For the last week millions of words have been written and spoken about the Newsweek "Flushed Koran" story and I have been left feeling unsettled. The blogosphere has rounded on Newsweek and their irresponsible use of an anonymous source to make an incendiary charge. The MSM have circled the wagons in support of their threatened colleagues. Some have pointed out that the true horror, which has been neglected if not completely ignored, was the use of the story by Islamic radicals as an excuse to riot and kill. I think all of these viewpoints have their merits but all just slightly miss the most significant aspects of the situation. The Newsweek story has to be understood in the context of the tactical and strategic goals of the Islamofascists and I would like to suggest a larger perspective.
We tend to think of the Global War on Terror from the perspective of the West; how can we win against the Islamic fascists? In Afghanistan and Iraq, we are attempting to show the Arab and Islamic world that there is a better way to organize a society than the corrupt, vicious, and capricious dictatorships that they are used to living under. al Qaeda agrees with us that this is a crucial theater in the war, which is why they are willing to kill so many of their own followers (cannon fodder) in order to disrupt Iraq's transition to democracy. They would prefer that Iraq become an Islamist state but that is not a crucial outcome; another Saddam Hussein running Iraq would be an acceptable outcome for bin Laden and his brain trust. As long as the traditional ways persist, a small elite ruling the masses in perpetuity, the Islamization of the society is inevitable. Even a dictatorship which avows to fight terror, like the Saudi Arabian version of Sharia, would not be a problem in the long run. Once Iraq has returned to "normal", they can bide their time, marshal their forces for the real battle against the only power that can really stop them (that's us, folks) and return to reshaping Saudi society (ie, fighting among themselves for power) at their leisure. And if Iraq remains chaotic, that just keeps the pressure off their allies in Iran, another important theater in the war. While the West (America, Greta Britain, Australia, especially) remains tied down in Iraq, there is little the West can do about Iran's ongoing efforts to attain a bomb. Further, we will remain relatively helpless to roll back North Korea; while al Qaeda has not yet obtained a bomb, it is inevitable; the more shops that stock an item, the easier it becomes to buy one.
How does the Newsweek story and the riots, almost certainly pre-planned and ready to go, fit into this?
Bill Whittle has returned with a brilliant essay, Sanctuary, in which he describes in some detail the tactics of the fascists (Part 1 of the essay, especially). They abuse the notion of "sanctuary", the only thing that keeps war from degenerating into genocidal destruction. Sanctuary covers all those signifiers that separate soldiers from civilians and serve to protect innocent civilians. To the Islamic fascists, there are no innocent civilians, either Muslim or infidel. All are fair game. I would suggest to Bill Whittle and others, that the Islamists, in fact, see their tactics as a no-lose situation. If they succeed in feigning surrender, for instance, and then kill some additional infidels on their way to their 72 virgins, it is a great success. If they can evoke an over reaction from the opposition, with the help of our own media and its mutant offspring, al Jazeera, they can spread the images of the defilers around the Muslim world as a recruitment poster; an even greater success. Every Mosque attacked, every child injured, maimed or killed, every hospital or ambulance that they can induce us to attack is a victory. Our soldiers must walk a razor thin line to do their jobs, and thus far they have been remarkable, but...
The Muslim world, or at least the parts of the Muslim world that still operate on more primitive mental standards, has a particular template of us which offers a powerful weapon for the Isalmists. (I describe how mental templates influence our perceptions and thought in my earlier posts on Changes: Part I, Part IA, Part II, Part III.) Because of this template, the Muslim world is filled with rumor, paranoia, and conspiracy theories. David Brooks, the token Conservative on the New York Times, Op-Ed page wrote, in Bashing Newsweek, yesterday:
Maybe we should all focus on what's important. Newsweek's little item was seized and exploited by America's enemies in a way that was characteristically cynical, delusional and fascistic.
The people who seized upon this item, like the radical clerics in Afghanistan, are cynical in the way they manipulate episodes like this to whip up hatred and so magnify their own standing.
At the same time, they believe everything that could be alleged about America - and more. They've spent so many years inhabiting a delusional mental landscape filled with conspiracy theories and paranoia that you could drill deep into their minds without ever touching reality.
These conspiracy theories are all based on a fundamental belief, or template. They all agree that the United States is the Great Satan and Israel is the little Satan. Ayatollah Khomeini popularized this in the western media, but I believe most westerners treat the statement as if it were uttered by a westerner, that is, as if it is a hyperbolic metaphor. It is not a metaphor. Many in the Muslim world believe this statement to be literally true; we are the incarnations of Satan himself. The fate of the world then depends, just as literally, on Jihad. It is impossible for sophisticated westerners who believe in very little beyond themselves, to have any grasp of the power and significance of this statement. Tom Friedman, generally considered the most knowledgeable Westerner on the Middle East, at least among the cognoscenti of the liberal elites, wrote in his column, Outrage and Silence, yesterday, with some puzzlement, that the Muslim world has never condemned the desecration of Islam and the murder of Muslims when performed by Muslims:
Yet these mass murders - this desecration and dismemberment of real Muslims by other Muslims - have not prompted a single protest march anywhere in the Muslim world. And I have not read of a single fatwa issued by any Muslim cleric outside Iraq condemning these indiscriminate mass murders of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds by these jihadist suicide bombers, many of whom, according to a Washington Post report, are coming from Saudi Arabia.
