Are we at war with Islam?

[Richard]

Victor Davis Hanson again makes some valid points.

Richard's $.02

Back to the Old 9/11 World
Victor Davis Hanson
8 Dec 2008

For three days, Islamist gunmen nearly shut down Mumbai, the financial center of India. The terrorists — Pakistani militants, according to Indian authorities — murdered almost 200 innocents and left hundreds of others wounded, giving reprieve only to hostages they thought were Muslims.

The timing of their assault seemed aimed for maximum shock value here in the U.S. — during the transference of American presidential power and amid a long U.S. holiday in which millions of Americans were glued to televised news.

The macabre killing spree was apparently part of a larger, though failed, effort to shoot or blow up a planned 5,000 civilians — especially Americans, Brits and Jews. The jihadists may have hoped that India would heed Islamist warnings to loosen its connections to Western finance and commerce, and pay better attention to Muslim grievances.

There are a number of things to take away from the Mumbai atrocities.

First was the welcome re-emergence of concerned discussion of the dangers of global Islamist violence. George Bush apparently was not fabricating a global terrorist bogeyman — as was sometimes alleged over the last years of calm — when he sought support for his war in Iraq and domestic security measures.

In fact, caricatured efforts like the Patriot Act, the FISA accords, the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, the fostering of Middle East constitutional government, and the killing of violent insurgents abroad in Afghanistan and Iraq might seem once again understandable in the context of preventing another major violent terrorist attack of the sort we just saw at Mumbai.

Second, in the fashion of the old post-9/11 apologists, we were lectured once again that global terrorism is not necessarily an Islamic phenomenon. Supposedly the poverty and mistreatment of India's Muslim minority, not jihadist ideology and hatred, better explain India's incessant sectarian violence. That theory of victimhood is no more convincing now than it was in 2001.

Transnational terrorism still remains mostly Islamist in nature. Very few impoverished Hindu, Christian or Sikh terrorists go abroad to murder civilians. Nor are the wretched poor of Brazil or Haiti organizing mass-murdering assaults against foreigners and Western iconic targets in their cities.

Third, the serial excuses of Pakistan are also beginning to wear thin. Hundreds of Indians have been killed by Pakistani terrorists, who have routinely attacked both foreigners and Christians in their own country. It is now over seven years since more than 3,000 innocent Americans were murdered on orders from terrorists now all but certainly in sanctuary in Pakistan — and whom we are still told cannot be extradited.

So despite billions of dollars in American military and financial assistance given to Pakistan, nothing really changes. When pressed to explain the apparent role of the Pakistani military or intelligence services in turning a blind eye to jihadists, the government — whether a Pervez Musharraf in uniform or now civilian President Asif Ali Zardari (formerly known as "Mr. Ten Percent" for allegations of graft) — still politely offers a variety of clichés.

The Pakistani borderlands are beyond the government's control. Pressuring the existing government for either more order or more democracy will lead only to worse alternatives — such as a takeover by fundamentalist clerics, authoritarian generals, or weak democrats whose plebiscites will ensure rule by popular fanatics. No Pakistani leader of any stripe ever quite takes responsibility of the government for the mayhem committed by its own citizens or foreigners on its soil.

Instead, there always seems an implied threat that it would be unwise to push too far a volatile Pakistan that possesses nuclear weapons, or whose fanaticism makes it immune from classical laws of nuclear deterrence, or whose poverty and mismanagement ensure that it simply cannot be expected to meet international norms of behavior.

Fourth, the problem of Pakistan and the Islamist terrorism that so frequently emanates from its soil will now be President-elect Obama's to deal with. He will have to decide whether George Bush's anti-terrorism architecture shredded the Constitution and should be repealed, or helped to keep us safe from attack for seven years, and thus should be maintained, if not strengthened.

Obama once advocated open intrusions into Pakistan in hot pursuit of terrorists, and will have to adjudicate whether such actions will more likely enrage nuclear Pakistan or finally eliminate the followers of Osama bin Laden. At the same time, Obama also must ponder whether he should continue our subsidized "alliance" with Pakistan.

