jihad and the qur'an than Mr. Guirard. He should visit a few "mainstream" mosques and listen to the "moderate" islamic rabid dog clerics inculcate and incite militant jihad and martyrdom, quoting directly from the satanic qur'an.
Guirard's motives will probably never be known, but he is truly the most insidious of apologists for islam. People are already confused enough about islam, trying to comprehend the dissonance associated with what the followers of the religion of peace say, and what they do. As far as I'm concerned, jihad is primarily a "war" to spread islam. This "war" does not always involve immediate violence but there is intermittent violence, and it always culminates in bloody warfare as the peaceful muslims force their perverted creed on unbelievers, and impose sharia and dhimmitude. The historical record of islamic conquest and subjugation is all the proof I need to understand the meaning of jihad. Illegal fighting, or hibarah, applies to muslims fighting muslims, not infidels. It is 100% legal for muslims to wage jihad against infidels, anywhere, any time. Why does this idiot Guirard pretend otherwise?!
Posted by: Susanp at August 6, 2007 11:01 PM
This is what happens when you have what is the 'self proclaimed' and 'clear and easy to understand' word of God written in a language which is at best ambiguous and at worst untranslatable. It seems to me that a self professing 'Supreme being' and creator of all who causes his book to be disseminated in such a primitive language as 7th Century Arabic is either a 'supreme joker' or what is much more likely simply the invention of a 7th Century epileptic,megalomaniac,in a cave. The fact that after 1400 years the Koran does not have a universally accepted translation and interpretation completely blows out of the water its claims to be 'clear and easy to understand' and it being 'a book for ALL men for ALL time' and if these claims it makes for itself are so demonstrably untrue then the whole edifice of Islam is untrue and we should not be discussing the semantic nuances of a religion just the self justifications of followers of a CULT and should treat it and its adherents in an appropriate manner.
Posted by: Realist at August 6, 2007 11:01 PM
Hugh
You mean Rambo was fighting for the wrong side in the movie Rambo III?
Posted by: greatcometof1577 at August 6, 2007 11:03 PM
Hugh, I wonder if you're aware of what the propagandists (world wide) claim?
Shortly after 9/11, the noxious CBC broadcast a "town hall" meeting, stacked with Muslims who immediately claimed that the U.S. got what it deserved because the C.I.A. had created bin Laden. This is typical fare...and I suspect that large portions of the world believe it...just as they believe in conspiracy theories.
Today, Deutsche Welle (yet another noxious channel) broadcast a "mockumentary" (like something one could expect to see from a Michael Moore) about the "war on terror" and Africa. The "conclusions" of said "geniuses?" (including, of course, the ubiquitous paid-by-Saudis- "prof" issuing his "opinions" guised as "research") -- well, of course, all Jihadist "terrorists" in Africa are the direct creation of the C.I.A. Yep indeedy. So you get Germans held as hostages by Islamists (how much ya wanna bet, btw, that the Germans paid mega-big-time for the hostages' release, probably in the millions...) then, the "reporters" claim that shortly thereafter, the Jihadists have all this skill and training and weaponry which previously they didn't have!! Why, isn't it obvious?!! Yes, this MUST be the work of "agents" of the C.I.A. -- ah, yes, never terrorists !! O heavens!! perish the thought of anyone defaming the name of Islam -- that religion of peace all Germans worship so dearly!! "Ja!! It waz da aczions of Amerikians!! the wery ones who create da bin Ladens!! Death to Amerike!"
My point -- don't ever, ever overestimate the intelligence of Europeans...(the "elites" are utter, utter slimeballs.) So, when doing your calculus to figure out "who's an ally" -- might want to scratch off most of those on the other side of the Atlantic...many are firmly in the camp of Islam...(and Deutsche Welle has zero hesitation in spreading Islamic propaganada.)
Posted by: J.S. at August 6, 2007 11:11 PM
Robert,
This was a fine job of "fisking" Jim Giruard. It really is important to take on this Jihad vs. Irhab meme as it is somewhat influential in the national security establishment.
I think it is important to note though, that in the referenced post by Giruard (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/06/david-kilcullens-call-for-a-ne/ ) it is Giruard, not Dave Kilcullen, who proposes the use of the Irhabi terminology for AQI, etc. In fact, Kilcullen has used the term Jihadi prevously in reference to Muslim insurgents and indicated that he was proud to have spent many years in actual combat against Jihadis.
