Slightly misleading title – Jihad won’t really end as long as Islam remains, but this is a response to my colleague, the Arizona Atheist. Please read his post carefully. The basic argument is that if the United States leaves the Muslim world alone, they’ll stop randomly killing civilians over here.
First things first, let’s take the fact that this argument has an implication: if the willingness of Muslims to commit acts of mass civilian slaughter is a good reason for infidels do do what they want, then maybe mass slaughter by infidels of Muslims will give them a good reason to do what we want?
That’s been tabled before. John Derbyshire defends this policy as “rubble doesn’t cause trouble”, and responded to criticism – of the ‘root cause kind advanced by AA – as follows:
Ah, but Mark, there is rubble, and there is rubble. Of the 13th-century Mongol horde it was said that when they had once bestowed their attentions on a city, you could afterwards ride over the place where that city had stood without your horse stumbling. If the indignities suffered in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Grozny are the root causes of present-day Islamic terrorism, then I submit that the indignities were insufficiently severe.
Armchair warriors like myself are sometimes accused of laboring under the illusion that all the world’s problems can be solved by neat “surgical strikes” on troublesome locations, in which suspect facilities, or persons, are cleanly eliminated with minimal collateral damage.
Not guilty! I am, in fact, willing to confess myself a collateral-damage armchair warrior, who would be happy to see us trade in our inventory of smart laser-guided precision munitions for lots and lots and lots of old-style iron bombs, and fleets of great big iron planes to deliver them. Remember those photographs of mid-1945 Berlin, fragments of broken wall sticking up out of vast drifts and dunes of pulverized masonry? Now that’s rubble.
Oh, and we won that war.
Okay, maybe that’s a bit much. If we just want a quiet life, why not do what they want and to stay out of the Middle East, grovel, throw Israel to the wolves? Ah, but will that be doing enough of what they want? It might not. For example here is Sheikh Muhammad al-Gamei’a – head imam in New York – has expressed himself as follows:
“You see these people [Jews] all the time, everywhere disseminating corruption, heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism and drugs. Because of the Jews there are strip clubs, homosexuals, lesbians everywhere. They do this to impose their hegemony and colonialism on the world…”
Right then, we’d better repeat gay marriage something sharpish, and while we’re at it, criminalize homosexuality. Then go on to ban strip clubs, alcohol, get rid of freedom of speech (I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Muslims take ‘heresy’ quite seriously)… To be on the safe side, time to reset relations between the sexes to at least 1950s. Why, we even let women be heads of government and then wonder why we’re despised? Actually, as I recall, Osama listed Clinton’s “abominable acts” as part of his casus belli, so stone the adulterer to death! These suggestions have been also been tabled before.
Which to choose? Well, I dunno. On the one hand, I have a great number of Israeli friends and comrades, on the other hand I have a lot of gay friends and comrades. I cannot bring myself to abandon either.
Fortunately for me, I don’t have to, because this whole thesis is hogwash.
Let me start with where I entirely agree with my colleague. The record of US foreign policy has been largely disgraceful since 1945 – from sponsoring the coup of Yahya Khan in Pakistan and the arming of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. You will not find me an apologist for either of those actions. Let me further specify that he is quite right that, when the US went to war to toss Saddam Hussein’s armies out of Kuwait, and later to throw him out of power, this was seen by tens and hundreds of millions of Muslims as an attack on Islam, as was the destruction of the Taliban. My colleague cites good sources on this, but he barely scratches the surface of the fury that was expressed at the time. If you are interested, please open your copy of Samuel P Huntington.
So, yes, hundreds of millions of Muslims are perfectly willing to defend the Taliban and Saddam Hussein as representatives and embodiments of Islam. That’s rather my point.
How have things changed, if at all? Well, just focusing on the Arab Muslim world for a second, here is another poll, worth reading carefully. One question asked which: “World leader (outside your own country) you admire most?”:
1. Hassan Nasrallah, 26%
2. Bashar Al-Assad 16%
3. Mahmoud Ahmadinijad 10%
4. Nicolas Sarkozy 6%
5. Mohmar Qadaffi 6%
6. Osama bin Laden 6%
7. Sheikh Muhammad bin Rashid 6%
8. Hugo Chavez 4%.
Huh. Quite the line up. Even if #4 is something of a comic interlude
This brings me to the bit where my colleague is just flat out wrong when he writes this:
Contrary to the US propaganda it is not a “hatred” of Western values or democracy or even freedom that causes much of the Muslim world to hate the US. As a matter of fact, the bulk of the Arab world want precisely that: democracy and freedom.
Or perhaps I should say that you cannot possibly prove that from the study that AA links. That is because the title of that study isn’t “Most Muslims want Democracy and Personal Freedom”. It is “Most Muslims Want Democracy, Personal Freedoms, and Islam in Political Life.”
Emphasis mine.
If you had a study of a population that said “Most Generics want a long life, good fitness, and to eat huge amounts of sugar and not do any exercise”, would you expect the Generic Male to look more like this or like this?
You see my point, I am sure. I have no doubt that a lot of Muslims like the idea of personal autonomy and all the prosperity that comes with that. However, how many are willing to pay the price for it – to stand up for freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, separation of Mosque and State?
Taking a shufty at the study cited by Arizona Atheist, I see that 82% of Pakistani Muslims, say they want laws should strictly follow the Koran, 72% of Jordanian Muslims. I’m happy to see that only 17% of Turks and Lebanese do, but they still want laws to “follow the values and principles of Islam”.
Hmmm.
Well, what kind of a society would they like then? Well, 23% of Turks, 81% of Egyptians, 90% of Jordanians, 50% of Lebanese, 40% of Tunisians, 95% of Pakistanis rate Saudi Arabia positively.
