The Most Enduring Legacy Of Nazi Hate

April 23, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Book Review, History, Islam, Islam and the West, Israel and Palestinians, Middle East, Presidents, U.S. History, UK Politics, War on Terror | 6 Comments 

On February 1, 1944, two unlikely allies in the United States Senate—Robert Wagner (D-New York) and Robert Taft (R-Ohio)—introduced a resolution that caused shockwaves around the globe. Their initiative advocated American support for “free and unlimited entry of Jews into Palestine for the creation of a Jewish commonwealth.” This was a bold move and one that put the Roosevelt administration on the spot.

Nearly five years earlier, the British government had released a White Paper on the issue of Palestine—one that largely abandoned the Jewish people in that region. Since the 1917 Balfour Declaration and during the period of the British Mandate they had been largely supportive of Jewish migration to Palestine and the idea of a Jewish state there. In essence, the White Paper changed all of that. It advocated severe limitations on Jewish immigration to Palestine—this at a time when European anti-Semitism was reaching critical mass.

The gang in Berlin was pleased.

Interestingly, at the time of that 1939 White Paper, two men who would later strongly support the creation of the modern state of Israel saw things differently. Winston Churchill spoke to the House of Commons on May 22, 1939 “as one intimately and responsibly concerned in the earlier states of our Palestine policy,” and insisted that he would not “stand by and see the solemn engagements into which Britain has entered before the world set aside.”
And here at home, Senator Harry S. Truman from Missouri—who had no clue at the time that he’d be a major player on the world stage in a few years–also issued a forthright condemnation that was inserted into the Congressional Record:

Mr. President, the British Government has used its diplomatic umbrella again,(this being an unmistakable dig at Neville Chamberlain) …this time on Palestine. It has made a scrap of paper out of Lord Balfour’s promise to the Jews. It has just added another to the long list of surrenders to the Axis powers.

But instead of embracing the ideas put forth by Taft and Wagner in 1944, the White House, State Department, and other powerful entities in the government pulled out all the stops to make sure that the idea of proposing a homeland in Palestine for Jews went away. They did this even though they knew very well about the ongoing mass extermination of European Jews at the hands of the Nazis.

The standard answer to the obvious question as to why the Holocaust evoked little official response from our government until near the end of the war has been to cite “isolationism,” or “economic Depression,” or “xenophobia” in our nation. Presumably, the idea of doing anything overtly “pro-Jewish” was politically untenable—so goes the argument.

But a closer look reveals something else going on at the time—and ever since.

The most lasting legacy of the toxins that created an epochal global conflict is the fact that elements of Nazism in many ways survive to this day in Islamism. The short-sightedness of FDR’s cronies was corrected in part by his successor, a man of courage who chose to recognize the new State of Israel eleven minutes after its birth in May of 1948. But the question remains: Why did FDR and company not get on the bandwagon, even while millions of Jews were being slaughtered?

Sadly, the real reason has a lot to do with U.S. surrender to Nazi propaganda—its power and content.

Largely overlooked or dismissed in the years since is the fact that the Nazi propaganda machine, the distortion factory that shaped attitudes in Germany throughout the duration of the infamous Third Reich, had its most lasting impact far away from the boroughs and beer halls of Deutschland. In fact, Hitler’s nightmarish vision of ridding Europe of Jews was only the beginning of what he wanted to do—he wanted to extend The Final Solution to Palestine.

And he had been preparing the hearts and minds of the Muslim world for many years.

Jeffrey Herf, a professor of history at the University of Maryland, has written an eye-opening book about the effectiveness of Nazi ideas in the Middle East during the Second World War called, “Nazi Propaganda For The Arab World.” In it, he describes the Nazi campaign for the minds and hearts of the Arab world in great detail—particularly the Axis radio programs that ran in Arabic around the clock from late 1939 until March of 1945.

These broadcasts spewed venomous anti-Semitism and pushed every demagogic button imaginable. They were also highly effective. In fact, long after the last vestige of Nazi rhetoric faded from consciousness in Europe, the poisonous seeds planted back then are still bearing deadly fruit.
The mind-set that gave way to the Third Reich is very much alive and well in the Muslim world of the Middle East.

When those two senatorial strange-bedfellows offered their visionary resolution in 1944 about a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the “Axis Broadcasts in Arabic” were way ahead of the story. Mr. Herf has accessed a significant cache of transcripts and leaflets produced by the Nazis during the war—materials that have not been adequately examined—until now.

So back in 1944, any hopes a couple of well-intentioned voices in Washington might have had to garner widespread national support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine were dashed by forces largely influenced by the hate-speak of Nazi propagandists. Berlin, broadcasting in Arabic, referred to Taft and Wagner as “criminal American senators,” while announcing, “a great tragedy is about to be unfolded, a great massacre, another turbulent war is about to start in the Arab countries.”

And in phraseology that sounds eerily familiar to what we still regularly hear from Islamists, the Nazis described the stakes as kill or be killed:

Arabs and Moslems, sons of the East, this menace threatens your very lives, endangers your beliefs and aims at your wealth. No trace of you will remain. Your doom is sealed. It were better if the earth opened and engulfed everybody; it were better if the skies fell upon us, bringing havoc and destruction; all this, rather than the sun of Islam should set and the Koran perish…Stir up wars and revolutions, stand fast against the aggressors, let your hearts, afire with faith, burst asunder! Advance your armies and drive out the menace.

Bear in mind that this is a Nazi broadcast to the Arab/Muslims in Palestine. Of course, the relationship between Hitler and Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti in Jerusalem, is well known and documented (see my article: “Hitler’s Favorite Jihadist”), but the broadcasts from Berlin to Palestine are just now beginning to be examined. And what is being found is further evidence that to refer to Islamists as Nazi or Fascist-like is no smear—or stretch.

The rhetoric broadcast to the Middle East 70 years ago is still being noised about—and even more pervasively and effectively. Back then, the attitudes it reinforced, complete with distortion, hate, and prejudice, caused U.S. officials, from FDR on down, to “go wobbly”—as Margaret Thatcher would say.

It is sadly clear that the most lasting impact of the Nazi propaganda machine is that murderous ideas espoused back then are alive and well in our day and age and still being used to threaten and kill Jews—while nouveau wobblers turn away.

A Establishment Clause For All

April 18, 2010 by David Emig | Filed Under Barack Obama, Ethics, Faith, Holidays, Islam, Politics, Religion, Supreme Court, U.S. History, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” 

Amendment One, United States Constitution.  The quoted passage is the Establishment Clause.  The intent of the Framers is to provide the American people the right to practice their own religious beliefs – but also the right of citizens to be free from religion if they so choose.  This is the foundation of one of the cornerstone of our democracy.  It was explained in a letter to the Danbery Baptist Association in 1802.  President Thomas Jefferson writes: “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”  In 1812, John Adams wrote, “Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion.”  Over a half a century later, Ulysses S. Grant stated, “Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.”

The recent federal district decision in Freedom from Religion, et al. vs. Obama, et al. is an important one.  It is the reminder that the government should represent all Americans regardless of religious belief or non-belief, and that the Constitution protects everyone’s rights.  Clearly, the National Day of Prayer promotes the Judeo-Christian practices and beliefs.  It is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution, and runs counter to the concept of the separation of church and state supported by Thomas Jefferson.  Over the last half century, the American legal system has endeavored to be neutral regarding endorsement of religion.  Decisions such as Freedom from Religion, are in keeping with these legal precedents established by the Court.

The National Day of Prayer was established in 1952.  Billy Graham, the most respected and popular evangelicals of his era inspired the legislation.  During a six-week evangelical crusade in Washington DC, Rev. Graham spoke about how America had “dropped our pilot, the Lord Jesus Christ, and are sailing blindly on without divine chart or compass, hoping somehow to find our desired haven.  We have certain leaders who are rank materialists, they do not recognize God nor care for Him; they spend their time in one round of parties after another.  The Capital City of our Nation can have a great spiritual awakening, thousands coming to Jesus Christ, but certain leaders have not lifted on eyebrow, nor raised a finger, nor show the slightest bit of concern….  Ladies and gentlemen, I warn you, if this state of affairs continues, the end of course is national shipwreck and ruin.”

