| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Jihad Watch | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Raymond Ibrahim | Robert Spencer |  |
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Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald calls for an end to the foreign aid through which Western governments have ended up funding the global jihad:
Zarqawi has three brothers, seven sisters. A family of eleven children. No industry (in the older sense of that word -- work), no entrepreneurial activity, few resources. But as with the "Palestinians," as with the rest of the Arab and Muslim world, as with the Muslim migrants within Europe, families of 11, 12, 13 children are not rare. In Europe they are on the dole. In those places where Arabs and Muslims have happened not to strike it rich through oil, they do not limit their family sizes. They do not ask for, nor receive, money from all the rich Arabs and Muslims. They ask for, and receive, and then receive more -- no matter how the money is squandered or vanishes (as in the case of the billions that somehow evanesced when Arafat died, and not a single contributor to the "Palestinians" among those Europeans and the Americans has made a fuss, raised an eyebrow, asked for Abbas to find that money, or for Arafat's widow to please hand back some of those billions or perhaps in her case merely hundreds of millions, or even tens of millions. Who knows how much the boys in the "Palestinian" Authority back room were skimming off the top? Instead, these contributors promised another $9 billion over the next 3 years.And the same is true with Egypt, with Jordan, with Pakistan -- countries that Saudi Arabia itself could fund entirely merely on the interest of the interest of the amount it takes in this year. Is the American government, the last guarantee of the personal safety of the princes and princelings of the House of Al-Saud, incapable of extracting $10-$20 billion -- a pitiful sum -- from the rich Arabs, and to have them give whatever is to be given to the Arabs and Muslims whom, the Americans continue blandly to believe, only need to be helped out of "poverty" to lessen or dampen their enthusiasm for "extremist" Islam? (Again, “extremist” Islam is not a complete fiction, but the word “extremism” itself implies that the problem only comes from an identifiable handful of "extremists." Yet if one believes a resident of Zarqawi's town, a mere "29 percent" of Jordanians would be practitioners of the good, true Islam, the kind Westerners like to call "extremist.")
And if the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the people in the U.A.E., Bahrain, and elsewhere among the rich, extraordinarily rich, extraordinarily corrupt, extraordinarily decadent, extraordinarily mendacious and meretricious to the Infidels, extraordinarily vicious and indifferent to the mistreatment of non-Muslims and non-Arab Muslims as well, within their own domains -- if these people can be forced to share a tiny bit of their unearned and unmerited wealth with the poor Arabs and Muslims, that will have many good effects.
The first is that we, the Infidels, will no longer be paying that jizyah of foreign aid. Why do I call it "jizyah"? Because it represents a payment, from Infidels (America, Europe) to Muslims. That payment, that so-called "foreign aid," has lost, if it ever possessed, the quality of being an act of voluntary charity. It is now something that continues to flow despite the disappearance or pocketing or misapplication of such aid, and despite the fact that it often goes to fund people who in turn may be helping promote the Jihad -- most obviously the Lesser Jihad within the Middle East itself against Jews in Israel and Christians everywhere in that Middle East, but also that Greater Jihad against all non-Muslims, and not only Christians and Jews, everywhere in the world.Does the E.U., does the United States, have the will to simply cut off Egypt, Jordan, the "Palestinians," and others, and to tell them it is long past time for them to end their relentless Jihad against Israel, to stop persecuting the Copts, to stop treating the loss of Sunni power in Iraq as equivalent to an "Infidel" takeover, to stop having ruling classes that pocket much of that aid? The atrocious behavior of these ruling classes causes the populace, which already dislikes or hates Infidels (how could it be otherwise?) now has yet one more reason to hate or despise them: they supply the money that is pocketed, and therefore helps to keep in power, the assorted Mubaraks of this world, and others in the same line of work, whether generals or phony "monarchs" of "royal" families such as the Al-Saud tribe. The House of Saud is a royal house because it simply happened to have a victory at Jabal Shammar in 1921 that sealed its resistible rise to power. It is a desert tribe, all daggers and dishdashas. Its pretensions come entirely from the fact of oil – oil that has been discovered, produced, found uses for entirely by the advanced Western world.
Egypt also hosts a vicious and corrupt regime. It is a world center of antisemitism and anti-Americanism, a phony stager of phony "democratic" reforms, a protector of, even encourager of, the Muslim tormenters of the Copts. (This is true even if the odd "court Copt" is trotted out to explain that Egypt is doing just fine.) It is a "staunch ally" that, like Jordan, has a population dead set against the Americans, not least because those same Americans hand over aid to the very regimes that rule over them, and that are obviously corrupt and obviously indifferent to the economic needs of the populace.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, the Americans shell out money for the "Iraqis" that the "Iraqis" could in fact obtain by borrowing against their future oil sales. Haven't we spent quite enough? Isn't $350 billion, not to mention the nearly $100 billion in Western -- though not Arab -- debt relief for Iraq that was obtained by the Americans -- really quite enough?
And can't the Americans demand that the Saudis come up with, not the pitiful $1 billion they have announced they will contribute to Iraq -- i.e. about a day or two of oil earnings, while the Americans have spent $350 billion -- $10 or $20 or $50 billion for Iraq? Can’t the Americans read that Al-Saud family the riot act, and tell them the days of ARAMCO propaganda, and those ex-diplomats and businessmen running around Washington, their pockets stuffed with Saudi money, will be exposed in Congress? And that the walking-around money that Prince Bandar used to take out of the Riggs National Bank and use for all sorts of things will be highlighted on national hearings? That money went to those "royal" and commoner Saudis who beat their servants, and those Saudi "students" who smashed their cars, who caused mayhem of every kind, and who were always bailed out by the Saudi Embassy, ever ready to take care of its own. When it wasn't whisking its nationals and sometimes their half-American children back to Saudi Arabia, that Embassy was funding mosques and madrasas and so on all over the United States. Call it demurely "The U.S.-Saudi Connection." Call it "a Congressional committee to Investigate Saudi Arabia." Call it what you will. But have it take place. The Executive Branch should tell the Al-Saud that those escape houses and apartments that assorted Prince Turkis, Abdullahs, and so on have bought all over the West may not be quite so readily available, and that they had best not count on American forces being used to protect them should an Al-Qaeda-like threat emerge to disturb them. For if such a threat were to develop, the first priority, and possibly the only goal, would be to seize the oilfields of Al-Hasa, destroy whatever planes and other military equipment might be appropriated by a new regime, and sit tight, pumping the oil "for the benefit of mankind" and, oh yes, possibly a little for those "good Muslims" in Egypt, Jordan, and so on.
Zarqawi is insupportable. Nor can we support, in another sense, those families of 10, 11, 12, 13, 18 children that the Arab Muslims, not only in the Middle East, but all over Western Europe, appear to believe it is their right to have. Of course they do -- they see it, they discuss openly, the use of such overbreeding as a way to overwhelm the Infidels. This has been said repeatedly all over the Muslim world. Think of Boumedienne of Algeria, in 1971 claiming that the Arabs would conquer France through Arab wombs ("les ventres"). That was in 1971, when there were possibly a million or so Muslims in France. There are now at least 6 million.