Just as I didn't envy George Bush's lose/lose dilemma in dealing with Pakistan and global Islamic terrorism, so too I can only sympathize with President-elect Obama, who faces the same dismal choices.

[Richard]

Thomas Sowell reminds us of the consequences for a failure to heed the recent past...but will we?

Richard's $.02

The Meaning of Mumbai
Thomas Sowell
9 Dec 2008

Will the horrors unleashed by Islamic terrorists in Mumbai cause any second thoughts by those who are so anxious to start weakening the American security systems currently in place, including government interceptions of international phone calls and the holding of terrorists at Guantanamo?

Maybe. But never underestimate partisan blindness in Washington or in the mainstream media where, if the Bush administration did it, then it must be wrong.

Contrary to some of the more mawkish notions of what a government is supposed to be, its top job is the protection of the people. Nobody on 9/11 would have thought that we would see nothing comparable again in this country for seven long years.

Many people seem to have forgotten how, in the wake of 9/11, every great national event-- the World Series, Christmas, New Year's, the Super Bowl-- was under the shadow of a fear that this was when the terrorists would strike again.

They didn't strike again here, even though they have struck in Spain, Indonesia, England and India, among other places. Does anyone imagine that this was because they didn't want to hit America again?

Could this have had anything to do with all the security precautions that liberals have been complaining about so bitterly, from the interception of international phone calls to forcing information out of captured terrorists?

Too many people refuse to acknowledge that benefits have costs, even if that cost means only having no more secrecy when making international phone calls than you have when sending e-mails, in a world where computer hackers abound. There are people who refuse to give up anything, even to save their own lives.

A very shrewd observer of the deterioration of Western societies, British writer Theodore Dalrymple, said: "This mental flabbiness is decadence, and at the same time a manifestation of the arrogant assumption that nothing can destroy us."

There are growing numbers of things that can destroy us. The Roman Empire lasted a lot longer than the United States has lasted, and yet it too was destroyed.

Millions of lives were blighted for centuries thereafter, because the barbarians who destroyed Rome were incapable of replacing it with anything at all comparable. Neither are those who threaten to destroy the United States today.

The destruction of the United States will not require enough nuclear bombs to annihilate cities and towns across America. After all, the nuclear destruction of just two cities was enough to force Japan to surrender-- and the Japanese had far more willingness to fight and die than most Americans have today.

How many Americans are willing to see New York, Chicago and Los Angeles all disappear in nuclear mushroom clouds, rather than surrender to whatever outrageous demands the terrorists make?

Neither Barack Obama nor those with whom he will be surrounded in Washington show any signs of being serious about forestalling such a terrible choice by taking any action with any realistic chance of preventing a nuclear Iran.

Once suicidal fanatics have nuclear bombs, that is the point of no return. We, our children and our grandchildren will live at the mercy of the merciless, who have a track record of sadism.

There are no concessions we can make that will buy off hate-filled terrorists. What they want-- what they must have for their own self-respect, in a world where they suffer the humiliation of being visibly centuries behind the West in so many ways-- is our being brought down in humiliation, including self-humiliation.

Even killing us will not be enough, just as killing Jews was not enough for the Nazis, who first had to subject them to soul-scarring humiliations and dehumanization in their death camps.

This kind of hatred may not be familiar to most Americans but what happened on 9/11 should give us a clue-- and a warning.

The people who flew those planes into the World Trade Center buildings could not have been bought off by any concessions, not even the hundreds of billions of dollars we are spending in bailout money today.

They want our soul-- and if they are willing to die and we are not, they will get it.

[SF-TX]

I hope Mr. Pipes is wrong in his conclusion, but the evidence does seem to suggest he is correct:

"What finally will rouse Westerners from their stupor, to name the enemy and fight the war to victory? Only one thing seems likely: massive deaths, say 100,000 casualties in a single WMD attack. Short of that, it appears, much of the West, contently deploying defensive measures against fancifully-described "activists," will gently slumber on."

