To defeat stateless Jihadi groups like al-Qaeda and the Taliban, we must jettison our Cold War national security thinking featuring limited war and instead realistically reassume our World War II strategic offensive posture.
The framework for war
Today a debate rages. Part of the debate, certainly the most immediate component of the debate, is what to do with Iraq. To cut-and-run seems unthinkable when one considers the consequences. To stay and pursue existing strategies seems almost as unthinkable given the corrosive effects domestically and the lack of American will for another long drawn out war with no real end in sight. The other part of this debate concerns itself with the larger or more strategic aspects: Are we at war? Who exactly is the enemy? Can we win this war as a war?
But, precisely because people engage in “debates” predicated upon loosely or poorly grounded “opinions,” I have over the past year attempted to provide some clear theoretically grounded judgments on these questions. This essay is an attempt to summarize those judgments.
Carl von Clausewitz, the master warfare theorist, wrote extensively about the components of war. Clausewitz’s writings can be reduced to a short equation capturing the essence of warfare, WAR = CAPABILITY + MOTIVATION (see a more detailed explanation in "What are the military options in Iraq?" and "Is Clausewitz still relevant?"). In this simple yet strategically penetrating equation, CAPABILITY encompasses the fighting forces and the logistical resupply which keeps the fighting forces in the field and combat ready. MOTIVATION embodies the underlying reason why a belligerent is committing his forces to combat and the belligerent’s will to continue the fight. Unless the components of CAPABILITY and MOTIVATION are both present and viable, a belligerent will eventually be forced to discontinue the hostilities. Put simply, without capability and motivation, there is no war. The formula applies equally to both sides in bi-lateral warfare.
In layman’s terms, warfare may be divided into strategy, operational art, and tactics. Each of these three levels of warfare may be further divided into two types of combat: offensive and defensive. Simply stated, strategy is the over-arching plan for fighting a war and achieving victory or staving off defeat. Tactics are the offensive or defensive maneuverings of units on the battlefield to implement a part of the strategy. Operational art is the connector between strategy and tactics — that is, operational art involves how units are pre-positioned and then moved onto the battlefield to initiate the tactics of engaging enemy forces. Thus, there are three levels of warfare – strategic, operational, and tactical – that must function synergically for success. (For a more thorough discussion of this analysis of warfare strategy, operations, and tactics, see "Strategy, Tactics, and Winning Wars.")
I have demonstrated, as have many other war analysts, that there is no such thing as a war against terror. The Global War on Terror does not exist. “Terror” is a tactic (see, e.g., "What are the military options in Iraq?" and "Iraq and the War: A Military Reader's Digest"). The war we are fighting is against men, cells, networks, regimes and peoples who embrace a hegemonic political ideology driven by traditional and authoritative Islamic law, or what is termed Shari’a. In our war against the Sharia-faithful, the strategic level encompasses all theaters of conflict and the interactions between them – Middle East, Africa, Europe, Pacific, Homeland, etc. Within the Middle East Theater, Iraq and Afghanistan constitute operational levels of war, while Baghdad, Fallujah, Kabul, and Kandahar are examples of areas of operation (AO) at the tactical level.
During the Cold War, our strategy was “Containment,” which involved defensively preventing the territorial expansion of the Soviet Empire. The shorthand for containment or strategic defensive warfare that sought blockage instead of victory was “limited war.” Within the Containment-strategic-defensive framework (or, limited war strategy), there were occasions when we entered into offensive warfare on the operational/tactical levels in Korea and Vietnam. Our strategic defensive posture, however, was reflected in the conflict end we sought, which was simply to push the communist invaders back into the northern regions of those countries, while leaving the aggressor regimes in power to renew hostilities on their timetable.
As should be evident even from this brief explanation, the strategic posture — be it offensive or defensive — is the determining factor in whether a belligerent is employing its resources offensively to end the war as rapidly as possible or is attempting to defensively prolong the war to stave off enemy victory. It almost goes without saying that, if a belligerent is on the strategic defensive not attacking his enemy’s center of gravity to end the war, but is nevertheless on the operational/tactical offensive actively seeking combat within a limited AO, a high number of friendly casualties are going to result. But friendly casualties in a drawn out limited war environment brings us back to the fundamental formula of war and the MOTIVATION factor. If a belligerent’s domestic support base, especially in representative polities, will not tolerate significant, continuing casualties inherent in strategic defensive limited war, that belligerent cannot afford to undertake a drawn out limited war. Vietnam, and now Iraq, leaves no doubt about the veracity of that statement.
Parenthetically, it should be noted that a military force could logically assume the strategic defensive posture when it has time on its side or when the defensive posture does not lead to kinetic warfare but to a guarded standoff. The retreat of the Russian Tsar’s army before the Grand Army of Napoleon in 1812 to stall until the Russian winter, decimating the invading French forces, is an example of the former and the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the US (and its NATO allies) is an example of the latter.
In summary, an enemy’s CAPABILITY can be engaged strategically, operationally, and tactically, each in turn approached either offensively or defensively. Counterinsurgency, as employed in Vietnam and Iraq, is the classic example of being on the strategic defensive (i.e., fighting a kinetic limited war), while conducting operational/tactical offensive operations. To have fought Vietnam offensively at the strategic level, or to fight our enemies in Iraq as such, Clausewitz instructs us that the enemy’s CAPABILITY must be effectively eliminated. This can be accomplished by targeting the enemy’s “center of gravity.”
In Vietnam, the enemy’s center of gravity was North Vietnam, and in Iraq it is in Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. US counterinsurgent operations in Vietnam were no more effective in their day than the surge will prove to be in Iraq. The lesson of Vietnam, and now Iraq, is that the strategic defensive or limited war, even when waged on the operational and tactical offensive, will only end if and when the enemy’s motivation is impaired because its strategic CAPABILITY is unimpaired. Thus, the enemy can increase, decrease, or temporarily cease combat operations at will. In short, the enemy retains the initiative as the insurgent in counterinsurgent warfare.
Limited War
After 9/11, the US went to war in the same wrongheaded way we have gone to war in every instance since World War II. In spite of the President’s ringing rhetoric about permitting our enemy no sanctuary, even to the point of engaging the enemy preemptively, the US again donned the national security straitjacket of strategic defensive limited war (see "Limited War Doctrine: A Fatal Flaw"). The operative assumption underlying limited war postulates that even the most ardent ideological fanatics will accept stalemate or defeat before employing every means of warfare available to them and will not continue the war notwithstanding the continued capability to wage war. History has not borne out this sanguine assumption.
Another strategic defensive limited war fallacy is that both means and ends should be concomitantly limited. The idea that the US wouldn’t employ its ultimate means (i.e., nuclear weapons) has come to also limit the US ends sought in the conflict. In other words, our refusal to use the ultimate weapon must mean we are not committed to ultimate victory in the form of the decisive defeat of our enemy. Instead, we seek “regime change” and “democracy-building” rather than unconditional surrender of all combatants. Indeed, counterinsurgency is the effort to maintain and build a civil society in and around limited kinetic battles with an enemy we don’t seek to destroy. Rather than setting our strategic goal as the destruction of the enemy’s CAPABILITY to wage war, we seek to contain, co-opt, integrate, re-integrate, and engage politically all in an effort to reduce the enemy’s MOTIVATION to continue the war.
The Containment Policy was relativistic in terms of the situation and hence was instrumental in injecting the notion of limiting our conflict ends to the status quo ante-bellum (see "War By the Rules of Rational Choice Theory"). But this approach places the initiative of war in enemy hands. For instance, we left the communist aggressor governments intact in North Korea and North Vietnam as the price for withdrawing US troops from combat after the limited war strategy had twice failed, and in both cases these failures have come back to haunt us, as North Korea continues to plague us more than fifty years later and North Vietnam quickly turned our "fig leaf" retreat into victory, which then directly contributed to al-Qaeda's decision to initiate Jihad against us. The end sought in the Iraqi conflict is even less clear and decisive than in Korea and Vietnam because much of it is driven by an Iraqi political process that is in turn driven by military and political direction from its Shia and Sunni neighbors fighting a proxy war on Iraqi soil.
The current situation
The nature of the threat posed by the Sharia-faithful is basically of two types – stateless Jihadi groups like al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and Jihadi-sponsoring states like pre-invasion Afghanistan, Iran, and even the more “secular” regime in control of Syria. In turn, these Jihadi-sponsoring states support groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and al-Sadr’s al-Madhi Army. Naturally the stateless Jihadi groups have a very amorphous center of gravity, so attacking their CAPABILITY on the strategic level is most difficult, as proven by the last six years of pursuing al-Qaeda. The Jihadi-sponsoring states, however, all have the center-of-gravity strengths and vulnerabilities of any nation state. Therefore, targeting and disarming these states is subject to the same brute facts learned by the regimes on the kinetic end of Desert Storm, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The critical point regarding the stateless Jihadi groups is that they are dependent on sponsoring states as a result of temporary but necessary alliances, if they are to be capable of doing any more than just surviving. For example, without a doubt, effective interdiction of the Jihadists’ CAPABILITY – that is, the logistical support flowing out of Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia – would mean a substantial decrease in the intensity of combat in Iraq. Even the Baker–Hamilton Report acknowledged this central fact when it naively recommended that the insurgents’ CAPABILITY (i.e., logistical) support could be curtailed through negotiation with Iran and Syria! All of the parties in the Iraq conflict know that the CAPABILITY of both stateless Jihadi groups and state-sponsored Jihadi groups is sustained by the logistical centers of gravity located in surrounding states. But the US strategic end of fighting a limited, defensive war confines operations within the border of Iraq. (See, e.g., "This is no way to win a war!")