There is still time. Time for all sorts of acts, beginning with the imposition of a draft in France and elsewhere in Europe, so that the Infidel young can be trained while there is time. There should also be an end to Muslim migration, a deliberate creation of a Muslim-hostile environment, a cut in aid to large families (why are the Infidels supposed to fund the instruments of their own destruction?), and a thousand other things, including instead of government-funding of mosques to replace those "salafist" or "extremist" mosques, simply a closing of mosque after mosque that is shown to have some connection to the preaching of hate against Infidels. So central is this to Islam that such evidence will not be hard to find, especially if Arabic-speaking apostates or the truly laic are used as covert monitors of everything that goes on in those mosques. There must likewise be an ending of the money from rich Arabs outside – authorities should simply seize it, and keep it, and apply it to the huge costs of monitoring Muslim populations throughout the Western world. This would give even some rich Arabs second thoughts about funding the Jihad worldwide.
No, it is not only Zarqawi himself who should not be supported. It makes no sense for Infidel governments to continue to ignore both the interests and desires of their own citizens, who do not wish to support the likes of the Zarqawi family -- not in Jordan, not in Egypt, not among the "Palestinians," not in Pakistan, and not in Paris or Marseilles or Lyon or Madrid or Bradford or London or Berlin or Cologne or Brussels or Milan or Rome or Madrid or Barcelona or anywhere else within the lands, and civilization, the best products of which could never have been created, and their producers never have emerged, not for one minute, within the world of Islam.
Suicide is disturbing. It is even worse to be forced into it by our own timid or lazy or willfully ignorant leaders, whose task it is rather both to learn themselves, and then to instruct others, on the most important matters that will affect them. What is more important now and for the next half-century than Islam? This suicidal tendency among our leaders inflicts on people unwilling to go quietly -- we the Infidels -- the requirement that we not only go quietly when we do not wish to, but to collaborate with, to disregard the evidence and regard as our friends, those who do not wish us well, who wish only harm to us and our laws, customs, manners, and understandings.
Infidels are being asked, in supporting through the jizya of foreign aid, and through the domestic jizya of support for mosques, for large-family allowances, for free education and free housing and free everything else, in France most obviously and in the most pronounced fashion, but everywhere else in Western Europe as well, to fund their own suicide.
This can't go on.
Posted by Robert at November 14, 2005 7:50 AM
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Among the forms of foreign aid that ought to be cut off are the tax breaks that the US Treasury, the UK govt and the French govt have been giving for years to their oil companies which became disguised foreign aid to Saudi Arabia and --I believe-- other oil exporting Arab states. In the US this tax break went under the rubric of Foreign Tax Credit. Saudi Arabia called most of the royalty paid to them an oil income tax. Thus ARAMCO was allowed to deduct most of what it paid to the Saudi royals from its US corporate income tax. Whatever the mechanism used to supply foreign aid to Saudi Arabia today, it ought to be stopped. The Congress should investigate.
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2005/09/kindly-making-arabia-rich.html
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2005/09/what-does-left-really-mean-in-2005.html
Posted by: Eliyahu![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 14, 2005 10:16 AM
Condi is going to meet Abbas today. I hope she has that pot of jizyah with her. It would be downright rude othersie.
Posted by: John Sobieski at November 14, 2005 11:13 AM
'pot of jizyah '
Where are the Borgias when you need them?
Posted by: Gary at November 14, 2005 11:21 AM
Did you see the recent C-SPAN hearings on the proposed Saudi Accountability Act?
It was so heartening to see members of congress quoting MEMRI, and listening with great interest to testimony by Steven Emerson. More than anything, it was priceless to see such a high-profile member like Arlen Specter giving that invertebrate Antony Cordesman such a hard time for his lack of credibility.
BTW: Steven Emerson in his 1980's expose "The American House of Saud" details how the CSIS (currently chaired by Cordesman) tricked congress to allow the sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia in the 70's. Anyway, it was great to see Emerson mop the floor with Cordesman on such a high-profile platform.
Posted by: Andrei Rublev at November 14, 2005 11:24 AM
"This can't go on."
But it will go on and on until countries are bankrupt and the standards for their infrastructure are lowered and graffiti and trash litter even the most expensive areas. This external situation mirrors the internal and personal situations of our lives which will grow increasingly more despairing and isolated.
When societies proclaim that anything goes,that all cultures are the same,that reason and educated examination of problems take a backseat to feelings and sheer selfishness, and that the pursuit of happiness is all about materialism, then those societies lose their civilized veneer and fall apart. My descendanats will live in a world totally different from mine. I do not think it will be a better world.
The disintegration of civilization cannot be stopped when it reaches certain critical mass and the forces invading it are in larger numbers. But there can be changes of consciousness through experience that form the belief structures for a new civilization that is wiser than the old. As the pendulum swings from the iron clad rules of the Victorian age to the "no-rules" of our own times, it would be good to remember the middle way, the golden mean, the ideas of moderation.
Posted by: the poetess
at November 14, 2005 11:33 AM
When Mr. Blair concluded the G8 summit on 7.7.2005 -- the day of the London bombing -- he couldn't rush fast enough to promise a $3B aid package to the Palestinians. This was not the script. The summit was supposed to be about aid to Africa, global warming, and world trade....
Yet the day Muslims raped London, the day Islam flipped hermajesty the bird, the day pious British youth murdered 50 brits in the name of Islam by explosively ripping their limbs from their bodies, their heads from their necks, their intestines from their abdomens, Tony Blair stood up, dropped the prepared speech and all pretense -- and the FIRST THING HE UTTERED ABOUT WAS A $3 BILLION DOLLAR AID PACKAGE FOR THE PALESTINIANS... THREE DAYS LATER THE EU CHIMED IN AND SUGGESTED THE PACKAGE WOULD BE SOMEWHERE CLOSER TO $9 BILLION... Does anyone wonder why Muslims explode themselves and other people too? Terror pays handsomely.
My esteem for him plummeted and has not risen...
Posted by: jsla at November 14, 2005 1:09 PM
Blair always reminds me of an overgrown schoolboy,giving hilarious histrionic performances as he talks of 'Decency' and 'His place in History.'
This guy is vain enough to wear lifts in his shoes to appear taller and wanted to be an actor!! His Missus promotes Palestinian Suicide Bombers , had the case of Shamina Begum backed by notorious Hizb ut Tahrir reversed so the 16 yr old could wear a tent to school...Ms Booth [as she likes to style herself] is an overpaid lawyer on 'Human Rights' and recently accepted large sums of money to be a speaker on overseas 'Charities.' We can only despair of such
corrupt,greedy leaders : good news is that Schroeder has been toppled by Angela Merkel [who is against Turkey joining E.U],Jacky Arab Arse kisser Chirac is on way out and Teflon Tony
is well on the way also.The old guard will soon be replaced - let's hope it is not too late for the survival of Europe.
at November 14, 2005 2:27 PM
Hugh,
I hope you e-mail this to the White House and State Department. Convincing me, which you've done with room to spare, isn't going to change much.