In response to this dire religious threat, both houses of Congress introduced legislation to proclaim a National Day of Prayer.  Representative Percy Priest in introducing the legislation said that the country “had been challenged yesterday by the suggestion made on the east steps of the Capitol by Billy Graham that the Congress call the President for the proclamation of a prayer.”  The Senator introducing the bill in the Senate, Absalom Robertson (who was the father to Rev. Pat Robertson) stated that the measure was “against the corrosive forces of communism which seek simultaneously to destroy our democratic way of life and the faith in an Almighty God on which it is based.”

In 1988, Congress revisited the National Day of Prayer proclamation to specify a specific day.  This is so the faithful could better organize events.  This also placed the National Day of Prayer on another plateau, along such days as Mother’s Day, or Thomas Jefferson’s Birthday.  Senator Strom Thurmond thought having a day set for the National Day of Prayer would help because, “a date that changes each year, it is difficult for religious groups to give advance notice to the many citizens who would like to make plans for their church and community. Maximum participation in the public knowledge of this event could be achieved, if, in addition to its being proclaimed annually, it were established as a specific, annual, calendar day.”  {See Freedom of Religion v. Obama, p. 9.}  Codification of a day in federal law would then assist the legislative intent by the government sponsored opportunity of better organization and a larger turn out.

The legislative intent of the National Day of Prayer was underscored by Sen. Jesse Helms who said, “America must return to the spiritual source of her greatness and reclaim her religious heritage. Our prayer should be that—like the Old Testament nation of Israel—Americans would once again ‘humble themselves, and pray, and seek God’s face, and turn from [our] wicked ways’ so that God in heaven will hear and forgive our sins and heal our land.” {See Freedom of Religion v. Obama, p. 9.}  Obviously, the legislative effect that the Congress was seeking was the promotion of the Judeo-Christian faith exclusively. 

There were no calls to include other faiths in the legislation, or the actual implementation.  Indeed the ruling in Freedom of Religion documents several incidents of those Christians to wish to claim the National Day of Prayer as their own.   Examples like a coordinator in Bakersfield stating that “”[t]he National Day of Prayer is actually all about the Lord.  So we’re representing the Christian community.” See “The Bakersfield Californian” May 1, 2008.  Or local groups complaining in Tennessee that the National Day of Prayer “mak[es] members of minority religions feel that unless they adhere to Christianity they are unpatriotic.” See “Memphis Commercial Appeal”, May 1, 2008.  Or in Illinois, organizers of a event being criticized after saying that the event is “only about Jesus and Jesus the Savior alone”; although they had “no problems having [members of other religions] participate, though not in speaking roles.” See “Springfield State-Journal Register,” April 30, 2006. Or finally an example in Utah, where a Mormon reader “didn’t think [she] was allowed to participate” because she “pray[s} to the wrong God.” See “Deseret Morning News,” October 20, 2009. {See Freedom of Religion v. Obama, pp. 57-59 for entire list.} 

Justice Blackmum (RN appointee) might have shed some additional light on this when he wrote in a concurring opinion: “The mixing of government and religion can be a threat to free government, even if no one is forced to participate. When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion, it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs.”  Lee vs. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, at 606, (1992).  Justice O’Connor in County of Allegheny v. ACLU Greater Pittsburgh Chapter (1989) writes, “government cannot endorse the religious practices and beliefs of some citizens without sending a clear message to nonadherents that they are outsiders or less than full members of the political community.”  492 U.S. 573, at 627.  {Quoted from Freedom of Religion, p. 20.}.

For those who believe that the National Day of Prayer is merely a proclaimation without force need to heed the words of Justice Kennedy.  “[T]he lesson that in the hands of government what might begin as a tolerant expression of religious views may end in a policy to indoctrinate and coerce.”  {Lee vs. Weisman at 591-592.}  This of course begs the question…what would a less tolerate government do with a National Day of Prayer?

This ruling by Judge Crabb is only the beginning of the process, that will ultimately take the case to the halls of the United States Supreme Court. The ruling in Freedom from Religion v. Obama he should not be seen as Judeo-Christian religion being relegated to “stepchild” status — (though atheists seem to be orphans in this society.)  It shouldn’t be misinterpreted as “the arrogant absurdity of a court.”  It isn’t code to ban religion.  The ruling is enforcement of the governmental ban against favoring one religion and faith over another.  It is against government sanction or encouragement that must be the responsibility of private churches and your private point of view.  This ruling is evidence that the United States Constitution protects all of our rights, believers and non-believers alike; from the potential theocratic tyranny of a government.  As the front of the Supreme Court building states…

“Equal Justice Under Law.”

A Vital Political Question For 2010

February 5, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Annals of the Obama Administration, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Intelligence, International Affairs, Iran, Islam, National Security, Obama administration, Political Philosophy, Presidents, Terrorism, War on Terror | 1 Comment 

In the waning days of the 1980 presidential campaign, Republican nominee Ronald Reagan used his allotted time in the closing moments of his only debate with President Jimmy Carter to ask a question. It was one of the most effective rhetorical devices in American history.

“Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”

Because most Americans answered a resounding “No” that night, Mr. Reagan was able to pull the line out again four years later, this time as President and against Walter Mondale, who ran a quixotic campaign to oust him. And Americans answered by electing Reagan to a second term.

Over the years, the question about being “better off” has been used to great affect by many politicians, including later aspirants to the White House. It became, in effect, a rhetorical trump card.

Now there is another question in the room—one that was asked, in a manner of speaking, during several recent special elections and will be commonplace this November as all of us go to the polls in the “off-year” ritual. The question is: “Are you safer than you were four years ago?”

It is hard to find anything about President Barack Obama’s first term—at least anything of substance—that can be realistically characterized as successful. And by successful, I mean accomplishing one’s stated goals. Whether it was the healthcare bridge too far, cap-and-trade, or dramatically improving the economy, this administration has simply not delivered on what it promised. Of course, in the area of national security they have tried to make good on pledges, but have found the resistance to every move to be surprising strong.

And one gets the feeling that not only did they not see failure coming in the euphoria of those early halcyon days in charge—but they really don’t have a clue as to where to go from here. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of national security and dealing with the very real threat of Islamist terror. And nowhere are the stakes any higher.

The other day, Leon Panetta, Director of CIA, in concert with other leaders in the national security community, told Congress that a terror attack (the indication being that this would be an attempt of significant magnitude) is likely during the next three to six months. It was also suggested that this warning is based, at least in part, on information gleaned from the man who tried to blow up an American airplane en route to Detroit on Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Presumably, this so-called “underwear-bomber” has been cooperating with authorities lately, following the intervention of some of his family from Nigeria, such intervention being prompted by FBI visits to that country.

With its too-sad-to-be-farcical “you-could-have-had-me-at-enemy-combatant” Miranda prolonged delay, this episode is in a real sense a window into the thinking—some would say, lack thereof—of the Obama administration on the whole issue of terror, Islamism, “detainees,” and national security. It seems that there is this naïve insistence on seeing and framing the issues as something nuanced—an almost “shirts versus skins” game—instead of a very grave matter of life and death.

A President is sworn to protect and defend the Constitution and by extension, therefore, those under its cover. The founders and framers did not fashion a document for global governance, nor did they seek to extend its protection beyond “we the people.” But these days we are witnessing the most ambitious attempt ever to broadly interpret its provisions.