What is to be done?
We must jettison our Cold War national security thinking featuring limited war and instead realistically reassume our World War II strategic offensive posture. This will liberate us from the conceptual straightjacket of our own making and provide us the clarity necessary to prosecute this war to a victorious end. Our continued illogical commitment to limited war has manifested itself in our almost blind acceptance of the asymmetrical warfare of insurgency-counterinsurgency, thus putting our military personnel at unnecessary risk by forgoing our firepower advantage in a vain effort to “win the hearts and minds” of the Arab in the street. But this ignores the nature of that street. Today, the tribes in the Anbar Province are working with Iraqi and Coalition forces to purge the foreign fighters of al Qaeda. But tomorrow, with the next assault by Shia militants on the Sunni strongholds there, the internecine blood bath will resume with yet more urgency. Insurgencies can be fought indefinitely if the re-supply lines remain open. This means that Coalition forces and their airborne assets are better utilized to prevent cross-border re-supply by striking depots in Iran than engaging in urban warfare at close quarters.
However, when we are forced to engage in urban combat, air and ground standoff weapons are just as capable of removing insurgents from urban strong points as is room-to-room fighting, yet are less costly to the American military in terms of casualties. The US must ruthlessly use our technologically superior ground firepower and airpower to fight an asymmetrical war that plays to our strength — technology, rather than being lured into close urban combat which capitalizes on the suicide commitment of the Shari’a-driven Jihadists.
Whether in conjunction with the current combat in Iraq or at some later date, the Jihadi-sponsoring states of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and possibly Pakistan will have to be confronted militarily and the Jihadi centers of gravity destroyed. Rather than repeating Operation Iraqi Freedom and attempting physical occupation of one or more of these Jihadi-sponsoring states, the US should totally neutralize Jihadi CAPABILITY in the targeted state by a massive air campaign followed by a regime of “air control” that would involve repeated restrikes from the air of Jihadi activities until Jihadi activity is no longer detected. (See "Part I: Is there a viable military strategy for disarming Iran?" and "Part II: Is there a viable military strategy for disarming Iran?")
How do you win the war against the Sharia-faithful?
The main article of Islamic faith we must focus on is Quranic: “It is they that obey Allah and his messenger, and fear Allah and do right, that will triumph.” (Sura: 24:52). To be successful the West must destroy the CAPABILITY component of the Islamic war equation in order to degrade their MOTIVATION component. As Sura 24:52 makes clear, Shari’a-driven MOTIVATION rests on the faith that the Shari’a-faithful are guaranteed to succeed in their conquest of the entire planet in the name of Islam. Many years ago when Christian Europe geared up to push the marauding Muslims out of Europe, it was understood that if CAPABILITY is repeatedly thwarted and destroyed, it inevitably erodes MOTIVATION. MOTIVATION is most effectively attacked through strategic offensive operations that destroy an enemy’s center of gravity CAPABILITY. Indeed, Islam suffered many centuries of retraction and defeat until its collapse at the end of WWI and the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire.
Today, the center of gravity CAPABILITY for the Shari’a-faithful and their world-wide efforts to effect submission to Allah lies in Iran, Saudi Arabia, the border regions shared by the Salafist tribes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to a lesser extent Syria, as well as the Muslim tribal regimes in Africa, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. It is going to take decades of undisputed domination and humiliation of the Shari’a-faithful Jihadists by the West through air control to destroy Muslim MOTIVATION to continue Jihad. While displaying its superior dominating airpower, the West must also engage in psychological warfare, continually publicizing the discrepancy between Allah’s promise of success in Sura 24:52 and the reality that the Jihadists are powerless before Western technology. US gun camera film showing Jihadists being vaporized by Western weapons and emphasizing Islamic impotence should flood the Internet and the TV airwaves. While this psychological warfare attacking the “theology” of Shari’a-driven Islam will seem out of character for Western civilization, it is the only way that the Shari’a-faithful may be defeated in a strategic sense. The West must attack and degrade the MOTIVATION that provides the Jihadists with their “reason” to murder in the name of their theo-political ideology. Instead of a promise of victory, Sura 24:52 must be made ashes in the mouths of Muslims. A seemingly unending air control campaign over enemy territory is the way to continually remind the Muslims of their subordinate status and the impotence of Allah without becoming mired in the quagmire of counterinsurgency.
There is no doubt that such a military strategy will require a radical mind-set shift in the West. Oil dependence will have to be eliminated through massive free market-driven oil exploration and exploitation together with a substantial increase in refinery capacity. Alternative “clean” energy sources should also be given an expanded free market playing field. Rigid control of our borders and immigration policy is a must to stave off the inevitable attempts to attack us from within. But these policies are needed now in any event and yet politicians sense that their constituents don’t yet consider the matter urgent. Instead, we invest in diplomatic and environmental politicking where we “engage our enemies in candid discussions” in and out of the confines of the UN and we concern ourselves with disappearing polar bears.
As oppressive as it may seem, war is never over until the defeated belligerent knows he is powerless to resist further. The historical evidence of this truth can be seen in the difference between what happened in post-World War I Germany as opposed to post-World War II Germany.
Bibliography
"What are the military options in Iraq?" This essay analyzes the importance of logistical resupply from outside of Iraq to the Jihadists opposing US forces in Iraq.
"Iraq and the War: A Military Reader's Digest" A cogent analysis of warfare which explains, among many other things, that naming of the war against the Islamic Sharia-faithful the “Global War on Terror” is wrong and confusing to both American military planners and the general public because terror is a tactic, not an enemy.
"Is Clausewitz still relevant?" Clausewitz placed great emphasis on having a clear objective in warfare, and this article contrasts the explicit al-Qaeda objective enunciated by Osama bin Laden with the obtuse US objective put forward by President George Bush.
"Limited War Doctrine: A Fatal Flaw" The concept of American war changed sharply in Vietnam under the presidencies of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson from fighting a war to prevail over the enemy to fighting the enemy to a stalemate, and now this same deficient strategic thinking is being applied by the Bush administration to the current war against Islam’s Sharia-faithful.
"War By the Rules of Rational Choice Theory" The Nobel laureate in economics, Thomas Schelling, was the intellectual author of rational choice game theory that replaced the reality of war with the insane idea that war was merely bargaining by violent means, and it was Schelling’s concept of war that dictated Kennedy’s and Johnson’s Vietnam strategy.
"This is no way to win a war!" No matter how successful counterinsurgency is, as a form of warfare it cannot win a war when the enemy center of gravity for the war is located in another country, as was the case with North Vietnam training, equipping, and directing the insurgents in South Vietnam, and so it is now with Iran driving the war in Iraq.
"Part I: Is there a viable military strategy for disarming Iran?" and "Part II: Is there a viable military strategy for disarming Iran?" These two articles theorize how the US can disarm Iran using a massive air campaign followed by the application of air control of Iran through restriking Jihadists' regeneration activities from the air without getting bogged down in counterinsurgency.
"Strategy, Tactics, and Winning Wars" The analysis of warfare strategy, operations, and tactics in the context of total war compared to limited war.
dyerushalmi@saneworks.us
http://www.saneworks.us/
Read more articles by Tom Snodgrass
This is one of the better articles I have read on the so-called ‘war on terror’.
But it does have a few failings. If I may be so bold, I’ll try to briefly state them.
Much as I admire Carl von Clausewitz, I prefer the more simple ‘strategists’. Before we consider CAPABILITY and MOTIVATION, we have to address the most fundamental elements of any human undertaking, commercial or military.
The first is to know yourself; the second is to know the competition, or in war, the enemy.
The great Japanese martial artist, Gichin Funakoshi, put it this way: “Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril.”
But knowing ourselves requires deep reflection on our fundamental values. Only once those values are established, can we then measure the action we intend to take to protect those values. Funakoshi summed it up like this: “If introspection reveals the self to be unjust, then no matter how base the opponent may be, will I not be afraid? If introspection reveals the self to be just, then I will go even though against a thousand or ten thousand men.”
In our current ‘war on terror’ we fail before we even start to consider CAPABILITY and MOTIVATION. We will not even recognize the enemy. As Frum and Perle said in their book An End To Evil, it’s the war against “You-know-who” (from Harry Potter).
I explain this deficiency in our current ‘strategy’ in my article Free Speech, The War on Terror, and Islam. (www.freedomvrights.com/freespeech-waronterror.html)
I also demonstrate in that article that the Shari’a component of our enemy is limited. It is Islam itself we should be addressing. I won’t go through the various Koranic references; they are summed up by Mohammed himself when he said “war is deception” – and listed in my article.
Our current attitude would have been like saying, in WWII, that our fight is not against the German people, but only against the Nazis who have perverted German ‘values’ – although that would have been more accurate than our current stance.
So far as “knowing” ourselves is concerned, we simply don’t have a clue. We’re all over the map. As I have said many times before, without a common purpose we are doomed.
We should make no mistake about it – the enemy knows us, and they know themselves. They have the distinct advantage – and they are using it. Because too many of our ‘leaders’ are taking ‘civil liberties’ with our freedom.