Posted by: Beagle at November 14, 2005 2:41 PM
E-mails of all articles and postings here to the right people, who may never see them unless they get a few dozen that are all the same, are welcome. I'd do it myself if I had any idea where to send them so they will actually either be read or counted. Let me know what you know.
Posted by: Hugh at November 14, 2005 3:05 PM
The outrage is that although our State Department and the White House must know about this, the payments continue. Who exactly is behind this treasonous behavior and what is their agenda?
Posted by: epg at November 14, 2005 4:22 PM
Hugh,
I just fired a letter, including a permalink to this column, to the White House. Please don't dwell on my mention of "cut-n-run". I understand and respect your logic, but GWB isn't going to go for it. We've been over this before. I'll be on your side the second this experiment in democracy fails, if it does. Which it probably will, but it's our best chance to avoid extreme measures at home and abroad.
comments@whitehouse.gov.
I'd consider the State Department, but that's a lost cause.
Here's what I sent, minus my name and location.
Dear President Bush, You have done far more to fight jihadi terrorism than the last half dozen administrations combined. Your last major policy speech showed me you've done your homework. I voted for you. But for the 22nd Amendment, I'd do it again. You're not the best communicator I've seen as president, and your administration has trouble handling the 24 hour news cycle, but your leadership is second to none. You stick to your plans and principles. I admire that greatly, far more than a slick talker. What I write about today is our policy of giving foreign aid to governments who openly oppose U.S. policies and raise roadblocks in your plans to make the first important moves towards democracy with individual rights in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia (home of the true holy sites in Islam, and floating on oil) must be handled carefully to be sure. But their double game of claiming to fight terrorism while exporting the most virulent form of Islam (Salafi-Wahhabi) and funding for the same all over the world merits a tougher response. Moreover, no nation oppresses religions other than Islam more consistently or harshly than Saudi Arabia. Jews can't enter and Christian literature is contraband. They aren't going to sell their oil at a loss to spite us. I don't agree with the conclusion their oil supply ties our hands, but large-scale military action would be unwise. Egypt, the second largest recipient of foreign aid behind Israel, just ruined a democracy summit. It's time to use money as a lever. I hope you read the following piece by Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch. http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/008996.php Robert Spencer and Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch are worth a read. You may not agree with all their policy conclusions (especially cut-and-run from Iraq - neither do I) but their site offers valuable insight into jihad, Islamic theology, and Islamic radicalism on a daily basis. Thank you for your leadership, class in the face of hostile press and politics, and action when others did nothing. Respectfully,
Not great, but hopefully someone will read your insightful post.
at November 14, 2005 5:08 PM
That had appropriate paragraph spacing when I sent it and before I posted it. Don't know what happened.
Posted by: Beagle at November 14, 2005 5:09 PM
The irony is that the only aid money that anyone complains about is aid to Isreal.While Isreal is a democracy and a dependable ally. Giving money to the Palestinians is the same as throwing money down a rat hole. Here's what we get for our $2 bil in aid to Israel, this is money well spent.
_________________________________________
Compared to the $2.0 billion yearly military aid to Israel, the U.S. contributes more than $130 billion(!) every year to the defense of Europe and more than $30 billion to the defense of Japan, Korea, and the Far East. Over 300,000 U.S. troops are stationed with NATO and over 30,000 U.S. troops in the Far East. In contrast, not one single U.S. soldier needs to be stationed and put at risk in Israel. U.S. military analysts estimate that the U.S. would have to spend the equivalent of $150 billion a year in the Middle East to maintain a force equivalent to Israel’s.
There are many other benefits that the U.S. military derives from Israel. Israel is the only country that has gained battlefield experience with U.S. weapons. This experience is immediately conveyed to the U.S. Enormous quantities of captured Soviet weapons and defense systems were turned over to the U.S. military for analysis. Israel, in the light of its experience, continually modifies U.S. weapons systems. For instance, Israeli scientists have made over 200 improvements in the F-15 alone and similar improvements, mostly in avionics, in later-generation planes. It would be more in line with reality if military aid to Israel were classified as part of the defense budget, rather than as “aid”. Israel is truly America’s unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East. Former President Reagan put it well: “The fall of Iran has increased Israel’s value as perhaps the only remaining strategic asset in the region on which the United States can fully rely.” American aid to Israel is a two-way street. Aid to Israel is America’s greatest defense bargain.
Posted by: Roxane at November 14, 2005 6:02 PM
Okay.
One question: at what point would you be willing to agree that we have far less to lose (by way of men, money, materiel, diminishing morale, attention fixed on Iraq rather than the world-wide Jihad especially in its use not of terrorism but of Da'wa and demographic conquest), and far more to gain (permanent sectarian divisions between Sunni and Shi'a in Iraq supplemented by similar widening divisions elsewhere in the Muslim world, the example of an independent Kurdistan giving other non-Arab Muslims, such as the Berbers, ideas, and raising, and fixing attention of both Muslims and Infidels on, the Arab supremacist ideology that is within Islam)?
Would it be in five years? One year? Three months? What would have to happen in Iraq for you to agree with me? What event or series of events, or simultaneous occurrence of events, would trigger your belief that the Americans should pick up and leave? Would it have to be a decision by Bush himself -- or would it have to be only when the "Iraqi" government tells us to leave, or when mutterings from the upper echelon of the army about the decrease in quality and quantity of recruits, and the permanent being done to the army, in all three of its components? Would it be another 1000 killed, or another $100 billion spent, or the conviction that Bush and Co. had no energy policy that was nearly adequate to deal with the situation at hand (by the way, I recommend Raymond J. Learsy's "Over a Barrel" which just appeared), that its constant hectoring of Israel and mad sums of money being offered to the "Palestinians" and the continuing prattle about a two-state solution; the Adminstration's complete failure to be in Darfur, having fallen for the most obvious delaying tactics by the Sudanese government and of course the Arab League that thoroughly approves behind the scenes of making the Sudan an Arab Muslim country when in 1950, non-Muslim black Africans were still in the majority), and the continiued awful failure to grope for, and to find, some kind of way to allude to Islam that will at least point people in the right direction, possibly by using the synecdochic trick of talking about "we are not against Islam, just those who believe in the Jihad" (as if we don't know what that means), and then leave it to the Muslims to sputter about but, but, but, Jihad is central to Islam and how dare you! and things like that. And would your answer be different if you became convinced that remaining in Iraq actually limited American freedom of movement against Iran, for fear of retaliation on the troops now in Iraq?
