Bernard Lewis’ Valediction
We’re not going to make the world safe for democracy, or bring about the end of history, or get rid of evil. Nor are we summoning the West to a last stand against the encroaching Jihadi hordes. Islam is dying, too (not quite fast enough for our convenience). This isn’t the struggle against Communism. It’s a nasty, dirty, mopping-up operation. Done correctly, it wouldn’t be too expensive (for us, that is). The term “inglorious” comes to mind. Our epoch is a mediocre and nasty one, rather like the second half of the Thirty Years War. That’s the part no-one remembers; the really interesting participants (Richelieu, Olivares, Wallenstein) had all died and their epigonoi kept the war going until butchery became boring. People don’t like to find themselves in the sort of history that no-one will want to read about in the future. But we have to play the hand we are dealt. And it is not the hand that Prof. Lewis thought it was.
I never accepted the idea that Turkey was the model for Muslim modernization. It is questionable whether Turkey’s secular reforms should be thought of as a Muslim phenomenon to begin with: Ataturk’s reforms were physically a Western phenomenon, the result of an enormous migration into Turkey from the West. By the end of the First World War, refugees or children of refugees from the collapsed European outposts of the Ottoman Empire — along with Crimean Muslims driven out of Russia — comprised more than a quarter of the 21 million people living within the frontiers of what is now modern Turkey, in the Anatolian rump of the once vast Ottoman territories. The Turkish economist and politician Asaf Savas Akat compares the secular rule of the European “White Turks” to white rule in apartheid South Africa. Erdoğan and the AKP have taken Anatolia back from the enervated and aging secular elite. Perhaps it was inevitable, but such is the benefit of hindsight. But hindsight calls into question whether the Turkish model was a precedent or a passing anomaly.
It’s not quite fair that you take him to task for his ommission or failure to predict Turkey’s backsliding. I say that without having read the book, of course.
One can view Erdogan as an unpredictable, perhaps criminal actor, whose use of democracy to reinstall autocracy against the popular will, by imprisoning journalists and generals, is not representative of the morality/ethos of the Turks in general, only of their more loudmouthed, fanatic Islamist subset. Or perhaps it is. I don’t know. Do you? Perhaps Lewis feels that is the case?
Do we say Israel has failed because there are criminal Israeli politicians?
Olmert was removed, and the final chapter on Erdogan has not yet been written. He may end up hanging upside down eventually.
Or not.
I don’t agree that Erdogan is the crux of the matter. As I wrote, the old Anatolia has taken Turkey back from the “white Turk” occupation. Too bad.
Down with white sumpremacy!
Don’t you really mean … “Down with Western Civilization!” ???
That’s quite an irony there, since much of Turkey’s people are, considerably, of Caucasian-Turkic roots, their distant ancestors came out of the Caucasian steppes and interbred with other Caucasian peoples over the centuries. Today’s Turks are more white than their Kurdish and Arab counterparts.
“whose use of democracy to reinstall autocracy against the popular will,”.
How exactly does one use democracy to subvert the popular will? You think they voted for him because they wanted somebody else?
Everybody knew where Erdogan stood. His pretense of secular views was only maintained until he could sufficiently weaken the military to ensure that they would not “reinstall autocracy against the popular will”.
To make the world safe for democracy implies that democracy is safe. The Founders certainly did not think so. We are slowly re-learning lessons, or at least we are being taught them.
as a living one on european/german soil i hope we will not be sacrificed in this
“it wouldn’t be to expensive” war
Frank,
You have it all wrong. That was the last three wars (including the Cold War, when Germany almost became collateral damage). You get to sit this one out.
“We’re not going to make the world safe for democracy, or bring about the end of history, or get rid of evil. Nor are we summoning the West to a last stand against the encroaching Jihadi hordes”.
This nails it. It should be on the new list of “Spengler’s 10 rules”.
It seems too many conservatives want to see themselves as either Emperor Constantine XI on the walls of Constantinople in 1453 or Patton blitzing across France and Germany in 44/45.
I see Commentary is trotting out some tropes to defend poor old Boris Yeltsin — yes Russia was humiliated and both businessmen and journalists were being killed left and right at rates an order of magnitude higher than today, but that’s because Yeltsin was powerless (true) while everything bad that happens in Russia now is due to Putin’s control. Presumably the president of Mexico is also to blame for the fact that that country is now one of the most dangerous in the world for journalists too (another argument, but there it is). I can’t make this liberast garbage up. Some people just can’t get over the fact the Russians (perhaps with the quiet acquiescence of a few in Israel) prevented the glorious installment of the Muslim Brotherhood in Damascus. Get over it already you liberast, hyperinterventionist D.C. jerks. Jaw jaw is better than war war except in this fantasy world where Iraq and Libya are now run by model democrats and not in the former case Iran-backed Shia Islamists and in the latter case actual black Salafist flag flying bonified former members of Al-Qaeda.
Best line ever on Yeltsin, from someone I can’t quote by name: “Roman Abramovich was the Yeltsin family office.” The Russians didn’t prevent the installation of anyone: they played the hand they had with the proxies available to them,simply in in order to stay in the game.
“The Russians didn’t prevent the installation of anyone: they played the hand they had with the proxies available to them,simply in in order to stay in the game.” It will be interesting to see since the new French government appears to be ready for military action in Syria and lotsa U.S. pols are calling for it if we’re going to have a post-Russian election but pre-U.S. election confrontation over Syria.
I don’t think Moscow will go too far but as old Australian Moscow hand John Helmer reported they’ve already shipped the anti-shipping missiles that could inflict severe casulties on any NATO invasion from the sea — unless they were all duds (can never rule out the double cross of ‘allies’ when it comes to the Kremlin, admittedly, hence the Iranians’ paranoia about IAF jets coming out of Azeri air space).
But again, if you’d had to pick one gov to overthrow it would’ve been Syria and not Libya, despite the former’s absence of nice light sweet crude so conveniently close to Europe.
I hope to see more from Spengler on the Russia question too, particularly if the Russians decide to embarass Romney by leaking further details of their cooperation with Jerusalem after Mittens election in November.
EOT for me.
“I don’t think Moscow will go too far but as old Australian Moscow hand John Helmer reported they’ve already shipped the anti-shipping missiles that could inflict severe casulties on any NATO invasion from the sea”
If they were Syrian operators and if the US/NATO naval forces were prepared, I question whether these weapons would be a major stumbling block. The track record of Arab forces using high tech weapons against prepared Western forces is not good (http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2002/June%202002/0602bekaa.aspx).
It should also be noted that Jon Spyer (http://jonathanspyer.com/) and others have provided convincing on-the-scene reporting indicating that Assad may have a very limited number of loyal troops. It takes dedication to man a SAM battery when the USAF/USN/USMC aircraft w/anti-radiation missiles are in the area.
This reminds me of the hyper-ventilating predictions that Saddam’s ferocious Republican Guards would cause high casualties to the US Army/USMC/UK Army in the First Gulf War.
Mr. Goldman,
Perhaps, you could answer a question that has vexed me since Erdogan began his campaign to re-Islamize Turkey. My understanding had always been that Turkey’s (secular) military stood as a bulwark against backsliding – i.e., the military would remain aloof as long as Turkey stayed on the secular path; however, should the civilian government stray, the generals would intervene and remove the leadership – and by extension, civilian political leaders knew it and so kept to the straight-and-narrow.
But this time, it seems not to have worked. Erdogan has been able to replace military officers and even put them on trial on trumped up charges. My question to you is, why was the military unable to intervene this time? Why, when, for example, at the time Erdogan simply made clear his intent to revoke the headscarf ban, did (could?) not the military swoop in, depose Erdogan and nip Islamization in the bud while simultaneously sending a clear warning to those who might try to do the same in the future? Even more puzzling is why/how Erdogan was able to have generals removed and put on trial? The military, after all, have the guns and, as I understand it, Ataturk specifically set the military up as the enforcers of secularization.
And of course, the military has deposed the civilian leadership in the past. Why were they unable to do so this time?
I think perhaps infiltration by Erdogan’s buddies might have had something to do with it.
The secular elite to which the military belongs is enervated and demoralized; they don’t want to take on the Islamists, which would be a nasty and bloody business.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that (at the time) the E.U. was dictating behavior to Turkey as conditions of their entry to the European club. By the time the military had figured out that the Europeans weren’t going to let Turkey in (and possibly control Erdogan), it was already too late.