Joseph BH McMillan. http://www.freedomvrights.com
Comment by Joseph BH McMillan | August 20, 2007
Colonel Snodgrass wants us to declare total war on a nuclear power (Pakistan) and a country that supplies much of our petroleum (Saudi Arabia), both of which are nominal allies. Does anybody else see a problem or two here?
So how do you want to start, Colonel? Nuke the Kaaba and destroy Mecca? Do you also plan to take out the Pakistani nuclear capability at the same time? Will you initiate these attacks without warning? Will you nuke Mecca during the height of the annual Hajj to maximize casualties?
Any thoughts on how the civilized world will react to this?
Comment by PaulBurnett | August 20, 2007
"Can I make a suggestion that doesn't involve violence, or is this the wrong crowd for that?"
The problem isn't primarily a military issue. It's a technological and political one, and military actions will not solve the problem. The key problem is that our country is helplessly dependent on oil. If we were not critically dependent on the oil, we would not care what happened in the Middle East. (Consider - Darfour is at least as screwed up as the Persian Gulf area, but that's a humanitarian problem and not a political/military one - for us - because we are not critically dependent on any resources there.) But, because we have allowed ourselves to become dependent on the resources there… we meddle, supporting thugocracies so long as they keep the oil flowing, etc. This gives motivation to the Islamist fanatics there.
(Note: motive is not the same thing as justification. Homicide investigators look for motive when solving a murder, they don't look for justification. The Islamist lunatics are not justified in attacking innocents by our actions, but they are in part motivated by them.)
Since the problem isn't a military one, a military solution alone will not work. Military action is certainly justified as part of the overall strategy (e.g. in Afghanistan, now sadly neglected) but can't be the only means we use. The ultimate solution is to greatly reduce our dependency on oil.
This doesn't have to involve austerity programs and such. We could go nuclear - in a much saner way than Mr. Snodgrass seems to suggest. Not just nuclear power plants, but nuclear rockets - e.g. this one: http://www.nuclearspace.com/a_liberty_ship.htm (the good tech stuff starts in section 7). With that, we can lift a thousand tons into orbit in a completely reusable and non-polluting craft that even eliminates not only its own nuclear waste but can dispose of waste generated on Earth, too. Using those, we can put up solar-power satellites that send their energy down to Earth in the form of microwaves. (If you've ever played Sim City… forget it. It doesn't work that way, it can be done very safely with large margins of safety. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_satellite especially the section on "Safety".) With the lower launch costs of nuclear rockets, we can make the U.S. a net energy exporter, in time.
This has plenty of military applications, as well. Space is the ultimate "high ground" and a dominant U.S. presence in space should have obvious strategic benefits.
Of course, at the same time we can work on more efficient techniques for utilizing the oil we do need. Cars with better mileage (improving our overall fuel efficiency by less than 3mpg would eliminate our need to import oil from the Persian Gulf), more efficient means of generating and using fertilizers, a bit of thought about how we use plastics, etc. Even better, we can sell the technology we develop to other parts of the world - further reducing world demand for oil, driving the price down. The lower the price of oil, the less funds the Islamist fanatics have to work with, and the less of a threat they pose. (Reducing oil prices also impacts people like Hugo Chavez, as a bonus.)
(Not that, realistically, Islamist fanatics pose an existential threat to the United States. They can harm us, certainly, and even cause a relatively large amount of damage, sometimes. That's not the same thing as posing a threat to the existence of the United States. For perspective, more than 30 times as many American citizens have died in traffic accidents since 9/11 than have died in 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq combined.)
I'm wary of "fighting the last war" when the conflict is not primarily a "war" at all.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | August 21, 2007
Joseph BH McMillan:
“Delusion also leads inexorably to appeasement.”
This has got to go down as one of my favorite quotes of all time.
“The solution to the ‘Palestinian problem’ does not rest with Western countries. It will be found when Muslims acknowledge that the problem is not Israel, its defensive fence, 'displacement', or other excuses for killing Jews, but the inherent hatred of Jews found in the verses of the Koran, and proclaimed across the Muslim world in mosques, schools, universities, the media, and even enshrined in the law of many states.”
Of course, this would mean they would stop being Muslims.
“The first step to a solution lies in simply acknowledging that nothing and no one can be immune from critical analysis and debate.”
The second thing we should do is should stop referring to Islam as “a religion” – it is not, for a religion inspires people to follow the natural law.
“We must bring out into broad daylight those verses in the Koran which advocate hatred, death and jihad. Muslims must be challenged to explain them or renounce them.”
Ha! Pardon me for laughing, but have you ever debated or even read some of their answers to probing questions?
First and foremost, they will tell you that you have to understand the Arabic language to understand the Koran. (I can guess that if we produced a Westerner who knew Arabic, that would still not be enough.) Next, you must understand the Koran as a whole, not “cherry-pick” certain passages. (I might not have a problem with this since this is somewhat true when interpreting the Bible.) However, this leads us into a sort of “Catch-22” situation (you can’t understand the Koran until you understanding the Koran). But the real problem I see here is, as you point out, the central theme of the Koran is jihad. Where is all the so-called “peace and tolerance” in the Koran?
There was an exchange recently between me and “Abdullah” (a Muslim poster) initiated by a third poster who asked:
“Dozens of deeply religious Muslim clerics from prominent mosques in Kolkata, India, have concluded their special Islamic religious council meeting and have issued a death-warrant against Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen for having hurt the feelings of Muslims through her books, writings, and speeches. … http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-29026120070817 . … What I don't understand is how could these men, who understand the Arabic versions of the Koran and have literally spent their entire lives studying all aspects of Islam, have completely missed the peace and tolerance message which, “Abdullah” tells us anyway, is central to the Islamic belief system?”
What “Abdullah”’s argument in response boiled down to is the Quran and the Sunnah are the source of Islamic truth. The scholars decide what the Quran and the Sunnah say because they are the experts. (So far, so good.) When the scholars issue a ruling that is contrary to the Quran and the Sunnah, it can be rejected (never mind that they will issue a death-warrant for heresy). How do we know it is contrary to the Quran and the Sunnah? Why, we consult the scholars who are the experts, of course.
The bottom line on debate with a different mindset is that it is hopeless. As Bill Warner, the director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam, observed quite interestingly http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=26769, Western thought is founded on the law of non-contradiction, that is, if two statements conflict, at least one of them is wrong. Islam is dualistic. Two statements that conflict can both be correct. Warner has used an interesting approach to analyzing the dualism of the Koran: statistical. He uses the question of jihad as an example. Does the Koran mean jihad is a “war against infidels” or a kind of “inner struggle” to do what’s right? Both. It is 80% “war against infidels” and 20% “inner struggle”.
Thus, as “Abdullah” has demonstrated, issuing death-warrants is not at all incompatible with Islam’s being a “religion of peace and tolerance.”
Comment by sedonaman | August 21, 2007
Sedonaman,
You flatter me by quoting from my article. That article was written at the beginning of 2004. Things have got worse since then, as I think I predicted in the article. Rather than a debate ensuing, we now find critics of Islam even being jailed - eg the two Pastors in Australia - simply for quoting verses from the Koran.
Since you ask the question, yes, I have debated these issues with Muslims. I have sat around campfires in Rafah refugee camp in Gaza, in Mosques, and in the ‘hallowed cloisters’ of some of Britain’s ‘greatest’ educational establishments. All debate is sterile for the simple reason that it is impossible to debate with someone who invokes the “word of God” himself.
This is an example I give in my book, Freedom v A Tyranny of Rights, at Section VII.4. It relates to the Ten Commandments. The Koran refers to Moses at Mt Sinai, but it denies that Moses was given the Ten Commandments. “God did aforetime take a Covenant from the Children of Israel, And We appointed twelve Captains among them. And God said: ‘I am with you: if ye (but) establish regular prayers, practice regular charity, believe in my apostles, honour and assist them, and loan to God a beautiful loan, verily I will wipe out from you your evils, and admit you to the gardens with rivers flowing beneath; but if any of you, after this, resist faith, he hath truly wandered from the path of rectitude.” [5:13]
So, according to the Koran, God did not hand down the Ten Commandments under “the towering height of Mount Sinai”, but the first part of the Five Pillars of Islam. Rituals were substituted for Principles.
So how did the Jews get it so wrong? Because, says the Koran, “they change the words from their (right) places and forget a good part of the message that was sent them, nor wilt thou cease to find them – barring a few – ever bent on (new) deceits.” [5:14]
And the Christians continued these deceits, according to the Koran. For after their Covenant (which according to Islam is the charge Jesus gave to his disciples to welcome Ahmad, ie Mohammed), “forgot a good part of the message that was sent them: so We estranged them, with enmity and hatred between the one and the other, …” [5:15]
Now, as you rightly say, Sedonaman, debate becomes sterile if we challenge the Koran’s version of what happened on Mt Sinai, or anything else in the Koran. Muslims simply point to the Koran as the literal “word of God” to show that the reason we think that God gave us the Ten Commandments was that the Jews, aided by the Christians, falsified the ‘true Scriptures’. So we go round in endless circles.
But even what I have written here would be a criminal offence in many Western countries today – it would be Islamophobia. So yes, you are right! The time for debate has passed. Instead, we in the West are being silenced by our own governments – all in the interests of ‘dialogue’ and ‘better understanding’, of course.