Anyway, thanks for sending the piece. And let me know how much more of everything that is being expended (or squandered) by us, and how much more delay by the Shi'a and Kurds (whose leaders, and in the case of the Kurds but not the Shi'a the people as well, want us to stay as long as possible, the Shi'a so that we fight the Sunnis and leave as much money and equipment around as possible, and the Kurds more or less ditto, but with less emphasis on the money, and more on as much damage being inflicted on the Sunni Arabs as possible) -- in getting ready for their own close-up, would you be willing to tolerate?
Posted by: Hugh at November 14, 2005 6:10 PM
Oh, and thank you for sending that email. And aside from Iraq (but you know how that topic sets my blood boiling), sounds like we are on the same wavelength, and that wave is a doozy, a decuman.
Posted by: Hugh at November 14, 2005 6:16 PM
Hugh,
I could be wrong, but I see major drawdown of U.S. forces in the next year or so. The Iraqi President thinks his forces are improving significantly, whatever that opinion is worth. The British are looking at a similar timetable.
I also forsee a permanent, more or less, presence in Iraq to one degree or another. We've not withdrawn from Germany. Germany is a real quagmire apparently.
There are two wildcards: Syria and Iran. I've been reading some signals in the media which suggest the administration might be considering action against one or both. Of course it could be neither. Forces in Iraq give us some degree of leverage on both nations. I don't view our troops as captives in the region, as some, but insurance. After taking Saddam's army down in a few weeks, and the Taliban with some commandos and air power, don't underestimate the intimidation factor our military has on the powers in the region.
Moreover, we have significant naval and air power which hasn't been employed. Though our ground forces have been taking some hard hits periodically, nothing comes close to the combined power of our carrier task forces. Other nations not only aren't in the same league, it's a different sport.
I can't provide you with benchmarks. With the political process ongoing, I forsee America sticking it out until there is some sort of government in Iraq. Again, that appears to be within a year or so.
As for the divisions we could exploit, that would upset the 'holy grail' of stability our unimaginative foreign policy wonks worship more than any other concept.
Factor in oil, always. If Iraq breaks apart (just speculating) Turkey moves against the Kurds into Kirkuk, after the Kurds sieze it, which they will. Iran will move into the South (which the already have covertly). Syria will fight with their Baathist Sunni allies (openly). That means oil production in Iraq could drop to nearly nothing. The war could expand to the other oil-producing nations in the region.
I'm not blindly following Bush. His plan, breathtaking in scope, optimistic in the extreme, perhaps ignorant of the facts on the ground, somewhat tone deaf to jihad and theology, if it works (see previous four qualifications) would mean a fairly stable Iraq with a relatively federal system of government.
As for giving it five years, only the ongoing presence I mentioned before. If the Iraqi forces aren't reliable and trustworthy to their new government in a year, they never will be.
The nice thing about your theory is that's what we get by default if the Iraqi experiment in democracy fails.
Your prescient thoughts for a long-term plan to deal with immigration, taqiyya artists, demographics, and the rest, simply aren't on the radar screen.
This is why Robert's books, your work here, and others like you, must continue to educate despite facing entrenched opposition in the government, institutional, media, business, and educational fields. MESA Nostra must be stopped. CAIR must be exposed. Islamic clerics must be held to account and pinned down on what they believe. Mosques must be monitored.
This has been going on for one degree or another for 1,300+ years. I'm not hopeful for a quick resolution. Were it not for the oil - and I agree with your notions concerning a major energy independence intitiative - things would be much simpler.
Posted by: Beagle at November 14, 2005 6:53 PM
That's a thoughtful answer, and now I'm speechless -- because I'm speechless.
Posted by: Hugh at November 14, 2005 7:34 PM
Which is not to say, however, that I do not think it would be far better for Infidels everywhere, and in the end more likely to create conditions that will divide and demoralize and therefore weaken Islam, if the American forces leave at once. If those forces stay, it is likely that the successful candidate for President (either Democratic or Republican) will win on a ticket of promptly ending the war in Iraq (Eisenhower promising to "go to Korea"in 1952), and that the atmosphere will be less promsiinig, after a few more wasted years -- years clearly seen to be wasted. No joy, no sense of satisfaction, no anything can come from an Iraq that is even as decent as, say, Turkey (and that is impossible). And several years will have passed with America and Europe still divided, whereas if the Americans pull out of Iraq, if Iraq is no longre a subject of discussion and interest and division, all attention can be focused on the horror that would result from the islamization of Europe -- horror for Europe itself and for the civilization of Europe, horror for the Western world, its people and civilization, horror for Hindus and Chinese and all non-Muslims outside, and even within, the Dar al-Islam, horror for all those interested in art and science and music, horror for all those interested in mental freedom. What you see in the Arab and Muslim lands, what you have seen for the past thousand years, what you now see in those two most powerful Muslim countries, Saudi Arabia and Iran, are guides to what Europe would then be like.
Whatever it takes, that has to be prevented -- and even another 2-3 years in Iraq will make the situation much more difficult.
Well, I won't go on; I've posted it all here a few hundred times, and many are no doubt as sick of the repetition, undertaken for pedagogic reasons, as I am.
Posted by: Hugh at November 14, 2005 8:56 PM
blockquote>Dear President Bush, You have done far more to fight jihadi terrorism than the last half dozen administrations combined. Your last major policy speech showed me you've done your homework. I voted for you. But for the 22nd Amendment, I'd do it again. ...... but your leadership is second to none. Email to Prez by der Beagle
LOL, surely you jest, tell me that was tongue in cheek, as a tactic a great way to get past the filters, but if sincere.. then I have to once again ask the question.."Is there intelligent life on Earth".
The man sitting on the throne is a disaster, to our economy, our liberties our constitution.. AND time will tell, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we've scarcely nibbled a bite.
Oh well, my tour of duty on this planet is, as with all, nearing it's end, tis you that will have to savor your own sauces and stew in your own juice, not me.
Yeh, Hugh I'm speechless too, but for a different reason. El Presidente is for want of a better term, a national disaster. When I was a young Goldwaterite we called the establishment elite intellectual prostitutes, (and they are) but the present offering of pus that has infected our once great democratic republic are anti intellectual none the less prostitutes, who would and do sell not only their souls, but the very souls and sinew of their "fellow Americans" for power, fame and Saudi riyals.
Posted by: Nariz at November 14, 2005 9:28 PM
Hugh, I think we're closer to agreement than disagreement. Pulling all our troops out suddenly isn't on the political radar screen unless you look at the far Left. Everyone wants a drawdown, depending on the Iraqi's abilities.
I'm with you that 2-3 more years for the level of commitment we have now is throwing good money after bad. Nobody, including GWB, wants to keep troop levels this high for years. It's an admission of failure if the Iraqi Army can't be trained three years (plus a little) after the end of major hostilities. If this begins to creep into 2007 with a hostile and fractured political process along sectarian lines, insurgency, and no functioning sovereign government capable of the necessities required for a real state, nobody will be able to make a convincing case for progress.
Nor will anyone be able to say we "cut-and ran."
