Islamists and Anti-Americanism (It's a war to the death which they fully intend to win.)

MERIA [Middle East Review of International Affairs] ^ | December 2003 | Reuven Paz

[optimistically_conservative]

But if we are at war with the Muslim part of the Middle-Eastern culture but not the non-Muslims then it is ipso facto a religious war.

You mean like the secular and socialist Ba'athists?

The fact that we are not at war with each and every Muslim makes no difference, the salient fact is that everybody who is waging war against us is Muslim and they are waging thast war for religious reasons.

No, they are not waging a war for religious reasons, they are using religion to serve their ambitions. Religion is a rallying cry, but it is a neo-caliphate ambition that is driving the attacks on Muslims and non-Muslims both.

These tactics are not much different than what the NAZIs used to gain national support for their attacks leading to WWII. It was cultural identity that drove the purity and fatherland war cries.

It's been said that WWII was a war against facism. Albeit a popular phrase, the NAZIs were socialists and the Japanese were imperialists. I see these broadbrush claims of a religious war by Muslims much the same. It's easier to fit on a bumper sticker.

To make the cheese more binding, many Pakistani Muslims — who are not part of the middle-Eastern culture — are also at war with us.

I don't remember making the claim that we were at war with middle-Eastern cultured Muslims. We are at war with neo-caliphates. They are spread throughout the world. They are American, European, Indonesian, African and are densely populated in middle, middle-Eastern, central and south Asia. They share a common cultural ambition which is a rebirth of a global caliphate run from the holy lands. It is an Islamic caliphate and the fact that Muhammad ran every aspect of society certainly underlies the blurring of social functions in many of his followers minds, but the neo-caliphates are not pursuing a religious war as much as they are pursuing one of cultural identity.

[findingtruth]

The fact that we are not at war with each and every Muslim makes no difference, the salient fact is that everybody who is waging war against us is Muslim and they are waging thast war for religious reasons.

What's the matter with those Muslims? Don't they realize that sodomy, abortion, fornication, and pornography are basic expressions of our constitutional rights? Do they really think they can impose their tradtition-bound religious values on us?

[quidnunc]

Sigh…

The caliph was/is regarded as a successor of Muhammad and that makes the Jihad to recusitate the caliphate a religious endeavor.

Don't forget, in Islam the division of the civil from the religious is regarded as an artificial construct.

And the 'cultural identity' which the 'neo-caliphates' seek to establish is a world-wide fundamentalist Islamic theocracy.

Their stated aim is to force the world — all of to — to submit to their vision of Islam, and that makes it a religious war.

[optimistically_conservative]

The parts of this National Post editorial which I have highlighted amply demonsrate that this is a religious war:

OK, let's make the analogy between Zionists and neo-caliphates, shall we?

I happen to be a supporter of the state of Isreal, so I guess I'm a Zionist. I suppose then that I must also be Jewish (which I'm not).

But let's take that paragraph you've prominently highlighted and put it in Zionist terms:

The religion of such [Zionists] is not incidental to their [violent] acts as is the case with, say, Timothy McVeigh or Spain's Basques. [Judaism] is their raison d'être, their inspiration, their call to battle, their means of recruitment and, in the second before they [commit] themselves, their great comfort.

I suppose there are some Muslims who would find that statement quite accurate. I think that Zionism is more of a cultural and statist cause than religious. I also find that the neo-caliphates' cause is more cultural and statist.

But hey, maybe this is a crusade of all the Judeo-Christian religions against all Muslims. I could be wrong.

[quidnunc]

Oh for the love of Pete, stop trying to bury the original point of contention in a morass of sophistry.

Let's return to basics.

A significant percentage of the Muslim world is waging a jihad against those whom they consider to be unbelievers with the ultimate goal being to subjugate the world to Wahabist Islam.

Jihad is defined as 'A Muslim holy war or spiritual struggle against infidels.'

That makes the jihadists' decades-long rampage of killing a religious war.

[optimistically_conservative]

Jihad is defined as 'A Muslim holy war or spiritual struggle against infidels.'

Here's an excerpt on how Pipes defines modern jihad:

As this suggests, jihad is "holy war." Or, more precisely: It means the legal, compulsory, communal effort to expand the territories ruled by Muslims at the expense of territories ruled by non-Muslims.

The purpose of jihad, in other words, is not directly to spread the Islamic faith but to extend sovereign Muslim power (faith, of course, often follows the flag). Jihad is thus unabashedly offensive in nature, with the eventual goal of achieving Muslim dominion over the entire globe.

Jihad did have two variant meanings through the centuries, one more radical, one less so. The first holds that Muslims who interpret their faith differently are infidels and therefore legitimate targets of jihad. (This is why Algerians, Egyptians and Afghans have found themselves, like Americans and Israelis, so often the victims of jihadist aggression.) The second meaning, associated with mystics, rejects the legal definition of jihad as armed conflict and tells Muslims to withdraw from the worldly concerns to achieve spiritual depth.

Jihad in the sense of territorial expansion has always been a central aspect of Muslim life. That's how Muslims came to rule much of the Arabian Peninsula by the time of the Prophet Muhammad's death in 632. It's how, a century later, Muslims had conquered a region from Afghanistan to Spain. Subsequently, jihad spurred and justified Muslim conquests of such territories as India, Sudan, Anatolia, and the Balkans.

That makes the jihadists' decades-long rampage of killing a religious war.

OK, fine. We're at war with the jihadists and their Religion of Violence.

Oh for the love of Pete, stop trying to bury the original point of contention in a morass of sophistry.

I'll try, and please, no more personal information about Pete - OK?

[sheik yerbouty]

Jihadist Islam, by its actions, will make itself extinct.

