Posted on 07/09/2006 5:08:50 PM PDT by MountainMenace
On fighting the war on terror
I am familiar with this slogan. I feel that while we are indeed engaged in a war against terror, it is inadequate and even misleading. If Churchill had informed the country in 1940, "We are engaged in a war against bomber aircraft and submarines," that would have been an accurate statement but not a very helpful one. To say we are engaged in a war against terror is of the same order.
Terror is a tactic. It's a method of waging war. It is not a cause, it is not an adversary, it is not anything that one can identify as an opponent, and I think we need to be more specific in fighting a war. It's useful to know who the enemy is.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Dr. Lewis recently appeared at the Pew Forum in Washington, D.C., where he answered questions about the situation in Iraq, the prospects for democracy in the Muslim world and other vital topics. Here are edited excerpts of his presentation:
On the resolve of the West
I have often thought in recent years of World War II – you were told earlier that I'm ancient myself. The most vividly remembered year of my life was the year 1940. And more recently, I have been thinking of 1938 rather than of 1940. We seem to be in the mode of Chamberlain and Munich rather than of Churchill.
That's not encouraging.
Agreed, but to be more specific, the entity so named should include the MSM, since it is the MSM whom will be fighting against civilization to keep all the older terminology: The war against terrorists, war against suicide bombers, the war against poor "innocent" palistineans.
The war against Islam itself. It's demands on its adherents to forsake independent thought and free will is totally at odds with our foundation on those principles. Islam leaves no room for maneuvering or tiptoeing niceties - it's either Mohammed's way or the highway. Islam doesn't qualify as a religion under United State's terms...as it advocates adherence to it's rules over our laws and principles.
"The war against terrorists, war against suicide bombers, the war against poor "innocent" palistineans."
The of Islam against the world ... that is what it is.
I would suggest that our enemy is not all Islam.
We had more muslims inside the US than lived in Afganistan. Yet Osama directed the attack from Afghanistan, the details were planned in Europe, and told his people to avoid contact with local (US and European) Muslims.
That would suggest that Osama and his kind recognize his brand and marketing strategy is not terribly effective for most Muslims.
Muslims serve in the US Armed Forces, most honorably. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
I think that the way that Ahmadinejad is talking now shows quite clearly his contempt for the Western world in general and the United States in particular. They feel they are dealing with, as Osama bin Laden put it, an effete, degenerate, pampered enemy incapable of real resistance. And they are proceeding on that assumption. And my only hope is that they are not right in their interpretation of the Western world.
I believe free societies are inherently prone to compromise and such behavior is extremely rewarding when reciprocated. Great effort is extended to demonstrate the rewards that come from mutual respect and compromise. But what happens when compromising behavior is not reciprocated? What happens when the results of a deal with the uncompromising partner (like Iran) are tantamount to the end of our entire way of life?
The free world will eventually fight. And that fight will be more savage than the uncompromising forces are able to imagine. In the uncompromising mind, compromise equates to weakness. To them, everyday the West is weaker than the day before. The enemies of freedom come to the table unaware of the incredible power that flows from the free mind tempered with restraint. The problem for free societies is that, by design, they are perpetually unprepared to fight. Ultimately this is a good quality for a free society to have despite the ever present social perception of military error. No matter how capable the armies of a free society, no matter the number of casualties, the act of fighting alone is perceived as failure.
The House of Saud were the local tribal sheikhs of the area where the Wahhabis flourished and followed the Wahhabi faith. By creating the kingdom, controlling the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and also therefore the pilgrimage, it gave them enormous power and influence in the Islamic world. And the other, of course, was oil and money, which gave them resources beyond the dreams of avarice.
So he looks around for evening classes, weekend schools, holiday camps and the like. These are now almost entirely controlled, financed, funded by the Wahhabis, so that you get, among the Muslims in the diaspora more than among the Muslims in Muslim countries, an intense indoctrination from the most radical, the most violent, the most extreme and fanatical version of Islam.
Never mind Syria, Iran or any other Mideast country, I (and many others, probably with the exception of the State Dept and libs/dims) that our most serious threat (as they are working to destroy us from within) are the Saudis.
Lets start a massive (like the space program) effort to become energy self sufficient in 10 years.
There are many things that are described as part of Islam, which are indeed part of Islam if we take the word as the equivalent of Christendom, but are very much not part of Islam – are even alien or hostile to Islam – if we take the word Islam as the equivalent of Christianity. I think this is a very important point.Our thinking gives rise to Christianity and Christendom. The Islamic Swine have no such thinking. Nothing that Lewis mistakenly associates with Christendom is alien to Islam. (Hitler? Please! Did he ever even mention Jesus? I'm Jewish and I certainly have a greater affinity for Christendom and Christianity than Hitler ever did.)