The educated elite is always shrinking into irrelevant impotence, around the world. They’re all being destroyed by free trade, the one element that has been constant since the Cold War ended. The elite don’t come from the mediocre middle class. They come from the working class, which the managerial state is replacing with a demented underclass, a way to destroy the elite indirectly. The usual Marxist class order isn’t natural, or at least doesn’t happen in free markets; it’s meant to be seen as a tool, a model for change.
“they don’t want to take on the Islamists, which would be a nasty and bloody business.”
Not trying to be snarky, but is there *anything* involving Islam these does that doesn’t eventually end up in a nasty and bloody business?
I’m a big fan of Tom Barnett’s Core/Gap thesis but it seems that sometimes you need to whack a bunch of people to get to the end game. With Japan in WWII, for example, we had to nuke them twice to lure them back into the fold.
The Japanese designed and built what was for a few years the world’s best fighter aircraft. They also had a credible nuclear weapons program during World War II. The Turks can assemble cars, spin cotton, and make washing machines for the low end of the European market.
The Japanese did not have a credible nuclear weapons program. The program was put on the back burner when Japan was unable to obtain reliable access to supplies of uranium and heavy water.
The Germans did have a credible nuclear weapons program.
The Germans did have a credible nuclear weapons program – the Jews they kicked out. They learned nothing from the simple lesson of Jesse Owens and they only found good stuff where they wanted to. This is entirely like the liberal Left in America, who have done a reversal of Hitler, but the same thing essentially.
Turban, good. Baseball cap, spiritually bankrupt. The fact the guy in the baseball cap is the true inheritor and protector of principled freedom around the world means nothing to a liberal – in fact, they hate the idea and disavow it.
White people bad. People of color, good – automatically. Forget about the fact the true and just idea of the “greater good” is protected and practiced by evil white people and not race-based groups who believe America is a giant POW Camp/ATM machine.
The perceptual trap Hitler ignored at the ’36 Olympics is the exact same perceptual trap the liberal Left engages in every, single, day. Where this will lead is anyone’s guess. They think anyone who doesn’t like Islam is a racist despite the fact Islam is not a race. Neither was Zimmerman white, he’s blacker than high cheekbones Warren is Cherokee, but not as white as Obama, who’s black.
So the current Egyptian presidential elections, which forbid women and Christians much less gays, is my Islamophobia, so let’s import them wholesale to cure me by making sure there are fewer white people.
Liberals are insane – there’s no two ways about it. Even their brightest intellectuals, Finkelstein, Chomskey, are completely one-sided, and so their great intellect and memories are circumvented by the perceptual trap. That means people with plain common sense and an IQ of 105, are smarter, in a very real sense, than people with an IQ of 135 when it comes to politics on the Left. Perception is an awful lot.
I wonder if the belief system bequeathed by the Holy Prophet Mohammed has anything to do with this stark contrast in performance. The Obama Admin should be made to account for this fact, in connection to the glowing account made by our born Moslem Prez about Islamic scientific feats and entrepreneurialism in his wretched and infamous Cairo speech.
No worries. Atrocities prevention board to the rescue. Samantha Power -> Girl Power. Economic disparity, political confrontations, ideological irritants, religious persecutions, social unrest and military options all have a new superhero to contend with. ……..He didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize for nothing.
Greetings:
Islam is the millstone. If your plan doesn’t include the undermining or eradication of Islam, you don’t have a plan. You have a hope.
Threat of Islam? Civilization at Stake – Prof. Bernard Lewis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFeSmjxQyvA
In the end Lewis gets it, but he is too close and loves to much that which he has devoted his life to studying.
Mr. Goldman, thanks very much for your commentary on Turkey in this column.
The memoirs are a good-to-know-about temptation, but (*facepalm*) I don’t have time. I do have five of his books on the shelves beside my computer.
David you insist—based upon a premise that we are somehow to believe is axiomatic—that Lewis’s “analysis of Muslim rage did more to galvanize Western support for the idea of a war on terror than.” Firstly, we are not engaged in a “war on terror”—we are under assault from the contemporary incarnation of Islam’s, timeless institutionalized jihad http://www.amazon.com/The-Legacy-Jihad-Islamic-Non-Muslims/dp/1591026024/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1336679515&sr=8-2. But you also fail to elucidate just how shallow and misguided Lewis’s assessment of Muslim rage really was. His “analysis,” in its essence, also ignored jihad hatred and supremacy. As I noted in 2004 http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=12788:
“Perhaps the most influential contemporary doyen lecturing to us about ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ has asserted, in multiple writings since 1990, the following: fundamentalism and its accompanying ‘Muslim rage’ derive exclusively from a steady decline in the geopolitical power of Muslim states, evidenced, most dramatically, by the official dissolution of the Ottoman Caliphate after World War I, and the creation of the State of Israel after World War II. Despite his erudition, this doyen appears unwilling to examine an obvious alternative explanation for the etiology and persistence of Muslim animus toward non-Muslims- what Muslim children, for generations, have been taught to think about the infidel ‘other,’ regardless of the geopolitical circumstances… Vilification of non-Muslims has been intrinsic to the religious education of Muslim children and young adults for centuries, an ignoble (and continuing) tradition that long antedates the modern or even pre-modern Muslim ‘fundamentalist’ revival movements. We must acknowledge this reality and begin to think and act beyond the well-intentioned but limited constructs of even our most respected doyens.”
Moreover, while you a provide dismissive link to my essay http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2011/08/09/bernard-lewis-pied-piper-of-islamic-confusion/ from August, 2011 warning (myself and others) “to be cautious about attacking Prof. Lewis,” your Tablet review http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/99112/bernard-lewis-stubborn-hope?all=1 never addresses any of the 180 degree contradictions of the good Prof. on critical issues, meticulously documented in that lengthy essay http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2011/08/09/bernard-lewis-pied-piper-of-islamic-confusion/, which render his “oeuvre” a morass of confusion.
The unapologetic Lewis http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2011/08/09/bernard-lewis-pied-piper-of-islamic-confusion/ you chose not to consider viewed Islam as unrelentingly autocratic, with a conception of freedom, “hurriyya,” antithetical to the uniquely Western notion of individual liberty—in short a totalitarianism, analogous to Communism—a direct analogy he in fact made. Quoth Lewis: http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2011/08/09/bernard-lewis-pied-piper-of-islamic-confusion/
“I turn now from the accidental to the essential factors, to those deriving from the very nature of Islamic society, tradition, and thought. The first of these is the authoritarianism, perhaps we may even say the totalitarianism, of the Islamic political tradition….Many attempts have been made to show that Islam and democracy are identical-attempts usually based on a misunderstanding of Islam or democracy or both. This sort of argument expresses a need of the up- rooted Muslim intellectual who is no longer satisfied with or capable of understanding traditional Islamic values, and who tries to justify, or rather, re-state, his inherited faith in terms of the fashionable ideology of the day. It is an example of the romantic and apologetic presentation of Islam that is a recognized phase in the reaction of Muslim thought to the impact of the West….”
As I observed in my essay from last August http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2011/08/09/bernard-lewis-pied-piper-of-islamic-confusion/, comparing “The Islam is Autocratic Totalitarianism Lewis,” to “The Evangelical Democratist Lewis” epitomized by his rather unhinged essay, “Bring Them Freedom Or They Destroy Us” http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/09/bring_them_freedom_or_they_des.html:
“Lewis then was both unapologetic and pellucid in identifying the intractable obstacle to such efforts at democratization—Islam itself. ..Lewis’s volte-face on the merits of experiments in “Islamic democracy,” has been accompanied by his equally troubling intellectual legacy regarding three other critical subject areas: the institution of jihad, the chronic impact of the Sharia (Islamic law) on non-Muslims vanquished by jihad, and sacralized Islamic Jew-hatred.”
Moreover, your book review http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/99112/bernard-lewis-stubborn-hope?all=1 makes us aware that Lewis is now denying he championed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which does not square with this 2004 Wall Street Journal report [http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB107576070484918411-IBje4Nklah3m5uvZ32GcKiEm4.html " 'Eight days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with the Pentagon still smoldering, Mr. Lewis addressed the U.S. Defense Policy Board. Mr. Lewis and a friend, Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi -- now a member of the interim Iraqi Governing Council -- argued for a military takeover of Iraq to avert still-worse terrorism in the future,' says Mr. Perle, who then headed the policy board."], or Lewis’s own 2006 evangelical democratism http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/09/bring_them_freedom_or_they_des.html.
