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"I have a lot of Muslim friends and they see themselves as British. We've got to be very careful. The threat is to our British way of life and all of our British people."-- from a statement by Alan West, recently appointed in the UK to "sort out" the problem of "radical" Islam
Is Admiral Sir Alan West familiar with Muhammad's famous statement that "war is deception"? Is he familiar with how so much in Muhammad's life -- to the great admiration of Muslims -- put into practice what he preached, for he deceived those who would not succumb to him, whether individuals or tribes, and relished their gory fate -- Muhammad, "uswa hasana" and "al-insan al-kamil"?
Does Alan West know for a certainty that although he has a "lot of Muslim friends," the only reason those friends do not tell him about Qur'an 5.51, which tells Muslims they must not take "Jews and Christians as friends" and that in many other places, in the Qur'an, and in the Hadith, explains the evil of Unbelievers and why they are to be shunned, is because they are embarrassed by all this, and want to spare his feelings? And is that why they also refrain from telling him about why Muslims are taught that it is permissible to feign temporary friendship with Infidels for one purpose: to promote and protect Islam? Are these teachings familiar to Alan West?
And what does he make of the reaction of local Muslims to the effort by American and British soldiers to help build hospitals and schools and power grids in Iraq, and to keep Iraqis from killing each other, and yet have only been dealt with meretriciously, by local Muslims, at almost every turn? Has Alan West consulted with Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the unfoolable head of France's counter-terrorism? Has he talked to those non-Muslims who have grown up in the Muslim world, and have, as Jews and Christians, or Hindus (in Pakistan and Bangladesh and Indonesia), or Buddhists (in southern Thailand or, in small numbers, in Indonesia)?
Is Alan West aware of what Boumedienne said about how the Arabs and Islam would conquer Europe, which had resisted outright military conquest by the Arabs, through the wombs of Muslim women -- a statement made in public, at the U.N., in 1974? Is he aware of how often this demographic conquest is discussed in the newspapers (even in "Dawn," the English-language Pakistani paper) of Dar al-Islam? He does know, does he, about the permanent state of war between Believers and Infidels that Islam teaches must exist? And he does know, does he, that Dar al-Islam must expand until it eventually swallows up Dar al-Harb, so that Islam dominates everywhere, and everywhere Muslims rule?
Does Alan West ever think that his "lot of Muslim friends" -- charming people, liquid-brown-eyed, soft-voiced, self-deprecating smile, the whole works -- might actually be past masters at this game? Has it ever crossed his mind that it is not enough for the innocent Westerners to rely on this or that "Muslim friend" or "colleague"? You know, like that nice Pakistani in the I.T. department who asks about your children, and shows much more interest than any of your hard-as-nails interested-only-in-their-job non-Muslim colleagues.
What about a little book-reading, to supplement mere "personal experience"? What about following in time and space the history of Islam, the history of Islamic conquest, to see if indeed it is widely various? What about some study to see if indeed that business about Islam being a religion "of peace" means what some take it to mean? Why not try to find out if indeed the behavior of his "lot of Muslim friends" is sufficient for him to rely on in the making of high policy? Instead of preening over his own "tolerance" and greater understanding -- moral self-preening should have no place – he should be most interested in protecting others, those whom he has a responsibility to protect. For them he also has a solemn duty to find out what is behind today’s Jihad. He should start with what the books and what the many articulate defectors from Islam have offered as their own testimony. Then he should move on to what the hundreds of Western scholars who devoted their lives to the study of Islam and the history of Islamic conquest say. That is, he should focus on those who wrote in the century (roughly 1860-1960) before the Period of Arab Money and the Collaborators took over the academic study of Islam, and managed to throttle, and almost consign to a permanent submersion in Lethe, all those scholars -- Snouck Hurgronje, Arthur Jeffery, Antoine Fattal, K. S. Lal, St. Clair Tisdall, Henri Lammens, Samuel Zwemer, Edmond Fagnan, Georges Vajda, Charles-Emmanuel Dufourcq. These scholars are now being rediscovered, republished, and reread, thank god, just in time. People are now fed up with the espositos, armstrongs, kepels and roys, who have so badly misinformed them.
