Posted on 10/01/2005 7:43:47 AM PDT by Mount Athos
IN the past 12 months, influential Islamist jihadist websites have carried an increased discussion on the ethics and strategy of using weapons of mass destruction as part of the global terror campaign. In the week when state and federal governments in Australia have announced tougher rules to monitor and restrict possible and suspected terrorists, we have to take this discussion very seriously.
The Western policy-makers who deal with this do so cautiously. Virtually nobody in authority is being alarmist. But it is the WMD, especially the nuclear, dimension that raises terrorism from the spectrum of gruesome criminality through sustained insurgency and up to genuine strategic threat.
In an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal two weeks ago Prime Minister John Howard, in expressing bitter disappointment at the UN's failure to do anything serious about nuclear non-proliferation, noted that "al-Qa'ida has made no secret of its ambitions to acquire -- and to use -- WMD".
The authoritative discussion of this option among several key religious figures in the global jihadist network should give us serious pause. Former foreign minister Gareth Evans, now head of the International Crisis Group, while acknowledging the real dangers, was this week urging caution and restraint in our response to terrorism.
But his words on nuclear terrorism were sobering: "We know very well how limited our capacity is, and always will be, to deny access to terrorist groups to chemical and especially biological weapons. But the same is true of nuclear weapons."
He spoke of the "stockpiles of fissile material that litter the landscape of the former Soviet Russia, and after the exposure in Pakistan we know far more than we did about the global market for nuclear technology, materials and expertise, and all of it is alarming ... the level of technical sophistication required to make a nuclear explosive device is certainly above the backyard level but it is not beyond competent professionals ... and there is enough [highly enriched] uranium and plutonium lying around now to make some 240,000 such weapons. Much of it -- particularly in Russia -- is not just poorly but appallingly guarded."
In a new volume, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, published by the Hudson Institution, Reuven Paz of the Israeli Herzliya Centre for the Study of Terrorism, examines several definitive discussions and religious rulings on the use of WMDs in jihadist websites.
Again, Paz is not remotely alarmist. He notes the technical difficulty for terrorists in using nuclear weapons and the relatively small number of such discussions in the jihadist world. Nonetheless, they are disturbing.
In 2003 Saudi Sheikh Naser bin Hamad al-Fahd published the first fatwa on the use of nuclear weapons (he is now in jail in Saudi Arabia). Al-Fahd wrote: "If the Muslims could defeat the infidels only by using these kinds of weapons, it is allowed to use them, even if they kill all."
In a highly significant move, he later published a long, theological defence, citing all the relevant Islamic authorities and providing the kind of scholarly argument for his position that is so important to the committed jihadist. He discounted international law as this was not part of Islamic law. He argued that the US had used WMDs in the past and it and its allies possessed WMDs. He argued, with many recondite references, that Muslims were enjoined to act to the full limit of their ability and this logically necessitated the use of WMDs. His justification covered the general question of using WMDs and the specific case of using them now against the US.
As Paz comments: "Were any Islamist group planning to use WMDs, they have now received the necessary endorsement to do so from an Islamic point of view."
More recently, in December last year, Abu Mus'ab al-Suri, a former leading theorist of al-Qa'ida, published two documents on the "Islamist Global Resistance". He argues that using WMDs is the only way for jihadists to fight the West on equal terms and even goes so far as to urge Iran and North Korea to keep developing their nuclear weapons, seeing them as potential allies. This is particularly surprising as North Korea and Iran are generally regarded as infidel regimes. Their mention in this context demonstrates the flexibility and operational pragmatism even of global jihadism's theoreticians.
He even criticises the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US for not using WMDs, and comments: "If I were consulted in the case of that operation I would advise the use of planes from outside the US that would carry WMDs. Hitting the US with WMDs was and is still very complicated. Yet it is possible after all, with Allah's help, and more important than being possible, it is vital ... the Muslim resistance elements [must] seriously consider this difficult yet vital direction."
He is sceptical of the ultimate strategic value of continued guerilla operations in Iraq, believing they will not inflict a severe enough blow on the US.
He therefore writes: "The ultimate choice is the destruction of the US by operations of strategic symmetry through weapons of mass destruction, namely nuclear, chemical, or biological means, if the mujaheddin can achieve it with the help of those who possess them or through buying them."
Most of this discussion focuses on the US as the ultimate target. However, other nations in the West are routinely mentioned and in many cases secular Muslim regimes are demonised. While naturally what one may call the theoretical discussions of the jihadists focus on the US, it is clear that Australia, along with countless other nations, is a target.
Global jihadism is truly protean; it keeps changing into something new. Suicide terrorism has been a devastating and effective tactic, as well as a kind of quasi-ideology of its own. But there is no reason to think it is the end point of terrorist evolution.