On the domestic side, “we” the people is giving way to “for” the people, as those wiser-than-the-rest-of-us seek to “fundamentally transform” (to use Mr. Obama’s words) America. And when it comes to foreign policy and international issues, apparently now this new-improved understanding of our Constitution—one that makes Franklin Roosevelt look like a paleo-conservative in comparison—reads, “they” the people. It covers not only illegal aliens, but also non-U.S. citizen enemy combatants, giving them more rights than any of us would ever receive in some Islamist majority country.

“Are you safer than you were four years ago?”

Iran moves arrogantly and confidently forward to develop the materials and technology to soon become a nuclear power. Just the other day, its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, talked of delivering a blow to “global arrogance” as that nation marks the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution on February 11.

Sure we protest, but words from a teleprompter don’t make much impact on a man who thinks he gets his ideas directly from Allah. And at any rate—the whole first year of Mr. Obama’s administration and its mea culpa “we like you” overtures to the Islamic world, notwithstanding—there is no evidence that anyone who hated us when George W. Bush was in town, hates us any less now.

In fact, someone in the White House should take a look at something else the mahdaviatist President of Iran said the other day in that same speech:

“If the Islamic Revolution had not occurred, liberalism and Marxism would have crushed all human dignity in their power-seeking and money-grubbing claws. Nothing would have remained of human and spiritual principles.”

Did you see that? The enemy is “liberalism and Marxism.” So as the current administration tries to pursue some kind of rapprochement with Iran and other Islamist nations, while at the same time trying orchestrate a decidedly more liberal agenda domestically—one that smacks of “Marxist” thinking at many turns—something ironic is happening. The new “good guys” who tell us that America is now going be loved more around the world because bad old George Bush and the cranky conservatives are gone, have missed a key plot-point: Islamists hate democratic liberalism—with its socialist vision—even more than they hate militaristic neo-conservatism.

Oops.

Of course, I hope and pray that we are spared any such terror attack this, or any, year. And I pray that there remains a sufficient remnant of discerning men and women in key areas of expertise and responsibility across the land, people who have not bowed the knee to the Baal of liberal statism and diplomatic naïveté, in place to forestall such a disaster.

But I must admit, there seems to be an inexplicable zeitgeist, combining lackadaisical apathy with arrogance that makes me feel anything but safe.

Someone talked to me recently about how, if we are attacked, people will rally around our new president like they did George W. Bush in 2001. I countered that I wasn’t so sure. That was a different time—before we really knew what terrorism meant on these shores. Post game analysis back then revealed so many areas of weakness leading to that dreadful day of terror on Sept. 11.

If such a thing, or anything similar, were to happen these days, I am not sure that those in charge now would get the kind of good will that translates into a political pass—or future.

Buck Or Hot Potato?

January 8, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, History, Intelligence, International Affairs, Islam, National Security, Nixon Administration, Obama administration, Presidential libraries, Presidents, Terrorism, U.S. History, War on Terror, economy | 3 Comments 

In the old West, when the boys played poker at the saloon, or wherever, along with the cards, chips, money, and various beverages, the table was also adorned with a knife–one with a buckhorn handle. The knife was moved from place to place, depending on the person dealing. If a player didn’t feel like dealing the cards, he could pass the responsibility to the next guy, along with the knife.

It was called “passing the buck.”

The phrase is, of course, most commonly associated with President Harry Truman–in fact, his desk on display at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, has a famous sign bearing the words: “The Buck Stops Here.” One of his aides, Fred Canfil, had seen the phrase on a desk in El Reno, Oklahoma, and had the sign made for his boss. Interestingly, and largely lost to the legend according to biographer David McCullough, the 33rd President only kept the sign on his Oval Office desk for a short time while in the White House.

But the metaphor stuck.

It has been used by leaders–particularly presidents–ever since as the ultimate way of saying: “I’m in charge, it’s my responsibility.” Most recently, the phrase was brought out of White House mothballs and used by President Barack Obama in remarks about the Christmas Day 2009 foiled Islamist terrorist attack.

It remains to be seen whether or not the latest pronouncement about the proverbial buck will be remembered as Truman-esque, or more like the nervous stammer of Alexander Haig the day President Reagan was shot. I believe the President said the right things the other day–but will he and his administration really follow through, taking steps, making the tough calls, and keeping the issue of Islamist terror on their political radar screen?

A good indicator would be the willingness to call it what it is. We are not just fighting Al Qaeda as some kind of generic syndicate of bad guys, as with The Man From Uncle and “THRUSH” or Maxwell Smart’s “KAOS.” There is no way for us to win over an ideology, while being afraid or hesitant to call it what it is: Islamism.

To my mind, Mr. Obama is still not comfortable in his role as Commander-in-Chief, with its implied responsibilities of protecting the nation from “all enemies, foreign and domestic.” He is now saying many of the right things, but I wonder if his vocabulary and America’s dictionary are in sync? He forms phrases now like “we are at war” – but I can’t help but get the feeling that this is based more on manufactured energy than real passion. Does the President view what happened on Christmas and the whole megilla of security, intelligence, and such as important as, say, the economy, healthcare, and jobs?

In fairness, most presidents bring dreams to the job. Lyndon Johnson wanted to build a Great Society and Richard Nixon wanted to focus on foreign affairs, but both had to contend more than they would have liked with their less-favored part of the domestic-international presidential paradigm. Bill Clinton wanted it all to be about “the economy, stupid.” But the first priority of any president is to keep us safe so we can actually have an economy.

A strong sense of national security is, in itself, a potent economic stimulus.

Only time will tell if the new-found-but-pretty-darn-late war-speak (better: war-whisper) will really be about the buck stopping with the President, or mere words.

After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, President Kennedy faced the press and talked about victory having many “fathers,” but defeat being an “orphan.” He also acknowledged that he was “the responsible officer” in the government. It was, as was Mr. Obama’s recent admission, a statement of the obvious.

But accepting responsibility as a leader does not abrogate systemic culpability.

The old 1970s sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, had a character named Lou Grant (played by Ed Asner)–an irascible man who ran a newsroom. Mary’s boss once said: “Leadership is the art of delegating blame.” Actually, good leadership is somewhere between taking full blame and delegating it all away. Where there are mistakes there is blame to be found. To miss this is to ignore a vital piece of the puzzle preventing something else bad from happening.

Frankly, what needs to happen throughout the government is for various leaders in key areas to think about letting the buck stay with them for a while. When a president has to say “The Buck Stops Here,” it is at least a tacit acknowledgement that the buck has been aggressively mobile.

I think the buck stops every bit as much with Attorney General Eric Holder, as it does with the President. After all, haven’t we been given the impression that the whole send-the-Gitmo-gangsters-to-New York idea is really his and the President is above it all? Or does that buck make its way to Mr. Obama’s desk, too?

And how about Dennis Blair, our Director of National Security (DNI–one of the dumbest ideas to come out of the Bush administration)? Following Mr. Obama’s speech on Thursday, he issued a statement saying, in part:

The Intelligence Community has made considerable progress in developing collection and analysis capabilities and improving collaboration, but we need to strengthen our ability to stop new tactics such as the efforts of individual suicide terrorists. The threat has evolved, and we need to anticipate new kinds of attacks and improve our ability to stay ahead of them and protect America.

We can and we must outthink, outwork and defeat the enemy’s new ideas. The Intelligence Community will do that as directed by the President, working closely with our nation’s entire national security team.

Really? What has the guy been working on up to now–health care reform?

One of two things has been happening, as clearly indicated by the foiled Christmas Day Islamist terror attack: either subordinates are keeping bad or inconvenient details from the President of the United States, or the information has not, until now, been marked or received with requisite urgency. Whatever the case, heads should roll. Blair’s words are akin to those uttered by an erudition-challenged player after a football game, “Well, we needed to score more points to win.” Duh.

