Deja vu all over again.
A Karen Hughes clone.

Posted by: USorThem at July 23, 2008 9:48 AM

The advantage of this strategy is that it takes into account the psychology of every person linked to the islamic cultural identity.

In a "war of ideas", it is very important not to highlight to much the confrontation ... it risks to radicalize the counterpart. If the war of ideas stays inside the "islamic cultural identity", it is not a renouncement to the proper identity to refuse the violence ...

The war of ideas must seem (for the persons with an islamic cultural identity) not to be done or influenced by "western" culture ... This is just a psychological obviousness.

Robert, you could consider this as ... stealth anti-jihad!

Why not?

Posted by: Coaltaxopeuh at July 23, 2008 10:10 AM

Is this guy for real? He works for the government?
In a high position?...Really!
Did all that come out of one brain? I won't call it a mind. A snake oil salesman sells only one thing, snake oil. I doubt many 'good' muslims will buy any.
While not endowed with super intelligence, the average muslim is too smart to bow to the ideological rantings of a filthy Kuffir. A muslim could write a book called 'The Rantings and Ravings of dar al-harb'. A tragic comedy...

Posted by: duh_swami at July 23, 2008 10:40 AM

This guy Glassman is obviously fishing for a high position in the Obama The New Messiah administration.

"So here is our ultimate goal: A world in which the use of violence to achieve political, religious, or social objectives is no longer considered acceptable ..."

Kumbaya. I can see where this is leading--let's disarm unilaterally so the bad guys understand we are really sweet and not threatening them. Let's bring the soldiers home and start using "soft power," as those nuanced and sophisticated Europeans always do so effectively [/dripping sarcasm here]. Let's invite Muslims to our shores by the tens of thousands and make them our pals.

"It is the fact that the battle is going on within Muslim society that makes our role so complicated ...."

And what battle would that be, exactly? Where is it happening? All I see is the battle between the Slow Jihad and the Fast Jihad. Why is destroying civilization any better if it is done slowly by "moderates" instead rapidly by "radicals"?

"Our role is as a facilitator of choice [for freedom]... "

Choice is not Islamic. Freedom is not Islamic. You, Mr. Glassman, are expecting them to dump Islam completely by luring them with "diversions" from piety--idolatry. Are you fully prepared to "confront ideology" by making that argument? Obviously not.

"The shorthand for this policy is diversion ..."

Yes, diversion of our own energy and talents away from anything that might actually be effective in defending against and eventually stopping the Jihad.

"... our goal is to divert recruits from the violent extremist vision."

That is, we're going to take this young group of impressionable teenagers--basically a misguided inner city street gang, you see--and get them involved in wholesome activities in the Boy Scouts. Arts and crafts, maybe? Musical instruments?

Arts and crafts are not Islamic. Music is not Islamic. Whiling away the hours in diversions is not Islamic.

Yes, we need to confront the ideology--Islam--and its goals and methods. Stop imagining there is some struggle of ideas going on in the Islamic world. Stop pretending that Islam is really benign in its goals, liberal in its attitudes, and peaceful in its methods. Stop assuming nice characteristics for Islam that can easily be refuted through independent study of canonical documents, by soberly examining the 1400 year historical record, and by making informed observations of contemporary events across the globe.

Above all, stop lying about Islam. The Muslims won't like us for that confrontation, but so what? They will never begin to reform themselves unless they understand how bad THEY look in the eyes of civilized people. And even when (if ever) they do come to understand that, they still will not reform Islam if they think they are successfully fooling us.

Efforts such as Mr. Glassman proposes merely fuel Islamic triumphalism. Such efforts will merely reassure Muslims that their deception is working--that surely Allah, by rewarding them with groveling behavior and copious riches bestowed upon them by the Western dhimmis, is foursquare behind their Grand Jihad to undermine, uproot, and ultimately destroy our egalitarian laws, our liberal society, and our traditional culture. The Muslims will pursue their Jihad with even more vigor, after all, because all of these wonderful Western ideas are distinctly non-Islamic--offenses to their god Allah.