None of this means nuclear terrorism is just around the corner. But these sorts of discussions have been pivotal to the development of terrorist tactics in the past. That they are now concerning themselves with nuclear terrorism in such a considered and comprehensive fashion commands our closest attention.
Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorist groups in the world, and will soon have nuclear weapons. What will civilization be like when Iran's proxy terrorists use these nukes one after another?
How does "mutually assured destruction" work against people who believe that dying while trying to mass murder as many innocents as possible is the surest way to heaven?
How does "mutually assured destruction" work against people who believe that dying while trying to mass murder as many innocents as possible is the surest way to heaven?
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It doesn't. You HAVE TO GET THEM before they get you. End of discussion....
== How does "mutually assured destruction" work against people who believe that dying while trying to mass murder as many innocents as possible is the surest way to heaven? ==
Don't make it "mutual".
How about "You blow up one US city, and we will destroy every one of your cities". Decimation!
Jihadist getting nuclear weapons and using them isn't anywhere near MAD. The 1st time they use 1 or more means the war on terror will come to a very abrupt end and they will be on the losing end.
The way it works is that we're going to blow up the countries that they live in if they do it. That gives those countries an incentive to stop them.
Of course, it doesn't appear to be working yet.
"The ultimate choice is the destruction of the US by operations of strategic symmetry through weapons of mass destruction, namely nuclear, chemical, or biological means, if the mujaheddin can achieve it with the help of those who possess them or through buying them."
Extermination seems to be the only viable approach.
Their leadership generally does not subscribe to that philosophy.
One thing I've also noticed is that Islamokazis generally go for an instantaneous and thus relatively painless death: bombs and the occasional plane crash.
Arab Muslims may not fear death, but they do try to avoid pain and humiliation. This may suggest an approach.
As far as Islamists getting nukes, Wretchard over at Belmont Club blob had a convincing argument about how the US response would have no choice in how to respond
The so-called strengths of Islamic terrorism: fanatical intent; lack of a centralized leadership; absence of a final authority and cellular structure guarantee uncontrollable escalation once the nuclear threshold is crossed. Therefore the 'rational' American response to the initiation of terrorist WMD attack would be all out retaliation from the outset.I would encourage people to look at the article. Essentially, once Islamists have WMD capability, and the ability to continue WMD attacks indefinitely, the US has two choices: surrender, or the complete and total extermination of Islam
You are right there are things they "value".
One thing I have noticed was that when all the shooting is about to start, the higher ups move their many wives and children to a location away from the battle, if they can afford to do so.
So, no matter how zombie-like these Islamofacists are they have some feeling for immediate family.
That's why complete annihilation maybe something they understand and want to avoid.
If the American people feel that the total extermination of Islam is too distasteful and option to even consider, then we will go the way of the Do Do bird.
A people must either do what is necessary to survive or they will not survive, nor do they deserve to survive.
I wish I could believe that. Frankly, the PC crowd has such a long track record of ignoring reality that its hard see them coming to their senses, even if the Jihadists used nukes on us. My money is that they would wring their hands over the destruction, BUT would keep right on jabbering about how racial profiling, military trials, and forced deportation is STILL the greater evil.
More likely, in such a scenario, the more sensible elements of society would have to declare marshal law and throw both the Jihadists and the Leftists into detention camps. When it comes down to raw survival, both groups are dangers to our society in their own way.
The true heads of Islamic terrorism are the wealthy individuals who comprise the Golden Cahin. They are the money men who finance it all. Eliminate the money men, and it all withers and blows away. The problem is that the money men include members of the Saudi royal family, as well as prominent members of the ruling class of other OPEC members. A midnight flight of B2 bombers lobbing JDAMs thru the bedroom windows of these money men, in Saudi, Oman, Kuwait, etc, would communicate that there would be no sanctuary for them
This attitude would change once two or more American cities are lost to nukes
Negotiation implies rationality. Islamo-fascists are totally insane and must be obliterated.
Fanciful concepts that apply to "civilized factions" have no relevance. Other notions like "strategic symmetry" that describe insane annhilation are useless.
Criminality on the scale of Islamo-terrorism deserves commensurate total and final elimination with not one iota of negotiation. The fact of this response can be the only deterrent if anything can be.
ADD: The "golden chain" is the key fact that drives this issue.
'If I can't have it, nobody can.'
Spoken like a true spoiled brat. This certainly proves that there is still a mind-set in this world shared by millions that has not risen even to the threshhold of conscious awareness, let alone, human.
Isn't it time to subdue the beast? Separate the wheat from the chaff? Take the loaded pistol from the monkey's hand?
I'm afraid the money men and leadership may be just as insane as the suicide bombers. I can't see any of these Jihad supporters coming to their senses. Seems to me they are all potential suicidal-homicidal maniacs. Maybe there are some rational people in power over there, but I haven't seen any evidence of such.
Seems likely the total destruction of Islam will be the end game.
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