Continued ignorance on the part of West, and in the West, is no longer possible. West has a duty to inform himself, as we have a duty to ourselves, to fully inform ourselves and to inform others as best we can.
Otherwise, Alan West should get out of the way.
Posted by Hugh at July 9, 2007 8:13 AM
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If its not some soft headed bleeding heart ,hoping to garner help from the muslims to preserve western culture,
its some Christian kook doing nothing ,waiting on his invisible friend in space to drop everything and come out of heaven to save the day.
We need better leaders ,leaders who can read and think.
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at July 9, 2007 8:47 AM
A bit OT: Just read an article on a professor of psychology, author of "The Political Brain," who is helping Democrats to use emotion to win the next national election. Would probably be best for the Republican right to win that election, for all the emotional (and fact-based) reasons.
Posted by: StillBreathing at July 9, 2007 9:39 AM
I fear that Sir Alan is way out of his depth. He should have stuck to his career on sea.
Posted by: Mark Alexander at July 9, 2007 9:52 AM
Perhaps he is practising deception himself but I doubt it.
Posted by: BlowHammed at July 9, 2007 11:27 AM
The elites are always the last ones to get it and there are several explanations for their lack of acuity. They are isolated from mainstream society and live in a world far removed from average citizens. As a general rule, they consider themselves superior to the average man on the street; much wiser, more cosmopolitan, and more connected to the bigger picture. They socialize and work with people just like themselves and have no comprehension of how average people live, or the struggles they face in everyday life. Evidence of their isolation abounds; George Bush's determination to get a sucicidal immigration bill passed is a good example, and his surprise and dejection at its failure displayed just how out of touch he is with the American people, not that he gives a damn what we want. After all, we don't know what is best for our country and ourselves.
George Bush and others like him; internationalists, multiculturalists, globalists, believe that all people share the same values and want the same things. They don't see the inevitable failure of multiculturalism because they think freedom, democracy, and peaceful coexistence will naturally occur when people who have never experienced these "universal" values are exposed to them. Just import them en masse to experience the joys of the West, and in no time flat they will be capitalist liberals. This may be true for just about any group of non-Westerners but muslims and at this stage of the game, these erudite, shrewd, intelligent elites should clearly see the futility of their efforts to impose Western values on muslims. They will never admit the obvious because to do so would be anathema to their goals of making every Western nation a multicultural utopia.
Social engineering is a dangerous, volatile industry, led by aloof idealists who see themselves as visionaries instead of manipulators.
They are the most dangerous threats to that which they claim to revere---democracy and freedom.
at July 9, 2007 12:20 PM
Greetings:
As I learned in the infantry, sailors belong on ships and ships belong at sea.
Posted by: 11B40 at July 9, 2007 12:27 PM
I would like to add to Hugh's list; Louis Bertrand, who travelled extensively in the Levant, Egypt and the Mahgreb in the early 20th century.
He was certainly not taken in by Islam and was very disdainful of Parisians who hated the European settlers and who felt a great sympathy for the muslims.
I quote from 'Devant l'Islam' where in the first chapter he writes about a visit to Alexandria in 1926, where there had recently been a massacre of infidels:
"J'interoge de vieux Alexndrins. Ils me rapellent les massacres periodiques: tel eglise, tel hôpital, tel quartier ont du etre reconstruits tant de fois en moins d'un siècle...Et ils me content les recents massacres de 1922. Qu'on ne me dise pas que les seuls Chrétiens ou Juifs orientaux étaient visés. Quiconque portait un chapeau se designait par la même aux matraques ou aux couteaux des assassins. Chez nous, à cet époque-là, une presse ignorante ou vénale a glorifié la prétendue tolérance des Egyptiens musulmans. A en croire nos journaux, les Coptes fraternisaient du fond de leur coeur avec leurs ennemis séculaires. Le Croissant s'unissaait à la Crois sur les mêmes drapeaux,- et les écrivains légers ou complaisants y voyaient la preuve des sentiments fraternels des musulmans à l'égard des chrétiens."