Pied Piper of Islamic Confusion http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2011/08/09/bernard-lewis-pied-piper-of-islamic-confusion/ is an apt, even generous description.
Andrew,
Thank you for this detailed and informative post. I am cautious about attacking Prof. Lewis, who has been abominated by the left for thirty-five years as the symbol of colonialist oppression. As I wrote in Tablet, Lewis has balanced a critique of Islamic society with a stubborn optimism about an eventual positive outcome, and events have shown that his optimism was misplaced. I have been a pessimist about the Islamic world for many years. You may call this effort at balance “a 180 contradiction,” but that seems to me to be a semantic difference. I see no point in questioning Prof. Lewis’ assertion about his previous positions, regardless of what the Wall Street Journal reported on 2004.
David,
The 180 degree contradictions I referred to–and documented very plainly http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2011/08/09/bernard-lewis-pied-piper-of-islamic-confusion/ —were Lewis’s, not your own. As for the good Professor’s comments on Iraq, that is a debate he needs to wage with his fawning acolytes at The Wall Street Journal–not you, and certainly not me. The inane attacks on Lewis by intellectual and moral cretins such as Edward Said, and his ilk, are irrelevant to the serious points I have raised. Moreover, the absurd ad hominem attacks on Lewis by intellectual terrorists and Ultra Maroons, like the Saidists, certainly should not be invoked as an excuse to avoid addressing the concerns I have raised, here: http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2011/08/09/bernard-lewis-pied-piper-of-islamic-confusion/
David,
The “180 degree contradictions” I detail here http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2011/08/09/bernard-lewis-pied-piper-of-islamic-confusion/ are Lewis’s, not yours.
Whether (as the Wall Street Journal claims http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB107576070484918411-IBje4Nklah3m5uvZ32GcKiEm4.html ), or not (as Lewis claims) Lewis advocated the invasion of Iraq is an issue between Lewis and the WSJ.
The deranged attacks of the Saidist Left on Lewis are not an excuse for ignoring my sober and serious concerns elucidated here: http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2011/08/09/bernard-lewis-pied-piper-of-islamic-confusion/
… balanced a critique of Islamic society with a stubborn optimism about an eventual positive outcome, and events have shown that his optimism was misplaced.
Trouble is, that same optimism is the guiding policy of every gubmint in Dar al Harb. Taking 15 minutes every day to monitor the latest news on JihadWatch will drill that into anybody’s haid. Except maybe a globo-socialist’s.
Keep up the great work Andrew.
I’ve learned some useful things from Mr. Spencer and Dr. Bostom but think the formulation that “we are under assault from the contemporary incarnation of Islam’s, timeless institutionalized jihad” is less useful for real world policy analysis, planning, targeting and coalition building than the awkward but flexible, “War on Terror”.
IMHO it’s more accurate to identify our enemy as a loose network of various radical (including but not exclusively radical Islamic) states, groups and criminal syndicates.
Until you live in Tower Hamlets or Malmo or Cairo for that matter and catch a clue. Once your daughter goes to school in a majority immigrant Muslim precinct, you will then understand that it isnt just violent radicals that are the problem….it is Conservative Islam which dominates the religious institutions (liberal Muslims are more likely to be less involved in religious, institutions and doctrine). The landslide majority support for Islamist Parties in the Arab Spring should also clue you in, that the heart of the Bell Curve of Muslims is not Moderate but rather widely supportive of Islamist Conservatives…..which means Muslim Supremacy, Shariah Law, Female Oppression, severe punishment for apostacy, second class status for non-Muslims (dhimmitude), and so on and so forth. When they reach demographic empowerment in the West, these are the policies they will vote for, even that personable nice Muslim shopkeeper down on the corner.
Or Dearborn, Michigan for that matter….where demographics via our democratic institutions are being pressured to implement Shariah blasphmeny laws….and Christians are being arrested for speaking on the public square.
I agree: violent radicals exist exactly because they are cozened by moderate and otherwise uninvolved Muslims. The radicals have a sympathetic culture and family as well, something, for example, Timothy McVeigh did not have – if he did, we’d have a lot more Timothy McVeighs.
These expressions of violence emanating from within Islam are the exact same thing and representative of the exact same thing that normally causes war – the difference is that Muslim polities dare not attack the West with armies. This is the whole fundamental reason for terrorism, and one that is forgotten too much.
There is no doubt that Egypt, Gaza and the West Bank would attack Israel with an army if they could get away with it – this has been proven by history. The sad critiques of Israel ignore the fact that Israel are not oppressors, but a people who won a war. Unfortunately, the armies disbanded or retreated, but the views of the people who attacked Israel did not and have not. Instead, in a delusional turnaround, middle eastern Muslims see Israel as a threat, though they are 6 million and change.
There is not a doubt in my mind middle eastern polities would once again engage in empire building, and at the expense of Europe, if they had the military means. But again, in delusion, they see the West as “Crusaders,” a delusion made even worse by the proof of contextual history that shows who the Crusaders really were, at least in terms of land conquered, because the European Crusaders would’ve certainly taken over and converted the entirety of the middle east had they then had the means.
The point is, that’s no longer true on the West’s side, but still is true on Islam’s side. They talk about us as Crusader’s still but never answer the question of why they have to gerrymander the word “imperialism” to explain why we don’t take a more direct approach but work secretly to conquer the middle east in some weird analogy to the black American elite’s idea of white racists who talk in “code.” Why, why do white racists talk in code. Why did they for the entire history of sound films during Jim Crow? No answer, expect none. No, no explanations as to why Crusaders and naked imperialists leave Iraq and will leave Afghanistan – no explanations as to why we simply don’t enslave and colonize the middle east – we certainly could if we wanted to – and easily.
Islam and the liberal Left are insane children without a clue. As always, a simple paradigm of goose/gander is that impenetrable Gordian Knot where whatever they want to think of as apple and oranges become that fruit.
I think it is rather easy to puzzle out why they believe these things, because they are projecting their own desires and mindsets onto White European Christians….both Leftists and Muslims.
Just as the thief continuously imparts motives on others (as actions of a theif) because that is his internal reality. The thief erroneously equating himself to normality. Im like this, I am normal/average, so others must be like this.
“Until you live in Tower Hamlets or Malmo or Cairo for that matter and catch a clue” … Lol … how do you know where I’ve lived or worked?
Actually, thanks for your response. Escape Velocity and Fail Burton, I believe that we are ultimately comrades so I am glad for the chance to argue with you.
I never wrote that Islamic societies don’t have tremendous problems brought on by Islam (and I’ve made those points previously on this blog) as they attempt to interact with modernity (also a challenge for Western society). I don’t know if they are “dying (http://www.amazon.com/How-Civilizations-Die-Islam-Dying/dp/159698273X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336745934&sr=1-1)”, but they are very ill and I agree with much but not all of our host’s diagnosis above and previously. Although there is a lot about some Islamic societies that I find charming (hospitality, gallantry in the face the enemy) there is much that I find appalling (oppression of women and minorities, exploitation of the weak, corruption).
IMHO, what many in the Bostom/Spencer camp (including some who make bigoted comments) seem to ignore is that there are hundreds of millions of Muslims (traditional and the relatively few moderates) who are our allies and potential allies in the wars against radical Islamic states, terrorist groups and criminal syndicates. The formulation that we are at war with Islam pushes those folks over to the enemy side.
I would argue that the big driver of the radical Islamic security problem has been the Khomeini movement in Iran. As PJM readers know, the current Iran regime is responsible for all sorts of aggression (direct or through proxies). I’d say that this has also heavily influenced KSA support to Sunni militants in and associated with the government of Pakistan, in order to compete with, compensate for and balance the Iran regime’s successes. The most important objective should be to decisively defeat and humiliate Khomeini-ist Iran (and then other radical Islamic players). That would have a tremendous effect in de-legitimizing radical Islamic movements and perhaps allow some political/cultural room for moderates to evolve. My rule of thumb is to support what supports that vital objective.
So, I think that formulations such as “Islam is at war with us and this just a phase in a thousand (plus) year war against the West”, are very poor analysis in terms of identifying processes and targets as well as poor politics because they alienate potential allies in Islamic societies who could help us to reach our objective.