There really is no buck to pass in the Obama administration when it comes to National Security, there is only a hot potato few want to deal with or even acknowledge. Attorney General Holder, Janet Napolitano, and so many others in key roles these days have regularly dismissed or minimized the danger of our times, while forging ahead with the even-more-now absurd sending of Gitmo detainees back to Yemen (6 on December 20th), and making sure that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (pronounced: Abdulmutallab) is told he has the right to remain silent and to the full protection of the American justice system, as opposed to being treated as he should be: as an enemy combatant.

Sure, the President of the United States made a speech and said many of the right things, but what we need to figure out is if what we are really bearing witness to is a dynamic described to reporters by Former Attorney John Mitchell, back in 1969: “Watch what we do, not what we say.”

The Fertile Crescent

November 13, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Cold War, Culture, Domestic issues, Economic issues, Ethics, Faith, History, Islam, Islam and the West, Military, National Security, Religion, Terrorism, War on Terror | 2 Comments 

Every time I read, view, or hear the latest attempt to portray Nidal Malik Hasan as a “loner” or “victim of racism” or “psychotic” – or (this may be my favorite) someone suffering from something called “PRE-traumatic stress disorder,” I am torn between the desire to scream or laugh. My internal conflict increases when I hear Chicago Mayor Daley suggest the problem is that Americans love guns too much.

And then there’s the granddaddy of all recent rhetorical absurdities when Army Chief of Staff, Gen. George Casey uttered the incredibly clueless thought: “What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here.”

Can someone explain to me how the death of 14 (one of the victims was pregnant) can be trumped by the importance of a particular political agenda? The General should include a very real apology in his resignation letter.

It would be funny if not for the fact that it is all so dangerously sad. As I take it all in, it’s like the ghost of Groucho Marx is sitting on one of my shoulders making me smile at the outrageousness of such comments with his famous, “Who are you going to believe? Me? Or your own eyes?” This is all balanced by the difficult to ignore presence of the ghost of Gen. George S. Patton, who sits on the other shoulder and regularly fills that ear (this would be the right ear, by the way – in every sense of that word) with words I am not completely able to translate in this column.

Psychologists use the term “denial” to describe a way some people interpret reality. This manifests itself in denying something ever actually happened, or that it happened but it wasn’t to big of a deal (the “isolated event” approach), or even in something called “projection” which admits that something has indeed happened, but deflects blame and responsibility. We are a nation in official and pervasive denial.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis (c. 1962), if an American soldier would have opened fire on his comrades while wearing a Che Guevera T-shirt and yelling, “Long Live Lenin, Khruschev, and Castro,” it is doubtful that the guy’s communist sympathies would have been dismissed as irrelevant and peripheral. The commies were the enemy. And, if an investigation into his background would have yielded clues to his political feelings and fanaticism, there is no doubt that the case would have been a slam-dunk. And those who should have picked up on his radicalism before the awful fact would have been held accountable.

In fact, if some white-hooded fool were to open fire on a group today in the name of a fiery cross and a virulent racist perversion of certain passages in the Christian Bible, it is unlikely that such a terrorist would have any apologists reluctant to tie what he did to what he believed. Religious violence, be it of the cross or crescent, is always worthy of condemnation and contempt.

But when it comes to Islamism, the various contortions some use to distance what a Jihadist did from the ideology that so-obviously informed his actions are very difficult to watch.

Of course, I very much understand the complexities of this issue. We are a free society and among the most precious of those freedoms is that of religion. But as with another vital right – the freedom of speech – there are clear limits. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater. And religious liberty notwithstanding, you cannot advocate the violent overturning of our constitutional way of life in this country in the name of any God.

Anyone, therefore, who embraces Sharia law and believes that it should become the code of a new America, should be disqualified from serving in the military. At any rate – how can they really take the required oath? Clearly one day long ago, the Fort Hood terrorist said:

I, Nidal Malik Hasan, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

We are told “officially” that there are 3,572 Muslims in our military ranks. Although it’s interesting to note that The American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council has that number much higher, in fact, four times higher – at more than 15,000. What do they know that those in the barracks don’t?

Some might want to counter that bad things have been done – violently so – in this country and the world throughout history, in the name of my religion – Christianity. And, sadly, I must confess that this has been the case, on occasion. But it has never been the norm. And those who do such stuff certainly don’t get their instructions from Christian doctrine.

To get from the teachings of Jesus to murderous evil requires a tortured, twisted, ignorant, and monumentally long journey. Yes, people have done bad things in Christ’s name – but in doing so they have, in effect, denied him.

Some ideologies, however, are much more friendly to the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. For example, when it comes to economic theory, you are hard pressed to find any possible pathway from Milton Friedman’s monetary ideas to killing a bunch of people. On the other hand, when you take a look at the writings of Karl Marx (no relation to Groucho), history has shown that the distance from theory to bloodshed is not all that far. In fact, Marxism and violence are close cousins because you really have to force people to turn from self-interest – all for their own good, of course.

The thing that too many in our nation are simply ignoring is that when it comes to Islam, as opposed to any other religious idea extant, the journey from ideology to what happened at Fort Hood is also not a very long one. For any Christian to become so radicalized as to open fire people in the name of his or her religion would require a virtual repudiation of the faith. Could it happen? Sure – anything can happen. And if it did, the mainstream media in this country would have no qualms about wrapping the deed around the doctrine.

But the quantifiable fact is that such things really don’t happen with Christians the way they do with Muslims. And even when certain violent acts by professed Christians, such as the killing of a doctor who has performed abortions, make the news, usually among the first and loudest expressions of condemnation and outrage are from Christians.

Does anyone hear all that many Muslim voices condemning Hasan?

Much has been made of the fact that the Fort Hood Jihadist/Terrorist was harassed for his beliefs. First, let me be clear – I think it is wrong, un-American, and certainly un-Christian to at all persecute someone for what is believed and practiced in the context of our Constitutional freedoms. And when it comes to Christians – who have known the pain of persecution throughout the centuries – there is no Biblical mandate for a follower of Jesus to ever persecute another human being. If fact, in our way of thinking, and from the wonderful Jewish scriptures that inform our faith, we are ever admonished to love neighbor as self.

The Christian response to persecution is never to be that of reactive violence. The Apostle Peter gave instruction near the end of his life on this matter:

Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.’ But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. – I Peter 3:13-16 (NIV)

Gentleness, respect, hope, and love – these are the watchwords of the follower of Jesus. But there is no “turn the other cheek” stuff in Islam. And at some point people in this country need to stop ignoring the obvious.

So I respect my Muslim neighbors and want them to be treated justly. This means, when there is peace, community, love of law, love of country, all will be well. And when these values are violently violated there must be justice of another kind – to punish evil, especially the egregious wickedness of terrorist murder.

But I also, taking another cue from Jesus, must be “wise as a serpent,” and this means I need to be aware that certain ideologies are more fertile when it comes to hate and violence. And, like it or not, they – and those who espouse such teachings – need to be watched very carefully.

Too many people have been looking the other way in America. It’s time to focus.

The November Chronicles

November 6, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Cold War, Europe, History, International Affairs, Iran, Islam, Obama administration, Political Philosophy, Terrorism, U.S. History, War on Terror | Leave a Comment 

Mark Twain often suggested that history doesn’t always repeat itself, “but it does rhyme.” This chronological cadence is particularly true when you note some of the key events in the past century that happened in early November.

November 7, 1917 was when the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, unleashing a still too-often ignored and dismissed era of tyranny and terror (the idea of an “October Revolution” has to do with the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars). Long since discredited by the verdict of history, the ideas that formed the basis of what Ronald Reagan aptly called an “evil empire,” have found new adherents – some in high places in our land. But ignorant neo-Marxists in our midst notwithstanding, the reality of what took place under the czars-of-all-things-Soviet for more than seven decades was horrifying.