Posted by: Stendec at July 23, 2008 11:14 AM

Had James K. Glassman read the report on Fadil with attention and understanding, and despite Wright's attempts to offer his own pollyannish gloss about What A Falling-Out There Was In The Ranks of Al Qaeda, he would have seen, just from the quotes from Fadil offered (does anyone actually read anything with attention, or did he just accept an Executive Summary of the piece, or ignore the quotes and accept Wright's misunderstanding of the very evidence he, Wright, presented), that Fadil was not abandoning Jihad. He's all for Jihad. He is simply for Jihad conducted by means other than the terrorism favored by Al Qaeda, because that doesn't work, that simply arouses the Infidels too early, and what's more, Fadil finds attacks on Muslim rulers, or rulers who call themesleves Muslims, also a bad idea, though perhaps he does so because being inside an Egyptian or a Saudi jail, as so many of those former Al Qaeda ideologues or fighters have discovered, naturally leads to such a conclusion.

No, Glassman accepts, and does not offer a hint of questioning, the banal notion that "there is a war within Islam." No, there isn't really. There is a "war -- or rather a Jihad -- against Infidels." The duty of Jihad is as old as Islam, and is central, not tangential, to Islam. It is the "struggle" or Jihad to press back the boundaries of Dar al-Islam, to remove all obstacles everywhere to the spread, and then to the dominance, of Islam. Being lazy, J. K. Glassman assumes that the means chosen for Jihad -- qitaal or combat -- by the early Muslims necessarily remains the only means, and therefore the identifying feature, of Jihad. But qitaal or combat is not the only means, and a morning spent with Muslim texts, or Muslim sites on-line, would quickly demonstrate that Muslims have for many decades discussed all the other means of conducting Jihad that now present themselves.

To repeat myself: there have been three major changes, overlapping in time but distinct, that offer new weapons for those conducting Jihad.

The first is the negligence of the political and media elites throughout the Western world, that allowed them to admit into their midst millions of Muslims, without carefully considering what this arrival of people who carried undeclared in their mental baggage the ideology of Islam, and permitting them to settle deep behind what Islam itself tells them they must regard as enemy lines, would mean for the future security and stability of Infidel societies. We already know, even now, from seeing what is going on in Great Britain, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, and so on what the arrival of Muslims has meant, what kind of demands for changes to accommodate Muslim requirements are continuously made, and even when turned down, will forever be re-made, because Muslims, Believers in Islam, can do no other. And we can see the pressures, ranging from same-sex or, still worse, Muslim-only same-sex public facilities, and prayer rooms in schools and workplaces and time off for those daily prayers, that so disrupt the rhythm of Western life, and for accommodations in every area -- including the most absurd, such as demands that photographs of Muslimah faces on drivers' licenses and passports should not be required, and so on, or that all crucifixes and other signs of Christianity be removed not from laic France, or the United States, but from the quite different country of Italy. And so on -- you can fill up your own mental pages with the list, that goes on and on. And of course the most sinister demand of all is that Infidels not exercise their own rights, including the right of free speech. Muslims do not accept the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Muslim states instead concocted their own version of this, the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights, that simply rips the heart out of the real thing, denying freedom of conscience and free speech and equal treatment of the sexes and of non-Muslims in Muslim societies, and which they have had the gall to present as an "Islamic" equivalent of the real thing, when it actually vitiates where it does not outright destroy, the spirit and letter of the Universal Declaration, or such equivalents, in individual freedoms, as the American Bill of Rights.

There are fights within the world of Islam: fights between Shi'a and Sunni, fights by Arabs to suppress non-Arab Muslims such as Berbers, Kurds, and black African Muslims. There are resentments felt by the poor Arabs and Muslims for the rich ones. There is contempt felt by some of the "northern Arabs" of Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, for the "southern Arabs" of the sheikdoms and, especially, Saudi Arabia -- a resentment that may well merely be prompted by the economic disparity, but that is given a sheen of being about the supposed civilizational advance of the "northern Arabs" over the rude crude "desert Arabs" or "Beduin" of the Arabian peninsula.

