Claiming we were in similar circumstances in WWII distorts historical facts. Americans were subject to deliberate propaganda by our government during WWII to build the emotional consensus needed to propagate the war effort. From Admiral Halsey’s salty comments such as:”Kill Japs, kill Japs, kill more Japs”, or, “Before we’re through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in Hell” to the fact that Washington prevented the media from publishing photographs of dead American soldiers until late in 1943, the American public was psychologically manipulated. The Office of War Information led the charge producing “Why We Fight” propaganda which tied the war effort solely to ideology.

Historians now admit that Germany and Japan were pursuing autarky – independent, self contained, economic empires. Japanese leaders such as Admiral Yamamoto and Prime Minister Konoye understood early in 1941 that Japan wouldn’t defeat America’s military and then accept our surrender in Washington D. C. Japan’s strategy was to hurt us badly through military action and hope we would then concede the East Indies as another addition to the Japanese Empire. Japan had no designs on the continental United States relative to acquiring our resources and enslaving our people.

Germany was a different situation; declaring war on the United States was one of Hitler’s many strategic blunders. Astute historians suspect Hitler clearly understood that Roosevelt intended to provoke a war with Germany and he reacted by declaring war on America first for emotional reasons. During 1940 and 1941, Germany had shown considerable restraint in attacking U.S. shipping in the face of blatant provocation by our Navy. Just prior to Pearl Harbor, secret war plans were leaked to the American media outlining the American military’s intention to build a force capable of taking on Germany. Hitler was well aware of Roosevelt’s intentions to actively participate in the war against the Third Reich and saw the conflict as inevitable rather than desirable.

Then there is our wartime alliance with the Soviet Union to consider. Washington undertook extensive efforts to explain our strategic alliance with communism to the American public. Our way of life at risk to fascism, but not to communism, was a little confusing for the average Joe. Cynics were shouted down and the case was made then that the Soviet Union wasn’t a threat to us, although their political beliefs were something we would never accept. A government that carried out the deliberate murder of tens of thousands of its citizens wasn’t really a threat because it was killing only its citizens and not those of other countries was specious logic then and now, but the American public bought it only to be further confused after WWII by the Cold War.

Americans are an emotional people and susceptible to manipulation over ideology. First, we saw the threat from fascism, then the threat from our former communist allies and now Islam as an arrow aimed directly at our hearts – a 20th century version of the Mongol hordes. Yes, we should engage in preemptive strikes against our enemies using the full might of our military. But, we should be cautious when linking Islam to an earlier conflict like WWII and creating an enemy we can’t readily identify. The author was correct when he said first we need to identify the enemy, I’m just not convinced that’s what he did.

This effort will entail, on the part of the post-Christian West, a rejection of the relativist mindset which has hertofore precluded our making such moral judgements on a non-Western culture; a pretty tall order, but worthy of our best efforts.

A very modest step in this direction may be discerned in the subtle change in terminology by the Bush Administration which is now employing the term “Islamo-fascism”; in England where Prime Minister Blair is rejecting Islamic head-scarfs; and in Australia where Prime Minister Howard has been quite firm in his opposition to Muslim non-assimilation. It is not coincidental that these examples all come from the “Anglo-American” Western countries and not the European mainland. For its part, France still refuses to acknowledge it has a problem with jihadists in its slums.

This process will need to accelerate dramatically to be effective and will inevitably result in exaggerated (and orchestrated) anger on the “Islamic street” but this can actually help us in distinguishing friend from foe.

My stress of the intellectual, evangelical angle with respect to diologue with Western-sympathetic Muslims is an effort to peel away those who may be on the fence with respect to the “Divine” nature of the Koran. The Muslim holy book is ripe with inconsistencies, non-sequiters, and contradictions which may be pointed out to some reasonable Muslims (Walid Shoebat is a case in point.)

Could God have truly authored a book which states: “Ther is no compulsion in religion.” and “Slay the Idolators wherever you find them…if they repent and take to prayer and render the alms levy, allow them to go their way.”? Some moderates may see the light through gentle persuasion and reason. It is an obligation (for Christians, at least) to try.