I raised this point on Small Wars in a comment to Giruard's post but he didn't reply. In my comment I also tried to raise some of the points that you brought out so well in this JW post (I've included my comment to Giruard below).
----------------------------------------
MarcH :
Jim,
I have a comment on your post and would be interested in your response.
In a previous post by you (I think) at SWJ concerning Diana West’s column attacking Dave Kilcullen, Dave posted a comment where he indicated that he was proud that he had spent a good portion of his life fighting “Jihadis”. It seemed from the context that Dave was referring to terrorists or insurgents who were motivated by an Islam based ideology. Dave didn’t write (for example), “terrorists who pervert the doctrine of Jihad” or use something like your term, “Irhabi Murderdom”.
This gets to the point I want to make: It’s not the place of the West to attempt to designate for the Muslim world what they should or should not mean when they use the term, “Jihad” or what is or is not a “perversion of Islam”. That would be true cultural imperialism.
Rather the Western world should attempt to impartially analyze the current intra-Muslim dialogues of influential contemporary clerics, government leaders, academics and media figures to see how it is they have used and continue to use the term “Jihad”. If the term “Jihad” is used to describe and acclaim the movements you cited in your post (“al Qaeda, al Sadr, Hizballah, Hamas and assorted other Terrorists”) as well as the governments of states such as Iran and Sudan, then the West will have to make it clear that we will apply force against Jihadis and their supporters until they are unable to continue.
In my judgment that would be the path to an honest and effective dialogue between the West and the Muslim world.
Posted by MarcH | July 4, 2007 10:04 AM
at August 6, 2007 11:46 PM
Most people know what it means when someone says they are going to attack and kill in the name of Allah. That is what OBL said right after 9/11 and many times since then through several Al-Qaeda sources.
Now we are being told that they did not mean what I heard? BS!!
As far as the thought about what our military may or may not be facing in Iraq I would hope that they being told the enemy (Isalm) period. However when interviewing the locals, phrase questions to get information not insult potential informants. But keep in mind (and I am sure they know this) trust no one you come across in a combat situation. JUST A LITTLE COMMON SINCE IMHO. Not all this BS about spitting hairs over new word definitions and meaning according to a alternate meaning of the word.
I don't claim to know 1/10 of what Robert and others on this blog know about the koran and Islam. But I am not confused about who the enemy is! This is the number one problem in the county IMO. WHO IS THE ENEMY? We will get way ahead in the game once the public has that information in their head.
So keep preaching the message to everyone who will listen.
Posted by: Im.mad.as.HELL! at August 6, 2007 11:49 PM
"WHO IS THE ENEMY?" hmmm...I think it's far easier to think in terms of "who is NOT the enemy." (that's the minority). Thus, who's not the enemy would be secular Muslims, Muslims in name only, Muslims who are considered "apostates" by fellow Muslims, etc. then, of course, you've got the "fifth columnists" -- that would include the so-called "academics" living in the West but out to destroy the West (many, many are lurking Jihadists), the "media" types (again, whenever I hear a BBC "reporter" about to "discuss" Islam, I'm thinking -- "here comes a Da'wa propaganda session" -- so I write off what's said as lies. ditto for a number of newspapers, radio stations, tv channels, Hollywood celebrities, Dhimmicrats, etc....-- they are enemies of Infidels, friends of Islam. One just has to be aware of what the Da'wa propagandists allege, then discount it...water off a duck's back...
Posted by: J.S. at August 7, 2007 12:08 AM
But this sidesteps the questions of why the version of Islam purveyed by Osama and the other jihadists has gained such traction within the Islamic world, and why the jihadist claim to represent "true" or "pure" Islam has so much resonance.
This is the big question that irritates so-called moderate Muslims to no end. I know Sufis that get very upset when this question is brought up.
Why? Because it calls into question who is legitimate and who is not. If its a popularity contest the moderates and Sufis(which used to moderate Muslim behavior) are the real heretics and the Bin Ladens are the winners.
Because the Sufi orders here in the west are can't attract young Muslims despite doing serious outreach. They are met with hositily by young Muslims not curiosity. The average age is now about 40 which translates into a death spiral for many of the Sufi orders.