I am inclined to believe in the sincerity of Ahmadinejad. I think that he really believes the apocalyptic language that he is using. Remember that Muslims, like Christians and Jews, have a sort of end-of-time scenario in which a Messianic figure will appear: in the case of the Shiites, the hidden imam who will emerge from hiding, who will fight against the powers of evil – the anti-Christ in Christianity, Gog and Magog in Judaism and the Dajjal in Islam, a role in which we are being cast now.What is Lewis talking about? Gog and Magog? The way Jews believe they can bring about the Messianic age is by doing good deeds (mitzvot). No Jew thinks that slashing an Arab's throat will hasten the coming of the Messiah.
So what you are getting now in the Muslim world, all over the Muslim world and more particularly among the Muslim communities in non-Muslim countries, is the spread of the Wahhabi version of Islam, which, as I said, is about as typical of what you might call mainstream Islam as the KKK of mainstream Christianity.The KKK represents some diminishingly small percentage of Christianity in the United States. Wahhabis are all over the place including in control in Saudi Arabia, so any Islamic Swine that wants to make the supposedly obligatory pilgrimage to Mecca mustn't be too hostile to Wahhabism.
Then there's Sunnis and Shiites. What's the name of the nice branch of Islam. pray tell?
Not everything Lewis says is off the wall, but sometimes it seems to me that he has fallen in love with this scourge which he chose to study throughout his life.
ML/NJ
Bravo. It is not a religion, but a deadly political movement, and as such, should not be entitled to Constitutional protection in the US.
Discouraging indeed!
Despite the politics involved, why does no one state the obvious fact that we are fighting Radical Islam? In fact one might go even further and say we are fighting Islam, as 'radical Islam' is almost redundant!
Great question! What is the name of the nice branch of Islam? Anybody know?
I'm not saying that Muslims can't serve honorably, just that Moslems truly adhering to their "religion" can not be relied on to put their oaths to our nation above their adherece to their mind-wipe cult. Hence that sergeant rolling grenades into the officer's tent in Afghanistan.
Something you might find interesting:
http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=42530
Q: How can Belloc's discussion of Islam in his books "The Great Heresies" and "The Crusades" shine new light on our current world affairs?"
Father Schall: The accepted doctrine today is that Islam itself is not a problem. As such, Islam is said to have no relation to world events that result in the need for defense in the West.
There are, however, something called "terrorists" who cause all the problems. Even though they have Muslim names and claim the legitimacy of what they do to be found in their religion, their origins are said to be elsewhere -- where, no one is quite sure. Western ideology forbids it to take Islam's notion of itself seriously.
Belloc understood that Islam has a defined theological outlook and goal: Everyone should be Muslim. Force was useful in this goal. Belloc expected, if it ever acquired power again, that Islam would take up right where it left off after its last great territorial conquests.
He would not have been in the least surprised at Sept. 11. Nor would he be astonished to find out that the Christians in the West are quite unprepared to understand the zeal for religion and conquest that Islam had and has in its faith. Not a few Muslim leaders of today both desire and see possible, on a worldwide scale, the return to aggressive and active proselytism.
Ping for later read.
Our government will always use diplomacy first while regarding resorting to defense last - the price of being the "good guys" while the rest of the world looks to us as their lead.
That I believe we have justification for interfering with Iran and North Korea with the specific mission of disarmnenant doesn't mean that we have the right to. Doing that would mean that we sought the world's peace on our expense.
Asking forgiveness for deeds that needed doing is always prefererable to shoring up damage.
"Bernard Lewis is arguably the most important living scholar of Islam in the West. Author of more than two dozen books, the retired Princeton professor"
Mr Lewis can skew and take anything out of context that he wishes. However, the fact is that radical islamic terrorists declared war on the United States in an unprovoked attack on N.Y.City killing THOUSANDS.
We are fighting a CLEAR enemy.
We are NOT fighting "terrorism". We are fighting Islamofascists who perform acts of terror. They killed 3000 in our country and continue to KILL all in their way, including other non-conforming muslims. They are allowing Palestinians to be killed right now because they kidnapped 2 people, killed one and now won't release the other. Do you think they give a damn about their women and children?
Princeton boys lately don't know their a$$es from holes in the ground....or at least they pretend not to in order to further their own agendas.
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.
"A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."
Sir Winston Churchill (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50, London: Longmans, Green Co., 1899).
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