Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald explains why we may end up losing the struggle against the global jihad:
There is nothing inevitable about the defeat of the worldwide Jihad. In fact, if one looks at the emptying out of non-Muslim populations within the last half-century or century, one finds that the non-Muslim population of North Africa, the Middle East, Turkey, and Iran, consisting of Christians and Jews, has gone steadily down. And the non-Muslim population of Pakistan and Bangladesh, consisting mainly of Hindus (and some Sikhs and Christians) has gone steadily down. And the non-Muslim population in Malaysia and Indonesia has gone steadily down. In every case, forced expulsion, steady persecution, mass murder, and even genocide, as in Turkey, has helped to explain such a change.
Meanwhile, everywhere in the Lands of the Infidels, millions of Muslims have been allowed to settle. And in India and Lebanon, where they have long been present as a minority, they have been steadily outbreeding the non-Muslims. The percentage of Muslims in the population has steadily, almost it seems inexorably, risen.
If demography is destiny, and if nothing is done to halt Muslim in-migration, and Muslim overbreeding that astounds — in France the non-Muslims increase by .5% a year, while Muslims increase by 5% per year — 10 times the rate. In Italy (with a negative birth-rate), in Spain, in England, in Germany, the same kind of results. Anyone can do the simple calculation. It can already be seen that Western politicians, having no sense of their own civilizations or what needs to be retained at all costs, more and more willingly appease Muslim voters. A few years ago a prominent leader of the Socialist Party sent out word to his underlings that they should forget entirely about “the Jews” and Israel, and concentrate entirely on winning the Muslim vote, which can only be won by adopting Muslim demands in foreign policy and meeting Muslim demands for changes in the laws, customs, and manners to be observed within the Infidel land in which they happen to have settled. Much the same kind of cravenness by politicians can be observed in Great Britain, where in local elections, and not only in London with Ken Livingstone, the politicians vie in their desire to appease and please Muslim voters. Those who would like to register their fear and dismay, and their desire to make their country less welcoming to Muslims who do not wish the resident Infidels well, have only the beyond-the-pale (as many of them see it) BNP in England or Le Pen in France. Thus they are without an articulate, respectable figure to lead, to warn, to instruct, and to help rescue those who did nothing to deserve this except to be insufficiently attentive — for they trusted their own leaders — to the immutable nature, and menace, of Islam and its adherents, both those who are clearly “immoderate” and those who claim, and for the moment may be, that slippery thing, a “moderate” Muslim.
When Rice prates about how Iraq reminds her of Germany and France after the war — anyone can in a moment think of three or four major ways in which this analogy crumbles into dust — or stoutly insists that we will “not falter or fail” and lets alliteration do her thinking for her, when Bush prates about “staying the course” and not “cutting and running,” and his fan club, among so-called “Conservatives,” shrieks with delight, one begins to despair. And among those who should by this time know better, there is still this willingness to utter inanities and illogical remarks about “democracy” in Iraq, without any argument as to why this “democracy” in Iraq could conceivably lead to a better situation for Infidels, when the best thing that could happen as far as Infidels are concerned is the break-up of Iraq and permanent war, cold or hot, between Shi’a and Sunni along the fault line that now runs through Iraq, as well as the creation of a non-Arab Muslim state, Kurdistan, that might inspire other non-Arab Muslims and cause all of them to focus a bit more clearly on Arab supremacist ideology within Islam.
Last week at the Union League in New York, The New Criterion sponsored a small meeting to discuss the islamization of Europe. As it happened, quite by chance, the person who knows most about this subject in the world, Bat Ye’or, was in the vicinity and, at the last minute, took part. But it was clear from reports that there was a widespread inability, in those who attended and of whom more might be expected, to understand the time-frame in which events in Europe are taking place, and how late things are for the Americans (and the Europeans) to come to their senses. Like our rulers, when they go to Europe they live in certain hotels, meet certain people, and are cushioned by their own ignorance of languages (so that, for example, even reading “Le Monde” or “Le Figaro” or the “Corriere della Sera” or “El Pais” is impossible, and information arrives filtered through the English-language press, or television). Thus they are less alarmed than they should be by the islamization of Europe, and continue to believe that Bush and company must know what they are doing in Iraq, and that despite its seeming illogicality, surely something wonderful or at least hopeful will come of it. No it won’t. The most hopeful thing that could possibly come of it is not a stable, well-functioning nation-state, its army thoroughly trained to Western standards by American officers (and no doubt that newly-trained “Iraqi” army will be happy to share all its new expertise with armies of other Muslim states — just what we need, better Muslim armies, with better logistics, equipment, and morale).
Once the regime was overturned, once Saddam himself was captured and his sons and associates killed or captured, and the country scoured for major weapons, and weapons projects permanently disrupted, and weapons depots blown up where appropriate, the war was won. The Sunnis had been deposed; the Shi’a were now tasting power and would not ever again relinquish it. At that point it was time to leave. It has been time to leave for at least a year. The longer we stay, the more expertly we train Muslim Arabs, whether Shi’a or Sunni, the more men and money we so obviously squander, the more morale in the army will go down — not among all the troops, but the more thoughtful of them, the ones least inclined to parrot the line from above. The more we stay, the fewer civilians will enlist in the Reserves and the National Guard, and standards for enlistment will go down — and have already. The longer we stay, the more people will heed the siren-song of those who think there is nothing about Islam to worry about and that we should leave Iraq, but for all the wrong reasons, and that we certainly should not exploit the natural fissures within Islam — because there is nothing wrong with Islam (when everything is wrong with Islam).
And so, while our attention and money and men and materiel and morale are monomaniacally focused on, and squandered in, Iraq, the very years in which Western Europe could still be saved, the years in which other, better leaders could help its people come to their senses about Islam, and could be supported in this by a muscular United States with all of its resources, time is wasted, and much else is wasted as well. The inertia in Iraq, the stubborn refusal to comprehend the irrelevance of this pseudo-“democracy” to the more important task of constaining, containing, dividing, and demoralizing the forces of Islam, maddens. Clocks tick, and eventually, demography becomes destiny.