Much is rightly made of the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Germany and we are regularly reminded that we must never forget. I agree. But while remembering all the depravity wrought by Hitler and his henchman, why do Communist leaders and regimes so often get a pass these days? Even by conservative accounts, more than 100 million people died via Communist oppression. Yet some apparently feel that the ideas behind the system are somehow still valid. Really?

Fast forward to November 4, 1956, and see Soviet tanks penetrating the Pest side of the Danube in Budapest, Hungary, in their offensive to put down a nationwide revolt against the so-called Peoples Republic of Hungary. Brave patriots sought to wrest control of their nation from the grip of Soviet-style Stalinism.

Meanwhile, America stood sadly down. The great General, who had led the allies to victory 11 years before, sent mixed signals. Freedom fighters were emboldened by what we were saying on Radio Free Europe, but the official policy turned out to be nothing more than impotent ambivalence. Within days, the courageous movement was crushed.

Speaking of the 4th day in November and presidential impotence, let us now move ahead to the year 1979 – the moment Iranian “revolutionaries” seized control of our embassy in Tehran, initiating a 444-day Hell for 52 American hostages. This was the moment when many average Americans first came face to face with the ugly egregiousness of Islamism. Jimmy Carter lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in those days, but his presidency would languish due to lack of foresight, insufficient resolve, and malaise-driven methodology.

Exactly one year later – yep, you got it – right smack dab on November 4, 1980, Ronald Wilson Reagan trounced Mr. Carter, who vainly sought re-election, with the networks calling the race even before many Americans had voted. The hostages would thereafter celebrate the very moment of Reagan’s inauguration the following January 20th as their moment of liberation. Clearly, the nuts running the show in Tehran had the requisite lucidity to know that they did not want to deal with the Gipper.

Another November 4th, this one in 1989, saw a crowd of nearly 1,000,000 people cram Alexanderplatz in East Berlin, rallying for freedom. This would lead in less than a week to something for many years thought to be unthinkable – the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. A little more than two years earlier, that same Ronald Reagan had challenged his Soviet counterpart-though-no-real-match, Mikhail Gorbachev, to “tear down this wall.” Those words penetrated hearts, minds, not to mention concrete that day, leading to the barrier’s ultimate demise as a metaphor.

Eventually, we came to yet another November 4th – this one in 2008, with Barack Obama’s election as U.S. President, an event that to many heralded a whole new world to come. But the “change we can believe” soon began to appear more and more like an awkward combination of antiquated socialism and naïve geopolitics. Frank Gaffney, president of The Center for Security Policy in Washington, suggests that the “Obama Doctrine” can be summed up in nine words: “Undermine our allies. Embolden our enemies. Diminish our country.”

You see, the toxins of Lenin’s bunch in 1917, and those of the gang in Tehran in 1980, share common and deadly DNA. To miss this leads to the very real potential for unparalleled peril.

Once we had leaders who instinctively understood the danger of sinister ideology. Now, all evidence seems to indicate that people in key roles overestimate Marxism and underestimate Islamism. The welfare state, once nearly dismantled after we had apparently learned its dark lessons, is now expanding exponentially once again with a vengeance. Our government preaches stimulation, but practices hegemony. Mr. Reagan always reminded us about the virtue of creating wealth. Mr. Obama seems dead set on redistributing it.

And this Monday, November 9th, on the 20th anniversary of the day Reagan’s instruction about that wicked wall was enthusiastically followed by a Berlin crowd, our new president will be a no-show. He has nothing against speeches in Berlin. Been there; done that. It’s not the venue that makes him uncomfortable. It’s the message.

When the wall came tumbling down, it was the most dramatic demonstration of the inherent bankruptcy of the ideas of Marx in actual practice. Sure, the doctrine promises hope, change, and the idea that human self-interest will one day “wither away,” but it has never really delivered – simply because it can’t. Harvard professor Richard Pipes has suggested the Soviet system collapsed because of “the utopian nature of its objectives.”

And when it comes to Islamism, the continued and persistent minimizing of its threat is not only misguided, it approaches political malpractice. The president, this past November 4th, reached out to Tehran seeking “a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based on mutual interests and mutual respect.” In response, leaders there vow to continue to show “unquenchable anger against the Great Satan.”

That, by the way, is how a clenched fist responds to an extended hand.

So here we are in another November in time and a 39-year old Army major – a psychiatrist and lifelong Muslim – climbs onto a table crying, “Allahu Akbar,” and opens fire on fellow-soldiers. Many die, while others cling to life. But will anything be learned?

It seems that the history of the past 100 years has been, in many ways, a battle of Novembers. At times, tyranny has temporarily triumphed; at other times freedom’s flag has flown. Yes, Mark Twain said that history could rhyme. But often these rhymes – so simple and clear – come across as riddles to those who are apparently determined to miss the obvious.

For You TNN Early Birds

August 4, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Islam, Islam and the West, Terrorism, War on Terror | Leave a Comment 

I will be on FOX & FRIENDS, on the FOX NEWS CHANNEL, tomorrow (Wednesday) morning at approximately 6:50 a.m. (eastern) to talk about issues related to the subject of a recent column I wrote about the expansion of a Saudi-funded school in Fairfax County. 

Support Your Local Sharia

July 31, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Book Review, Cold War, Europe, Immigration, Islam, Islam and the West, Religion, Terrorism, War on Terror | 2 Comments 

It is pretty clear at this point that barring some kind of last minute reality check the Fairfax County (Virginia) Board of Supervisors will approve the Islamic Saudi Academy’s application for a special exemption this Monday, August 3rd.   This will enable the Saudi-funded madrasa to expand and plant even deeper roots in America’s backyard, teaching in the anti-democratic traditions of wahhabism.

It will happen despite the fact that neighboring home owners associations are opposed, the land use and legal issues argue against the school and would have been a death knell to any other application, and the academy in question has on many occasions failed to honor previous county agreements, not to mention state law.  

Oh, and the wise ones on the panel defiantly refuse to factor in the fact that the Saudi curriculum taught at ISA is filled with hateful things that most Americans would find repugnant – even dangerous.   We’re not talking about mere religious ideas.  What has been taught there in the past should have caused the powers that be to shut the place down years ago.

Interestingly, just a few days ago one of the academy’s past students – in fact, a former valedictorian and a young man voted “most likely to be martyred” (really) named Ahmed Omar Abu Ali – was resentenced to life in prison for plotting with al-Qaeda and trying to kill President George W. Bush.  As the cool song says: “I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way.”  He graduated in 1999, bounced around for a bit and wound up in Saudi Arabia in 2002.

In his written confession, Abu Ali said: “It was decided that I would go [to the United States] and live a normal life [overtly] to keep attention away from me, marry a Christian woman, and at the same time I would prepare as best I could for operations.”  If all this seems decidedly inconsistent for someone who practices a religion of virtue and peace, bear in mind that there is an Islamic doctrine called taqiyya.  What it basically means is that deceit is a legitimate weapon when dealing with infidels (read: “We the People”).

Grasping the fact that our determined enemies will at times use monumental deceit to further their cause is imperative right now.   The members of the Fairfax County panel seem oblivious to this. More than a quarter of a century ago the board of supervisors denied a similar application by a Christian school, citing traffic concerns.   Of course, the traffic is much better now.  Right.

“I cannot put the safety of the American citizenry at risk,” said U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, when he handed down Abu Ali’s sentence.  Good call, your honor.  Now, would you ever consider becoming a county supervisor? 

Christopher Caldwell, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, has written a book called, Reflections On The Revolution In Europe.  In it he notes: “In the middle of the 20th century, there were virtually no Muslims in Western Europe.  At the turn of the 21st century, there were between 15 and 17 million.”  Now in many major European cities the most common baby names Mohamed, Ayoub, Hamza, etc.

He suggests that these Muslims have not assimilated, but rather have formed “a parallel society.”  And they are bringing anti-Semitism back big time.