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Comment by Joseph BH McMillan | August 22, 2007
I think anti-war paleocons and paleolibertarians have been looking at the capability and motivation equation from the beginning. They don't have the capability, and our meddling gives them the motivation.
As Raymond points out, Islam is not an existential threat to America and never has been and is incapable of ever becoming one. And any existential threat it represents to Europe are demographic, not military.
Col. Snodgrass (Does David Y. ghostwrite these things?) is correct that there can be no war on terror because terror is a tactic. But the fact that they must resort to terrorism is evidence that they do not have the capability to launch a traditional military assault assuming anyone other than the terrorist would want to. Terrorism is a CRIMINAL act. To the degree that it is sponsored by a state it could constitute an act of war, but the response could be limited to a like magnitude retaliatory strike. It does not necessarily necessitate that we reduce them to ashes.
(To use Col. Snodgrass' WWII example, Pearl Harbor did not necessitate total war and the unconditional surrender of Japan. Esp. since our meddling in the area was intentionally to provoke them. We could have stopped the meddling, retaliated in kind, and went on about our business. And since the good Col. seems unsatisfied with the harsh peace of WWI, does he think we should have continued the blockade even further past the War's end and starved more Germans? How many starved Germans, including women and children, would have been enough for him?)
Their motivation would be GREATLY reduced if we would follow a course of non-intervention. We should have no troops stationed in the Middle East (other than perhaps what is required to guard our embassies and take care of other routine diplomatic needs). We should give no one there foreign aid. And we should be officially neutral about their internal disputes.
The Uber-Hawk’s argument, of which Col. Snodgrass and the rest of the Gang at SaneWorks are museum quality specimens, is based on the assumption that Jihad/terrorism inherently flows from Islam. That may or may not be true. I have heard both sides.
But even if it is true, you then must leap to the conclusion that aggression makes us safer, and is MORALLY PROPORTIONATE TO THE ACTUAL THREAT. Serge Trifkovic arrives at the same conclusion re. the nature of Islam, but he is a paleo. He suggests disengagement and immigration control.
I think we likely agree that the current limited war strategy is making matters worse. Even if we concede that engaging in the sort of annihilation that Col. Snodgrass is advising would eliminate the threat of Islamic terrorism (it could easily make it worse based on the horror and ill will it would produce), is it proportionate to the threat and morally justifiable? Clearly it is not.
There are 1.1 billion (I think) Muslims on Earth. What percent of them are Sharia-faithful? What % of those would you have to kill to "humiliate and dominate" them into submission?
This is barbarism, plain and simple. Because of the CRIMINAL ACTS of Khobar Towers, the USS Cole, 9/11, etc., Col. Snodgrass thinks it would be wise to engage in total war against admittedly partially stateless forces and kill untold millions of people, drain the treasury, interrupt the free flow of oil, etc. This is crazed. (And Khobar Towers and the USS Cole would not have happened had we not been there based on proximity if not motivation.)
This way of thinking is fear based, doesn't tolerate any threat (which in the real world you can never be rid of), and is simply barbaric.
I really don't know how to argue with this line of thinking. We obviously proceed from very different starting points, particularly with regard to the worth of all human life.
Also, since Col. Snodgrass doesn't seem to like our Cold War strategy of containment, does he think we should have invaded Russia?
I am not a big fan of the Cold War either, but for the opposite reason. The Cold War as much as anything else ruined modern conservatism because of the default mingling of militarism and foreign interventionism with the legitimate conservative concern of anti-Communism.
Now where is David Y. to tell me I am a delusional ideologue because I don’t want to kill millions of Muslims?
Comment by Dan Phillips | August 22, 2007
Joseph BH McMillan:
“Delusion also leads inexorably to appeasement.”
I have long been curious about the seemingly inexhaustible supply of the willingness of Western politicians like Neville Chamberlain and Jimmy Carter to appease a despot like Hitler, Saddam, or Kim in view of appeasement’s dismal record. From this article http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/appeasement-as-war-doctrine , it is quite obvious that appeasement is nothing more than blackmail, and we know (at least we should) that a blackmailer is never satisfied. In addition, one would have to have a fairly big ego to think one could solve the world’s problems even if the world consisted of nothing but rational people trying sincerely to solve a dispute in which both sides have legitimate claims.
Comment by sedonaman | August 22, 2007
I was sent “How to Defeat Islam” by a libertarian conservative friend. I didn’t find the article useful for a number of reasons. Foremost in its deficiencies was that it made a host of insupportable assumptions and consequently came to a similar number of insupportable conclusions.
Start with the title: “How to Defeat Islam.”
It assumes that Islam is monolithic (and “bad” and conversely assumes that Christianity is similarly monolithic and “good”).
It assumes that “defeating” Islam is a correct and useful goal, notwithstanding that there are perhaps 1.3 billion Muslims in the world.
Snodgrass’s comments are in bold, below…
To defeat stateless Jihadi groups like al-Qaeda and the Taliban, we must jettison our Cold War national security thinking featuring limited war and instead realistically reassume our World War II strategic offensive posture.
These assumptions assume that the same strategy, merely more of it, will somehow be “successful.” It seems the author spent time in Viet Nam without perhaps learning anything useful. (I wonder how much time he actually spent in-country?)
To cut-and-run seems unthinkable when one considers the consequences.
Accepting the “cut-and-run” framing leads to the “unthinkable” conclusion.
But, precisely because people engage in “debates” predicated upon loosely or poorly grounded “opinions,” I have over the past year attempted to provide some clear theoretically grounded judgments on these questions.
A failed attempt, unfortunately.
CAPABILITY encompasses the fighting forces and the logistical resupply which keeps the fighting forces in the field and combat ready. MOTIVATION embodies the underlying reason why a belligerent is committing his forces to combat and the belligerent’s will to continue the fight. Unless the components of CAPABILITY and MOTIVATION are both present and viable, a belligerent will eventually be forced to discontinue the hostilities. Put simply, without capability and motivation, there is no war.
The author ignores the fact that Iraq is a failed occupation, tied to von Clauswitz-like thinking, mentally pushing tin soldiers around on a desktop.
I have demonstrated, as have many other war analysts, that there is no such thing as a war against terror. The Global War on Terror does not exist. “Terror” is a tactic (see, e.g., "What are the military options in Iraq?" and "Iraq and the War: A Military Reader's Digest"). The war we are fighting is against men, cells, networks, regimes and peoples who embrace a hegemonic political ideology driven by traditional and authoritative Islamic law, or what is termed Shari’a. In our war against the Sharia-faithful, the strategic level encompasses all theaters of conflict and the interactions between them – Middle East, Africa, Europe, Pacific, Homeland, etc.
This clearly demonstrates that the author’s piece is a religious, rather than a political or a military one, “nothing more, nothing less.” (To quote “Alice.”) To further quote Lewis Carroll, the author seems capable of believing “six impossible things before breakfast.”
The truth is, there is no “war on terror.” We support terrorists and have supported them throughout much of the twentieth and into this century. The recent dismissal of charges against the famous narcoterrorist Luis Posada Carilles and the 1989 parole and commutation of charges by his fellow terrorist Dr. Orlando Bosch by Bush 41 clearly demonstrate this fact. The endless war we supported against peasants, Indians, educators, labor leaders, clergy, etc., etc., in Central America (U.S. surrogates murdered 192,000 in Guatemala alone) is a perfect example of our embrace of terrorism. In Iraq, Bush deliberately engaged in an illegal war for oil.
During the Cold War, our strategy was “Containment,” which involved defensively preventing the territorial expansion of the Soviet Empire
This is a cartoon-like depiction of what was really blatant imperialism exercised in much of Southeast Asia in its typical, blundering, hubristic manifestation.
The retreat of the Russian Tsar’s army before the Grand Army of Napoleon in 1812 to stall until the Russian winter, decimating the invading French forces, is an example of the former.
Actually, Napoleon had suffered significant losses before his army ever reached Russia. He suffered from the same sort of hubris as Bush and the neocons.
Clausewitz (sic) instructs us that the enemy’s CAPABILITY must be effectively eliminated. This can be accomplished by targeting the enemy’s “center of gravity.”
Instead of losing 197,000 weapons, as Bush has done. Please note that in Iraq the U.S. is not in a “war” but in the midst of a multi-faceted revolution, one we have provoked and continue to fuel by our very presence.
Though von Clausewitz had an understanding of 18th and 19th century war, he was oblivious to the revolutions surrounding him before his death from cholera 176 years ago. He did understand that "Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln" but in fact is a poor substitute for same.
In Vietnam, the enemy’s center of gravity was North Vietnam,
Rubbish, of course. Until our invasion and the Tet offensive on 1/31/68 when the NLF suffered enormous losses (during a psychological victory) it was a largely localized insurgency taking most theoretical direction from Ho Chi Minh.
…and in Iraq it is in Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
More alliterative rubbish, but a conceit that feeds more bankrupt neocon imperialism.
US counterinsurgent operations in Vietnam were no more effective in their day than the surge will prove to be in Iraq.
At last! The light dawns!
Another strategic defensive limited war fallacy is that both means and ends should be concomitantly limited. The idea that the US wouldn’t employ its ultimate means (i.e., nuclear weapons) has come to also limit the US ends sought in the conflict.
Ooops. I was wrong. After a brief respite, Snodgrass is once again frothing at the mouth. Reminds me of Tom Lehrer:
Don't say that he's hypocritical,
Say rather that he's apolitical.