Chapitre 1 Retour d'Egypte, Page 21 "Devant l'Islam"
This writer, Louis Bertrand was a member of the Académie Française and despite this his warnings appear to be ignored in the MSM of the time.
Posted by: Sebastien
at July 9, 2007 12:53 PM
Again Mr. Fitzgerald is righ on the money!
A huge part of Western intelectuals are willing to sacrifice the life, blood, and comfort of others in order to feel good about themselves. They will defend with foaming mouths their muslim friends, renewable energy and many other oxymorons. However, energy once utilized can not be renewed, and a muslim can not be friends with non-muslim. He is either a muslim, OR Sir Allan's friend - NEVER both.But, Sir Alan wants to feel good about himself, so he will cherish and defend his "muslim friends" and his generous, liberal views at the expence of anything and everythins that may happen to Britons and to Westerners. Because the West is terrible - all those Western people have done in the past terrible things (under the command of other Admiral Sir, just as convinced in his perfectly right worldview). Todays Westerners have to be punished, and mixed, and improved - by the forcefull introduction of "multiculture" and political correctness. BTW multicultural is another oxymoron. In any case Sir Allan's worldview will dissapear - by our will, or by ruling of a Sharia court.
Posted by: Excommie at July 9, 2007 1:25 PM
I can almost guarantee 100% that most of his "friends" are considered apostates and collaborators by the Jihadis
I can almost also guarantee that almost 100% of these "apostates" have family and friends that can be used to exert pressure ..
.. its kind of like going to Kashmir with a bunch of Kashmiris who you know well and trust and then finding out that tribal and family ties will not stop you from being kidnapped and held to ransom.
The "friends" you made in India - who encouraged you to travel to Kashmir had no intention of kidnapping you - but family and tribal obligations made it possible and they had no choice but to act within their "peer group".
at July 9, 2007 2:11 PM
"Louis Bertrand, who travelled extensively in the Levant, Egypt and the Mahgreb in the early 20th century...."
-- from a posting, from a French poster, above
Louis Bertrand, whom you quote, was a member of the French Academy. In 1923 or 1924, he translated into English Andre Servier's "Psychologie des musulmanes" which can, thanks to the efforts of a JW poster, now be found on-line.
Posted by: Hugh at July 9, 2007 2:23 PM
Excellent post, Hugh. I would like to see Mr. West's answers to your questions.
SusanP - good comment.
Posted by: the poetess at July 9, 2007 2:38 PM
"The road map has failed,” say 10 European foreign ministers
July 9, 2007, 8:49 PM (GMT+02:00)
In an open letter to the Quartet’s new Middle East envoy Tony Blair, the foreign ministers of France, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Portugal, Malta, Romania and Slovenia demand an international conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and more concessions from Israel.
The European ministers say the road map has failed. “The status quo that has prevailed since 2000 is leading to nothing,” in a letter published in the French daily Le Monday, and there is a need to “redefine our objectives.”
Welcoming Arab states’ efforts for peace, the foreign ministers said one of their new objectives must be “to obtain from Israel concrete and immediate measures on favor of Mahmoud Abbas.”
at July 9, 2007 3:46 PM
Hugh
You wrote that: "Is he aware of how often this demographic conquest is discussed in the newspapers (even in "Dawn," the English-language Pakistani paper) of Dar al-Islam?"
Can you at JW post links to recent examples of muslims openly promoting demographic conquest of Europe, so that your readers can forward those to sceptics to prove that this is not paranoia but a real muslim strategy.
Posted by: European Crusader at July 9, 2007 6:48 PM
Mark Alexander:
"I fear that Sir Alan is way out of his depth. He should have stuck to his career on sea."
Sir Alan West captained the frigate HMS Ardent during the Falklands War. It was sunk, with the loss of 22 lives. To his credit, he was last to leave the vessel.
How many lives will be lost with Sir Alan at the helm of national security, and will he again be the last to leave?
Posted by: Matamoros at July 9, 2007 8:14 PM
Hugh:
"Louis Bertrand... translated into English Andre Servier's "Psychologie des musulmanes" which can, thanks to the efforts of a JW poster, now be found on-line."