I don’t see my previous post; perhaps it got lost somewhere. You don’t need to post this.

I would like permission to reproduce your entire article on my website, with appropriate reference and a link to this site.

My website is http://www.thinking-catholic-strategic-center.com.

I am still mulling over the ramifications of declaring war on a PART of a major religion; at the moment, it looks to me to be the best possible strategy in a war fraught with risk and unknowns when viewed from any angle at all.

Warmest regards,

Vic

So, if US war planners tell the president that if they are freed from the politicking we see right now in Sadr-city and the retreat from the streets because Maliki must appease the Shia mullahs and they inform him that they can gain control of the streets and the country with War Plan X, and that X involves smart technology, we all agree that this is the way to go. The problem is what we see right now in Baghdad. Turning this government over to men like Sadr and even the “moderates” like Sistani is madness.

As to Shari’a, it would be outlawed in the US to start. We would then inform all of the Arab and non-Arab states that we condemn Shari’a and consider all state and neo-state actors who follow it to be minimally hostile to the US if not enemies. We would then decide, based upon strategic factors, how best to use military, diplomatic and economic pressure to bring about change. Just making this announcement would be a sea change in the world. It would give those in Jordan, Pakistan, and even the Gulf States who are frightened to death of the Shari’a proponents to re-think matters. But these reformers in the Muslim world MUST know the US is deadly serious about this.

When Hitler and Stalin broke their secret pact and went to war with each other, the world got a glimpse of the potential cruelty of man unrestrained by any conscience. The German army steam-rolled over civilian populations in Russia, right up until a combination of the Russian winter and a proper build-up of the Russian war machine began to change things; and then the terrible resolve in the hearts of the victim population was given full vent.

Hitler, who said that National Socialism was essentially Marxism, also said that Christianity was the worst thing that ever happened to humankind, and (incorrectly) that it was the tool of the Bolshevik and the spawn of the Jew. Stalin rejected and even suppressed religion. Both men, knowingly or otherwise, set themselves up as personal iconic replacements for God.

Most Americans are unlikely to be aware of the fact that all of the largest, bloodiest and longest battles of World War II were fought inside Russia, at a cost of millions of lives. Both of these great armies committed atrocityafter atrocity, in some places, killing everyone in sight.

But they were not Western; they were Marxist, and they rejected Westernism. One was a Nationalist and the other an Internationalist variant, but they were two sides of the same Marxist coin. They proved that dialectic materialism and atheism are capable of doing ANYTHING AT ALL, when the only guiding values say that the ends justify the means.

We are not atheists, we are not Marxists, and we are not Moslems; we are called to a higher dignity. The terrible experience of World War II should move us all to stronger support of the Western Culture ethos and Judeo-Christian morality, and a return to that noble tradition, born in the Holy Land thousands of years ago, refined through the centuries and still the best thing working in the world today.

I predict that, in the end, however it turns out, the war of ideology will have played a more prominent part than the war of military forces.

Since then, the West has, at great expense, developed “smart” weapon technology with the specific goal of lessening collateral damage and injury to innocents while dealing death to a specific identified enemy. Which is, pretty much, the exact opposite of what Islam has done. Nevertheless, salvation history involves a moral progression; God meets man where he is with the rules he is ready for in his situation.

In this time and place, we cannot simply blow all the Moslems away, because, for one thing, most of them are innocent, and for another, we are decent men. The law that came down the mountain with Moses was “Thou shalt not do murder” and it still stands; murder involves the unwarranted taking of an innocent human life. If we have the means available to avoid doing that, then we should use them. You will never succeed in forcing or frightening belief in Islam out of people; all you will do by trying is to strengthen their resolve and their faith. That’s THEIR strategy; it shouldn’t be ours.

Your recommendation to declare war on Sharia is not without merit. I have to think about that for awhile. It would mean, I suppose, militarily going after pure Islamic states, one by one, and destroying or dismantling their governments. Right?

Then what?