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.
The Containment Policy was relativistic in terms of the situation and hence was instrumental in injecting the notion of limiting our conflict ends to the status quo ante-bellum…
Sorry. This mess can’t be “put back in the box.” Saddam is dead. There no longer exists a secular balance in the Mideast. All this was eminently predictable except within the ranks of delusional bunch dictating our foreign policy despite the warnings of the pros in Foggy Bottom, the CIA, etc.
(Vietnam) “…which then directly contributed to al-Qaeda's decision to initiate Jihad against us.”
Can Snodgrass provide any basis for that statement? Any at all? I doubt it. Time to give him a pee test, I believe.
The current situation
The nature of the threat posed by the Sharia-faithful is basically of two types – stateless Jihadi groups like al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and Jihadi-sponsoring states like pre-invasion Afghanistan, Iran, and even the more “secular” regime in control of Syria.
What you would call a triple oxymoron “Sharia-faithful,” “Jihadi-sponsoring,“ “secular.” A first! Never seen before in Olympic competition!
In turn, these Jihadi-sponsoring states support groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and al-Sadr’s al-Madhi Army. Naturally the stateless Jihadi groups have a very amorphous center of gravity, so attacking their CAPABILITY on the strategic level is most difficult, as proven by the last six years of pursuing al-Qaeda.
Um, I suppose it might be impolitic to point out that Bush wasn’t “pursuing al Qaeda” in Iraq. There was no al Qaeda in Saddam’s Iraq despite the nonsense pushed by Powell at the Security Council. I was astounded at the time that he could make that mendacious claim. Bush practically abandoned the pursuit after Osama nearly got killed or captured at Tora Bora.
The critical point regarding the stateless Jihadi groups is that they are dependent on sponsoring states as a result of temporary but necessary alliances, if they are to be capable of doing any more than just surviving. For example, without a doubt, effective interdiction of the Jihadists’ CAPABILITY – that is, the logistical support flowing out of Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia – would mean a substantial decrease in the intensity of combat in Iraq.
Might I point out that the evidence for “logistical support flowing out of Iran (and) Syria is rather weak?” Or maybe Snodgrass remains a believer in WMDs and Iraq-9/11 connections. And the tooth fairy of course.
Even the Baker–Hamilton Report acknowledged this central fact when it naively recommended that the insurgents’ CAPABILITY (i.e., logistical) support could be curtailed through negotiation with Iran and Syria! All of the parties in the Iraq conflict know that the CAPABILITY of both stateless Jihadi groups and state-sponsored Jihadi groups is sustained by the logistical centers of gravity located in surrounding states.
All except those who more credibly believe that they (note the plural) are largely indigenous struggles that can be somewhat affect by such negotiation..
But the US strategic end of fighting a limited, defensive war confines operations within the border of Iraq. (See, e.g., "This is no way to win a war!")
(See Werner von Braun, above. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro)
What is to be done?
Oh, a Leninist!
We must jettison our Cold War national security thinking featuring limited war and instead realistically reassume our World War II strategic offensive posture.
Right. Elect Tancredo* and firebomb Tokyo, nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Oh, wait a minute. They’re now on our side, oddly enough.
Tancredo of course has long been advocating nuking Mecca and Medina. I expect Saudi’s could retaliate by bombing the Vatican, Colorado Springs, Liberty, and Bob Jones U. and Messiah and Regent Colleges.
This will liberate us from the conceptual straightjacket of our own making and provide us the clarity necessary to prosecute this war to a victorious end.
We don’t seem to be getting very much clarity at this point from Snodgrass.
Our continued illogical commitment to limited war…
Okay. That’s about as much as I can tolerate from this birdbrain. I look forward to comments, however vitriolic.
But first…
A Harris poll on Tuesday released the following results:
Global political knowledge was miniscule, with just three percent of (U.S.) women and 14 percent of men saying they are extremely knowledgeable on world politics.
One reason for the knowledge gap is lack of interest, according to the poll.
"Well over half (57 percent) say they do not like learning about political issues in other countries," and 32 percent expressed a lack of interest for homespun politics, the Harris Poll group said.
——————————-
Decades ago, many Americans were polled as to what magazines they read regularly. Colliers finished up near the top. At that time it had been defunct for many years, since 1957.
I suspect that of the 3% and 14% above who claimed to be “extremely knowledgeable” that half were lying.
So what do our national leaders actually know about international politics. Here’s a few examples:
What official speaking in India prior to departing for Pakistan, revealed his lack of familiarity with South Asia?:
“I believe that a prosperous, democratic Pakistan will be a steadfast partner for America, a peaceful neighbor for India and a force for freedom and moderation in the Arab world.”
What candidate, when asked about his age, replied that he would be younger than any European head of state?:
Reporter: Q. What about Giscard d’Estaing?
Candidate A. Who?
What candidate when asked four questions about foreign policy answered, "What is this, 50 (sic) questions?" (The long running radio show was “20 Questions.”)
One question was, "Who is the President of Pakistan?" The candidate answered, "The new Pakistani general, he’s just been elected–not elected, this guy just took over office."
How could Bush possessing a raft of speechwriters and supposed foreign policy “experts,” have stated?: “This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while.” I was simply flabbergasted as he said this live on television. Didn’t anyone understand that King Richard and his cohorts had the streets of Jerusalem running deep with the blood of Muslims and Jews alike?
I was equally astounded when he said, on 1/29/02, “States like (Iran), and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil.” I mean, didn’t he (well, they) understand the consequences of that statement? The moderates had been making slow but steady progress over the loonier elements of the Ayatollahs since 1980 or so. I expected that it would be but a matter of weeks before that was completely reversed, with Iranians expecting B-52s to fill their skies and million-dollar cruise missiles to come crashing in. I was right, unfortunately of course. I knew that although I live 15 miles from the nearest store in a blue state, not down the street from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Bush’s idiotic remark quickly and completely undermined the government of Khatami, causing the defeat of the moderate Rafsanjani and the election of Ahmadinejad just three years later.
Lest I sound as though I’m being critical only of titular conservatives, please allow me to state that about the same time as Bush was quickly ramping up for the invasion of Iraq, I watched Kerry and I think Edwards both referring to Iraq as “Iran.” Hey. They were close. The countries share a long border and three letters of their names.
Snodgrass’s complaint is that these morons in the White House aren’t radical enough. Maybe they should be flushing more than 3 billion a week down this rathole?
Sorry, what’s “intellectual” or “conservative” in his viewpoint? Enlighten me.
(Ron Paul fan.)
Comment by Skeptic | August 22, 2007
Skeptic, let me clarify a couple of things. Col. Snodgrass clearly does not like Islam, but I don't think he said anything about Christianity being good. Christianity, in fact, rules out this genocidal foolishness.
I once wrote that I was uncomfortable with the conclusion that Islam is inherently Jihadist, and I made a reference to Serge Trifkovic. Someone at Chronicles e-mailed me and wanted clarification. I said that if Islam is, in fact, inherently Jihadist then there is a certain logic, as amply illustrated by Col. Snodgrass' essay, that could lead to genocide. (I had the Sane Works crew and some of my discussions here at IC in mind.) The person from Chronicles answered simply that a Christian could never arrive at that conclusion. He was, of course, correct.
Also, Col. Snodgrass and the rest of the Sane Works crew are not neoconservatives. The neocons are downright touchy-feely by comparison. As I wrote at another blog, "Note that Col. Snodgrass is not a neocon. He is critical of neocons. That spreading democracy crap is for wusses. Better to kill and terrorize large numbers of Muslims instead."
Nor are they, IMO, rightly considered imperialist. They seek no land or booty. They are simply fearful and intolerant of any threat. Better to kill a few million Muslims than face the remote possibility of another large scale terrorist attack.
Comment by Dan Phillips | August 22, 2007
Sedonaman,
Your use of the word appeasement illustrates your inherently interventionist (globalist) presuppositions.
How could an American president be in the position to appease either Saddam or Kim? Both are half a world away. If our troops were not in South Korea, where they shouldn't be, and Kim rolled into South Korea and took Seoul, and the President of South Korea said, "We will let you keep Seoul as long as you don't take anything else," that would be appeasement. But the POTUS is incapable of appeasing Kim BECAUSE IT IS NOT OUR FREAKING COUNTRY!
Rid yourself of your globalist and interventionist mindset, and come home to real conservatism.
Comment by Dan Phillips | August 22, 2007
Dan Phillips wrote:
"Skeptic, let me clarify a couple of things. Col. Snodgrass clearly does not like Islam, but I don’t think he said anything about Christianity being good."
————-
I don't like the guy on T.V. who screams that we should buy some of the cleaning products he touts, but I'm not advocating nuking him.
It's clearly implied that Snodgrass thinks that this is a battle of religions and that he thinks Christianity should win. I hear this sort of lunacy from fundamentalists, evangelists, charismatics, Christian Nationalists, Dispensationalists, etc. on a regular basis.
As recently as a week ago, a Salvation Army prison minister told me that Islam should not be allowed to be preached in U.S. prisons, and I suspect she didn't hold Catholics and Mainline Protestant denominations in much higher regard.
————–
Phillips continued: "Christianity, in fact, rules out this genocidal foolishness."
————-
"If only…"
Foolishness is the correct term for this assertion, but not for Christianity's embrace of genocide. In my post (which unfortunately scrambled my comments and Snodgrass's, by dropping paragraph breaks and his bold face) I mentioned the Crusades.