Tom Friedman's problem is that he is a member of the Western elite and can not escape their mindset. He first demands:
And outside Iraq, the Bush team needs to be forcefully demanding that Saudi Arabia and other key Arab allies use their media, government and religious systems to denounce and delegitimize the despicable murder of Muslims by Muslims in Iraq.
And then, after thoroughly, missing the point that the war in Iraq is only part of a global war and that the Sunni v. Shia battle is always going to be secondary to the battle against the Great and Little Satan, comes up with a classically, wonderfully fatuous statement:
If the Arab world, its media and its spiritual leaders, came out and forcefully and repeatedly condemned those who mount these suicide attacks, and if credible Sunnis were given their fair share in the Iraqi government, I am certain a lot of this suicide bombing would stop, as happened with the Palestinians. Iraqi Sunnis would pass on the intelligence needed to prevent these attacks, and they would deny the suicide bombers the safe houses they need to succeed.
For the Arab world to forcefully and repeatedly condemn those who mount these suicide attacks would mean that the Arab world had already surrendered. You can not concede to Satan. It is not an option. For Westerners who don't believe in good and evil, but prefer to imagine a world where we can understand and redress their grievances and all will be well, this idea is unfathomable.
If the United States is the Great Satan and Israel is the Little Satan, memes that have been drilled into the heads of Arabs from early childhood, we can spend months and years building schools and hospitals and barely budge the template; and then it can all be undone in a moment by our media supplying the pictures of abu Graib (a relatively minor abuse by a bunch of out of control fools) or a Newsweek story of "Flushing Korans". Newsweek and CBS are infinitely more authoritative in the Arab world than al Jazeera.
Satan is a supernatural being. Recall the annoyance and disappointment (and rage) of the Iraqis when the American troops could not get the electricity to run 24 hours a day within mere days of liberating Iraq from Saddam. Supernatural creatures can perform magical, impossible feats, and that we did not do so was taken as proof of our perfidy. Much of the Islamic world believes that the United States and Israel (sometimes with Hindu India thrown into the mix) caused the Indonesian tsunami! We are giants, with God-like powers. When part of the MSM prints a story that supports their fevered paranoid fantasies and delusions, it is taken as authoritative because it comes from the land of Gods and giants. That is what Newsweek fails to see; that is what CBS doesn't grasp; that is what fools like Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid, who keep repeating their idiotic mantra that Bush lied, fail to see.
Iraq has been called a recruiting poster for al Qaeda. The fact is that Iraq has been an ongoing disaster for al Qaeda, but our "useful idiots" may yet turn it into a success. When al Qaeda rants that we are desecrating their holy Koran, it is easily dismissed; they hear this every day on al Jazeera. When Newsweek says it, it is taken as proof that it is true. It is not Iraq that recruits for al Qaeda; even bin Laden said that the Arab will follow the strong horse. No, it is our MSM, our foolish politicians who seem to think George Bush and the Republicans, who might change our judiciary and chip away at a 13 year old child's right to get an abortion in the 8th month without telling her parents, are the enemy. This is a war between civilization and darkness and they are helping the wrong side.
Bruce Thornton, writing on Victor Davis Hansen's blog, Private Papers, wrote yesterday, Suicidal Tendencies in the West, Tolerance unreciprocated leaves West vulnerable.
Meanwhile, in last Friday's sermon televised on Palestinian Authority television the paid employee of the PA described the Jews as an AIDS-like virus responsible for all the world's evils, blamed their economic sabotage of Germany for the Holocaust, and predicted the future triumph of Islam over America, a time when "everything will be relieved of the Jews, even the stones and trees." Yes, this is the same Palestinian Authority whose elected leader, himself a published Holocaust denier, will soon visit the President of the United States and whose organization will receive millions of taxpayer dollars.
Anyone familiar with the history of Islam and its 14-centuries-long violent jihad against the West and the Jews will not be surprised or shocked by these events. They express perfectly the arrogant intolerance of a religion convinced it has been chosen by God to rule the world, and so is justified in using every means, whether violence or propaganda, to fulfill that divine mandate. As the final and complete revelation of the divine, Islam feels no need to respect or tolerate other religions or secular notions like "human rights," for they are all the detritus of infidel history to be swept away in the final triumph of the one true religion.
al Qaeda knows that if they can evoke, or create, a significant enough outrage by America, amplified by the Western suicidal MSM, politicians, and academic elites, the resulting passion in the Islamic world can be used to foment global Jihad. How long can Pervez Musharraf survive if CBS, Newsweek, the New York Times run non-stop, 24 hours stories of a real desecration of Islam? They have done their best to manufacture stories out of abu Graib and the "Flushing Koran"; they are doing their part, almost as if they are following bin Laden's script. Can any of us know where the "tipping point" lies?
Every editor, every director, every politician should be required to read Wretchard's The Three Conjectures. He suggests:
Conjecture 1: Terrorism has lowered the nuclear threshold
Conjecture 2: Attaining WMDs will destroy Islam
Conjecture 3: The War on Terror is the 'Golden Hour' -- the final chance
I would suggest that the Islamists do not agree with Conjecture 2. I would go further and suggest they would welcome the destruction of civilization that would follow a nuclear exchange with the Great and Little Satans. We desperately need our MSM to stop doing their recruiting for them; if we fail in Iraq, the war will not be over, and the next phase will likely be bloodier and more horrific.
Recent Comments