I also find such formulations and analysis a bit vulgar (as well as faulty) since they rarely (if ever) recognize the many sincere and “authentic” (if you want to argue what that means, I’ll bite) Muslims who have risked and sacrificed much to work with us (both overseas and in the US) since September 2001. I have never been to Malmo but I have had the honor working with such folks in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as in the US. We left those allies and partners high and dry in Iraq and it looks like we will do the same in Afghanistan.
A final point: I am not and was not a fan of US policy in these matters under either W or BHO. I would also stipulate that our interactions with the Muslim world must be executed with an attitude of authentic “cultural confidence”.
I too have found middle easterner’s to be very polite and friendly, and I don’t doubt the people you worked with were the same. The problem is not how they relate to Westerners as individuals when they don’t share a country as a living space, or how Muslims relate to each other as individuals.
The problem comes when they don’t see a Westerner as a come and go friend, but as a neighbor, and then in a political, and religious sense. The same is true, generally speaking, in the middle east – the problems they have with each other in terms of intolerance, are in a higher sense, a social and political sense. As plain individuals, we all get along fine. A perfect example is how intelligent Egyptians will have their eyes roll up into their heads and context, balance and reason walk out the door when you mention Israel.
So, the struggle, the “war” as some put it, is in a Muslim’s religion, not in themselves as decent people – they are decent people – believe me I know. The problem is that Islam occupies a political and social space that is in default opposition to non-Muslims in every political and social sense. Muslims do not share political and societal space with non-Muslims peacefully in large numbers – that’s just a fact. The more devout a Muslims is, the less decent they become to their fellows. They insist and do not take no for an answer unless they have to. And while they’re doing that, they’ll seek another way – they’ve been commanded to by God himself.
The question about the so-called “moderate” Muslim is not about them as individuals – as individuals they are much like you and I – they want a good job, a good woman and to raise a family, and in peace.
The “moderate” issue does not lie there but in the extent those Muslims are good, practicing Muslims. When they get together in a group around non-Muslims, they will and do agitate – it is the fundamental principle around which Islam is built from the ground up – a post-conquest principle from medieval times when the religion was formed – it is a religion but also the only one on Earth constructed around post-conquest military doctrinaire on managing conquered peoples.
Muslims are only truly happy when they rule the roost – this true of all religions in a casual way, but it is not part of their dogma – that is reserved for Islam. Therefore Christians, Buddhists and Hindus can live with other people peacefully when out of power. Their religion does not demand they do otherwise. There are no tenets about how to treat captive populations, no instructions to convert of pay tax, etc.
To me, this is the fundamental issue around which to think of a “moderate” Muslim. In fact, a truly moderate Muslim, in a larger political and societal sense, is no Muslim at all. A real Muslim, and in numbers, does not play well with others.
Oddly enough in the case of Egypt, they are not deeply religious, but they are deeply conservative. They elected Islamists because they trust them, not because they share their dogmas. Already they are beginning to regret their votes. I saw a poll that showed the numbers of Egyptians who think fundamentalists are not to be trusted has jumped from almost nothing to over 20%.
Thank you for your response. Sorry for the delay in answering you. As an observer of the Jewish Sabbath I don’t use electronics until late Saturday night.
I think the below from your response is representative of your main point in your reply: ‘To me, this is the fundamental issue around which to think of a “moderate” Muslim. In fact, a truly moderate Muslim, in a larger political and societal sense, is no Muslim at all’.
Although there are some points in your reply with which I agree, I would argue against this main point for several reasons:
1. Daniel Pipes, a great and conservative expert on Islam (BTW he spent a fair amount of time living in Egypt) who is no slouch at analyzing and recommending strategies to counter radical Islam, recognizes the existence of moderate Muslims and sees identifying and supporting them as key to a victorious strategy for the West. For expert opinions, I’ll rely on Pipes (http://www.danielpipes.org/4426/bolstering-moderate-muslims);
2. The nature of a religion is ultimately defined by its adherents. By your logic the Muslim villains Osama Bin Laden and Ayatollah Khomeini were among the most authentic Muslims. Yet the late King Hussein of Jordan and Ayatollah Sistani, two Muslim leaders who in their political behavior were moderate towards the West, were beloved by their followers and considered to be pious Muslims. The only criteria by which you could argue that they were less authentic than the villains is that they were not enemies of the West. Their popularity speaks for itself and millions of Shia Arabs in Iraq would disagree that Sistani was a less authentic Muslim than Khomeini. I have no idea what the future holds for Islam. As our host argues, it may be dying. I agree that it is very sick and the sickness is not pretty. Nevertheless we can and (very imperfectly in recent years) have influenced its adherents to act in our interest by humiliating its villains and supporting those who would ally with us. Such efforts may even serve to shape its nature.
3. You portray me as arguing that I know Muslims who are “very polite and friendly”. That’s not what I wrote (although it may be true) and seems a trite phrase. What I argued is that there are many moderate and traditional Muslims who are current or potential allies of the West. I’ve been privileged to know Muslims in the US, Iraq and Afghanistan who were observant in their beliefs yet, either as private citizens or as servants of their governments, worked with us against our mutual enemies at great risk to themselves and their families. It’s not necessary to rely on my account, such stores are available in the open source media.
Your views seem well informed. Others commenters seem to operate based on minimal information, bigotry and confusion not too differnt from KOS posts. It would be amusing to introduce some of my Muslim comrades to commenters who think Muslims operate like killer Borg programmed by “the Ko-Ran, the Hah-Deaths” and stage a debate on whether these courageous Muslim heroes, to whom Americans owe much, are authentic Muslims.
What Im getting from you is a tactical strategy within the bounds of an overall strategy.
What I am saying is that the overarching strategy is wrong and that is why we are continuously failing in our theatres of operation. We arent necessarily failing, but when all is said and done, we havnt really done anything strategically important. And our successes are pretty unsatisfying as well.
The strategy should be recognizing that Islam is a hostile ideology, which we should be defending and protecting ourselves from. Muslims as the agents of that ideology need to be contained, removed from threatening us within our territory, via our democratic institutions and as violent terrorists going off from time to time.
We need to shrink the public space for Islam on this planet back to its majority nation states, halt the advance South in Africa, roll them back out of Europe and the Anglo Nations, and then contain them within that sphere. Of course we will take non-Muslim refugees. Then we squeeze them via our control of their food supply.
We can last longer without their oil than they can without food to eat.
The Arab Spring is a necessity, but not in the way that the Neo-Cons envisioned. It paves the way for total war, because the populations are electing and supporting the hostile Islamists….instead of just voiceless oppressed under autocracies.
You are trying to operate inside the Islamic theater and need any and all allies you can get.
I would fully support liberal Muslims and Leftwingers inside Musseldom to deconstruct and attack Islamdom at its core and delegitimize it from the inside, but not while we expose ourselves unnecessarily to the violence, aggression, and oppression. I think this is good policy.
In the end, your whole strategy hinges on the hope that Muslims will reform themselves.
Id rather not trust my liberty and well being to that hope. Shrink the worldwide public space for Islam to limit our exposure to it, and then ally with the Muslim, Secular, Minority Left inside Musseldom to destroy Islam from within its current sphere of dominion. That doesnt mean military action inside Islamdom, but intellectual and material aid to support and grow the liberal, minority, opposition within Musseldom. Miltiary action to contain Islam….for example the Southern Nigerians and Ivory Coast and South Sudanese need military assistance to hold back the Islamic aggressors.
But in the end, my strategy doesnt rely on hope, it protects us from Islam, period. And then we work in the manner the Soviets/Communists did to us and the West to undermine Islam from within via liberal and Leftist secularists and Muslims inside their territories.
That is the most sensible strategy.
Shrink the public space for Islam, rollback its agents out of our territories so Islam is no longer a threat to our security, liberty, internally. Contain Islam within its traditional borders, then attack Islam by supporting and instigating reformers and hostile Leftists within Islamdom ala the Soviet Communist playbook used on us.
Our trump card is food.
My strategy is to support and protect our allies and punish and humiliate our enemies. There are a variety of tactics which might be used to execute this strategy. It’s possible that this might serve to shape the behavior of Muslims, and thereby shape Islam, into a more moderate form more suited to the modern world, but I don’t depend on that outcome.
You are correct that I am focused more on overseas operations and international terrorism. I believe that the U.S. Constitution, exercised by movement officials animated by cultural confidence, is sufficient to thwart any threat of terrorism or subversion while neutrally protecting the rights of all US persons, including Muslims.
You open us up to Muslim aggression, and hope for the best. Costing us untold amounts of internal security costs not to mention insults to our peace of mind.