It's hardly only the Papally-endorsed Crusades, though. What do you think of the genocide against Bosnian Muslims? What do you think of the genocide against Tutsis? What do you think of the British and Dutch massacres of the Zulu and Bantu? What do you think of the Thirty Years War? What do you think of the Holocaust? What do you think of the deliberate eradication of Caribs on Hispanola by Columbus? Mussolini's troops decimating Ethiopians? How about the Puritans slaughter of the Wampanoags and Pequots? The Brits killed every last full-blooded Tasmanian!
Except for the (Catholic) Hutu massacres, these were all Christians slaughtering non-Christians.
I am reminded of a quote from Paul Wellstone: "You must be sleeping through history!"
Comment by Skeptic | August 23, 2007
Dan Philips:
I find it amazing that you, like “Brian” who posts here also, think, despite the historical record, that by engaging in such harmless activities as trade, diplomacy, tourism, etc., those bent on evil* will leave us alone. The contrary being the norm is illustrated by the young America’s war with the Barbary Pirates. The US was engaging in trade, diplomacy, and tourism, so why did they make war on us since IT WAS NOT THEIR FREAKING COUNTRY!!!?? We was told “that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their (Moslems’) authority were sinners, that it was their (Moslems’) right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners…”
I’m not singling out Moslems. Despots have been doing this since the dawn of time, and no matter the situation, will always find an excuse to make war on “sinners”, so it is unreasonable to think if we be very quite, they won’t notice us, especially since we are the richest target on the planet.
*Evil person – One for whom others exist only as an opportunity to do evil.
Comment by sedonaman | August 23, 2007
Correction: That should be "We were told…"
Comment by sedonaman | August 23, 2007
Sedonaman, I'm not sure I understand the Barbary Pirates analogy. The Barbary Pirates were aggressing against us. If Kim invaded South Korea (a South Korea free of American troops as it should be) then he would be aggressing against South Korea. And that involves the US President how?
Skeptic, (I now see that is an appropriate name) I have no desire to have the Village Atheist debate with you since the point of this thread is the Iraq War. But the "bad things have been done in the name of and by Christians" argument has been around for as long as there has been a Village Atheist. (Do they teach that on day 1 or day 2 of Atheism 101?) All the situations you mention are complicated and would require knowledge of the history of the conflicts to adequately understand what part religion did or did not play. Also, everything has to be judged by the standards of the time they took place. When Columbus was slaughtering the Caribs (who were cannibals and particularly warlike, BTW) it was a different time. (This is one reason why you can't draw one to one conclusion about Islam from the behavior of the Ottoman Empire.)
But anyway, the teachings of Jesus and the early Church are clearly against the aggressive use of force. That many modern Christians take a pro-war stance is evidence that they have drifted away from the historic belief of the faith re. war. (Or more accurately, subjugated them to their identity as Republicans.) To the degree that their religion, as opposed to their Republican identity, plays a role it is that they tend to be sympathetic to Israel. Whether this unique sympathy is justified is a largely theological debate, but even if it is theologically warranted, that does not necessitate US intervention in the Middle East or aggression against Islam.
"It’s clearly implied that Snodgrass thinks that this is a battle of religions and that he thinks Christianity should win. I hear this sort of lunacy from fundamentalists, evangelists, charismatics, Christian Nationalists, Dispensationalists, etc. on a regular basis."
I think you are misreading Sane Works and giving away your preconceived biases at the same time. I have no idea about Col. Snodgrass, but I don't think Sane Works is primarily the brainchild of Christians. Of course, I open myself up to all kinds of scurrilous accusations by saying that, but that is an issue that has been very publicly addresses here at IC by the Sane Works founder, and I doubt he would object to me pointing it out.
See http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/02/05/jew-hatred/
Comment by Dan Phillips | August 23, 2007
Well I have to thank Dan Phillips for alerting me to the nutcases at SANE. Without the time to read all the crap on their website, and sticking to my conclusion that they are unswervingly pro-Christian, anti-Muslim, I found this:
————
"Permit us to put our cards on the table. We have placed a fair amount of hope in the Church to save the West from itself and from Islam. In truth, there are only two groups that might. One is the one we speak of here: Conservative Catholics led by the Church. And, it is precisely because of this Pope’s intellectual integrity, his strong positions as Cardinal Ratzinger, his position as both the religious head of the Church (sanctified by the somewhat nebulous doctrine of Infallibility), and his political and moral leadership for, and extending from the Vatican that would suggest circumstantially and organizationally such is a possibility."
"The other group is conservative Evangelical Christians. The advantage this group holds over the Church is that Evangelicals tend to be more conservative and more politically active than Catholics. However, they are not organized hierarchically and that presents the challenge of organizing grass roots bottom-up political efforts rather than top-down. But even with this practical difficulty, anyone who knows about such efforts knows that grass roots efforts, for the reason that they represent a body of a real and moving commitment, can carry much greater impact than even a well-organized, tightly controlled top-down effort which gives the appearance of contrivance."
Comment by Skeptic | August 23, 2007
Dan Philips:
"I’m not sure I understand the Barbary Pirates analogy. The Barbary Pirates were aggressing against us. If Kim invaded South Korea (a South Korea free of American troops as it should be) then he would be aggressing against South Korea. And that involves the US President how?"
The Barbary Pirates war is not an analogy; it's just an earlier version of what happens in this world when a country tries to mind its own business.
As I said, appeasement is paying off a blackmailer. If Kim invaded S. Korea, he would be aggressing against us because S. Korea is a trading partner of the US. Are we to write off the American jobs lost if we lost that partner? If the US did nothing, the Chinese would certainly make a move to take Taiwan. Another trading partner written off. The folks who want us out of S. Korea least are the Japanese — another trading partner. Etc., etc., etc.
I am thoroughly convinced that if an Islamic army were to invade Florida tomorrow, there would be those on the "Left Coast" who would say, "Let them keep Florida; it is a state far away of which we know little." Then when they took Alabama and Mississippi, the appeasers would find some reason to write those states off also.
Comment by sedonaman | August 23, 2007
Come on, Sedonaman. What country (other than Cuba) is not our trading partner? By that criteria, we are obligated to defend almost every nation on earth.
"I am thoroughly convinced that if an Islamic army were to invade Florida…"
I know you said that in jest, but you inadvertently illustrated one of my points. There is no Islamic Army, which is why this whole war against Islam is such a farce. And almost everyone would fight if our country was actually invaded. Some would grab a pitchfork if that is all they had. They are unwilling to fight far off wars because they don't see them as necessary to the defense of America. (And they are right.)
Comment by Dan Phillips | August 23, 2007
I'm posting an excerpt from this article because it goes to my "Crusades"-related contentions, made earlier today.
————————
Last week, after an investigation spurred by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not be delivering "freedom packages" to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had originally intended.
(T)he packages held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which "soldiers for Christ" hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers.
The packages were put together by a fundamentalist Christian ministry called Operation Straight Up, or OSU, an official member of the Defense Department's "America Supports You" program. The group has staged a number of Christian-themed shows at military bases, featuring athletes, strongmen and actor-turned-evangelist Stephen Baldwin. But thanks in part to the support of the Pentagon, Operation Straight Up has now begun focusing on Iraq, where, according to its website (on pages taken down last week), it planned an entertainment tour called the "Military Crusade."
Apparently the wonks at the Pentagon forgot that Muslims tend to bristle at the word "crusade" and thought that what the Iraq war lacked was a dose of end-times theology.
In the end, the Defense Department realized the folly of participating in any Operation Straight Up crusade. But the episode is just another example of increasingly disturbing, and indeed unconstitutional, relationships being forged between the U.S. military and private evangelical groups.
The second item is a long interview of Nir Rosen by Amy Goodman about his article, "Iraq does not exist anymore." http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082307S.shtml
Rosen reported on the refugee situations throughout the Middle East and their implications. His thesis is that our Iraq invasion and occupation has caused three million to flee Iraq (of whom the U.S. has accepted 700 as refugees) and about the same number to have been internally displaced. Besides covering the implications in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, he has grim predictions about our conflict with Iran. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082307S.shtml
Comment by Skeptic | August 23, 2007
Given the lengthy comments, there is no need to address them point by point. Much is merely screed.
But, to clarify some important matters. First, to make the argument that Islamic terror armed with WMD in the hands of Jihadist cells, networks, regimes, or rogue states is somehow merely a police action is to ignore reality. There is no reason to belabor the point. It also is futile to debate whether these groups may or may not get their hands on WMD. Prudent men will make their own assessments.
It does, however, seem to devolve down to an argument of whether we should be prepared to suffer a major attack before we strike mortal blows in combat. There are those men who cherish non-involvement in these matters over that risk. Those of us at SANE view such a first strike option as unthinkable. Which US city or population are we prepared to sacrifice to such a threat? From our perspective, none.
The remarks about Islam in this comment thread in the main are mere assertions or confused. Islam is a theo-juridical ideology driven by Shari'a. Over the years, Muslims and their leaders have waxed and waned in their observance; but the violence of Islam has almost always (although there are exceptions) been supported, if not driven, by the normative instructions of Islamic law.
That law is absolutely consistent across all five authoritative schools (4 Sunni; 1 Shia) for 1000 years. The goal or end of Islam is Aslam or Submission. Submission to Allah's divine law which is Shari'a. The law itself provides for the use of Jihad qital or violent Jihad.