In practice, Shari’a is translated as Islamic law (the same is the case with Judaism’s Halacha). But that is where the comparison ends. Jewish law, is not hegemonic. Islamic law demands it. To be a Muslim faithful is to be in favor of the destruction of the West. Now, it is true that Islam and the Muslims are a patient people. But there is no evidence after 1400 years that “Through gentle persuasion and the use of reason the contradictions and irrationality inherent in Islamic theology may become apparent to millions of liberal or secular Muslims and further marginalize the zealots and fundamentalists.” The reason is that there are no “contradictions and irrationality inherent in Islamic theology” if you accept it as divine. It is only if you start as a non-believer that you might distance yourself from the Umma (or nation of worldwide Muslims).

And, if the US would declare unequivocally that Shari’a is outlawed and will not be tolerated, you will see that the “good and moderate” Muslims, meaning the non-believers, will stand up and side with us to a much larger extent than if we keep telling ourselves and the world that Islamic law and Islam is a peaceful and noble way of life. By failing to give the reformers “cover” we undercut any real chance at reform.

Further, by declaring war on Shari’a, we still pick our fights. We close off our border to the enemy and we choose at our discretion our fights. They cannot dictate that.

Finally, in World War II, 50 million people died. Had it been 500 million and we would have defeated the Axis Powers, would we have been less of who we are? Less moral? Less noble? How can it possibly be a testament to who we are if we were to say that we will not fight to defend ourselves and our families because the ENEMY dead will be TOO HIGH? It would be IMMORAL not to kill our enemy simply because it crossed some NUMBER threshold which some social scientist determined was not PROPORTIONAL. Wars of national existence have absolutely nothing to do with the numbers. You fight because your existence is at risk and that means you fight until the enemy is dead.

While both of these thoughtful commentators WISH Islam could be cured by democracy, they provide no real empirical or logical arguments to support it. The fact that Iraqis voted for democracy means nothing. Of course they did. They don’t want another Hussein. But they voted in the main along sectarian, Islamic lines. They want what the Palestinians wanted when they went to the polls and voted quite democratically for Hamas. Having lived in the Middle East for many years, and having dealt with many good Jordanians close to the Royal family and typically educated in England in private schools, these good men want very much to bring Jordanians into the realm of representative government. But every single time they opened up the process, the Islamic warriors and politicians won huge victories. This is now occurring in Turkey. Long “secularized” by Ataturk viciously, Turkey’s ruling military allowed elections over the years. Consistently, the ruling military elite had to step in with coups or threats of coups to tamp down the Islamic forces. Only when pressured recently by the EU and the US (because Turkey desperately wants to join the EU) to become more transparent did the military suffer the first openly Islamic government. And, this has led to greater terrorism inside Turkey, greater political power for the Islamic forces and rumblings from the military. The question there is how far have the Islamic forces infiltrated the officer corps of the Turkish military. Will the military save Turkey yet again from Islam? That is now an open question. We will see.

But the point is clear. There is no evidence any where in the world that Muslims accept in any large numbers Western values and traditions. Their values are ancient, tested, tried and true as far as they are concerned. They owned most of the civilized world longer than any other empire. The West is manifestly weak and incapable of resisting. Only the US and only under Bush have we shown any real resistance. Even arguably one of our greatest Presidents picked up and ran out of Lebanon after a failed mission of sitting around doing nothing failed miserably and ended up exacting a heavy toll in murdered US servicemen. The Muslims understand full well that the difference between Islam’s war against the West and the Cold War is that communism was never a mass movement. It was always more of a mass slavery certainly after the passing of the revolutionary generation. This is also why the Muslim warriors in Afghanistan knew they could defeat the Soviet forces. The Soviet army has always been woefully under-motivated. The Muslim faithful, however, are just that: faithful and fully motivated by an ideology of death.

To fight this war is to be clear about who and what we are fighting. If after the war there is some reform movements among Muslims, we should encourage it and put these people in positions of power. But it until then, to avoid the “ugly” and hard reality because it is ugly or hard, is unwise to say the very least.