• Why Jihad Watch?
  • About Robert Spencer and Staff Writers
  • FAQ
  • Books
  • Muhammad
  • Islam 101
  • Privacy

Jihad Watch

Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Fitzgerald: Cheering, and worrying

Jun 9, 2006 7:30 am By Hugh Fitzgerald

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald reacts to the killing of Zarqawi:

The death of Zarqawi is cheering, and worrying.

Cheering, for all the obvious reasons. And there would be still more cheering, for all the obvious reasons, if Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri were killed. Puts a bounce in one’s step, makes the morning better.

Worrying, for all the obvious reasons and some unobvious ones. Gives Infidels a false sense that there is an end to this matter; allows some to conclude that “we’re getting the bad guys” and we are “winning.” (Listen to radio shows).

Worrying, because Al-Zarqawi, like Bin Laden, like all of them, is part of a store that is endlessly replenishable, as long as Islamic jihad remains Islamic jihad, and Believers take it seriously.

Worrying, because the idea that this is a “war on terror” and we “are killing the terrorists” will be reinforced, as it naturally would be when this or that terrorist, or eight of them, are killed.

Worrying, because it will be given enormous, exaggerated attention, and the other war, the main war, the war that involves the most effective instruments of Jihad — money, Da’wa, demographic conquest — will still not be addressed. The “war on terror” will be seen as being won, and that will take away from what was dawning on some, to wit: The phrase “we have to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here” is a false remark, and seen to be even more false as those 17 natives of Canada are rounded up, with their Qur’ans, and their burka-ed relatives smack in the middle of Toronto, and their storefront mosques, and their three tons of nitrogen fertilizer, and their plans for dealing with the Canadian Parliament and the Canadian Prime Minister.

Worrying, because even if the killing of Zarqawi and others diminishes the outside Sunnis, this will delay the day of American recognition that the main part of the revolt is not from the “terrorists” outside Iraq (though it is pleasant to think so) but from Sunnis who do not wish to see power transferred from themselves to the Shi’a. Yet that transfer became inevitable when Saddam Hussein was overthrown, along with his entire ruling class and the Sunni-officered military disbanded. Far from being cause for American alarm, American aims, the aims of all Infidels, are best achieved by letting those sectarian and ethnic (Kurd and Arab) hostilities simmer, not be somehow papered over. Ideally — if we stop watching that pot — they may boil over, distracting the principals entirely from the Jihad against the Infidel. As co-religionists of both sides join in, and effects are felt from Yemen and Al-Hasa province of Saudi Arabia all the way to Lebanon, and perhaps even to Muslims in the Western world, their previous anti-Infidel unity will now be suddenly sundered.

Wonderful news. Hurray! Misleading news. Watch out! Be careful not to be carried away.

Of course, some have long since been carried away, away from all reason. I heard Michael Berg on NPR. He said something about people like “Zarqawi, Bush” and repeated that phrase “Zarqawi, Bush” at least once or twice more. Clearly a special hatred was reserved for Bush. Berg, a “peace activist” who told his interviewer that he, Berg, had asked the FBI (when they came to find out more about what his son might have been wearing) “not to kill Zarqawi,” explained that what he had really wished to do was to sit down with Zarqawi, and talk to him, man to man, and reason with him, and see his point of view, and have him see his, Michael Berg’s, point of view. That is how conflicts are resolved, you see, in Michael Berg’s world, which is not that far, I’m afraid, from Jimmy Carter’s world, or the world of clownish Roger Fisher of “Getting to Yes” fame. No, they are all types. And these types, whether they are holier-than-thou in the Carter and Berg manner, or in it because they are simply dizzy promoter and self-promoters of “process” — Getting to Yes, you see, is never about the possibility of one side wishing to destroy the other, always about compromisable matters, where everyone wins and no one loses (in other words, Fantasyland) — they are, as Michael Berg is, clear dangers to the rest of us.

Imagine a world in which someone like Michael Berg ran things. Imagine what peril he would put us in. Berg is crazy. Not crazed with grief as he ought to be — in fact, when he began his interview he discussed the physical pain he had been in. Not moral pain, nothing to do with anguish over his son, not at all — just some pain he had been having.

Let’s tell the unpleasant truth that before we were all too diplomatic to tell: Michael Berg’s attitude toward the world is crazy. He is terminally and permanently naive. And even though his son did not agree with him about policy toward Iraq, the sheer craziness of that son, Nicholas Berg, flying off by himself as a civilian to Iraq, to find ways to help the Iraqis, with no connection to the government, was the result of hopeless naivete about the world — and that hopeless naivete came directly from his nearly insane father. That responsibility is something Michael Berg will never understand. But we who do understand must prevent these insane people (and there are others, perhaps not quite so obvious, all over the place) from taking chances with our lives, and our children, by not seeing the world and evil as it is.

They should not be given that chance. And those who are hailing the death of Zarqawi today should not be given the chance to, in their overconfidence, weaken us still further against the Jihad threat.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Follow me on Facebook

Filed Under: Uncategorized


Learn more about RevenueStripe...

FacebookYoutubeTwitterLog in

Subscribe to the Jihad Watch Daily Digest

You will receive a daily mailing containing links to the stories posted at Jihad Watch in the last 24 hours.
Enter your email address to subscribe.

Please wait...

Thank you for signing up!
If you are forwarding to a friend, please remove the unsubscribe buttons first, as they my accidentally click it.

Subscribe to all Jihad Watch posts

You will receive immediate notification.
Enter your email address to subscribe.
Note: This may be up to 15 emails a day.

Donate to JihadWatch
FrontPage Mag

Search Site

Translate

The Team

Robert Spencer in FrontPageMag
Robert Spencer in PJ Media

Articles at Jihad Watch by
Robert Spencer
Hugh Fitzgerald
Christine Douglass-Williams
Andrew Harrod
Jamie Glazov
Daniel Greenfield

Contact Us

Terror Attacks Since 9/11

Archives

  • 2020
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2019
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2018
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2017
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2016
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2015
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2014
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2013
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2012
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2011
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2010
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2009
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2008
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2007
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2006
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2005
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2004
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2003
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • March

All Categories

You Might Like

Learn more about RevenueStripe...

Recent Comments

  • Crusades Were Right on Muslim cleric: ‘We welcomed the takeover of ISIS because they wanted to implement the Sharia’
  • William Garrison on The Fantasy Islam of Rice University’s Craig Considine (Part 3)
  • Vladimir on Islamic Republic of Iran: Turkey’s Erdogan champions Islam only as a tool to further his own interests
  • John on Muslim cleric: ‘We welcomed the takeover of ISIS because they wanted to implement the Sharia’
  • Vladimir on Muslim cleric: ‘We welcomed the takeover of ISIS because they wanted to implement the Sharia’

Popular Categories

dhimmitude Sharia Jihad in the U.S ISIS / Islamic State / ISIL Iran Free Speech

Robert Spencer FaceBook Page

Robert Spencer Twitter

Robert Spencer twitter

Robert Spencer YouTube Channel

Books by Robert Spencer

Jihad Watch® is a registered trademark of Robert Spencer in the United States and/or other countries - Site Developed and Managed by Free Speech Defense

Content copyright Jihad Watch, Jihad Watch claims no credit for any images posted on this site unless otherwise noted. Images on this blog are copyright to their respective owners. If there is an image appearing on this blog that belongs to you and you do not wish for it appear on this site, please E-mail with a link to said image and it will be promptly removed.

Our mailing address is: David Horowitz Freedom Center, P.O. Box 55089, Sherman Oaks, CA 91499-1964

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.