“Imagine that the West,” Caldwell writes, “at the height of the Cold War, had received a mass inflow of immigrants from Communist countries who were ambivalent about which side they supported.  Something similar is taking place now.”

And it’s not just happening over there.

The expansion of the Islamic Saudi Academy may not seem to be that big of a deal to some and certainly the members of the board of supervisors see no threat in allowing them to get a better foothold.   But such things are, in fact, part of a pattern of denial and outright stupidity on the part of people who should be intelligent enough to know better. 

Convinced, though, of the liberal notion of “enlightened tolerance,” such political leaders are playing a dangerous game of mindless appeasement.   There is a growing subculture in this country, a network of nefarious groups sharing a common theo-political vision for taking over everything.  Operating under the aegis of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and so many others, they all say one thing, while doing another.  

Ignore what they say; watch what they do.

Their unmistakable goal is the dominance of Sharia-law in this country – the world for that matter.   In other words, they envision a political overthrow and remaking of everything we know, love, and hold dear as Americans.  And they are using the Bill of Rights and opportunities created by a systemic decrease in vigilance to gain ground toward their objective. 

I believe in the Christian faith.  I therefore do not believe in the tenets of Islam.  Nor am I into Buddhist doctrine.   I do, though, believe in religious liberty and free speech.  But what we are seeing is a case where religious liberty and free speech have become weapons in the hands of would-be terrorists and tyrants.  

I will defend with all my heart the right of any Muslim to pray and live according to the precepts of that faith.  I will also do all in my power to bear witness about Christianity in the free marketplace of ideas.  But if anyone, in the name of religion, or under its cloak, seeks the overthrow of the very system that grants us those freedoms, that’s where the line is drawn. 

Free speech ends with the cry of fire in a crowded theater.   Religious freedom ends when there is deception en route to coercion that would ultimately lead to an end of liberty for all.   And no municipality or government entity should deliberately ignore the toxicity of certain ideas that would undermine the Constitution.
 
What if the Ku Klux Klan wanted to put a school in Fairfax County?  How about if Kim Jong-il decided to put a nice North Korean institution in our backyard – fully funded?   I imagine such enterprises would not even get a hearing.   Why then the Saudis?  The wahhabism taught at the Islamic Saudi Academy should be every bit as objectionable to freedom-loving Americans as what some other enemy might espouse.  

But some might ask: What about “moderate” Muslims?   Well, as Bruce Bawer points out in his book, Surrender: Appeasing Islam – Sacrificing Freedom, “that while there are such things has moderate and liberal Christianity, there is no such thing as a moderate or liberal Islam.  Yes, there are millions of good-hearted individuals who identify themselves as Muslims and who have no enmity in their hearts for their non-Muslim neighbors and coworkers.  Some of these Muslims are religiously observant, some are not; but their moderation is not an attribute of the brand of Islam to which they officially subscribed but is, rather, a measure of their own individual character.” 

In other words, their moderation comes not from a particular interpretation or variant, but rather “they have chosen to put a certain distance between their own religious thought and practice and the strict tenets of institutional Islam.”

Those of us in Fairfax who oppose the expansion of the Islamic Saudi Academy will likely have to concede defeat this Monday. But in doing so we will long remember – at least until the next county election – where the supervisors stood on the issue.   Stay tuned.

It appears that many liberal-minded types want us to be more like Europe and their views may be ascendant these days, but those who see European-socialistic-democracy as a model for our future should pay attention to how it is being threatened by an enemy within. 

As Mr. Caldwell says in his new book about what is happening there, “When an insecure, malleable, relativistic culture (Europe’s) meets a culture that is anchored, confident, and strengthened by common doctrines (Islam’s) it is generally the former than changes to suit the latter.”

 

The County And The School Of Hate

July 10, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under History, Islam, Islam and the West, National Security, Religion, Terrorism, War on Terror | 2 Comments 

Last month, a Saudi Arabian man named Raed Abdul-Rahman Al-Saif, placed three bags on the Tampa, Florida airport security conveyor belt as he made his way toward his gate to board US Airways flight 1077 to Phoenix, Arizona and Portland, Oregon. He never made it to the gate.

A Transportation Security Administration representative saw something on his screen that made him curious. Upon further investigation, TSA officers found a knife “artfully concealed between the outside fabric and the expandable pull handles of the bag.” This bag, by the way, would have been easily accessed by Al-Saif had he made it on his flight.

It was a butcher knife.

It turns out that he has been living in the U.S. illegally for a while and had been previously arrested on drug-related charges and for driving without a license. He had been a student at the University of Tampa, but was dismissed this past May due to poor academic performance. Word is, though, that he was a much better student back in high school. In fairness, that likely had to do with where he went to school and what he was learning.

Raed Al-Saif is a 2003 graduate of the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), the same institution that gave us the likes of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was the school’s valedictorian in 1999. If that name rings a bell, it’s because he’s the guy who was convicted in 2005 on charges that included “providing material resources to Al-Qaeda” and “conspiracy to assassinate President George W. Bush.”

Then there were Mohammed Osam Idris and Mohammed el Yacoubi, both former ISA students, who were denied entrance to Israel in 2001. It turns out that they had written farewell letters before the trip for some kind of “suicide mission in the name of jihad.” And, let’s not forget Mr. Abdall I Al-Shabran, the ISA director who was arrested last year for failing to report child abuse.

Islamic Saudi Academy operates under the direct authority of the Saudi embassy, one of 20 or so such institutions around the world. It is also funded by the Saudi government and uses Saudi government “curriculum, syllabus, and materials.”

It is also virtually in my backyard – at least part of it. And they want to grow, that is, if the Fairfax County Government Planning Commission continues down its current path of blind accommodation and politically correct assuagement.

There is another meeting on the subject this Monday, July 13th at the county government center, and it should prove to be interesting. Last March, a handful of concerned citizens tried to speak over the disconcerting protests of about 600 ISA supporters. The few brave souls argued against a “special exemption” to zoning regulations that would allow “for the building of an expansion to the Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax.” By the way, the school now operates on property leased directly from the county.

As the pastor of a church in Fairfax County, and having for many of those years managed a private Christian School in the area, I can speak first-hand about how difficult it usually is to navigate the processes of county government here on behalf of a religious institution. But in the case of ISA, there appears to be an almost fawning and subservient approach on the part of many county leaders. Perhaps they are afraid of being politically incorrect. Perhaps they are just afraid.

Most likely, however – they are simply naïve.

Some of those arrayed against ISA are doing so simply out of concerns about traffic and other logistics on a particularly picturesque stretch of Popes Head Road. But most opponents are involved because they see ISA as a training institution for Wahhabism, an ultra-dogmatic and extreme form of Islam. They see ISA as “a hate training academy.” One detractor has said of the school: “We feel that it is in reality a madrassa, a training place for young impressionable Muslim students in some of the most extreme and most fanatical teachings of Islam.”

Of course, one of the great challenges when dealing with issues like this is to think and work through it in the context of religious liberty and tolerance. But what happens when our best intentions to preach freedom and tolerance wind up being used as a cover for something more sinister – even deadly?

The Nazis twisted a cross and developed a quasi-religious cult, but such a group would be hard pressed to lease property directly from any county in America. Hitler and his henchmen, by the way, came to power in Germany by using their constitution, then once in power they shelved it.

The Ku Klux Klan used a fiery cross as its symbol of hate and preached a sordid synthesis of misapplied Christianity and mysticism. But the religious element of it all was clearly a cover story. Are Islamists today using our Bill of Rights as a weapon against us en route toward the goal of a nation governed by Muslims, Islam, and Muslim law?

The answer appears to be all too clear – at least for those who are really watching.

Islam may indeed be one of the world’s three great monotheistic religions, but Islamism is better compared to Nazism and the Klan in a religious sense, not to Judaism and Christianity in general. Are there fanatical people who hate in the name of Christianity and Judaism? Probably, but they would be statistically insignificant and considered criminally insane. Not so, when you compare Islam itself with Islamism.