Anyone interested in reading this fascinating and extremely relevant work can find the entire book on John Sobieski's site, here:
http://musulmanbook.blogspot.com/
There is an excellent summary review too, but it's well worth reading the whole thing. It should certainly be required reading for anyone involved in shaping policy towards the Muslim world.
Posted by: Matamoros
at July 9, 2007 8:38 PM
Louis Bertrand, whom you quote, was a member of the French Academy. In 1923 or 1924, he translated into English Andre Servier's "Psychologie des musulmanes" which can, thanks to the efforts of a JW poster, now be found on-line. -Posted by: Hugh
Bookmark it!
at July 9, 2007 9:06 PM
This Admiral of the Queens Nay-vee should try to interview Theo Van Gogh to get his take on Islam.
His grave is in Holland.
Posted by: profitsbeard at July 9, 2007 10:16 PM
Andre Servier's "Psychologie des Musulmanes" is probably the best book I have ever read about islam and muslims and is every bit as relevant today as when it was written. Some things never change, but political correctness has changed the learning environment so drastically that this book is unavailable because it is simply too brutally candid. The biggest victim of political correctness is Truth.
I also like "The Arab Mind" by Raphael Patai, but it is less severe in its assessment of these savage people and does not devote much space to the specifics of islam. Patai's book provides a lucid and vivid glimpse of the Arab/muslim ethos and exposes the stark and irreconcilable differences between islamic and Western thought. It enabled me to do what several years of intense study had not---to begin to grasp the nebulous, slippery nuance in Arabic speech and to better understand the hyperbole and mendacity that is interwoven in Arabic vernacular. It matter-of-factly and without malice demonstrates that Arabs/muslims are inveterate and impenitent liars and that a simple statement like: "the sun is shining" has an entirely different meaning to a muslim than it would to a Westerner.
"The Arab Mind" is an invaluable tool for learning how to "translate" muslim-speak. Mr. Spencer has pointed out many times how muslims carefully choose their words to form what seem like benevolent or innocuous statements to the average Westerner, but have an entirely different meaning to muslims.
at July 9, 2007 11:31 PM
excellent article hugh.
Posted by: BaconSandwich at July 10, 2007 3:21 AM
Sebastien:
I have taken the liberty of translating your quote from "Devant l'Islam" by Louis Bertrand into English:
I spoke to some old residents of Alexandria. They told me about the intermittent atrocities: which churches, which hospitals and which districts had had to be rebuilt many times in less than a century.And they recalled the recent massacres of 1922. And that I did not hear it from them that only Christians and Jews were targeted. Indeed, anyone wearing a hat marked themselves out as a target for the sticks and knives of the assassins.
In France at that time, the ignorant or self-interested press glorified in the supposed tolerance of the Egyptian Muslims. If we were to believe our newspapers, the Egyptian Copts got on perfectly well with their ancient enemy [Islam]. The crescent moon of Islam was united in belief [with the infidels] under the same flags. And the meek or accommodating writers decided that they could see the proof there of the brotherly feelings the Muslims felt towards the Christians.
It seems that political correctness was alive and well in the 1920s.
Posted by: watling at July 10, 2007 6:21 AM
Watling,
Thanks for taking the time to translate this. The Book continues to describe how the British, who are supposed to be running the Egyptian mandate at the time ignored the violent deaths of some its citizens.
Having recently visited Jerusalem, I am still surprised at the naivety of not only the western visitors to the Christian sites, but also the dangerous gullibility of the nuns and lay workers who run the Christian Hostels along the via Dolorosa.
Reading the book has brought me to the same conclusion as you. The concept of the noble savage has existed in western consciousness for far longer than the US civil rights movements.
For all of the efforts of Louis Bertrand and others, there were plenty of Orientalist writers and painters who were very influential. I suspect that even at the time, the islamo realist writers were about as popular as a teetotaler at a frat party.
Posted by: Sebastien at July 10, 2007 12:09 PM
Hi Sebastien - nice to see you back again.