Isolate Islam’s agents, and you isolate Islam. If you want to (but you dont really have to) you can spend resources on fighting the Islamic Reformation by supporting Leftists inside Islamdom. Or you can just let them kill each other and occassionally bomb and counter their attempts at force projection upon non-Muslims.
That is the best strategy.
Massive amounts on internal security, insults to our peace of mind, and infringement upon our rights and liberty, just to have the blessings of Diversity (Muslim neighbors).
Ill pass.
Muslims out. We can do it fairly politey.
Heavy travel restrictions with regards to Muslims to the West.
“You open us up to Muslim aggression, and hope for the best. Costing us untold
amounts of internal security costs not to mention insults to our peace of mind”
… Lol, I’m slightly less influential in government circles than all that, but thanks for your vote of confidence.
You are talking to yourself, not debating with me, so feel free to continue.
Of course, I am debating policy/strategy with you. Not imparting powers that neither of us have.
You are merely commenting about operational tactics and strategy within the confines of our current broader policies/strategy….which is fine so far as it goes. That problem is that you will be chasing your tail endlessly in a failed strategy, that doesnt make us safer nor does it end the existential threat. It merely hopes for the best from Islam whilst playing endless whack a mole with enhanced police powers. Ill pass.
“…there are hundreds of millions of Muslims (traditional and the relatively few moderates) who are our allies and potential allies in the wars against radical Islamic states, terrorist groups…”
More wishful thinking
Those muslims you describe have adopted generic “secular Christian” outlook on peaceful coexistence with others, and are clearly condemned by Mohammad himself. They are called “Apostates”.
It is, by by all written accounts of Muslim Holy Texts, incontrovertibly true that they are in fact, traitors to Allah in every sense of the word…they cannot be called “Muslim” if they are willing to be our “allies”.
Regional/ethnic similarities in modes of dress, food and holidays do not make you a “Muslim”
Eternal enmity for the Infidels and an obligation to “kill them wherever you find them” does. Mohammad and Allah accept nothing else.
Read the Koran some day, their is no OTHER conclusion to be drawn from its teachings.
The so called “Good” Muslims aren’t Muslims.
But you also fail to elucidate just how shallow and misguided Lewis’s assessment of Muslim rage really was.
Most want to write off the saga of Bernard Lewis’ milquetoast account of Islam as him self-limiting by “academic speech.” His life’s work, fer Chrissakes. But, in fairness to him, looking at the broad Moslem landscape, there’s been a weird and uniform aversion to calling a spade a spade, an Islamic spade.
It’s a religion, everybody sez, but no, it’s a belief system that comprises religion, government and military. It’s peaceful, we’re told, but no, it’s a religion of war, it’s all rat there in their scriptures and codes and sacralized histories and, yes, their history.
It’s like ice skating over a lake of corpses, stuck just beneath the veneer, and everybody pretty much always pretends it was there.
Like the Moslem-on-white slave trade in the Dark Ages, an era that lately has come under closer and more objective scrutiny by several credible historians, including the good doc here.
Mr. Goldman,I sit here bemused by all of the political talk devoid of any financial considerations.We pretend that yesterday’s political truisms are still in force & the Global financial events are of secondary importance.In my opinion,& the opinion of many respected financial experts the opposite is true!The Central Bankers & the “too big to fail”investment houses,the men behind the curtain who we are not supposed to see,run the world.Their world is beginning to collapse & they are doing the only thing they can do.Try to monetize their leveraged debt.
What has this have to do with Turkey & the Moslem world?Everything!With massive amounts of fiat money/debt. being created inflation will surge around the globe.The EU is currently melting down to it’s national parts,& the rest of the world may soon follow.Political pundits speculate about which world leaders world leader will resolve the West’s problems with militant Islam.Will it be Obama or Netanyahu?Perhaps Putin or the Chinese leaders?Maybe none of the above.Turkey & the rest of Islam may be done in by Ben Bernanke & the other Central bankers in their desperate attempt to reflate their debts.Indirectly,thru inflation,they will cause mass starvation throughout the 3rd world(Turkey included).Moslem societies will buckle under the financial storm.The Moslem world,from Gibralta to Pakistan,will become one huge copy of Afgahnistan or Somalia.The oil rich Persian Gulf states may hang on.As for Turkey,it will be swept away along with Iran & the rest of the Moslem world
The West has a problem with militant Islam? No, in the long run, the West IS militant Islam, and the Middle East will be a wasteland, by 2050. The West has a problem with Muslims. They ride on the backs of the more educated and less fertile. Sustainable nations cannot have both education and welfare!
Goldman, I think you’re being too kind to professor Lewis. He had a rich and detailed record from which to draw inescapable conclusions: the Ko-Ran, the Hah-Deaths, the sacralized histories, the Sharia codes and 1,400 years of a steady state aggression, all of it documented by Moslem themselves, Moslem Men or the times, Moslem historians and others.
Yet he escaped those conclusions. Lewis let us down. The only kind thing I can say about him is that he has lots of company.
Our structure of thinking is so shrunken and deformed that, although Islam is perhaps the single greatest political issue of the day, it is not mentioned at all in the presidential campaign. That’s not Bernie’s fault per se, but a big part of the groundwork for such ignorance and stupidity reflects his life’s work.
I think the problem with Lewis is that he is a great historian but not a very good analyst of those histories he has in his head. He hasn’t really come to any consistent and authoritative conclusions about contemporary Islam. Instead he wanders here and there. Normally, that would be seen as a good thing – keeping one’s mind open. But Lewis’s mind is always open and nothing comes out but dates.
David,
You say, with alarming optimism, that we are merely in “..the sorry task of managing the chaotic decline of the Muslim world” as if some last and final “end” will occur all on its own (and somehow favorably to us) if we just let them continue their own disfunctional spiral.
I’m quite frightened by this attitude, because it professes the same (faulty, IMHO) dynamics as saying “…the sorry task of managing the chaotic decline of the Inner Cities” and naively expecting some positive “progress” to occur from this “decline”.
The last 50 years in Urban America suggests otherwise.
As does the last 1500 years of Mohammad’s theory of how to live.
Its not rocket science.
American inner cities and the Muslim world are indeed in a state of decline…
or more appropriately, decay…But the key point is decay does not shrink my friend, it only spreads.
Decay is inevitable when the same self-destructive and useless mentality of theft, thuggary, violence, lust and projected hatred for their supposed “tormentors”, uncoupled from any sense of obligatory industriousness and moral concern for another, so thouroughly infects as it does, BOTH the Inner City Gang-Thug AND the Devout Muslim Follower of Mohammad.
Because they are quite simply, one and the same disease of the soul. Mohammad was a dysfunctional psychopath, driven by the same, simple garden variety demons of your average mentally deranged criminal. And like your average mentally deranged criminal, not much good occurs in the way of stability, standard of living, respectable career, love/respect/child rearing , social progress or peaceful co-existence with others , when the soul goes so very, very dark.
Mohammad has the simple mentality of the Gang-banger. Lust for violence, sex, and loot. A self centered world of simple, ultimate power above all else. I am undisputable…I do not justify my acts, they simply are. I will react violently to simple eye contact, for meeting my eye is not instant submission through fear, so I will force you to submit, every time, without exception. I will murder strangers, family, and former accomplices for the slightest “insult” or whim. I am deranged, incurable, insatiable, insufferable. All about me is failure and poverty, all my wealth is stolen, and I covet what I still do not have. I must ever expand my circle of victims.
A so called “religion” based on exact same ways of the Gang-banger. Temporal, individual loot for a select few perhaps, but poverty death and suffering of the masses are all that is left in the wake of any “civilization” that extols such virtues as admirable in its young men.
And areas thus created NOT “decline” on their own, into an ever- shrinking circle that some will have the dull and inevitable duty of sweeping up their last remains.
No
They multiply and expand in a slow but grinding wave of decay, until whole neighborhoods, sections, then entire cities, become “failed states”…no-go zones of inexplicable horror that sane outsiders dare not venture to.
The decline of American inner cities mirrors the decline the Arab of the world. For those living on the fringes, its only a matter of time before “there goes the neighborhood”. Few if any sections will ever recover. The decent who stay, are terrorized, while the rest flee for safer pastures, or build entirely new enclaves of sanity, from scratch…
Like in the deserts of Tel Aviv, or (as common now in my region) to new townhouses springing up in former cornfields to get outside the “declining” (but spreading !) ring of chaos known as the Philadelphia/Trenton/Camden triangle (A.K.A. “fee-tee-cee” in dog-whistle terms)
Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Nigeria…
These represent declines in misery? A shrinking circle of Muslim violence?