Daniel Pipes is a widely read expert on the threat of radical Islam. He is a director of the Middle East Forum and calculates that, “10 to 15 percent of Muslims worldwide support militant Islam.” Let’s do the math: Estimates of the global Muslim population range between 1.3 and 1.6 billion – roughly one in five human beings. This means, if Pipes is right (and it is possible his estimates may be on the conservative side) – that there may be between 130 and 240 million people in the world who, in the name of Islam, hate America. These are the people who had a party on that sad September day seven years ago.

By the way, the total combined population of an earlier axis of evil enemies – Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan in September of 1939 – was approximately 194 million. That’s total – as in every man, woman, and child.

How about the statistics right here in the U.S.? Well again, the estimates are all over the place, but it is generally accepted that between three and five million of our neighbors are Muslim. Applying the Pipes formula to here at home, we come up with the potential for anywhere between 300,000 and 1,200,000 people in this country who may be less-than-enamored of the rest of us. Or worse, some may be longing for the day when the fruited plain becomes a Muslim caliphate.

At what point, if ever, will some Americans awaken to the idea that a fair amount of what is passed off as Islam is, in fact, a cloak of unrighteousness – designed to use the guise of religion to gain cultural and ultimately political hegemony here?

Sure, not all Muslims are advocates of the kind of hate that would overthrow a government and superimpose Sharia-rule over the rest of us. But the evidence is growing that the number of Islamists in the Islamic fold is significant. And the battles are now being fought with the issues blurred.

What is needed now in America more than ever is an emergent group of leaders who are discerning – people who are wide awake to the threat from within.

Before The Dust Settles

June 11, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Iran, Islam, Middle East | Leave a Comment 

Iranians will go to the polls tomorrow, but not before street backed rallies for incumbent Mahmoud Ahemdinejad and challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi:

Nixon Went To Cairo First

June 5, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, International Affairs, Islam, Middle East, Richard Nixon | 4 Comments 

President Nixon pictured with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in a motorcade in Cairo in June 1974.

President Barack Obama was received in adulation on the heels of his much-anticipated speech to the “Muslim world” at Cairo University Thursday. President Obama follows a succession of presidents to visit Cairo, but administration officials and the President’s supporters are calling his speech an innovative break with conventional Middle East policy. Slate’s Fred Kaplan called the speech “impressive,” Mother Jones’ David Corn called it a “tour de force,” Talking Points Memo’s M.J. Rosenberg called it the “antithesis of colonial” and therefore a “profoundly different American voice.”

But the Cairo visit and innovation in Middle East policy are hardly unique to Obama’s position in presidential history. Richard Nixon started this diplomatic tradition 35 years ago.

In his post-presidential memoirs, President Nixon said that Egypt is “the key to the Arab world.” The 37th president arrived in Cairo on June 12,1974 after extensive preparations and tactful “shuttle diplomacy” by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger with Arab and Israeli leaders. Greeted at the capitol’s airport by President Anwar Sadat and his wife, a Time article published less than two weeks later called the arrival a “triumph of sorts” with the “huzzas and hosannas” falling “like sweet rain.”  Nixon was overwhelmed describing that he received the “the most tumultuous welcome any American President has received anywhere in the world.” Over a million packed the streets and city squares, holding signs that read “We Trust Nixon” chanting “Nik-son, Nik-son, Nik-son.” The Time article quotes DePaul law school’s Cherif Bassiouni – an Egyptian and international legal scholar – on Nixon’s visit and the Arab penchant for personal charm: “gestures reflect emotions, and to the Arab psyche such gestures have a greater impact than anything else the U.S. could have done.”

Nixon went on to visit Saudi Arabia, Syria, Israel and Jordan unapologetically conferring American prestige and power over the Middle East peace process.

According to historian and newly nominated Israeli Ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, author of Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to Present, the Nixon-Kissinger diplomatic strategy for Arab-Israeli peace was based on the more pertinent concern for “Cold War exigencies.” The “subordinate” conflict in the Middle East would therefore be “embarked on a proactive and calculating course.” Nixon described his goal in contrast with the Soviets: “We want peace. They want the Middle East.”

Accordingly, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat — because of his displeasure with Soviet avarice — was eager to re-enter the American fold.  Reciprocally, Nixon wanted to strengthen Sadat’s position and influence in Middle East negotiations. Sadat would ultimately re-open the Suez Canal and recognize its borders with Israel. To the pleasure of the United States, Sadat also expelled 15,000 Soviet agents.

Nixon’s approach to the Middle East peace process would thus be multi-lateral. His memoirs note in conversations with Israelis he expressed “sympathy for their military needs” but he also recognized the exigent circumstances for a stable and permanent peace with the Arabs. In Nixon’s mind, the surrounding Arab majority was like a hydra that would overcome their failures in the 1967 Six-Day War and “would learn to fight.”

Nixon and Kissinger believed that the alliance with Israel was a positive relationship that gave America a cooperative ally — in exchange for security guarantees — in negotiations with the Arabs. According to Oren, though the Soviets could endlessly supply Israel’s enemies, America had the authority and trust from Israelis to gain peace for what the Arab states wanted: the territories captured in the 1967 war.

In Cold War terms, previous American relations with Israel also had their negative effects. The Time article notes Abba Eban, then Israel’s foreign minister as saying that the relationship was essentially a “see saw” effect that “if you go up with Israel, you go down with the Arabs.” With Nixon, Eban saw the “see saw” rising in a “spectacular paradox” that didn’t see one-side’s gain as another’s loss.

After Egypt, Nixon landed in Saudi Arabia where he met with the ardently anti-Communist King Faisal. Similar to today’s circumstances, the Saudis weren’t directly involved with negotiations, but according to Nixon, Faisal’s prestige and treasure were pivotal “in maintaining the momentum towards peace” because of the country’s impact on oil prices and the aid dispersed to Israel’s enemies in the 1973 Yom Kippur War: Egypt and Syria.

During his visit to Damascus, the Syrians greeted the President with open arms back-dropped by “American flags flying for the first time in seven years.”  According to Nixon, Syrian President Hafez Assad took the hardest line in public, but the diplomatic overtures made by Kissinger and the President in light of Syrian and Egyptian disaffection with the Soviets neutralized the anti-American tone throughout the country. Though the peace was far from perfect, Syrian-Israeli disengagement following the 1973 war lead to a cease-fire based on UN Resolution 338. At the conclusion of the President’s visit, Nixon and Assad announced a “resumption of diplomatic relations.”

Unlike Obama, Nixon’s overtures to the Arab world couldn’t have been made without visiting America’s most reliable ally in the region: Israel. There Nixon re-assured Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin that he “would not waver” in his support for “Israel’s security.” But in a formal toast to Israel’s then retired Prime Minister Golda Meir, the President advocated for a non-military solution. For “Israel’s survival,”  Nixon contended  “the way of statesmanship” not “continuous war” would lead to the desired outcome of “a permanent, just, and durable peace.”

Nixon’s final stop in Jordan was capped and symbolized by his words to King Hussein: “I do not tell you where this journey will end. I cannot tell you when it will end. The important thing is that it has begun.”

Like the challenges Nixon faced in the Middle East in the backdrop of the Cold War, America currently faces challenges to its global power. President Obama is a skilled politician and orator whose recent gestures to the Middle East may prove fruitful. But he is also tasked with somewhat of an unprecedented burden in winding down two insurgencies, dealing with a nuclear-armed North Korea, and preventing a nuclear armed Iran. Add to this heap a global economic crisis, and the economic and political costs of not conferring American power and prestige become quite steeper. With that said, the costs of unleashing this burden are even higher.

To Nixon the recent events would be an awesome responsibility and the greatest honor history can bestow: “the title of peacemaker.”