Posted by: Beagle at November 14, 2005 9:47 PM
Nariz,
Dear President Bush, You have done far more to fight jihadi terrorism than the last half dozen administrations combined. Your last major policy speech showed me you've done your homework. I voted for you. But for the 22nd Amendment, I'd do it again. ...... but your leadership is second to none. Email to Prez by der Beagle
LOL, surely you jest
That's not an argument, or even a properly-composed coherent statement, but I'll refute it easily.
GWB: took down Taliban, Saddam, revised military to fight counter-insurgency and terrorism. Proposed plan for reform in Middle East. Named the enemy. Responded forcefully to a terrorist attack for the first time in U.S. history. Put states which harbor on notice. By taking down Saddam, broke Khadaffi. By toppling Saddam ended largest scandal in world history: UN Oil-for-Food. The only victories in the war against jihadism came under GWB. To be fair to the rest, nobody tried. Exposed A.Q. Khan. There's more, but I don't feel the need to argue with someone who can't form an argument.
Clinton: did nothing despite numerous acts of war - 1993 WTC, 1996 Khobar, 1998 embassies, 2000 Cole. Refused Osama from Sudan for lack of "probable cause." Wouldn't kill him because some minor Arab prince might get singed. Kissed up to Arafat.
GHWB: Gulf War. Left Saddam in power. Set up regime which led to Oil-for-Food scandal and a long-term US presence in Saudi Arabia. Refused to help those he encouraged to topple Saddam, thus hurting U.S. credibility to this day with the Shia and Kurds. The Kurds seem to have recovered more easily.
Reagan: Continued to aid mujahideen in Afghanistan. Cut and ran from Lebanon. Didn't confront Iran. Threw some arms at Iran and Iraq, watched them trash each other for seven years. Gold star for that.
Carter: Disaster area. Iran, Afghanistan, sucked up to the Palestinians. Carter was clueless from the first day to the last. His only good speech was admitting he completely misread the Soviets. Began aiding mujahideen, which probably seemed smart at the time.
Ford: Did nothing in foreign policy regarding the Middle East. Nothing bad, nothing good.
Nixon: Oil crisis. No pressure on OPEC. Middle East policy revolved around Cold War.
Posted by: Beagle at November 14, 2005 10:05 PM
Look at the bright side - when China calls in its foreign debt that the USA owes it, the US economy will go down the toilet, along with it Australia's and to a large degree Eurabia's.
Then there will be no more dole. The Muslims, like the rest of us will have to work or stave (just like in that Socialist utopia - China).
Posted by: 3rdtimelucky at November 14, 2005 10:07 PM
Your points are great, Beagle -- and I largely agree with nearly everything you've said -- I hope it doesn't sound glib or cavalier, but the atmospherics of our departure from Iraq will be extremely important. Whether the project succeeds or fails, we must end with the message "we didn't cut and run -- we did what we could to to fix your mess..." If we succeed, it WILL prevent some harrowing downstream scenarios that would otherwise be nearly inevitable. Anyway, if it fails, I think Hugh's vision is pretty close to the mark and his dreams for Arab disarray will still be attainable.
We have already been very successful at countering one important Jihadi premise, that America will run if you hit her hard... and ironically the Arab propaganda megaphones have had a force multiplying effect. I don't take that "Arab street" crap too seriously -- they always have some pretext or other to burn our flags and curse us to death -- Who cares? Our merciless pounding of their heroes the "insurgents" effectively yanked that plank out from under the Jihadis platform. Remember? This was Bin Laden's main theory for attacking America. We have proven we are the targets that hit back with a vengeance... unlike nearly everyone else in the world...
I am convinced that early withdrawal hands this plank right back to the Jihadis, and turns our repudiation of it into a great victory for them... The propaganda extravaganza from the Arabs would prove an irresistable lure that would entice future Bin Ladens and Zarqawis without end -- It would prove catastrophic for us.
And I don't think those plump preposterous sheiks missed the performance of America vs. the new Saladin -- We swept the wadi with his lousy ass and they all took notes...
How comforting could it possibly be for them to think: "Well -- no matter what I do the Americans can flatten me in about 1 week or less -- but later they sure will hurt in the polls when my people turn out to be ungovernable assholes and animals..."
If the Iraq project only serves to give these vermin pause, it will have been a good thing indeed... If it succeeds in creating some antidote to their despotism, it will be the greatest accomplishment since our defeat of the Soviets... If not -- back to the drawing board... we'll still be better off...
Posted by: jsla at November 15, 2005 1:24 AM
somebody accused bush Senior of starting a "long term presence in Saudi Arabia" of the US. Actually, the Strategic Air Command of the US had a base at Dhahran in eastern Saudi Arabia back in the fifties in Ike's time.
But let's get behind Hugh's call to stop jizya. And I am thinking of the disguised subsidies to Saudi Arabia, and the $$ to the "palestinian authority" and Egypt, etc. Doesn't the USA have poor people who need schools, etc.?
Posted by: Eliyahu at November 15, 2005 7:10 AM
When I was a young Goldwaterite...
Posted by: Nariz at November 14, 2005 09:28 PM
Carolyn2:
In case you missed noting the above, it seems you've got Nariz pegged. If Nariz isn't Giaour's new nom de plume, Nariz is certainly Giaour's alter ego.
Posted by: waterdragon52 at November 15, 2005 10:12 AM
"early withdrawal hands this plank right back to the Jihadis, and turns our repudiation of it into a great victory for them..."
-- from a posting above
What constitutes "early withdrawal"? It has been more than four years since 9/11/2001 -- four years and two months and four days. If we count four years and two months and four days from 12/07/1941, the day Pearl Harbor was bombed, both V-E and V-J days had long passed; the war had been over for many months, the soldiers had come home.
Do you feel, does anyone of sense feel, that the Administration knows what it is doing around the world, to check, to divide, to demoralize, to undercut, the forces of Jihadd? Do you? Does the venture in Iraq, which uses up so many resources, and which is taken to be our great effort to "remake the Middle East" (oh god, spare us this silly idea), not seem to you to be now an idea that some in the Administration once had, and now the idea has them? They do not know how to gracefully, or even ungracefully, disentangle themselves. They cannot admit that they had no good idea of the scope, or the ideological origins within not "extremist" but mainstream, orthodox Islam, of the Jihad. They cannot admit to themselves, much less to others, that "Iraq" does not exist, that they greatly underestimated the Kurdish resentment of the Arabs and desire for independence, and the Shi'a resentment of the Sunnis that goes back, oh about 1300 years, and they did not realize that the so-called "secularist" Ba'athists could find common cause with those muttering about the "Rafidite Shi'ite dogs" , that continues to allow mass murder in Darfur instead of finding all kinds of ways to seize both the southern Sudan and Darfur, officially as a "humanitarian" mission, but if the few thousand American troops who could sweep the board (and in so doing, destroy whatever military capacity the ruthless and cunning and meretricious regime in Sudan posseses, as one more lesson about relative military capabilities -- a lesson that needs to be repeated often), and then visibly protect the black Christians and animists in the south (a little late for the nearly 2 million murdered or deliberately starved to death by the regime that considers itself both Arab and Muslim), and the non-Arab Muslims (a little late for the 300,000 killed by the government-sponsored and government-directed Janjaweed) in Darfur. And by staying there, in order to hold a referendum which will be seen by the world, and the grateful faces (so different from those of the Iraqis) surrounding American troops, and the reports from those who have seen what has happened in Darfur and the southern Sudan, will not, try as the BBC and Agence France Presse and Reuters may, will have to note the joy and relief of all the people involved.