There are also rivalries for power. Shall Mubarak stay or go? Shall he be succeeded by his oily gucci-loafered scion, or by the less corrupt, but likely more dangerous-to-Infidels repressentatives of the Muslim Brotherhood? Shall the Alawite dictatorship in Syria remain, or be replaced by a dictatorship of Sunni Muslim officers who, having slaughterered the Alawite generals, and allowed a certain amount of Sunni slaughter of Alawites in every one of their villages, now take over to enjoy the power, and of course the money that, in Muslim societies, is always obtained by the seizure of political power? And what princeling shall reign in this little sheikdomo, and which one in that?

Oh, but that's it. There is no discussion of the Islam as an ideology, no attempt to modify, at all, the inculcation of a worldview that teaches hatred of Infidels, out of texts -- Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira -- bristling with hostility, often murderous hostility -- toward non-Muslims, and that offers a Total Belief-System that rests on an uncompromising view that a state of permanent war, though not necessarily of open warfare, exists between Believers and Infidels.

Do some of those who call themselves Muslims not always and everywhere put the doctrines of Islam into practice? Of course, and they don't do so for various reasons. One is because they are not in a position at the moment to do so; their self-interest demands different outward behavior. They may be seeking to live in an Infidel state, or study nuclear energy in a Dutch or German lab, or take Fulbright to learn all about computer engineering. They may already live in an Infidel land and not wish to draw attention to what the canonical texts of Islam contain, and what, if one still identifies oneself as a Muslim, by this point can legitimately be attributed to such people as their beliefs, unless they declare otherwise and mean it.

And it is so much more important at the moment for so many Muslims to continue to extract as much as they can from Infidels, in the way of still more economic and military aid. Look at the meretricious behavior, accompanied by a steady drumbeat of smiles-and-wiles offers of support for the campaign "against Al Qaeda" by so many generals and zamindars in Pakistan. Or just look at Iraq, where we have now entered the stage where both Sunnis and Shi'a, and the various groups and parties and tendencies within each of the sectarian camps, tries to ingratiate itself with the Americans, and hopes that those fabulously well-equipped Americans will leave behind, and leave to their particular group or sect, so much of that equipment, and so they keep talking, as Hashimi did the other day, all about the "need for a stronger army" (Hashimi, a Sunni, sees the army, not the police, as the place where the Sunnis who formed the officer corps under Saddam are likely to find their surest power base within the so-called "national institutions" -- if they are to do so at all) and "greater security" which will, of course, only be insured by the Americans leaving those Humvees, those Bradley fighting vehicles, those tanks with special anti-I.E.D. devices, those guns, that night-fighting equipment, those helicopters, oh, and a few dozen planes would do nicely, and don't you want us to have a little bit of a navy to patrol off Umm al Qasr and help you contain Iran?
And the American military, with its officers so self-delighted with the "counter-insurgency strategy" (take a bow, all you writers of counter-insurgency manuals who have ignored the larger question -- the question of what exactly we win, what exactly the "victory" in Iraq is that will weaken the Camp of Islam (other than a quite different defiinition of "victory" that I have discussed here so many times), take a bow, soft-spoken would-be-noveliset thoughtful Col. Nagl, take a bow, Colonel or is it General McMaster, inventor of the "Ask Your Customer" program, according to which, we learn, American soldiers are asked to treat incarcerated Iraqis as "customers" whose good will they need to earn ("Friendliness Is Job One"), take a bow, all of you who think that the phrase "in general, insurgencies last ten years" makes any sense at all, instead of being as comical a phrase as "in general, civil wars last 4.7 years" or "in general, wars last 10.3 years."

James K. Glassman has not, it is clear from what he writes, sat down and studied Islam. He has not studied the texts. He has not understood either the definition of Jihad, nor the varied instruments of Jihad (it was only a quarrel over those instruments that distanced Fadil from the current leaders of Al Qaeda, and not over the concept, or necessity for Muslims to fulfill the duty, of Jihad itself).

How comforting it is, though, isn't it, not to study Islam, not to study the texts, not to study the commentaries, not to study the 1350-year history of Islamic conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims, who faced either conversion, or death,or at best -- if they were ahl al-kitab, People of the Book -- the status of dhimmi, which means permanent humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity.