Still Asleep After Mumbai

By Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com | 12/9/2008
Victims caught in terrorist atrocities perpetrated for Islam typically experience fear, torture, horror, and murder, with sirens screaming, snipers positioning, and carnage in the streets. That was the case recently in Bombay (now called Mumbai), where some 195 people were murdered and 300 injured. But for the real target of Islamist terror, the world at large, the experience has become numbed, with apologetics and justification muting repulsion and shock.

The one Mumbai terrorist still alive, Ajmal Amir Kasab, in action.
If terrorism ranks among the cruelest and most inhumane forms of warfare, excruciating in its small-bore viciousness and intentional pain, Islamist terrorism has also become well-rehearsed political theater. Actors fulfill their scripted roles, then shuffle, soon forgotten, off the stage.

Indeed, as one reflects on the most publicized episodes of Islamist terror against Westerners since 9/11 – the attack on Australians in Bali, on Spaniards in Madrid, on Russians in Beslan, on Britons in London – a twofold pattern emerges: Muslim exultation and Western denial. The same tragedy replays itself, with only names changed.

Muslim exaltation: The Mumbai assault inspired occasional condemnations, hushed official regrets, and cornucopias of unofficial enthusiasm. As the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center notes, the Iranian and Syrian governments exploited the event "to assail the United States, Israel and the Zionist movement, and to represent them as responsible for terrorism in India and the world in general." Al-Jazeera's website overflowed with comments such as "Allah, grant victory to Muslims. Allah, grant victory to jihad" and "The killing of a Jewish rabbi and his wife in the Jewish center in Mumbai is heartwarming news."

Such supremacism and bigotry can no longer surprise, given the well-documented, world-wide acceptance of terror among many Muslims. For example, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducted an attitudinal survey in spring 2006, "The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other." Its polls of about one thousand persons in each of ten Muslim populations found a perilously high proportion of Muslims who, on occasion, justify suicide bombing: 13 percent in Germany, 22 percent in Pakistan, 26 percent in Turkey, and 69 percent in Nigeria.

A frightening portion also declared some degree of confidence in Osama bin Laden: 8 percent in Turkey, 48 percent in Pakistan, 68 percent in Egypt, and 72 percent in Nigeria. As I concluded in a 2006 review of the Pew survey, "These appalling numbers suggest that terrorism by Muslims has deep roots and will remain a danger for years to come." Obvious conclusion, no?

Western denial: No. The fact that terrorist fish are swimming in a hospitable Muslim sea nearly disappears amidst Western political, journalistic, and academic bleatings. Call it political correctness, multiculturalism, or self-loathing; whatever the name, this mentality produces delusion and dithering.

Nomenclature lays bare this denial. When a sole jihadist strikes, politicians, law enforcement, and media join forces to deny even the fact of terrorism; and when all must concede the terrorist nature of an attack, as in Mumbai, a pedantic establishment twists itself into knots to avoid blaming terrorists.

I documented this avoidance by listing the twenty (!) euphemisms the press unearthed to describe Islamists who attacked a school in Beslan in 2004: activists, assailants, attackers, bombers, captors, commandos, criminals, extremists, fighters, group, guerrillas, gunmen, hostage-takers, insurgents, kidnappers, militants, perpetrators, radicals, rebels, and separatists – anything but terrorists.

And if terrorist is impolite, adjectives such as Islamist, Islamic, and Muslim become unmentionable. My blog titled "Not Calling Islamism the Enemy" provides copious examples of this avoidance, along with its motives. In short, those who would replace War on Terror with A Global Struggle for Security and Progress imagine this linguistic gambit will win over Muslim hearts and minds.