And the Arab League will be furious, and demand that the Americans "leave" so that -- so that the divine right of Arab Muslims to loot and rape and kill and starve to death, in Darfur as they did in Sudan, will continue, and there will be brought to the world's attention the nature of Arab Islam. And what will the E.U. do? Will it still be in the grip of third-world sympathies because if it is, surely those black African inhabitants of Darfur and the southern Sudan, the Dinka, the Nuer, and others, have a far better claim to being genuine third-worlders, in that scheme of things?
But instead, the Administration has been subject to withering criticisim all over the place. It has done almost nothing in Darfur. No killing has stopped. Why should the Sudanese government? It can get away, it appears, with anything. The American government can't even begin to think about what a few thousand troops could do. It can't even begin to think about ways, here and there and everywhere, to both stop the Jihad (i.e., the effort by Islam, and within Islam by Arab Islam, to promote both Islam and "the best of peoples" the Arabs who use Islam, quite naturally, as a vehicle for Arab supremacism).
And what would the seizure of Darfur and the southern Sudan, to be followed by a referendum with "international observers," with the result being a splitting of the Sudan? It woudl hearten black African Christians, and even black African Muslims would have difficulty objecting to the result. It would thwart Egypt's long-term plans to threaten Ethiopia over diverting any of the headwaters of the Nile (Egyptians believe they own the Nile, and that neither the Ethiopians, nor any other black Africans downstream, have any rights whatsoever, save those the Egyptians may grandly allow them). The successful and non-stop campaign of Da'wa being conducted, with Saudi and other Arab money, throughout East Africa, and even West Africa, would be disturbed. In those societies, as Bin Laden said, you identify with the "strong horse." If the Americans with or without other troops come in and rescue black Africans from the depredations of Arab Muslims, it will have a great effect -- as far away as Nigeria, where the abandonment of the Biafrans by the West is remembered, and in a place where the Christians, the most productive people in Nigeria, have never ceased to be under Muslim assault, a little encouragement, and feeling that perhaps they can fight back against the Muslims (in the Biafra War Egyptian pilots strafed Ibo villages unopposed; Muslim aid helped suppress what was, as Col. Ojukwu said in the Ahiara Declaration, an attempt to fight back against a "jihad" -- his precise word, ignored by the outside world).
But of course this kind of thing will not happen, nor will any move be made, far more importantly, on Iranian nuclear-related installations, as long as the big bloated, essentially pointless American effort to "do something to make the situation better" is stuck to the tarbaby of Iraq. If the only conceivable way the current Adminstration can come up with to fight the various world-wide attempts to extend Islam until it dominates everywhere, and Muslims rule, through the various instruments of Jihad, is to spend $350 billion to "bring democracy" to Iraq (i.e., to trade Sunni despotism for Shi'a less-despotic dominance), for no certain or even likely change in Muslim attitudes, and still worse, by foregoing the chance, by giving up the opportunity, to exploit the sectarian and ethnic fissures that Iraq so obviously prevents, in an attempt to use these fissures to divide and demoralize Islam from within (letting the nature of those conflicts take their course, rather than trying to prevent or staunch them).
But this one example -- of how little it would take to seize the southern Sudan, and Darfur, and how plausibly the entire thing could be presented as a humanitarian mission, which in fact it would be, but a humanitarian mission that, for perfectly legitimate reasons (you don't force people to remain ruled by those who over decades have shown they wish only to murder them, to seize their land, to seize whatever oil or gas wealth there may be in the lands of the south or the west), will lead to a referendum and then, from that referendum, to independence. '
The humanitarian mission in Sudan is also a geopolitical one. It will signal a full stop to Arab and especially Egyptian plans to fully islamize West Africa, through to Ethiopia, which will then, it is hoped, in a spirit of loyalty to the "Umma al-Islamiyya" and the most populous Arab Muslim state, Egypt, behave more loyally to that umma, do the bidding of its Arab Muslim government in Cairo, and sacrifice its own, Ethiopian interests, by agreeing not to divert any of the Nile's headwaters for its own use. For if the Sudanese are not checked in their present course, they will continue to steadily islamize and arabize the country, and even though the government of Mubarak does not share the fervent Islam of the government in Khartoum, has done nothing to stop, and will do nothing to stop (except cosmetically) the Arab Muslim ethnic and religious "cleansing" of the Sudan, so that it is thoroughly Arab and Muslim, and the intimidation of Ethiopia (itself undergoing aggressive islamization from within, about which the Western world appears completely oblivious, because Da'wa and demographic conquest cannot be opposed, as not being part of this absurdly-named "war on terror").
The example of how, in the Sudan, a very small effort, taking a few thousand soldiers, an effort that neither the U.N. nor the E.U. could oppose, since it would so obviously help save lives -- the lives of black Africans -- and that the Arabs and Muslims would be slightly inhibited in publicly trying to prevent (and every effort they made to prevent it would simply show them up for what they are -- imperialists, the imperialism of the Arabs that is contained within the imperialism of Islam) -- can be a model.
And such intervention would not only hearten black Africans elsewhere, in withstanding or pushing back against Da'wa and Muslim aggression. All over the Western world, in France, in England, in the United States, a deliberate effort at Da'wa, of islamizing the black population, seen as vulnerable, as ready to accept Islam not only as a Total System, but as a convenient and attractive vehicle for expressiong alienation from The System, has been going on,and will continue. It takes place in prisons, and outside prisons. The Boston Mosque, for example, is being deliberately built right next to Roxbury Community College, whose students, many of whom are already islamized, will be given "free lectures on Islam" and the college library apparently receive "2,500 books on Islam" donated by the still-being-built mosque, as has been reported as part of the initial deal (one wonders if the significance of those piquant details have been fully grasped). Anything which offers a chance to expose the Arab aggression against black Africans, therefore, is to be welcomed, for it can be used to make Islam less attractive to blacks being exploited by Muslim Arabs, whether in France, where some have been enrolled in the maghrebin mobs, or in England, where there are encouraging signs of blacks being fed up with Pakistani (i.e., Muslim) aggression, and fighting back, to the United States, where Darfur and the southern Sudan have at long last become the object of Afro-American interest.