And how comforting it is not to pay attention to, not to listen with care to, the growing small army of articulate defectors from the army of Islam, as valuable as were defectors from the KGB during the Cold War, such highly intelligent and thoughtful people as Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina. How comforting it is to think it is not a permanent problem, and in any case, the problem is one that can be solved over there, way over there, in the Middle East, in Iraq, or by "solving" the Jihad against Israel (which has no solution, which is only a situation to be managed, and managed through Israeli deterrence, which is all that keeps, or ever will, keep the peace), or in Afghanistan.

How wonderful not to look closely at what is happening in the countries of Western Europe, how wonderful to think that there is a "solution" and that what one sees in the behavior of Muslims, directed at Buddhists and Hindus as well as at Christians and Jews, in such places as southern Thailand and southern Sudan and southern Nigeria, in Bangladesh as in Bradford, in Lahore as in London or Lyon, in short, all over, wherever Muslims feel strong enough to push their ways, to force Infidels to accommodate them. And sometimes they win, and sometimes they are rebuffed, but that does not end their eternal desire to promote Islam, for Islam "is to dominate and is not to be dominated."

Glassman is a product of a certain American time and place, limited in his ability to see beyond the assumptions, about people or peoples, and about the effect of ideologies (I'm not sure if he is one of those Wall Street Journal marxists who believes that economic wellbeing, or lack of it, explains everything, but I suspect so), a believer that People Are Essentially The Same The Whole World Over, though not quite with the blatant bomfoggery of the Bush Administration's sentimental messianism, now slightly muted, of that Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations project in the dreamworld of Iraq.

And that Iraq remains, surge and "calm" or not, still a dreamworld, even or especially, for those hardheaded tough-minded "realistic" counter-insurgency experts who are proud of what they have accomplished -- like Colonel Bogey who with his men built that bridge over the River Kwai for the Japanese enemy with such care, paying attention to the task at hand but missing the larger picture,the picture outside Iraq, the picture of seeing the essential meaning, and menace, of Islam, and defining "victory" in Iraq only in one way: an end result that will weaken the Camp of Islam. And there is only one way -- the way I have suggested -- to do that.

Posted by: Hugh at July 23, 2008 11:19 AM

The witless keep trying to out wit Islam. This cannot be done on the ideological level alone. Allah does not care what you filthy kuffirs think of him, or his religion, or his muslims. The imperfect are incapable of thinking perfect thoughts. Only Allah, and his body double Mohammad are capable (yes, 'are') of perfect thoughts. Muslims can't do it either but they do strive for 'purity'. Thats the inner struggle jihad. That they can actually achieve this 'purity' by these methods is highly debatable.
Everything is for Allah, because purity demands it.
How are you going to 'talk' a muslim out of the idea that Islam represents purity, and filthy kuffirs represent degenerate dar al-harb...that must be defeated. Keep fighting until everything really is for Allah...and dar al-harb is no more.
You can't fend off Islamic hegemony by wishful thinking. It requires direct action in the real world. Western authorities need to stop worshipping the power of their own ideas, and take more concrete actions. Numerous concrete actions are suggested here daily by Hugh and others...'Is there anybody out there'? Or, 'is all 'quiet' on the western front'?...'Wake up Sampson, the Philistines are upon you'...

Posted by: duh_swami at July 23, 2008 12:27 PM

"War of ideas" is such an absurd, mad phrase that infuriates, it frustrates and irritates like the "WoT", the equally ridiculous phrase used to describe the 1400 year-old jihad against the world.

Glassman is an idiot, a wakademic idiot, a dime a dozen. They waste your time and they waste mine. We don't need Glassman, we need more Churchills and more Spencers and Fitzgeralds.

'War of ideas"-? Bah, humbug!

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at July 23, 2008 1:24 PM

It will never end, will it? Islam will never give up and so those who cherish freedom from the slavery which is Islam can never give up. In addition to all the vicissitudes that life already confronts ordinary folk with, one must add one more and this is the Great Islamic Burden. Very well. If it's fight until we win or until we die, so be it.