Post-Mumbai, Steven Emerson, Don Feder, Lela Gilbert, Caroline Glick, Tom Gross, William Kristol, Dorothy Rabinowitz, and Mark Steyn again noted various aspects of this futile linguistic behavior, with Emerson bitterly concluding that "After more than 7 years since 9/11, we can now issue a verdict: Islamic terrorists have won our hearts and minds."

What finally will rouse Westerners from their stupor, to name the enemy and fight the war to victory? Only one thing seems likely: massive deaths, say 100,000 casualties in a single WMD attack. Short of that, it appears, much of the West, contently deploying defensive measures against fancifully-described "activists," will gently slumber on.

Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...1-01412720DCA7

[Richard]

Perhaps this is this how the ITs view the West in general?

Richard's $.02

[Richard]

Originally Posted by SF-TX

I hope Mr. Pipes is wrong in his conclusion, but the evidence does seem to suggest he is correct:

"What finally will rouse Westerners from their stupor, to name the enemy and fight the war to victory? Only one thing seems likely: massive deaths, say 100,000 casualties in a single WMD attack. Short of that, it appears, much of the West, contently deploying defensive measures against fancifully-described "activists," will gently slumber on."

Here's an interesting piece to ponder along those lines from the latest Pravda on the Hudson.

Richard's $.02

Hidden Travels of the Atomic Bomb
WILLIAM J. BROAD, NYT
9 Dec 2008

In 1945, after the atomic destruction of two Japanese cities, J. Robert Oppenheimer expressed foreboding about the spread of nuclear arms.

“They are not too hard to make,” he told his colleagues on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, N.M. “They will be universal if people wish to make them universal.”

That sensibility, born where the atomic bomb itself was born, grew into a theory of technological inevitability. Because the laws of physics are universal, the theory went, it was just a matter of time before other bright minds and determined states joined the club. A corollary was that trying to stop proliferation was quite difficult if not futile.

But nothing, it seems, could be further from the truth. In the six decades since Oppenheimer’s warning, the nuclear club has grown to only nine members. What accounts for the slow spread? Can anything be done to reduce it further? Is there a chance for an atomic future that is brighter than the one Oppenheimer foresaw?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/sc...09bomb.html?em

[Blitzzz (RIP)]

We are not at war with Islam, It is at war with US. Certainly a war that needs to be redefined. Blitz

[Richard]

Guess we aren't...anymore.

Obama declares US not at war with Islam
Tom Raum, AP, 6 Apr 2009

"Let me say this as clearly as I can," Obama said. "The United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical ... in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject."

The U.S. president is trying to mend fences with a Muslim world that felt it had been blamed by America for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090406/...pr_wh/eu_obama

Richard's $.02

[bailaviborita]

Recently sat in on a briefing where this issue was the topic. The speaker was Stephen Coughlin (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...ring-83234302/). I got these points out of his brief:

- Moslem Brotherhood and other groups specifically state how to fight war and how they intend to win
- They will make temporary accomodation, lie, kill, and use our culture against us, so that we are destroyed from within
- That they intend to use Sharia Law to spread their message and their own law system through madrassas and mosques the world over
- That the US and Western world are too politically correct to admit any of these things and that already Sharia Law is starting to get into our systems of laws (really bad in Europe already)
- That we have to understand their playbook (written by a Pakistani General Officer)- since it is basically their order of battle
- That PC'ness prevents us from understanding the enemy

There was a heated debate as international officers and some with long periods of time living in the Middle East took issue with some of his assertions. My personal opinion was that he seemed to be an advocate- and an especially emotional one at that- instead of an objective observer. He reminded me of a Fundamentalist preacher trying to convert everyone.

But, it didn't, for me, discount all that he said. But, the debate is still on: to what extent are our foreign policy problems within the Middle East connected to the Moslem faith? If they are greater than our politicians will admit, what can we do about it? What is the overall conclusion- if this is true (that Islam has de facto declared war on the Western world)?

There are Moslem officers from several countries in U.S. Army schools all over the U.S. Are they all in a period of "temporary accomodation"? If they are, they wouldn't admit it. Does this all sound too "conspiratorial"? To me it many times does. We might be attributing more coordination and focus than these groups really have.