BTW another reason Sufi orders don't like the question because it reminds them the thin ice they are skating on. Hell if enough other Muslims become supporters of Salafist ideology you'll see Sufis declared as apostates and heretics and then be hunted down and killed.
I think we are seeing Islam reverting back to its roots and pre-Sufi time where the sword and torch were the Muslims main tools for discourse.
Posted by: waltc at August 7, 2007 12:23 AM
I think this is a swell idea. If we all just tell the jihad... ah sorry... hirabis they are bad Muslims they'll pack up their kit bags and go back to Jeddah and Peshawar? Let me be the first to say jihad is all fluffy bunnies and kittens, or perhaps slaugtering those who really deserve it, but not this terrorism thing which keeps us from other things we'd rather talk about.
Posted by: Beagle at August 7, 2007 12:35 AM
You could have called the Nazis anything and I am sure the same difusing moves were apparent back then as well. But 60 some years later they are All Nazis! Call them Bund members, National Socialists, Nazis, Facists, Etc. They crossed and were comprised of many time zones, ethnic zones, religious zones, but all known as Nazis.
The J's can call themselves anything they want and Governments and the MSM can tell us what to call them but, make no mistake, after all these years since 9-11 they are still Jihadis doing Jihad!
The perfect connector words (used only once by our Prez) are Islamonazis or Islamofacists.
Posted by: guide inside at August 7, 2007 12:55 AM
The world is full of Hewits and Guirard's, unfortunately!
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at August 7, 2007 1:15 AM
Hugh and Spence:
Guirard's Cold War analogy is ABSURD! The Soviets employed beguiling euphemisms to sugar-
coat their message. Likewise, Guirard and the Saudis want to make poison palatable, to replace the narrative of the Fast Jihad with that of the Slow Jihad.
Jihad in the sense we mean, the original and primary sense as traditionally applied, is not benign, but is fittingly accurate. Jihad, as religious war in any objective sense, has no place in our 21st Century World. Perpetual war is perpetually stupid, regressive, wasteful, destructive, and murderously inhuman--an affront to God and His Creation.
Please continue, H & S, to strenuously counter Guirard's thesis. Much is at stake.
Posted by: John C at August 7, 2007 2:30 AM
dead is dead !!
Posted by: james collins at August 7, 2007 3:02 AM
dead is dead !!
Posted by: james collins at August 7, 2007 3:02 AM
None of the Islamists claim to be waging illegal hirabi and that's really all that matters. Once again, as Robert pointed out, the education needs to be directed at the Muslim community, not the West.
As the preceding poster astutely noted, infidels killed by hirabi as opposed to jihad are no less dead.
Posted by: awake at August 7, 2007 8:30 AM
james collins is right. The question is academic and would never be settled among all the 'bad actors' and state actors anyway.
It's stupid to argue points of jurisprudence with sociopathic killers. Find them and take them out of circulation. Lather, rinse and repeat.
Posted by: A_Plague_on_Both_Houses at August 7, 2007 10:10 AM
A jihad by any other name is just as destructive and evil. (my apologies to Shakespeare)
Posted by: walterc at August 7, 2007 10:59 AM
"(Le plus ca change, le plus c'est la meme chose !!. N'est-ce pas ??)"
-- from Jim Guirard above
It is always embarrassing when someone, attempting to use a foreign language, makes a howler so loud that he merely demonstrates that he knows nothing of that language, and can't even get the simplest quote straight.
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
No idiotic "le"'s about it.
Posted by: Hugh at August 7, 2007 12:29 PM
Hugh,
Notice an irony. Jim Guirard (Saudi mouthpiece)
thinks the word JIHAD has a positive connotation,
and wants to rehabilitate the concept from misuse
by the terrorists and their detractors. PM Gordon
Brown thinks JIHAD is pejorative, and wants to rehabilitate the Muslim community from association
with the word and its concept.
They BOTH can't be right.
at August 7, 2007 3:15 PM
Hugh,
It strikes me as ironic also, that a man like Mr. Guirard, who misuses English and misconstrues French, should instruct us how to counter the effectiveness of our enemies' Arabic lexicon!
at August 8, 2007 12:48 AM
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