American intervention in the Sudan is one example, of anti-Jihad measures that could be undertaken, at far less cost, with far greater benefits, and less easily opposed, making far more sense, than this world-without-end effort to make "Iraq" safe for democracy, and somehow to convince Arab Sunnis that a Shi'a-dominated Iraq might not only not be opposed, but serve as a "model" for those Sunni Arabs -- which is absurd. Sunni Arabs, whatever they say (and the Saudis may smile, and smile, and offer a pitiful $1 billion to placate the Americans, and still be villainously determined to win back Iraq for the "real" Islam of the Sunnis, and even possibly, ultimately, for the kind of Islam that is the state-sponsored belief-system of Saudi Arabia) ) will remain permanently unreconciled to the Shi'a takeover of the historic Land of the Two Rivers.
Posted by: Hugh at November 15, 2005 10:47 AM
Hugh -- thanks for your response and questions -- as always you express some good points extremely well... I thought you'd probably zero in on the expression "early withdrawal" if you responded... To clarify and augment the previous post:
Withdrawal will be "EARLY" if there is not a functioning government yet (whatever it's nature may be), and no plausible defense force to protect it. I support the idea of creating hard metrics for these benchmarks -- and I think our government has done a far better job on the governmental side and an inadequate job describing the criteria for Iraqi defense.
I too have serious misgivings about this entire endeavor, but I still support it... What I think is wrong? We foolishly didn't grasp the full magnitude of Arab/Muslim dysfunctionality... The platitudes of Wolfowitz promising that all human aspirations are the same is a false construct, and another example of dangerous misguided utopianism. My support was not based on this though, and I never thought this was a humanitarian venture. I am sickened that we continue to imagine we will defeat our enemy by "winning hearts and minds..." And we shouldn't be ashamed to measure our actions in terms of costs/benefits and American self interests... The true informed practice of this principle would prevent many US boondoggles and embroglios... But hey! It's an imperfect world, and America is the first to admit it's a pretty sorry excuse for a government, except when you consider EVERY other option...
I'll join you for a moment, and pile on with some things that I don't like and things in which i fully agree with you: Mainly I am sickened that we appear to have helped create yet another Islamic Republic... I fully admit that a negligent unforgivable ignorance on the Administration's part for the full magnitude of this endeavor has diminished our effectiveness at achieving our goals... I am uneasy at the expenditures so far in light of the level of progress we have made*... I am now nearly completely dubious that Islam is capable of the moderation needed to make a pluralistic Iraq work -- Mostly I mourn the loss of EVERY noble American who has been killed. They died attempting to help lift these malevolent Arabs from the sewer in which they find themselves, the sewer which they created, the sewer which they perhaps deserve... I agree with you that exploiting Arab/Muslim fissures is a great and necessary idea -- I support the idea of waging economic battles which cost less and gain more whenever possible...
Here are some other things that I disagree with you, however:
Muhammad vs. Hitler...
The oft made comparison of our progress vis a vis WW2 is misleading. The enemies then were more clearly defined, and defeating them fit into ancient notions of warfare. They hadn't infiltrated our lands to the extent that this Muslim enemy has, they hadn't penetrated the halls of academia, government, and the media to the extent that this Muslim enemy has, and they certainly weren't allowed to continue indoctrinating on our soil after the hostilities began as this Muslim enemy has... Though the goal of world domination is similar, and the fascism and brutality of these enemies bears a striking resemblance to each other, the methods of war-waging are completely different. In addition, Nazis/Japanese waged a more classic form of warfare against us -- our metric for success was simple, we needed to wage better, bigger, nastier warfare back at them... Is terror in kind against the Muslims really an option for America? Hardly... We have other, less reasonable strictures enabling their assymetrical war, largely self imposed. Good lord -- we can't even criticize their religion or make them feel uncomfortable when they're incarcerated! Is this the Administration's fault, or someone elses? The magnitude of involvement from the get-go in World War 2 was several orders beyond anything imagined today (at least YET) -- the mobilization of 100s of millions of persons, and expenses relative to GDP was DOZENS of times greater than the $350 Billion you mention today... Nevertheless -- I take your point -- the population at large does not yet recognize this as a global conflict. And this war seems to be another one we're fighting with our hands tied behind our backs... Thank god the Administration lost its fear of what the Arabs and French are saying about us and finally unleashed our military in Falluja - this (and the initial invasion) were mere hints of our hyper prowess against the heathen filth -- that ability should NOT be hampered by politics, and again in World War 2 this didn't happen to the current extent. This is a very different war so far -- and perhaps we should reconsider our methodology. I would like to see that too. We didn't defeat the Nazis and fascist Japanese by "winning their hearts and minds." We slaughtered them until they were either dead or had decided to change their hearts and minds definitively and permanently. I very much support the idea of considering this approach with respect to fighting the Muslims... If they transgress against us -- we inflict unthinkable damage upon them. This should have been our approach in Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm not the slightest bit worried about pushing Muslims over to the dark side -- For God's sake, look at the filth they believe about us when we've shed blood and spent billions trying to bring them into the 10th Century! In addition, in a total battle pitting our capabilities against theirs, we gain such advantages over them that our success is guaranteed, and their annihilation is guaranteed. If they wish to continue waging their Jihad until every last one is nestled in Allah's bosom -- so be it... Great! They clearly and openly state to our faces that they are enemies, that they are intent upon destroying us and supplanting our government, our religion, our culture with an Islamic one. Let's believe them. Let's give them that much respect! Let's call their bluff. We have the better hand...
Linking not acting in Sudan with acting in Iraq...
Leaving aside a discussion as to the merits of becoming involved in Sudan, I partially agree that "if the few thousand American troops who could sweep the board (and in so doing, destroy whatever military capacity the ruthless and cunning and meretricious regime in Sudan posseses, as one more lesson about relative military capabilities -- a lesson that needs to be repeated often)" (I very much like the repeated often part -- you are a genius, you know!) and -- YES! -- only a couple thousand (and perhaps less) American troops could flatten the dirtbags in Khartoum. This would not impact Iraq at all! Exterminating the filthy "Janjaweed" Arab monsters would be a thing of great beauty too! But I'm not sure we have a dog in this fight, and I'm not at all clear on the reason you link acting in Iraq with not acting in Sudan. I would also argue that EVEN THE FRENCH are probably capable of taking down Khartoum -- And after all, more peace in Africa will do more to stem the flood of African immigration into Europe -- Why should this be our burden? Why not them?
Fissures in the Arab Muslim world won't be disappearing any time soon...
Why the rush to get out? The internecine frictions in the Arab Muslim world aren't going to disappear after 1400 years. If Islam is allowed to continue, this factionalism will remain... So success or failure in Iraq will not alter your calculus -- and leaving Iraq prematurely Costs
Costs...
Leaving aside the sad loss of American life for a moment... The expense in terms of cash is minimal for America... especially cheap if this works... On a pure cash basis if our actions end up depressing the price of oil by a mere $10 through the achievement of relative stability, a daily savings of $150,000,000 will be realized over the long run -- the "oil dividend" after the first Iraq war funnelled TRILLIONS of dollars into the American economy, and helped fund the incredible financial expansion during the 1990s as much as any "peace dividend" from winning the Cold War -- the $350,000,000,000 expense of the Iraq war will be erased in less than 2 years if we can achieve some stability in the regions and lower per barrel costs back to the $25-$35 range -- so your argument that the expense is ruinous is not a strong one...