Trenton, Detroit, Newark, Camden…
You’ll find lower crime rates, lesser victims, smaller areas of poverty and violence?
When you deny, as we do in American cities and world wide, that the dark heart of hatred is the main problem, and when you fail, as we do worldwide and in American Cities, to make honest (judgmental !) calls on WHICH principals and belief systems are simply unacceptable and will not be tolerated, this decay will continue.
To the everlasting peril of us all.
It seems to me that there are two issues that need to be kept in mind as being distinct (although in some way interrelated): A) the fundamental difference between both the classical Liberal and overtly secularist post-1972 New Left ‘liberal’ vision of a Monoplanar, purely this-worldly society and culture and civilization, ungrounded in any Beyond or belief in a Beyond, a-n-d the religious vision that because of the nature of the human make-up (if not also because humans are Created in God’s Image) all human societies if they are to be sufficiently comprehensive must be Multiplanar, i.e. believing in some Beyond.
In regard to this (A), what I see has happened in our time is that post-1972 American secularist liberalism has pushed for breaking the ‘compromise’ of the Framers in 1787, demanding instead a purely secular-based society and culture, assuming as a matter of course that their results would not be too thin a gruel for most human beings. Thus a radical ‘laicite’ (accent marks in the French of course).
But then (B) is the matter of the Religious being taken over by radical elements, insisting that it is incoherent to believe in a Divinity and then not form a polity best capable of informing and shaping the lives of the believers. To this point of view, Western liberal pluralism – accepting (up until recently anyway) religious belief (and – worse – many various religious beliefs) while yet allowing a political arrangement that does not accept the logical requirement to recognize that putative Divine authority through the political arrangements. To this point of view, the West is incoherent and shallow in its attitude toward the very Ground of human existence.
Perhaps a further reduction of the equation would note that there is some form of ‘radicalism’ on each side of it: the secularist radicalism of the (Marx-Gramsci-inspired) New Left or Far Left, and the theological radicalism of the Islamic approach (further intensified by the eruption of political Islamism).
I think the West has been here before, although it may not recall: as it sought to define itself against the Roman Catholic Church from whose aegis Henry VIII had removed it, the Church of England sought to ally itself with the strong English Constitutionalist thinkers of the XVII century, preaching ‘toleration’ of various and variant beliefs (while presuming that there would always be some form of common Judeo-Christian belief in Western and English culture). The Framers of 1787 were able to take this Afterglow (my term) of Christendom to the political bank: they could separate Church and State formally, while informally (but vitally) gleaning all the advantages of a believing and belief-grounded common culture and Citizenry still remaining from the high noon of Medieval Christendom.
It is, I think, this Afterglow ‘compromise’ which post-1972 New Left secularist liberalism has consistently sought to abrogate, in the name of a more thorough and single-minded secularism, in the culture as well as in the formal Constitutional constructions.
This constitutes, I think, a genuine ‘crisis’ in the dictionary sense for the United States. Just as the radical abolitionists insisted (against, among others, Lincoln) that an immediate and thorough abrogation of the Framing Generation’s reluctant acquiescence to the Southern Demand of 1787 (either a United States with slavery or no United States at all) had to be effected without further ado, so too the secularists here have made (and the Beltway for 40 Biblical years has to no small extent acceded to) the same type of Demand.
To any observer who respects the fundamentally religious dimension of the human make-up, radical secularism must seem grossly insufficient as the basis for a culture and a society.
My own thought is that the watchword should not be Separation of Church and State, but rather the Separation of Ideology (secularist or religious) and State. Because Ideology by its nature must necessarily be averse to “deliberative democratic politics” and thus stems from a political and philosophical Universe that is not only Alien to the Framers’ American political and philosophical Universe, but actually constitutes an anti-Universe to the Framers’ American Universe.
Of course – it seems to me – the secularists realized from the get-go that any “deliberative democratic politics” would reject their Demand and their agenda, and thus the authoritarianism inherent in all Ideological formulations serves to create Leviathan from the Left (who was the American writer who said something along these lines in the mid-1930s? That the danger to America would come from the Left and not the Right (since the Framers had already caged the Rightist Leviathan in 1787).
I do not claim that any of my foregoing observations effectively resolve or even adequately address the many cogent and substantial issues raised in DPG’s article or in some of the insightful comments. But I think they constitute some useful background.
Apologies to eight posters who had to wait for the end of Shabbat Eastern time for their posts to appear.
Many good points, but I will hit just one.
I personally dislike the phrase “Separation of Church and State” because its not a Constitutional standard. Too many people say or claim that “X” cannot be permitted, because it “violates the separation of church and state”.
This is either lazy mans hogwash, or anti-religion’s smokescreen.
I prefer to begin any such debate with the actual words of the Constitution from the First amendment: “congress shall pass no law..”
SO, when my son wishes to thank Jesus for his Public high school diploma in his speech, the school has absolutely no leg to stand on in preventing him from doing so.
Why? Because CONGRESS did not pass any law….demanding he DOES praise Jesus, or preventing him FROM doing so….the government can have no say in the matter, they are supposed to just step aside and have no involvement at all.
The physical location of his speech is irrelevant. Allowing a private citizen to praise Jesus on school property does not “establish” anything, because (wait for it!) “congress” did not legislate one way or the other.
Indeed, NOT allowing it is CLEARLY a violation of the “free exercise” portion.
Its a simple matter of READING the plain language of the First Amendment to determine what “violates” what.
The oh-so-well-meaning Cliff Notes version phrase “separation of Church and State” has taken on a life of its own, and “separation” is taken today to mean “exclusion” of religion in all public places…as that particular phrase does kinda sorta suggest when you think about it for a while.
Which might be why the Founding Fathers DIDNT USE IT, when they wrote The First Amendment.
Turkey’s modernization didn’t start with Atatürk rather started in the late 19th century when they instituted western style parliament called Birinci Meşrutiyet. What Ataturk did is accelerate the reforms by tremendous speed for the sole purpose to Turkify the diverse Muslim population and save whatever was left off Ottoman Empire. When 80 years of secular integration failed now the Neo Ottoman Erdoğan is using Islam to achieve the same goal. At the of Turkey will go the same way Iraq is going split up.
In partes tres divisa est Iraq,
Yet Turkey carved by light and dark -
A proposition not so stark,
But dogs will meow and cats will bark,
Ere that happens, do you hark?
But Kurds have time, and all they must is flark
“Islam is dying, too (not quite fast enough for our convenience). This isn’t the struggle against Communism. It’s a nasty, dirty, mopping-up operation. Done correctly, it wouldn’t be too expensive (for us, that is). The term “inglorious” comes to mind. Our epoch is a mediocre and nasty one, rather like the second half of the Thirty Years War. That’s the part no-one remembers; the really interesting participants (Richelieu, Olivares, Wallenstein) had all died and their epigonoi kept the war going until butchery became boring. People don’t like to find themselves in the sort of history that no-one will want to read about in the future. But we have to play the hand we are dealt. And it is not the hand that Prof. Lewis thought it was.”
Haven’t read your book, but merely the premise alone, repeated here is beyond my ken. What do you see that I (and I doubt that I’m alone) don’t see? I see:
a) A resurgent Muslim Brotherhood genie now out of the bottle where is was once confined to the repressed fringes. (Maybe you think they’re moderates?)
b) Iran on a glide path to the bomb.
c) Western loss of self confidence in our narrative and capitulation to Muslim immigrants as they sweep in and, no they’re not subverted by our freedoms, culture, and economy…at least not enough. Maybe generations down the road, if we survive that long.
d) Suppression in the US and the rest of the West of debate or anything slightly critical of Islam the religion, its culture, etc. (these are not distinct elements as Islam, like Orthodox Judaism rolls them into an integrated whole). Worse yet, try being a Jewish supporter of Israel at UC Berkely, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, SanFran State, Rutgers, or even Harvard. Try out Gloria Greenfield’s fine work Judeophobia.
e) Capitulation of the Catholic church for fear of offending Islam.
f) Watch how easily “secular” educated Muslims are susceptible to the siren song of the radicals. Any idea how frequently the hijab can be seen walking the streets of Manhattan on any given day. Is this just the Muslim version of Jews wearing little beanies?