Now those statements are not assertions but documented fact. The presence of peaceful or violent verses in the holy writ of Islam is neither here nor there because in and of themselves they provide no instructive purpose. Writ is normative or directive when it has the power of law. Now, it is true that the law relies in the main on these verses but the import of those verses is in how Islamic jurisprudence understands them.
Thus, most Muslims don't read Arabic or even know enough of the Qur'an or Hadith to carry on a meaningful conversation about the Writ of Islam. But what they do know is what their religious authorities (the Ulema) tell them. The authorities most certainly do rely on the authoritative Shari'a for their interpretations. In turn, those interpretations rely on specific verses to be sure, but only in the context of a 1000-year jurisprudence.
For example, in the Bible, its says, "an eye for an eye". Now the Jews could have understood that literally but they never have. The reason is that Jewish law (the Halacha) has always understood that verse of lex talionis as a non-literal command to exact monetary compensation for damages. Christians have understood that verse accordingly.
The point: without Jewish law or Christian interpretive understanding, if you read that verse literally you would understand nothing meaningful of Judaism or Christianity. The same is true of the Qur'an and the Hadith. The individual verses have been authoritatively interpreted over a 1000 year history by al fiqh or Islamic jurisprudence.
Now, it is certainly true that most Muslims are neither Shari'a scholars nor Shari'a compliant in behavior. But the question is, among those who take the instructions of Shari'a seriously, is there a real and present danger to the West and to the US specifically.
Again, prudent men might differ here. But the threat from Shari'a as a political/military/geo-strategic ideology is too patent to ignore simply. If one concludes that there is no real threat for the Shari'a driven Jihadists to acquire WMD through a successful coup in Pakistan, by incremental development in Iran, or on the black market out of Russia, one's assessment will be close to the arguments made here by those arguing against war. If one concludes that there is a real threat and it is not one we are prepared to suffer, then it would seem that anything short of a full response would be irresponsible.
As to the remarks about SANE itself, they are in the main irrelevant. The arguments we proffer are made with fact and reason. If they suffer, it will be in those facts or reasoning. Ad hominem attacks on SANE as Christian-based or as Jewish "neo-cons" are unproductive. Any reading of our material will make it clear that while we fully appreciate the Christian basis of morality and indeed of the US as a nation, it is not absolute or wholly exclusive. Thus, SANE, like America, includes Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, and an atheist or two. Our uniting as an organization is predicated upon our love and commitment to national existence as a distinct people and sovereign nation.
Comment by David Yerushalmi | August 24, 2007
Dan Phillips:
The only thing we agree on is that we have trading partners all over the world. And I was not "jesting" about the hypothical invasion of Florida.
Comment by sedonaman | August 24, 2007
Welcome David. I hoped you would pipe in.
I actually think we are getting somewhere. You recognize that my (and by implication others like me) position is not based on reckless disregard for my fellow countrymen who might be killed in some future WMD attack. Nor is it some knee jerk pacifism. It is based on our different assessment of the actual threat, and how to go about countering whatever threat there may be.
I concede a WMD going off in an American city would be a grave outcome. Certainly you agree that killing fellow human beings, even if they are the enemy, is not trivial. It is a very grave matter. Esp. when you recognize that we could easily be talking well over a million people following the advice of Col. Snodgrass. And however many are killed, a stated war aim would be that many more would be terrorized. Will you concede that those are very high stakes?
I think a strong argument could be made that barring an imminent threat pre-emptive or preventative war is inherently immoral. You can punch out a guy who has his hand raised against you. You do not have to wait to be struck. But you can't punch a guy because he looks at you funny or because he belongs to a potentially threatening demographic or even because he was mumbling against you. So the argument is to what degree the Muslim threat is a raised hand, versus a funny look, etc. Even though the later scenarios might require you to take precautions.
As an aside, I understand what you are saying about the universalistic aspects of Islam. But you could argue that there are universalistic aspects of Christianity. Some would argue that there is a similar theo-political Christian social order. That this should be imposed by the sword has always been the minority viewpoint. But couldn't, by your logic, the secular world deem the Christian Worldview a threat? It in fact is a threat to secularism. While I don't buy all the arguments of the theo-political Christian proponents, I certainly do not think that Christianity endorses liberalism or requires "tolerance" or "pluralism" as those concepts are currently (mis)understood.
Hence, part of my problem with deeming a religion the definitional enemy. Who is to say that Christianity will not be next?
Now back to terrorism. I think the likelihood that we will be hit by a significant WMD is very remote. You clearly disagree. Acquiring one is not a trivial matter. But what % likelihood, by your thinking, would be enough to warrant the preventative war Col. S. outlines? I think whatever the likelihood is, it would plummet if we disengaged. And this is base on sound evidence.
Part of the current problem is that this administration has lost all credibility. They have poisoned the well. If they swore up and down an attack was imminent, I wouldn't believe them.
While a major terrorist attack such as a WMD is a major undertaking, small scale terrorism really would be little problem. It would require very little effort to engage in microterrorism such as a small car bomb, a suicide bomb, a pipe bomb etc. The kind of stuff that happens in Israel all the time where it is harder to pull off. Does the lack of this sort of microterrorism, not say something about the likelihood of a major terrorist attack? Does it not say something about the "motivation" of potential terrorist in America?
I hope you don’t mind the comment I made re. SANE. As you know, I have intentionally not “gone there.” And I specifically said you were not neo-cons. I just thought Skeptic was seriously misreading what your organization is about, and I was attempting to inform him.
Comment by Dan Phillips | August 24, 2007
I'm appreciative that David Yerushalmi has said that Dan Phillips should not engage in ad hominem attacks. I was devastated when David accused me of sophomoric atheism when I would hope that neither term correctly describes me.
The reason I mentioned a handful of a host of genocides perpetrated by Christians is that Snodgrass seemed to convey that the followers of Jesus have some special place in the world, one denied Muslims.
I fully recognize, after all, that atheists have committed some of the world's worst genocides: the Stalinist purges of the Kulaks, the Khmer Rouge's killing fields, etc. Muslims have certainly contributed their share, such as in the U.S.-backed genocide of Christians in East Timor and similar ethnic cleansing thanks to our tax dollars by Albanians in Kosovo.
Muslims depopulated Armenians and engaged in the previous slaughter of animists in Darfur (and the current one there against non-Arab Muslims). Shintoists and Confucians have had at it since long before the Rape of Nanking. Hindus have gone after Muslims in Bengal and Kashmir, Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Sikhs at Amritsar .
I can't imagine that there weren't millions of Buddhists participating in WWII, more likely than not included in the attack on Pearl.
SANE (sic) has attacked Muslims of all stripes, more recently narrowing it to "Sharia-following" adherents. But despite the alleged presence of atheists in its ranks, SANE itself seems to cleave to a Reconstructionist mindset or to be fellow-travelers with them.
It's hard to argue with anyone who wants, as Rushdoony followers preach, to seek to impose the criminal code of the Old Testament, applying the death penalty for homosexuals, adulterers, fornicators, witches, incorrigible juvenile delinquents and those who spread false religions. http://www.alternet.org/story/55717/
All I'm asking for is a little frankness and consistency.
One Sunday last month I visited the Creation Museum, for instance, run by self-described "Biblical literalists." I declined to partake in the cafeteria's pork dishes, all bearing cute Old Testament names on the menu.
The consistency I would have liked to see from our government, such as it is, would have been to protect this country from actual terrorists through 9/11. I would have appreciated it if Bush would have listened to the 8/6 NIE. It would have been nice if he'd paid attention to FBI agents from Minneapolis to Phoenix who warned of cash-paying flight students who were uninterested in takeoffs and landings. He might have heard warnings from Egypt, Russia, Israel, England, Germany, even the Caribbean, about the impending attacks. He could have seen that the recommendations of the Gore Commission were implemented, instead of deferring to Boeing lobbyists whose bosses resisted spending a couple of hundred bucks per plane strengthening cockpit doors and who were content to have illiterates and felons responsible for airport "security."
It would have been nice if Bush stuck to the task in Afghanistan, rather than invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. He might have caught Osama, save $600 billion so far, avoided having 3 millions external and a similar number of internal refuges and avoided a million premature deaths. He might not have destablized the entire Middle East.
The fears that concern you about nuclear proliferation are legitimate. But Bush has neglected assisting the former Soviet republics in securing and eliminating those nuclear materials and weapons you've noted. He has done almost nothing about the Pakistani sales of technology and equipment to anyone willing to pay the black market price.
Instead he has rattled sabers over Iran, a country that was an avowed opponent of both Saddam and the Taliban.
Doesn't any of this bother SANE? (It does seem to weigh upon Dan.) Wouldn't it be more useful to engage in Realpolitik rather than cavorting around in cowboy costumes and codpieces? Doesn't it seem, in retrospect at least, that Ashcroft would have been better occupied with pursuing terrorists rather than Comstockery: draping statues and concentrating on prosecuting docs who provided medical marijuana to terminal patients or death with dignity for those in protracted and unendurable pain?
This is, after all, a purportedly "libertarian" conservative blog. Will the real libertarians please stand up?