Meanwhile, we've got to start getting government officials who know more about Islam than presently. The Glassman type is hardly good enough. On the positive side, I think the ordinary folk I mentioned above are ahead of the elites on this one, in America, Canada, Australia, The Netherlands, Britain and elsewhere. It's sinking into the collective consciousness of Western nations that there's something very different and very wrong about Islam and Muslims. So, getting rid of the Great Islamic Burden will have to be achieved from the bottom up. At least this is very democratic. And to the Muslim world, all I have to say is thanks for nothing. Ah, Islam is such a drag.

Posted by: Wellington at July 23, 2008 1:53 PM

Both my parents and my uncles and aunt were in WWII and explained to me why the country had to make quick definitive decisions, there was no time for endless discussions and debates.
Today people accuse my parents' generation of all sorts of things, ie., bigotry, racism, imperialism, etc. But today's generation did not live in those times and deal with what my parents had to deal with.
Now the generation of today cannot seem to deal with the reality of what is happening now...

Posted by: Slytheryn at July 23, 2008 2:18 PM

A lot to do with OPEC oil, as much as a ‘war of ideas’: T. Boon Pickens says to dis-empower oil from the Middle Eastern Muslim world to break up their jihad threat:

Prediction: Oil Under $20 a Barrel by 2020 (June 2008)
http://alt-energystocks.com/blog/2008/06/18/prediction-oil-under-20-a-barrel-by-2020/

Americans are going to say “enough” with the price of gasoline and heating oil about the same time as they wise up and finally realize that America is the primary funding source for both sides of the war on terror, our side through our military budget and the terrorists through the importation of OPEC oil. When the epiphany occurs, we will finally get serious about getting this petroleum monkey off our collective backs. Signs tell me this awakening is underway already. Once it starts, it won’t stop. Enlightenment is not reversible.

If he’s ‘getting it’, and we here are getting it, how many others are also getting it? Getting off the OPEC oil monkey will cost us money, to become energy independent, but it will cost a lot less than our current mis-adventures in the Middle East. The ‘war of ideas’ will follow naturally, if we get off their oil. Let them pound sand, their ideology will destroy itself when our petro-dollars punch bowl is taken away from those desert Arabs. Per the above article:

”So here is our ultimate goal: A world in which the use of violence to achieve political, religious, or social objectives is no longer considered acceptable; efforts to radicalize and recruit new members are no longer successful; and the perpetrators of violent extremism are condemned and isolated.”

Get off the oil, and we can win this 'war of ideas' rather easily. Even old T. Boon Pickens is getting it, so why not the rest of them?

Posted by: Battle_of_Tours at July 23, 2008 2:22 PM

Battle_of_Tours: In absolute agreement with you that we must wean ourselves off Middle Eastern oil. Drill here. Go with nuclear. Coal. Viable alternative energy sources. Oh, and I almost forgot, ignore Al Gore.

No President of the United States, regardless of what he thinks, will be able to put the Islamic world in its place until we need nothing, absolutely nothing, from Muslims.

Slytheryn: I think the distinction between the older generations and the last two or so is that, for the former, actions were most important while, for the latter, good intentions are what really count, irrespective of results. Oh yeah, this represents descent.

Posted by: Wellington at July 23, 2008 2:51 PM

Tours and Wellington--

My favorite aspect of Pickens' campaign is his calling attention to the matter of the transfer of wealth caused by our dependence on oil. My first thought upon hearing that was to wonder if he's been reading some Hugh Fitzgerald. In any event, I'm glad Pickens has gotten air time for what he has to say.

I know the plan has its detractors -- and there are some bugs with storage and safety (with compressed natural gas) to work through -- but we'll find a solution faster by trying things out and tinkering with them than sitting on our hands waiting for a miracle to cover all our energy needs at once.

Posted by: MarisolJW at July 23, 2008 3:32 PM

We have to quit handing over jizya to Muslims.

NO Muslim-majority Muslim-controlled state should receive state aid, of any kind, from non-Muslim states.

All monies etc currently directed to bottomless pits like the 'Poor Palestinians' [TM] or to Egypt or Pakistan, etc and so forth, could be much more profitably redirected to the assistance of countries such as Israel, India, the Philippines, Thailand, Ethiopia, which are presently being assailed by jihad both within and without; and those that, like Timor Lorosae and Papua-New Guinea, may reasonably be expected to sustain jihad assault at some time in the near future.