Hmmmm.
Granted, they tend to view Iran negatively. Given the aforementioned results, is it likely that this is because they are opposed to theocracy, or because Iran is the center of Shia power – and the Sunni and Shia do not like each other? I think I can guess.
What about the favourable views of Turkey? Admiration for a progressive, secular, Western looking society? Or a hope that the people who once lead Islam to the gates of Vienna could do so again? I’ll let you choose.
Now here’s a detail that comes back to me. I can’t find the study right now, but something like eighty percent of British Muslims believe in jail time for those who attack Islam or caricature Mahomet. Now that means that eighty percent of British Muslims do not believe in freedom in any real or meaningful sense. Censorship is the ultimate dividing line between tyranny and liberty. We can argue about how much of a mixed economy is still free, and the rest of it. But you cannot compromise freedom of speech. If debate isn’t on the table, then the only way to settle differences is through violence, and that means either war or tyranny.
This brings me to my point. This isn’t that the United States has been mean to the Muslim world. This is the clash of civilizations.
Look at the cartoon riots. Someone explain to me how the situation in Gaza logically leads lynch mobs to demand the murder of cartoonists living in Denmark? Of course, that’s all balls. The reason for those riots is that Islamic civilization holds Allah and His Messenger as sacred, the West holds the individual mind and freedom of speech and conscience as sacred. There is no, no way to square that circle, no middle ground to be sought. One or the other will give way. And to our shame, it appears that the West is doing the giving way.
So, what do we do? Well, here is my prescription:
1. Build the Infidel Alliance. What scrapes my nerves about AA’s post is the parochialism. It’s all about the US. Well, in case you haven’t noticed, the overwhelming majority of the victims of the Jihad are not from the US. We need a campaign of maximum solidarity and internationalism with all of our kindred civilizations. The fact is that the civilizations of Latin America, Christian Africa, Orthodox Eurasia, and India are all close kin to the West, fellow children of Rome and Greece. Take a look at the recent slaughter in Nairobi. Europeans died alongside our African brothers and sisters, and Israeli and British soldiers fought alongside the Kenyan to send these bastards into their graves.
Could the common cause be any plainer? What needs to be understood is that an attack on Kenya is an attack on Nigeria is an attack on Israel is an attack on Germany is an attack on the United States is an attack on India is an attack on Australia is an attack on Britain… Kin calls to kin and we should answer.
What does that mean? In some cases it means outright military aid. In others providing aid by, say, training the Kenyan armed forces to British standard. Or maybe it just means providing aid and solidarity – raising charitable funds, doing blood drives, hell, even writing letters so our civilizational cousins on the front line know they are not alone and are not forgotten.
2. Isolate the House of Submission as much as possible. Where ever possible, all Western nations should seek their oil from non-Muslim sources. The US should take its oil primarily from domestic sources, Canada and Latin America. Such negotiations could form an excellent base for rapprochement between the United States and Latin america and perhaps go some way to repairing the appalling damage that the cold war years did to those relations. As part of it, the US should seek Henry Kissinger’s indictment and trial for treason, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Conversely, the United States should abandon all aid and connections to Pakistan and switch its support to India.
Europe should seek a closer accommodation with Russia – declaring it, perhaps, the exclusive oil source on the understanding that the Russians quit arming Iran. In general the West should seek to liberalize trade between itself and the nations of Christian Africa.
As part of the process of isolation, all Muslim immigration should be halted for at least two decades, combined with a vigorous program of refugee aid for those infidels fleeing the House of Submission to come live in the West. One might also impose on Russia to accept the Orthodox refugees from Syria, but there is no reason why, say, Germany, could not absorb a large Coptic population, and if any of the Hindus and Sikhs still stuck in Pakistan are still there, they would be more than welcome. Naturally, that goes double for all atheists. When the moratorium expires, it should at first only be lifted on the non-violent Islamic sects, the Ahmadi and the Ismaili. Immigration of our fellow infidels should be encouraged.
3. Pursue a policy of strict Kemalism. I do not know how many have read Ataturk‘s magnificent reforms, but they are just what the doctor ordered. Islamic preachers kept out of the armed forces and the prisons. Mosques that advocate terror or Shariah to be closed. Hate preachers to be expelled. That kind of thing.
And in case anyone starts wailing that this is ‘discrimination’ – Germany has been heavily discriminating against neo-Nazis and other riff-raff for the last seventy years and it hasn’t done us any harm. For my American readers, please don’t pretend you aren’t down with discrimination and persecution. The test is easy: try writing an article saying that racial segregation is a good thing and you want it back. You’ll lose your job, your friends and maybe your family. Say it loudly enough, and you might lose your life. Now, you can say that that is fully justified persecution – it is and I agree with you – but it is still persecution, a valuable tool in maintaining a civilized society.
4. Declare total war on the Islamic slave trade. This is a standing disgrace. This is the twenty first century and there are still something like one million black slaves under the lash of the Koran. The slaves ships should be seized, their crews hung, and the slaves freed. The trade in human flesh is an abomination.
5. Establish funds to support apostates. Any Muslim apostate takes his life in his hands. There should be large body of funds set aside to provide the necessary protection and support for those that take such a momentous step, combined with a more general social solidarity.
6. Defend women’s rights. Women’s emancipation is the single most powerful weapon that we have. This should be a top priority; women like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Sabatina James should be defended and their organizations lavishly funded.
7. Wage a long cultural war. Through internet, radio etc. it should be carefully explained that the violence, oppression, poverty and whatnot in the Islamic world is the direct result of Islamic doctrine. Reach out to any mind capable of hearing and understanding – make them realise they aren’t alone, and that if they are willing to free their minds and throw this madness off, they will not stand alone.