Love to hear from you. Andrew, I’d like to hear from you too. Your book on Islamic anti-semitism is very important as Jew hatred among Muslims is not a recent phenomenon but is as old as time…just wish it was more accessible. Sorry, I wanted badly to finish it, but it’s a bore. The message is critical and it needs to get out. The Quran, also a repetitive bore is different…it reads like Mohammed’s version of Mein Kampf. It’s (at least the Saudi, unsanitized version in English translation that I perused) virtually a continuous screed against pagans, Jews, and Christians. Huntington may be out of favor, but if Islam is the solution then its Dar al Islam vs. Dar al Harb That it finds cogency among Muslims today is scary in itself.
So what say you?
The Muslim Brotherhood is a response to Islam’s inability to adapt to modernity, which is clear enough if you read Qutb. Egypt is in an insoluble economic mess. Iran and Turkey have demographics as weak as Europe’s. This is not a model that has any chance of success. The Arab Spring is a response to terminal backwardness. We might go down too, to be sure, and the jihad might take a very large number us with it. If the US wanted to squish Iran, we could do it with a thousand sorties in two or three days. That wasn’t true of Nazi Germany, or Soviet Russia. Islam is a depressing, threadbare, and boring sort of problem in comparison. I’ve written a great deal about this which you can find at
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/spengler.html
Or, you can read my book.
The Muslim Brotherhood not a “response” to anything. They simply are the same Jihadists pushing The Prophets gang of thugs and thieves that have existed for 1300 years.
They are not lamenting Islams lack of “modernity”, they are in fact dragging Egypt further backward. They killed Anwar Sadat because of the peace treaty he made with Israel what, 30-35 years ago?
That they are now attempting to use the Internet and modern style politics to gain control of the mechanisms to break that Peace Treaty with Israel, makes me feel no better about their ambitions than if they had only pointed sticks.
Their goal is the same.
They are nothing but a negative force in the world of human coexistence.
They are evil.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a repugnant force of evil, because MOHAMMAD was a repugnant force of evil.
They are the fruit of the poisoned tree, and have no place among civilized people. Muslims. Or any “brotherhood” of them.
David,
So “we might go down too?” We can take comfort that while we suffer, those whose inflict the damage are a failed society. Great! Very reassuring. I think you really miss the point on this one. Whatever definition of success you apply to a society, an underlying requirement is that it has the means AND the will to protect itself. Yeah, we can bomb Iran back to the Stone Ages. But we don’t even have the will to put them on notice when our sons are getting taken out by IEDs in Irag bearing the label made in Iran. Ronald Reagan was no Rhodes scholar, but he understood this lesson. We will prevail, but at what cost? The allies defeated the axis powers. Twenty million lives were lost including one-third of world Jewry. Comforting indeed!
“Comforting indeed!”
But the great thing about DPG is he’s in the business of providing clarity, not “comfort” … “Optimism is cowardice”.
David,
All I know is years after being written off by The Economist, Foreign Policy et al Russian obgyns are asking women, “when do you plan to have a baby? Soon?” while in the U.S., it’s “what form of birth control do you use?” Perhaps Putin has sent out the orders to all obgyns in Russia, but somehow I doubt it. Even if the future tall/thin Russian supermodeldom have a bit more Asiatic features — whether Chinese or Indian brown skin, I do not know — they’ll be around.
Shabbat shalom.
Perhaps Putin has sent out the orders to all obgyns in Russia…
Who knows what Vlad’s thinking. Looking at the streets of Moscow now vs 30 years ago, whew, the Moslems are everywhere. No doubt the then ex-Commies did this program not only for birth rate but also for diversity and multiculturalism, whatever those two words mean.
I wonder if Russia has a town as over the edge as Dearborn.
It seems that several of the posters confuse militant islam with the rank and file muslims.
It’s all about perception, which, unfortunately becomes reality to the uninformed.
Perception comes from information and knowledge.
The muslim political elites limit factual information or create dis-information to the masses.
Thus the masses, until acted on by another force (cause-effect)will believe and follow their radical imams and political leaders.
This is analogous to the militant unions in the US. The leadership distorts, threatens and coerces its rank and file to “act out”. But most of the rank and file don’t buy the rhetorical bullshit and stay home. This is because the rank and file have alternative sources of information and are not under tyrannical
threat of their lives.
While in Afghanistan , I observes the information ops (propaganda) of the jihadis (taliban, alqueda,Haqqanis) at the village level. It was effective. Our information ops were severely hampered by the civilian leadership and its concomitant political correctness. Even the global media bit on the jihadi propaganda.
Information is the key to all of this. We are severely lacking in this regard.
The majority of the population of these countries want the same as you and I: To raise their kids in peace and have some modicum of success. But the Afghanis and other muslim people honestly do not know any better. They are fed a tightly controlled message from cradle to grave. That is why the jihadi leaders prohibit education of girls and strict madrassa education for the boys. It’s about power and control. Most of these jihadi leaders are third rate muslims and lead less than exemplary religious lives.
The Afghanis I dealt with had a thirst for knowledge and were shocked to learn of the humanity of the “Big Satan”.
Only the village Imam is allowed to own a koran. So his interpretation of its contents are all the people know and thus believe.
In conclusion’ knowledge is power, the west needs to ramp up its own propaganda machine and saturate the muslim world (as we did with radio free europe) with information and truth , we cannot win this war with guns alone.
we are not at war with the muslim masses. This is a war of perception and we need to change the current perception that the tyrannical jihadis have brainwashed the masses to believe.
Afghanvet – These are good atmospherics, but it’s not accurate that only the Imam can own a Koran. I expect that what you saw was that a majority of Afghans in rural areas are illiterate and hence don’t see a need to own a Koran.
The most effective IO ops I witnessed often featured educated and religious Afghan attorneys (Afghan law schools provide legal education in both secular Afghan and Sharia law) to groups and broadcasting with a message of “moderate” Islam (ex. telling folks Islam did not prohibit education of women or women working outside the home”). Modest agricultural development (ex. cold-storage cellars to encourage village agriculture were also important).
The wide-spread corruption of GIROA officials was, IMHO, at least a significant obstacle to COIN ops as kinetic insurgent activity.
Conditions varied depending n location and period. May I ask when and where (in general) you were deployed? For me it was RC-E in 2011, as well as MND-N in 2007 and MND-B in 2009.
MarcH
undisclosed 2001-2002
RC-E Khost 2003-2004
RC-S Zabul 2007
It is true that ,in many tribal areas, only the Imam holds a Koran. That said
in some of the more populated areas, there is advancement, and thus more liberal participation and availability of the koran. I never met a lawyer where I operated though! I agree with your statement regarding corruption. Most of the aid money never made it to the ANA or ANP, esp. ANP. Night letters were a big problem. They terrorized the locals, esp. after we had a village Aid or Med-Cap mission. The IO guys I knew were very frustrated. They had great ideas, but were hampered in their missions by the COC.The jihadis would burn down a school and blame it on “raping and plundering Americans” and we would never respond. We are winning the tactical kinetic ops, but losing the IO war. That does not bode well for winning hearts and minds.
The only problem with that though is that if they could actually read the Koran (and Hadith) it wouldnt actually be much of an improvement.
Muslim Global Supremacy, Shariah Law, Dhimmitude/Second Class Status for People of the Book, Spread Islam and its Power by any means necessary, Subjugation of Women, Death for Apostacy, and so on and so forth.
Lets protect ourselves from Islam via a Policy of Containment, rollback of Muslim immigration to the West, and then if you wish to fight the Islamic Reformation, then you can do so in a limited manner by supporting Leftwing Muslims, Secularists, Communists, and Minroity dissidents inside Musseldom.
We have no interest in fighting that battle in our Western neighborhoods and in our institutions.
I’m not too familiar with Zabul, but hats off to you for your tour in to Khost. It is hard duty in a violent rural area in the mountains on the Pak border.
What an illuminating, insightful thread, and original column–an honor just to share this space!
I wd add just a few points:
1–If we HAVE a strong strategic view (i.e., Islamic culture/civilization as Lewis has identified it is a world-historical and strongly negative phenomenon, comparable to communism except that it has endured and spread for 20 times as long), then it makes perfect sense to defend dissidents and minorities within that culture. And to refrain from making their positions intolerable by crude calls for all-out conflict. Subtle calls are quite sufficient.