Morale...
I have far more concern over military morale, and I believe an early withdrawal in the context of my definition above would do much to undermine our warrior's willingness to engage in futre conflicts. This also dovetails with my previously made suggestion that the appearance of our propensity to 'cut and run' would only encourage other bin Ladens.
After we make our "early withdrawal" -- what happens next -- who will be blamed...
If a relatively stable government isn't in place, and if there's no plausible defense mechanism, the bloodbath and civil war that will most likely follow will ALL be blamed on our "infidel" mishandling of the affair, our "interference." The mileage Muslims will extract from this pretext will exceed that of the best hybrid technology on the drawing boards...
The era of Lex Luthor
Most seem unaware, but the era of the superfiend is upon us -- small cadres WILL brandish weapons of unimaginable devastation against us -- THIS IS COMING SOON TO A THEATER NEAR YOU!!! Early withdrawal, and falling back on exploiting Arab-on-Arab wars and Muslim-on-Muslim outrages will only increase the chances that Muslims will continue to project their nightmares into our consciousness... Alternatively If we are successful in Iraq, there is more liklihood that these demonic forces will be required to turn their venom towards their near enemies as they perceive them and this may force Arabs and Muslims to confront what properly should be an all-in-the-family-affair.
------------------------------------------
I freely admit to naivete regarding Islam back in 2002 which may mirror the unforgivable ignorance of the Administration's in the calculus for this war -- Of that I am guilty -- but I am convinced THIS IS STILL WORTH A TRY -- If it's all for nought, then the real killing will begin -- and it's partially to avoid that too that I think we should stay, just a little bit longer.....
Posted by: jsla at November 15, 2005 4:35 PM
"Why the rush to get out? The internecine frictions in the Arab Muslim world aren't going to disappear after 1400 years."
-- from a posting above
But there isn't time. Three things have changed everything:
1. Oil revenues -- $10 trillion since 1973, which help them buy the arms they cannot produce, to engage in weapons projects with help from all over, to pay for mosques, madrasas, and an army of Western hirelings who are apologists for Islam and for the goals of Islam, often carefully disguised or camouflaged goals.
2. Arab and Muslim migration, by the millions, deep within the Bilad al-kufr, where they are hellbent on making demands for changes in the laws, customs, understandings of the indigenous non-Muslims, and have no intention of changing their own beliefs or views. They are prepared to use every means, whether it be the smiling and "thoughtful" Tariq Ramadan explaining that "Islam is here to stay" in Europe and that somehow a carefully-undefined "European Islam" will develop (and how will it differ from ordinary Islam, with what changes in beliefs?).
3. Technological advances by the Infidels -- audiocassettes (see Khomeini), videocassettes (see Al Qaeda), Internet (see all sorts of groups), and Al-Jazeera and Al-Manah and Al-this and Al-that, which spread the word of Islam at its most Infidel-threatening and malevolent.
All these have changed the picture entirely. Iraq (and Afghanistan) are now a diversion. It is Western Europe whose people have to be persuaded to re-fashion their forgotten or abused alliance with America, to exhibit powers of recuperation, to restore their own confidence in what their own civilization, that they are now so ungrateful because largely ignorant of, has produced -- and what could never be produced under or within Islam.
This is what matters. Not whether "Iraq" exists or doesn't, not whether the Sunnis and Shi'a get along, somehow, or don't.
"I have far more concern over military morale, and I believe an early withdrawal in the context of my definition above would do much to undermine our warrior's willingness to engage in futre conflicts."
-- from the same posting above
So do I. Just look at the figures on enlistment, and on re-enlistment, and on the recruiting standards now being lowered and lowered. Look at the bonuses that have to be offered, along with those lowered standards.
You think army morale would suffer over what you still call, four years and two months and four days after 9/11/2001 (longer than our participation in World War II), and two years and eight months since the invasion (and the quick toppling of the regime) of Iraq, with no end really to Sunni resentment of losing power, and no end of Shi'a determination to now seize power for the resentful Shi'a, and of course no one inside Iraq really cares how much the Americans spend or how many casualties they take, and no one in Iraq would be terribly concerned if France or Italy or other parts of Europe were steadily islamized, would they?
But we are not they. We have our own interests. We were not crazy to enter Iraq. It was not irrational, even if the reasons given turned out not be based on evidence, and indeed, were largely without foundation. The real justification, the only one from the point of view of national interest (I'm not interested in helping Muslims out, not anywhere, from the consequences of Islam itself), was that Iraw is a Muslim country, and no Muslim country, period, can be allowed to acquire major weaponry. What about Pakistan? What about it? Should there be anyway to deprive it of those weapons, then Pakistan should be so deprived.
Do you not see what is happening to the morale of troops. I talk to National Guardsmen and Reservists. I know what they think of the business in Iraq. I know what many of them have come to think of the Administration's folly. Unlike generals, they have little to lose. They can speak their piece. They have seen Iraq. They have seen the hatred, or at least hostility, where they expected some semblance of gratitude. A speech or two or three by Chalabi or Talebani or Jaafar (you know, he's the one who asked for a "Marshall Plan" for Iraq when last in Washington, oilily turning in the President's direction and suggesting "Let's call it the Bush Plan.") doesn't cut the mustard with the returning soldiers I know. They are too intelligent to be satisfied with these phrases about "cutting and running." When and if they have a chance to study Islam, and the menace of Islam in Europe and elsewhere, they will be even less enthusiastic than they are now about Iraq.
Morale problems? You bet. But not from leaving. More likely, morale problems from not leaving Iraq, with its ridiculous waste of lives, money, materiel, and those soldiers would add, if they thought about, a deflection of attention from the Jihad world-wide. They don't know about how to exploit the fissures within Iraq; they haven't given it a thought. But they no doubt can distinguish clearly between the friendly Kurds and the unfirendly and meretricious Arabs, and they are beginning to comprehend that the insurgency is not against "democracy" but against the loss of Sunni power and dominance.
Morale problems? What about the morale problemls of civilians too, whose support is necessary if, for many decades to come, this war of self-defense against the Jihad is to proceed? Can't you see how a demoralized public in Europe is responding, or failing to respond, to every Muslim demand, every Muslim outrage?
For god's sake. This Iraq thing is now madness. France, and other countries in Europe, can be islamized in short order. They can go under long before Muslims are an absolute majority. What would happen to Europe, to the West, to America? Iraq is at this point a silly endeavor, pursued only out of inability to admit to a misunderstanding and "misunderestimating" of Islam, and out of a further inability to think intelligently about the ways to exploit the natural fissures within Islam, starting with those on display in Iraq.
This is no joke. This is how disasters happen.
Posted by: Hugh at November 15, 2005 5:35 PM
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