Comment by Skeptic | August 24, 2007
Dan: I have said from the beginning that reasonable men are capable of assessing the risk and arriving at different conclusions. We look back on the 1990s and 9-11 and the obvious threats in Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia. These countries are held together by string. These are not theoretical or demographic threats. We have been attacked on foreign soil and on our own soil. We have numerous homegrown and imported cells here in the US per all the intel. You quite obviously do not work in this area; I deal with CT and geo-strategic issues every day and confer with experts from all over the world. If you don’t understand the threat from WMD is real, and you are not prepared to listen to what those men and women who work in this area say (there are large departments in all of our intel services working on just this issue and they all agree the threat is very real), there is nothing I will say to educate otherwise.
It is silly to ask me if I take war and killing seriously. But I simply will not accept a risk of massive death and destruction to my nation, my People, my homeland. And, the sooner our enemies learn this as fact and consequence, the sooner the threat will be reduced. That has been the history of man since the beginning of time.
It is similarly absurd to draw a comparison between Islam and Christianity. First, Christianity today threatens no one physically. Second, Christianity does not have a legal component. While Christian theology certainly informs how a Christian votes and lobbies his government, there is no notion in Christianity that the Bible demands a certain political order. This does not mean however that Christianity does not and should not inform the political order. The Christian Americans who founded this country sought to decouple the two orders of existence but not to remove one from the other. As I wrote recently:
"…one need only read the writings of the vast majority of the founding fathers and the political leaders of early America, or examine the Christian basis for our laws and institutions (Sunday Blue laws, national holidays, anti-sodomy, anti-polygamy, marriage between man and woman, etc), and follow the course of its history (the taming of the pagan Indians, Manifest Destiny, etc) to know that without Christianity, there would be no America. Do [… you] really believe the early Pilgrims would have founded this country had they not known of G-d’s providence?"
The point of this is that without Christianity, you don't have America. You might not like that fact, but fact it is. Granted, much of this has changed since the second half of the 20th century and changing yet further. But to call Christians a threat to political order is to stand the entire American Revolution on its head.
Skeptic is simply too disjointed to actually take serious. By the by, to describe someone as sophomoric is not ad hominem. It goes to the basis upon which they discourse. For example, what possible difference does it make that Christians, atheists or Muslims, or Jews for that matter, have committed horrendous acts? This discussion is about a threat to America today. Similarly, Bush and his failures has little or nothing to do with this discussion. Neither I nor Col Snodgrass have sought to stand the Bush administration up as an example of good leadership.
Comment by David Yerushalmi | August 25, 2007
“It is similarly absurd to draw a comparison between Islam and Christianity. First, Christianity today threatens no one physically.”
What amazes me is the same people who can take a few facts (e.g., World Trade Center destruction + Saudis leaving US on private jets shortly thereafter) and build a whole conspiracy theory, details and all, complete with government cover-up, but can’t see in its daily atrocities the conspiracy that is Islam. In fact, they see the exact opposite. Amazing. Purely amazing.
Comment by sedonaman | August 26, 2007
Most interesting ‘exchanges’. They only tend to demonstrate what I said in Comment 1. We simply don’t know ourselves, never mind the ‘enemy’. What a way to ‘fight’ a war – or perhaps it is not a war, who knows? We can’t even agree on that!
David, I will bow to your undoubted better understanding of the motivation behind Islamic expansionism being Shari’a – but I still see the Hadīth, and the Tafsīr which developed from it, as what Nietzsche would call “interpretation, not text”.
A. Yusuf Ali put it like this in his Translation of the Koran, now regarded by Muslims as the definitive Translation, esp Jihadists: “The increasing knowledge of history and of Jewish and Christian LEGENDS [my emphasis] enabled the Commentaries to illustrate the TEXT [my emphasis] of the Holy Book with references to these. Sometimes the amount of Jewish stuff (some of it absurd), which found its way into the Commentaries, was out of all proportion to its importance and relevance, and gave rise to the legend, which has been exploited by polemical Christian and Jewish writers, that Islam was built on an imperfect knowledge of Christianity and Judaism, or that it accepts as true the illustrative legends from the Talmud or the Midrash or various fantastic schools of Christianity.”
After then mentioning the Sufi ‘interpretations’, Ali says this: “I think the art of INTERPRETATION must stick as closely to as possible to the TEXT which it seeks to interpret.” [my emphasis]
From my discourse with Muslims, ‘moderate’ and ‘extreme’, this is the position Islam is now asserting, not the Shari’a. The Shari’a is simply a manifestation, not the text.
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Comment by Joseph BH McMillan | August 26, 2007
David,
Following my last Comment on IC, I have reflected further on your position that the threat from Islam lies with the Shari’a. The more I have thought about that position, the more disturbing has the article by Col Snodgrass become.
I am sure we can agree that Shari’a law is not to be found in the Koran in the form of the Ten Commandments. In fact, Shari’a law is what I have already said – interpretations of various verses of the Koran. Shari’a law is reflected more in the Scriptures, than in the Koran: in Exodus 21 and following; Leviticus; and Deuteronomy. Yet these ‘laws’ are what Philo called the ‘laws’ which derive from the “laws in general, and also the heads of particular laws” – that is, the Ten Commandments. Since these ‘subsidiary’ laws were the ‘interpretation’ Moses put on the “particular laws” (the Ten Commandments), it is not hard to see why Jesus could at one and the same time decry those ‘laws’ in the Sermon of the Mount, but yet assert that “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” [Mathew 5:16-17, and see Luke 16:17]
So if, as you assert, the problem is with Shari’a, you are also asserting that the problem is one of “interpretation, not text”. If that is the case, the obvious solution is to “debate” the “interpretation”, as I suggest in my article. All we would need is enough Muslims to be persuaded, by reference to the Commentaries and the Koran itself, to adopt a different interpretation of the “word of God” as set out in the Koran.
Therefore, if that is indeed your thesis, does it not seem radical in the extreme to resort to the kind of ‘solution’ proposed by Col Snodgrass, when the problem is simply one on interpretation? A problem to be solved by debate, not ‘total war’?
I’m afraid that I still see the problem as one of “text”, not “interpretation” – because it is there in black and white for all to see.
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Comment by Joseph BH McMillan | August 26, 2007
David,
"It is similarly absurd to draw a comparison between Islam and Christianity."
Was that paragraph and the ones that followed aimed at me or Skeptic? What have I ever said that would lead you to believe I am hostile in any way to Christianity?
"The point of this is that without Christianity, you don’t have America."
I agree with that entirely.
My point was that there arguably is a legal component of Christianity. Some serious and sincere scholars believe there is. Skeptic, very erroneously (unless I'm seriously missing something), raised the Reconstructionist charge against SANE. But Reconstructionist/Theonomist would clearly argue there is a legal component of Christianity. Their's is clearly the minority viewpoint, but it is what I was alluding to.
I am not a Theonomist, but neither am I necessarily a believer in liberal "pluralism" and "tolerance" as those terms are understood today. Nor do I think the Bible anywhere endorses or necessitates those things. When I made that remark I was not indicting Christianity. I was indicting "pluralism" and "tolerance."
I think Christianity, if it is doing what it is supposed to be doing, is definitely a threat to secularism. I think the liberals understand this. That is why their worst ire is reserved for Christians who aren't parroting liberalism.
Perhaps I will be accused of some liberalism and pluralism of my own, but it bothers me to hear that Islam is a problem because of what they believe. If they believed something else then all would be peachy keen. The objection I hear for why Islam is incompatible with the West, (which it is) is not just that Islam is inherently Jihadist (which it may be), but that it is inherently illiberal (which it is). But, I would argue that Christianity is inherently illiberal. (Part of the problem is the one to one correspondence of the West with liberalism, but both the left and “right” make this mistake. I suspect David agrees with me here.)
The most essential question is not what we want Muslims to believe. It is first of all, is Islam the Truth. You and I would say no, but if it is the truth we should subject ourselves to it. But if the Muslim determines yes, then the next essential question is what is the correct interpretation. If they arrive at world wide Jihad to establish a Muslim planet, then we need to be prepared to answer that threat militarily to protect ourselves. But to see the military as a tool to get then to change their mindset is troubling to me.
Part of this is based on the realization that we are in a post-Christian world. As things get more secular, Christianity and Orthodox Judaism are bound to be increasingly viewed hostilely. Just look at some of the European Hate Speech laws.
I believe my security is better advanced by an approach of live and let live (them there and us here) than an approach of we are going to bomb you into submission to right think.
I hope you see my point.
“But I simply will not accept a risk of massive death and destruction to my nation, my People, my homeland.”
No risk? No risk what-so-ever? You accept a risk when you drive your car. You can’t go through life without risks. At some point the risk is so low that the actions you take to prevent it are riskier than the actual risk. The inevitable deaths of our soldiers for example.
And don’t you think one of the reasons the regimes you mentioned are held together by a string is because they are viewed as overly friendly to us? We need to withdraw.
Comment by Dan Phillips | August 27, 2007
Dan Philips:
“But if the Muslim determines yes (i.e., Islam is the Truth), then the next essential question is what is the correct interpretation.”
Seems to me that you would have to know the correct interpretation in order to determine whether Islam is the Truth or not.
“I believe my security is better advanced by an approach of live and let live (them there and us here) …”
That sounds all well and good, but “live and let-live” requires both sides to agree. My gut feeling tells me they have not agreed to this idea, nor will they ever. Besides, it leaves un-addressed the question of how do you get them that are already “here” to go back “there”?
Comment by sedonaman | August 27, 2007