I once likened the fight "over there" to one of having a Southern U.S. town occupied by Moslem troops. I am sure the Southern Baptists would take pride- if they weren't outright supporting- in "Red Dawn"-type insurgent operations against the occupiers. I have to figure it is the same over there. At the end of the day- they are prideful of their tribe, religion, town, family, etc.- just as we would be here with occupiers in our midst. I'm not sure that translates into a worldwide conspiracy to force everyone to become Muslim. But I'm not sure if anyone has the true % of the Moslem faithful who DO believe what the Moslem Brotherhood believes...

[olhamada]

Does a gorilla have hair on it?

Said another way, Does a cat have climbing gear?

I can't remember where I ran across these videos, but they are both definitely worth watching. The first is from Hannity's show about Al Queda training facilities right here in the US - one not 2 hours from where I live in Nashville. http://tinyurl.com/bzcbm2

The second is a bit longer, but made by a moderate Muslim about the Islamic plan for taking over a given society. It's entitled, "The Third Jihad". You can see it at http://blip.tv/file/1382254/

[JMI]

Originally Posted by Richard

Guess we aren't...anymore.

Obama declares US not at war with Islam
Tom Raum, AP, 6 Apr 2009

"Let me say this as clearly as I can," Obama said. "The United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical ... in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject."

You gentlemen crack me up sometimes. Pres Bush said the exact same thing on many occassions. Anymore? When we were under Pres Bush?

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by JMI

You gentlemen crack me up sometimes. Pres Bush said the exact same thing on many occassions. Anymore? When we were under Pres Bush?

You mean before we couldn't call them terrorists, didn't think about releasing Gitmo detainees in the US, figured that anyone who took up arms against us was our enemy, adopted a policy of reducing our ballistic missile defense in response to a ballistic threat from the Iranians and NKs, treated our allies poorly and our enemies with respect, bowed to foreign potentates, sat around with our thumbs us our collective asses while a bunch of savages playing pirates held a US merchant marine skipper hostage, that sort of bad old days?

TR

[Richard]

Originally Posted by JMI

You gentlemen crack me up sometimes. Pres Bush said the exact same thing on many occassions. Anymore? When we were under Pres Bush?

President Bush repeatedly said we were at 'war with radical Islam.'

O-bee, on the other hand, has slyly hinted that although his predecessor had engaged in a war with Islam, he -- Barack Hussein Obama, as he was introduced to Muslim audiences everywhere during his recent trip, using his middle name in a way that brings instant attacks on those who dare do so here in our 'open' melting pot of a society -- would never let such a travesty happen again.

Now what are we to make of that?

And as VDH explains:*

...according to all four recognized schools of Sunni jurisprudence, war against the infidel goes on in perpetuity — until "all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to Allah" (Koran 8:39). In its entry on jihad, the definitive Encyclopaedia of Islam simply states:

The duty of the jihad exists as long as the universal domination of Islam has not been attained. Peace with non-Muslim nations is, therefore, a provisional state of affairs only; the chance of circumstances alone can justify it temporarily. Furthermore there can be no question of genuine peace treaties with these nations; only truces, whose duration ought not, in principle, to exceed ten years, are authorized. But even such truces are precarious, inasmuch as they can, before they expire, be repudiated unilaterally should it appear more profitable for Islam to resume the conflict.

Moreover, going back to the doctrine of abrogation, the vast majority of the ulema agree that Koran 9:5, famously known as ayat al-saif — the "sword verse" — has abrogated some 124 of the more peaceful Meccan verses.

The obligatory jihad is best expressed by Islam's dichotomized worldview that pits Dar al-Islam (the "realm of submission," i.e., the Islamic world), against Dar al-Harb (the "realm of war," i.e., the non-Islamic world) until the former subsumes the latter. Internationally renowned Muslim historian and philosopher Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) articulates this division thusly: "In the Muslim community, holy war [jihad] is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. The other religious groups [specifically Christianity and Judaism] did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense. … But Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations."