[Old Student]

one problem; not all the Muslims are at war with us. There are some from each branch of Islam, but not everyone even from any one branch. And there are nearly as many branches of Islam as there are of Christianity.

Making it merely a religious war is oversimplistic. It is a cultural war, and the cultures at war are the extremes, not the center.

[Old Student]

Precisely. Then there will be room for the non-jihadists to make their accomodations with us, and us with them.

[Ragnar54]

Calling this a religious war is a mistake, since it concedes the point that Islam is a religion. In fact, it is no more than a crime syndicate skilled at manipulating political institutions. Were it not for the cloak of religion, Muslims in this country would either be in jail or deported. Islam's demonstrated intolerance for any real religion (or any belief system based on individual rights), combined with the stated goal of overthrowing Constitutional government and replacing it with Sharia law disqualifies it from Constitutional protection. We do not allow head hunters or cannibals to practice their "religions" in America; why do we tolerate Islam?

[At _War_With_Liberals]

"If we don't get off this Islam is the religion of peace kick eminating from the Oval Office, it will be the end of our world."

The assertion that the Koran is a text that advocates religious relativism and 60's style feel good liberalism has to to the most absurd concept of Islam ever voiced.

[quidnunc]

Old Student wrote: one problem; not all the Muslims are at war with us. There are some from each branch of Islam, but not everyone even from any one branch. And there are nearly as many branches of Islam as there are of Christianity. Making it merely a religious war is oversimplistic. It is a cultural war, and the cultures at war are the extremes, not the center.

There are two main branches of Islam and a scant handful of subsects.

At the risk of being monotonous I have to repeat that to a devout Muslim Islam their culture — and their polity too.

The more secular and less devout the Muslim is the less likely he is to consider himself to be at war with us.

By any standard this is a religious war.

I realize that there are many world-weary sophisticates who have an ideological stake in denying that this is a religious war.

If the proposition can be maintained that this is a culture war then at least some of the blame can be attributed to the U. S. and the aforementioned world-weary sophisticates can continue sending Americans on a guilt trip.

but once it becomes a religious war then the equation changes and the onus shifts squarely onto the Muslim aggressors.

[Ragnar54]

America was founded on the principle of religious tolerance. This principle is one that most Americans (except Muslims) hold dear. If Islam is granted the status of a religion, the only way to reconcile this tolerance with the idea of a "religious war" is to assume that the "radical" Muslims have "hijacked" the religion. This is the administration's current position. Those who fear the rise of a Christian theocracy in this country will be opposed to any "religious" war. The Muslims can at any point pretend to become "peaceful" and there will be enormous pressure to end the war. The Muslims then only need to wait for another opportunity.
It is important to note the essential difference between Islam and what the Founding Fathers meant by "religion". The mullahs preach violence against all "infidels". The stated goal of Islam is overthrow of our Constitutional government. There are no grounds for treating the crime syndicate called Islam as a constitutionally protected religion. The distinctions between Islam and a Constitutionally protected religion must be made clear; otherwise we will face a choice between freedom of religion and freedom from Islam.
It is long past time to start demonizing Muslims. How was Shintoism treated by the Greatest Generation? This is a war against bloodthirsty heathens serving a syndicate founded by a caravan raiding pedophile. This is not a crusade for Christianity. The moral equivalence implied by calling Islam a "religion" interferes with the way the war is being prosecuted. The Greatest Generation developed a prescription for winning this type of war, and both American and Japanese lives were saved; the Japanese have been free of Imperial Shintoism ever since. We are more than equipped to apply this same prescription today. We should do so before the "10%" (percentage of Muslims who are radicals, as estimated by a Saudi official) apply it to us.

[optimistically_conservative]

Good read, from Mr. Bowman who currently serves in the Senior Executive Service of the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Some-Time, Part-Time and One-time Terrorism

[BenR2]

Making it merely a religious war is oversimplistic. It is a cultural war, and the cultures at war are the extremes, not the center.

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Hello? The most important element in your "cultural war" is RELIGION -- specifically a religion the adherants of which view all non-Muslim countries as comprising the "House of War." (That is mainline Islamic teaching, by the way.)

[BenR2]

It is important to note the essential difference between Islam and what the Founding Fathers meant by "religion". The mullahs preach violence against all "infidels". The stated goal of Islam is overthrow of our Constitutional government. There are no grounds for treating the crime syndicate called Islam as a constitutionally protected religion. The distinctions between Islam and a Constitutionally protected religion must be made clear; otherwise we will face a choice between freedom of religion and freedom from Islam.

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Correct: Just as Congress outlawed polygamy (which affected primarily Mormons), it should also outlaw any religion that advocates expansion via force of arms (which will affect primarily Muslims).

[BenR2]

If the proposition can be maintained that this is a culture war then at least some of the blame can be attributed to the U. S. and the aforementioned world-weary sophisticates can continue sending Americans on a guilt trip.

but once it becomes a religious war then the equation changes and the onus shifts squarely onto the Muslim aggressors.

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Well said!

[optimistically_conservative]

Hello? The most important element in your "cultural war" is RELIGION --

Not true, the most important element in the "cultural war" is the umma and re-establishing the caliphate.

[optimistically_conservative]

Correct: Just as Congress outlawed polygamy (which affected primarily Mormons), it should also outlaw any religion that advocates expansion via force of arms (which will affect primarily Muslims).

What you advocate is outlawing jihad, not Islam.

[optimistically_conservative]

I'm curious of your thoughts on how war against, or the banning of, religions (especially religions strongly tied to ethnicity) has played out in human history. Judaism, Catholicism, etc. - lots to choose from.

I'm especially interested in your thoughts of the modern "blood libel" being applied to Muslims by modern Christians, which I find wonderfully ironic.