In other words: we kafir should be concentrating on helping each other, and kafir who represent halfway decent principles should prioritise those kafir polities that also show some respect for those principles (thus: India gets priority over Russia).

Our self-defence against the military form of jihad - in theatres such as the southern Philippines - and against its other forms, as well, would be vastly simplified if the soldiers, generals and politicians on the kafir side knew just three things:

generally considered, Muslims never stop making war, or thinking about making war, on kafir, never stop trying to inflict sharia on the world;

Muslims lie perpetually, but especially when making war on kafir, so it is safe to assume that just about anything they say to kafir is either completely false, or distorted in some subtle and significant way;

and Muslims *only* call for hudna - a temporary timeout, to regroup and rearm - when feeling weak, and do not make any other kind of 'peace treaty' or 'truce' with kafir; if you - Philippines, or India, or Thailand - are hoping to make a 'peace' or a 'settlement' with Muslim 'rebels', fuggedaboutit, the minute they feel able to go for your throat again, they will, the 'agreement' you spent years dickering over, and drafted so carefully, has been written (from their POV), on toilet paper in disappearing ink.

Note that these same principles are pursued by Muslims just as commonly when seeking individual, personal advantage over kafir neighbours/ workmates/ classmates, or when attempting to push for such things as recognition of Muslim polygyny within a western jurisdiction, as in open combat in the field of war.

So, for example, I can confidently predict that the Australian Attorney-General's recent categorical and blunt rejection of an outrageous Muslim proposal that Australian law should officially recognise Muslim polygyny, will *not* be the end of it. The 'raid', figuratively speaking, was repulsed; the Muslims, not being strong enough to exert further pressure, have now backed off for a while, but as soon as they see another chance, they will 'raid' again. They will keep on push, push, pushing.

But once we know their 'game plan', we can push back, HARDER. WE have to be just as determined to present an impervious and implacable opposition, never conceding an inch of actual or ideological ground.

Our primary aim is to defend our hard-won rights and freedoms and our physical boundaries; to maintain, or even extend, an 'Islam-free, jihad-free, sharia-free' zone, to which those free spirits currently struggling to shed the mental bondage of Islam, may in future be able to defect.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at July 23, 2008 6:24 PM

Marisol: I just hope that Pickens' specifics are realistic. Unlike some, I have no problem whatsoever with using oil for a long time to come as a principal energy source, as long as very little, or preferably none, comes from any nation hostile to American interests. Most welcomed would be drilling for and using our own oil, which we appear to have in huge amounts if only extremist environmentalists and dim-witted politicians would get out of the way. I'm all for alternative sources of energy as well, but these should be developed by the private sector and they must be truly realistic. Coal and nuclear are not to be ignored either.

As you might know, I think man-made global warming is a tremendous fraud. It's rank hysteria and, sadly, evidence of the fact that even science has now become politicized. Yes, I'm all for a clean environment, but within reason and based on solid scientific consensus, which absolutely does not exist where man altering earth's temperatures is concerned. I'm old enough to have lived through the global cooling nonsense of some thirty-five years ago. It's gotten so bad now that you actually have true believers maintaining that we're going to have some global cooling for a while within the larger global warming stage. I say enough is enough. CO2 is food for plants, the oceans emit hundreds of times more of it than man does every year and so drill and follow that up with even more drilling. Bottom line: We need to do everything we can in order to tell OPEC to go to hell. America should want and need nothing from the Muslim world and its proxies.

Posted by: Wellington at July 23, 2008 6:29 PM

I would go easy on Glassman & others who are trying to peddle the bush administration snake oil treatment for islamic terrorism. He saw what happened to Stephen Coughlin, and probably figures that ignorance is bliss. Or at least job security.

Posted by: sheik yer booty at July 23, 2008 7:34 PM

Glassman...pure bunk. He shows that he has no concept of the enemy or its goals. He also shows that he does not understand human nature.

People throughout the world are mostly people smart which Glassman obviously is not. So how, pray tell, can he describe how to do something that he himself is obviously is incapable of doing.

As said earlier, he would fit into Obama's administration very well.

Posted by: Spot on at July 24, 2008 1:30 PM