This concept is highlighted by the fact that, based on the ten-year treaty of Hudaibiya (628), ratified between Muhammad and his Quraish opponents in Mecca, ten years is, theoretically, the maximum amount of time Muslims can be at peace with infidels. Based on Muhammad's example of breaking the treaty after two years (by citing a Quraish infraction), the sole function of the "peace treaty" (or hudna) is to buy weakened Muslims time to regroup before going on the offensive once more. Incidentally, according to a canonical hadith, Muhammad said, "If I take an oath and later find something else better, I do what is better and break my oath." The prophet further encouraged Muslims to do the same: "If you ever take an oath to do something and later on you find that something else is better, then you should expiate your oath and do what is better."

After negotiating a peace treaty criticized by Muslims as conceding too much to Israel, former PLO leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Yasser Arafat, speaking to Muslims in a mosque and off the record, justified his actions by saying, "I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraish in Mecca." In other words, like his prophet, the "moderate" Arafat was giving his word only to annul it once "something else better" came along — that is, once Palestinians became strong enough to renew the offensive.

Most recently, a new Islamic group associated with Hamas called Jaysh al-Umma (Islam's army) stated clearly, "Muslims all over the world are obliged to fight the Israelis and the infidels until only Islam rules the earth." Realizing their slip, they quickly clarified: "We say that the world will not live in peace as long as the blood of Muslims continues to be shed." Which is it — until Muslim blood stops being shed in Israel or "until only Islam rules the earth"?

These are all clear instances of Muslims feigning openness to the idea of peace simply in order to buy more time to build up their strength.

Here, then, is the problem: If Islam must be in a constant state of war with the non-Muslim world, which need not be physical, as the ulema have classified several non-violent forms of jihad, such as "jihad-of-the-pen" (propaganda) and "money-jihad" (economic); and if Muslims are permitted to lie and feign loyalty, amiability, even affection to the infidel, simply to further their war efforts — what does one make of any Muslim overtures of peace, tolerance, or dialogue?

This is more obvious when one considers that, every single time Muslims "reach out" for "peace," it is always when they are in a weakened condition vis-à-vis infidels — that is, when they, not their non-Muslim competitors, benefit from the peace. This is the lesson of the last two centuries of Muslim-Western interaction, wherein the former have been militarily inferior and thus beholden to the latter.

I guess a more correct term would be that Islam - and radical Islam in particular, is at war with us - whether we want to be at war with them or not. But what's the difference?

Richard's $.02

* War and Peace — and Deceit — in Islam
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/ibrahim022709.html

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by JMI

You gentlemen crack me up sometimes. Pres Bush said the exact same thing on many occassions. Anymore? When we were under Pres Bush?

JMI,

Quote me a line from Pres Bush stating this exact same thing in main stream media or go away. This isn't a request. You post a link to a blog and I'll ban you and your IP address.

I'm not laughing.

You have 24 hours.

Team Sergeant

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by bailaviborita

Are they all in a period of "temporary accomodation"? If they are, they wouldn't admit it. Does this all sound too "conspiratorial"? To me it many times does. We might be attributing more coordination and focus than these groups really have.

...the core question of the Cold War.

What is wrong with an approach that is informed by the following sensibility?

Soviet calculations of possible war outcomes under any contingency must always result in outcomes so unfavorable to the USSR that there would be no incentive for Soviet leaders to initiate an attack.*

________________________
* Ronald W. Reagan, National Security Decision Directive Number 75, U.S. Relations with the USSR, 17 January 1983, p. 2 as printed in Christopher Simpson, ed., National Security Directives of the Reagan and Bush Administrations: The Declassified History of U.S. Political and Military Policy, 1981-1991 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), p. 256.

[tom kelly]

Team Sgt. You gave JMI too Long to respond....Regard's, tom kelly