snip
To picture the jihadists and leaders of the Islamic State as mere “terrorists” or thugs is to use Western political terms to blind ourselves to the religious dynamism of this movement. No wonder our leaders cannot or will not understand it. This purpose, when successful, is a terrible thing.
snip
Briefly put, Islam, in its founding, is intended to be, literally, the world religion. Nothing else has any standing in comparison. It is to bring the whole world to worship Allah according to the canons of the Qur’an.
Ping!
Think Crusade!
When a people become too civilized to do what's necessary to survive in an uncivilized world, they won't survive, nor do they deserve to survive.
Only a blind fool would answer in the negative.
bkmk for later
A good article but it fails to mention one important thing, that is, that Islam itself is divided. There is a great rift in the religion itself and for many centuries the largest number of victims of violence from Islam have been other Muslims.
If they were to unite (as ISIS proposes ... again at the point of a sword) they would be a great threat to the West.
But until they do unite, they are not a great threat. Sure, one side of each sect can cause a lot of damage and death ... but nothing on the scale of what ISIS intends to bring upon other Muslims who they consider to be not of the “true faith”.
Therefore, they must defeat, completely subdue and dominate and then and force into service their own ‘muslim infidels’ FIRST before they can begin on a quest to do the same to non-muslim infidels.
I propose that they will have great difficulty doing this as it has never been done over many centuries but not for lack of trying. Many millions have been slain, maimed, brought into slavery to those ends but still, no success in getting a “one true Islam” amongst themselves.
In the meantime while they are busy trying to unite all Muslims (and slaughtering many in the process), why get in their way?
This seems like the most stupid tactical error that can be made ... to cut short one’s enemy from destroying itself.
This is essentially what we are have been doing in the ME since Bush I went in to ‘help’ the Kuwaitis (who were ever so ungrateful for us sparing them from Sadaam). I realize we had other geo-strategic reasons for doing so ... but still, why would we bother to save the Kuwaitis from Sadaam? Even if it is only in hindsight, we must acknowledge now that was a stupid move.
Long term I’d like to see us wait until our enemy kills more of our enemies because this will mean fewer people for us to deal with later.
Let’s defend our own territories in the West but do not waste precious lives, equipment, assets and money protecting Muslims from Muslims. This just makes no sense whatsoever.
Reinforcing the idea we must kill them (islamists) all.
I take it seriously, but I’m not sure that our president and staff do.
Very refreshing.
It seems so hopeless for the rest of the world to deal with this "religion" in any kind of truly lasting, successful way.
The only solution I see is for God (the real God) to pulverize Allah (the very idea of Allah), and for all the Muslims to be converted to Christianity.
(Pray without ceasing...)
BTTT. This is a seminal article. I thought about it a lot over the last day.
Recommended for general knowledge of the enemy, of which there is little that is useful. This one is good.
We have to first name, then understand, then destroy this enemy.
When the Japanese soldiers took St. Stephen's hospital in Hong Kong, they killed and mutilated the bodies of the doctors, bayoneted the patients, and gang-raped the nurses. They did the same at the Alexandra Hospital in Singapore, except they made the nurses clean up the blood and guts of the murdered patients before they gang-raped them.
Japan used the tactic of terror to great effect as they swept through China, Malaya, Burma, and Indonesia. Yet, it was unnecessary to coin a replacement term for "enemy soldiers". Similarly, as the Red Army butchered and raped their way across Eastern Germany, again using the tactic of terror to great effect, no one thought in necessary to say that the retreating German forces were "fighting terror". Our soldiers and marines were spared the need to inflict terror on Japanese civilians at bayonet point, mostly because we had two buckets of sunshine we could drop from 40 000 feet.
My point is that the ability and the willingness to inflict terror upon the enemy soldiers is intrinsic to military success, as so eloquently described in the following passage:
"we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we've got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun c***suckers by the bushel-f***ing-basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts...."
We are in a war with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. They are using soldiers in an unusual, unconventional way. But soldiers they are. Thinking of them instead as "terrorists" is preventing us from making and executing a war plan to bring victory.
And, Mark, PLEASE stop the "Islamonazi" stuff. German National Socialism was an artefact of late modernity. It is no coincidence that the early "postmodernists" like Paul DeMan and Martin Heidegger, who inspired Derrida and Foucault were Nazis.
Islam, Islamic warriors, and Islamic terror have their roots in the seventh century. Other than alliances of convenience in the 1930s and early 1940s, Naziism and Islam have zero to do with each other. Each is sui generis, and Islam has been immeasurably more persistent, and more successful, than German National Socialism.
bttt