2–The revanchist brand of Khomeinist Islam arose almost parallel with the collapse of Western cultural self-confidence. The caliphate had been shrunken, slashed and divvied up by the infidels for ~200 years before WWI–as late at 1920 Winston Churchill was planning (perhaps over-optimistically) to liberate Constantinople. So this entity is obviously not unbeatable. Basically, for ~50 years, WE’VE BEEN BEATING OURSELVES.
3–The Darwinian genius of Islam has been it’s social dynamic, enshrined in the shariah laws, whereby over time the incentives, both negative and positive, are all but irresistible for infidels TO BECOME MUSLIMS. Then they’re indeed sucked into the Borg-ian maw, and their strengths are turned into the conquest/conversions of OTHER infidels. This entire process is supported by laws of inheritance and legal supremacy tiers that make apartheid look like a children’s game. To say nothing about the universal death penalty for leaving the faith.
4–The weakness of this system is its hostility to human intellect, and happiness. That is why science and technology are snuffed out wherever Islam grows, while refugees increase. Before the advent of the scientific revolution, such societies could not flourish in terms of numbers, as famine and disease stabilized them. But since ~1850, it became possible for a rather small # of foreign technicians to provide technology for sanitation and medicine to enable a population boom. As long as food cd be expanded (also supported by foreign technology), an “Islamic” society cd grow in numbers without reforming its anti-intellect roots. (BTW, prior to the scientific revo, Islam WAS able to expand, via the ancient Arabian technique of pure plunder).
5–We have been living in a unique interim for ~50 years, whereby our superior-in-all-forms-of-strength civilization hs chosen to go hands-off, except to help Muslim states, with the only requirement being a steady oil-flow from the Persian Gulf. Oh, hands-off except for the continued development of hospitals, agriculture, water plants, even a few weapons factories. This cd have gone un indefinitely had the Islamic world managed to keep its hostility under wraps.
6–The Internet now allows dumb shmoes like us to see directly this hostility. We do not like it. These people come into our living rooms and kick over the furniture and rape our daughters and throw gasoline all over the house before lighting it on fire, and then leave and boast about how they will destroy our “decadent” civilization…We don’t like it.
The breaking point is approaching. The interim is fading. Westerners are slowly, slowly coming to understand that this ancient, barbaric civilization is simply incompatible with our own. Or any other.
Thanks to Mr. Goldman, and all the shrewd commenters at this site, for hastening that realization.
Indeed. Excellent commentary.
Mr EV, loved your idea above about supporting the dissident groups within the Islamic states. It is interesting to note that the Obama admin basically stumbled into the right idea in Libya for ~8 months, where they significantly aided the anti-Khaddafi camp, while their operational and intelligence incompetence prevented them from achieving a fast, decisive win (which they could easily have had). They thus fueled a “Muslim meat-grinder,” as I like to call it, though of course their ideological blindness led them to support the jihadi forces all the way to the end…I think we need to always be supporting both sides to keep them each at ~49% strength, for…forever.
In this way, the Islamic tradition of holy, uncompromisable violence turns into a demographic weapon, turned against themselves.
I think the loss of Western self-confidence in the post WWII world is a huge factor in this struggle–in no other century wd such a valuable technological commodity as petroleum been left in the obscurantist hands of such as the Wahhabis or the Baathi. These lands wd have been “pacified” (or depopulated) and conquered by the great powers able to exploit the resource, much as Africa, SE Asia, and Manchuria were seized. But the Arabian (and Persian) petro-sheikhs have dodged the historical bullet. So far.
The first step in devising an appropriate strategy to solve this problem is to free our minds 100% to look clearly at the facts, look clearly at the objectives, and devise a palatable, affordable way to accomplish them. The Pentagon’s ejectment of Steven Coughlin in 2008 for his frank treatment of the jihadi threat was a textbook way of THE WRONG WAY to address the challenge.
JO, Ive seen your excellent commentary before elsewhere I believe. Maybe even visited your blog?
I think the loss of Western self-confidence in the post WWII world is a huge factor in this struggle — JO
No doubt about. It is at the core of much of European Chrstendoms mounting problems.
“Lets protect ourselves from Islam via a Policy of Containment, rollback of Muslim immigration to the West, and then if you wish to fight the Islamic Reformation, then you can do so in a limited manner by supporting Leftwing Muslims, Secularists, Communists, and Minroity dissidents inside Musseldom.”
EV, Agreed. But do not underestimate the power of mind control/brainwashing.
It has been used successfully through the ages.
The Catholic church did it by limiting the Bible to monastaries, the Guttenberg press changed that by printing Bibles for the masses, which led to the reformation.
The muslims have used it since their inception in the 600′s.
Hitler used it, the commies used it and now it is being used in the US via the msm and dept of education.
Control the perception and you control the reality.
I appreciate that, but it begs the question, as literacy is increasing in the Muslim World, they are going backwards, because they can sidestep the moderate interpretations which others in authority feed them and go straight to the source, which is downright ugly.
As we all know many an Islamic terrorist has high levels of education, including Western education.
I wouldnt be hanging my hopes on that…as even a positive step in the right direction….much less a panacea.
“because they can sidestep the moderate interpretations which others in authority feed them and go straight to the source, which is downright ugly.”
Moderate? The whole problem is the militant,venomous interpretations dictated by those in authority, thus leading to subsequent fatwas against the infidel. There are many interpretation of the koran, as such the Bible. Sunni, shia, wahabbism,Sufism etc. each of these have their jihadi/militant sects. Hell they kill each other over their own religion constantly. The jihadi groups are nothing more than cults, where mind control is paramount.They are death cults not dissimilar to other death cults in the world.
I am not saying that IO is the only way, but it is an integral part of the defense matrix along with COIN, direct action/kinetic ops, civil affairs etc.
de opresso liber
Christian Fundamentalism vastly increased because of the ability to read the Bible (albeit translated) directly, after the invention of the Printing Press.
Fundamentalist Islam is likewise increasing with Muslim Literacy, as they can read plainly for themselves what is in the holy books, The Koran and Hadith.
As Sam Harris said, “The problem with Islamic Fundamentalism is the Fundamentals of Islam.
The problem isnt the Death Cults of Jihadis, but rather Conservative and Moderate Muslims sanctioning of violent Jihad as legetimate, only arguing about when it is appropriate (usually based around arguing whether the goal of spreading Islam and Muslim Power are being best served by that method in any particular instance.
And that doesnt touch on all the other highly objectionable stuff that Moderates and certainly Conservative Muslims sanction from the Holy Books….just the violent Jihad.
I do agree with you that we should be allying with Leftwing and Secularist Muslims, via a culture propaganda war. There might even be some advantage in obscuring our war against Islam….but that operational advantage pails in comparison to the great harm obscuring our war against Islam does at home and with regards to political will in our polities to do what is necessary to protect ourselves and our civilization from Islam.
Anyways, I appreciate your service in hostile territory. God bless.
Afghanvet’s characterization of the Catholic Church’s “restriction of the bible to monasteries before Gutenberg” needs some serious revision. For a more thorough, complex, nuanced, and dynamic view of a very complicated issue see the Wiki article on “Bible Translations in the Middle Ages.” Penetration of the Bible into the general population was far more extensive than Av suggests.
Before the rise of the printing press literacy in Europe (including cosmopolitan cities like Alexandria in antiquity)was never much more than ten or fifteen percent of the population. The Catholic Church had no urgent desire to limit access to the text (much of the text of the bible was read in the churches in the course of the liturgical cycles anyway), though it was quite particular as to how the text was translated, since a translation is a theological interpretation, and Catholic authorities cared as much about theology as the Protestant authorities.
Inevitably the printing press led to the radical fragmentation of any kind of biblical orthodoxy since in a secularizing world anyone could print any translation they chose and interpret it as they wished whether they had the broad and deep education necessary to do so or not. Populist Protestantism has sometimes portrayed the Bible as plainspoken and self-evident to any reader, but as one trained in Latin and Greek (but not Hebrew, alas), and the philological arts, I have to resort to commentaries and learned exegesis all the time to make a reasonable approach to the meaning of scripture in suo tempore.
Best
Richard
Before someone among the many sharp readers of this blog savages me, let me make some corrections to my note on the medieval dissemination of the Bible above. The official language of the Bible was Jerome’s Latin Vulgate and this was the language of the mass, a language most of the commons did not understand. It is also true that vernacular translations of the Bible were uncommon until the late Medieval or early Renaissance periods. But that many of the highlights of the Bible became part of popular culture remains a fact.
Best,
Richard