As for Servier's book - I've read through the online version and it's interesting and useful, but I WOULD offer two caveats. First: Servier indulges in some wholly groundless and very nasty side-swipes at Jews, tarring them with the same brush as the 'Arabs'.
Second: talk of 'race' is a blind alley. The problem is memetic, not genetic. It's not about a particular ethnic group (Arabs) being somehow inherently and peculiarly evil, nor about a language (Arabic) being peculiarly and irreversibly evil (since, after all, the Bible is in Arabic; Arab Christians say the Lord's Prayer in Arabic). It's about a 'meme', a pernicious ideology. Most Muslims in the world today are not genetically 'Arab' at all, nor do they speak Arabic. And yet the deadly mindset that Servier describes is reproduced exactly.
I give you a passage from Naipaul's highly instructive "Among the Believers". In the chapter entitled 'The Interchangeable Revolutions' (which deals in part with the interaction between communist and Islamist ideologies - where Islam trumps marxism every time), Naipaul quotes an Indonesian Muslim who was an educated and successful businessman, an economist. This man said to Naipaul: "The fight that's coming will be between the people in the universities and the people in the pesantren [Islamic school, i.e., their equivalent of a madrassa]. One day the students from the pesantren will come to Jakarta and burn down this nice hotel. ISLAM CAN BECOME A COCAINE. IT MAKES YOU HIGH. YOU GO TO THAT MOSQUE AND YOU GET HIGH. AND WHEN YOU GET HIGH, EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS BECOMES ALLAH'S WILL". I think if we want an 'in' on how it might feel to be a Muslim, this man has provided it.
And when I read those lines, about 'getting high', I was strongly reminded of certain passages in J K Rowlings' "Goblet of Fire", where she describes the sensations of someone who has come under the influence of the 'Imperius' curse. If you want the real-life equivalent of the Imperius curse, look no further than the shahada.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at July 10, 2007 6:32 PM
Just a small correction to my posting above: instead of 'after all, the Bible is in Arabic', I should have written "after all, the Bible has been translated into Arabic".
Further note:
I am fully aware of the gravity of our current predicament. I accept that we may be driven to desperate expedients in the military and political sphere; that we may find ourselves fighting as the Knights of St John at Malta had to do, or as Charles Martel had to do at Poitiers.
Nevertheless, I refuse to despair of the redemption of Muslims, and I refuse to believe the lie - the demonic lie - that Arabs in particular, and Arabic, are totally beyond redemption.
"Nothing in the world so essentially determines the nature of humanity, or the scope of the human soul, that there is no possibility of being reborn" - David Bentley Hart, Eastern Orthodox theologian, in "The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth", p. 124.
Atheists, sceptics, 'pragmatists' of every stripe, go ahead, laugh. But isabellathecrusader and I will go right on praying for the awakening of the 'West' - and the non-Muslim East!, for the perseverance and deliverance of persecuted non-Muslims, AND for the conversion of Muslims.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at July 10, 2007 7:44 PM
Hi Dumbledore,
Not being as familiar with Harry Potter as I perhaps ought to be, I have mostly associated the Shahada with a state of Total War between the muslim and the rest of mankind.
That can be a pretty liberating kick. Imagine, no longer having to work or care for a family, and everything you take or destroy is permitted by Allah.
Worst than Nazis or the most twisted serial killer, the shahada convert has never made any effort to hide his deeds.
In the French news today there is an article about a girl stoned to death after having been tortured.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/france/20070710.WWW000000254_meurtre_de_royan_trois_interpellations.html
These torture stories are now relentless. When 20 years ago, this kind of murder would make the front page, this page 10 story will be out of the news by tomorrow. The killer, called Samir managed to get a neighbour and another guy to help him kill his ex girlfriend.
I don't need to attend the trial to know that the the killer will laugh at the victim's family just like they always have.
For more of the same, Google 'Kebab Girl'.
Back of the subject of Servier's book. I haven't read it because I already know the mind of a muslim, but I understand that he thinks that the Turks aren't too bad.
The Turks are just slightly better at marketing. I don't suppose the Greeks and Armenians are falling for this though
Posted by: Sebastien at July 10, 2007 8:06 PM
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