Heilbrunn: Iran Might Be Obama’s Nixon In China Moment

May 12, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, International Affairs, Iran, Islam, Obama administration | 1 Comment 

National Interest Senior Editor Jacob Heilbrunn believes that if Obama made a historic trip to Iran it would probably unsettle the Mullahs:

What might really shake up conservatives, however, is an accommodation with Iran. Iran’s release of Roxana Saberi indicates that the regime may be preparing for real talks with the Obama administration. Any modus vivendi, particularly on the issue of nuclear arms, will require patience, but what if Obama ends up next year in Tehran, feted by adoring crowds, much as Richard M. Nixon headed to China? With his charisma and preternatural calm, Obama might unsettle the mullahs as much as he does American conservatives—not to mention Benjamin Netanyahu who’s visiting Egypt before he heads to Washington on May 18, in the hopes of creating an anti-Iran alliance. If Obama succeeds in restoring relations, maybe he’ll even name Colin Powell ambassador to Iran.

Heilbrunn, like others, perplexes me on the “Nixon in China” analogy. Confusing because I always understood RN’s strategy as triangular diplomacy.

In talking with Ahmedinejad and the Mullahs could Obama balance off power and pressure a common enemy? Perhaps the Israelis, Egyptians, or the Lebanese? What — in mutual interest — could Obama offer Teheran? Their enemies’ collective neutralization in favor of  Hezbollah, takfirism, or a Shiite-style theocracy from Mesopotamia to the Levant?

I would have thought that the hostile regime determined to pursue nuclear technology would need the pressuring.

A Responsible Anti-Jihadism?

April 23, 2009 by Joshua Treviño | Filed Under Islam, Islam and the West | 2 Comments 

Better late than never:

“I don’t think there is an anti-jihadist movement anymore,” Johnson said. “It’s all a bunch of kooks. I’ve watch some people who I thought were reputable, and who I trusted, hook up with racists and Nazis. I see a lot of them promoting stories and causes that I think are completely nuts.”

Charles Johnson’s disenchantment with a movement he did much to create is more likely a function of his contrary nature than his active conscience, but it would be ungracious to pry overmuch. The sad truth is that the self-proclaimed anti-jihadists, as a group, have done a great deal to discredit themselves in the past decade.

The list of major sins looks something like this:

Enthusiastic and uncritical identification with right-wing politics and policies.

Inability to distinguish critiques of Islam from critiques of Muslims.

Willingness to associate with racists.

Credulity in subscribing to conspiracy theories. (Viz.)

Inability to formulate and advocate meaningful public policy.

In this light, the anti-jihad movement is something far less than a considered intellectual tendency. Instead, it is an attitude of inchoate belligerence, with its only consistent focal point being hatred of the Muslim. “The Muslim,” depending on what that means, may give one much to hate; but to hate him (and her) per se is to commit a grave error. The first and most compelling reason for this is, of course, that each individual (of any stripe) deserves to be judged as such. On a broader level, post-9/11 rhetoric and sentiment may be as they are — and I’ve indulged in both in full measure — but we are not in fact at actual war with Islam or Muslims at large. As such, to adopt a stance of conscious and deliberate hate is to indulge in the mental precursor of genuine and terrible crimes.

Whether we are at metaphorical war with Islam is a different question, and even an arguable one; but the effect of the war metaphor is, I believe, generally toxic — and even causative of the basic frivolity of the anti-jihadists. It should be enough to acknowledge that Islam in nearly every form contains within it certain doctrines and traditions inimical to our classical liberal traditions, our concepts of rights, and our assumed freedoms. (Indeed, I have reported on this threat firsthand.) This said, there are a number of things that do not follow from this understanding, including:

That any given Muslim is inimical to the same.

That Islam cannot exist within the context of the same.

That Islam must necessarily threaten the same.

That only Islam poses this manner of threat.

The anti-jihadist movement generally believes all of these propositions, and it is difficult to see that belief as anything but a lazy intellectual shortcut. From a plain movement standpoint, this is understandable: who wants to rally to the banner of, “Islam is deeply problematic, but not necessarily fatal?” Far better to guard the gates of Vienna, or shrug like Atlas, or stoke the fires of 9/12, or whatever last-stand-of-the-West rhetoric strikes one’s inner Charles Martel. This is the stuff of a short-term movement, and perhaps a stirring read, but it is not, to borrow a phrase, reality-based.

Lost in the shrill din of the anti-jihadists is the woeful truth that there is such a thing as jihad, and it does demand a policy response. What would responsible anti-jihadism look like? The wish list flows from the indictments:

It would embrace the whole of the political mainstream, as anti-Communism once did.

It would hold no animus for the individual Muslim.

It would reject all trafficking with racists.

It would reject conspiracy theories and anything too easily sliced by Occam’s razor.

It would seek the implementation of meaningful and realistic public policy.

The last point is perhaps the most important, from the pragmatic (though not the moral) standpoint. As a rule of thumb, the policy preferences of the anti-jihadists range from thoughtless support of neoconservatism at best, to strange and unworkable schemes of Muslim exclusion at worst. A basket of responsible anti-jihadist policy preferences might encompass human-rights advocacy in the Muslim world, support for liberal education, support for religious minorities, and similar measures. (I personally favor the conceptual approach of Georgetown’s Thomas Farr.) My intent here is not to imagine or present a full list of idealized preferences, but to illustrate possible alternatives, and to make a point: that responsible anti-jihadism requires more engagement with the Muslim world, not less.

If and when this responsible alternative emerges, it almost certainly won’t be called an anti-jihad movement. For now, that label is sullied by the “bunch of kooks” who took the notion and ran it into the ground. The irony is that in seeking to defend the West — or their idea of it — they have managed to discredit, with their immoderation and insensibility, what should be a given in our politics. That’s real damage that will be difficult to fix, and impossible to forgive.

Speak Softly And Carry A Big Schtick

April 9, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Barack Obama, Cold War, Europe, History, International Affairs, Islam, Terrorism, War on Terror | 2 Comments 

My wife and I have five wonderful grandchildren – four boys and a girl. We await the arrival of another grandson in a few weeks. Dealing with our children’s children is vastly different than what it was like raising our own – especially in the area of discipline. As parents, we tried various methods and tactics to effectively influence the behavior and mold the character of our kids.

As grandparents, we do nothing. It’s very cool.

Well, actually, there are times – occasionally – when I watch my wife attempt to muscle up and scold one of the grandkids. Me? I avoid such moments, usually by finding the most readily available refined sugar delivery mechanism. But once in a while the mother of my children tries to play tough with an errant grandchild.

It’s amusing to watch. Usually it starts with a warning: “Don’t do that.” Then, the always pointless counting, “one, two – I promise, I mean it – three, three and a half.” And it’s always the same – an exercise in familial futility.

Why? Because our brilliant (really, they are!) grandchildren simply don’t believe she has the resident resolve to actually follow through on a tough love tactic.

In a very real sense, this is similar to what we seem to be seeing and hearing these days from the new administration with respect to its foreign policy machinations. Gone are the days when the mantra “speak softly and carry a big stick” was the coin of America’s diplomatic realm. These famous words were first uttered by Theodore Roosevelt two weeks before he ascended to the presidency in the wake of the assassination of William McKinley. We speak softly these days, but there is no big stick.

The stick has been traded for schtick.

The new diplomacy, advanced at every stop on President Obama’s recent foreign tour, is about reaching out, waxing cathartic about America’s shortcomings, flattering Europe, and bowing toward the Muslim world. And when the nation-formerly-known-as-part-of-the-axis-of-evil defies us by lobbing a missile into the air and sea, our voice is slightly raised, but not too much.

Everything is being tempered by a new international ethic of “moral authority.” The idea is that if enough nations will say to naughty North Korea, “Shame on you,” Kim Jong il will get – as we say in church – “under conviction” and “repent” of his roguish sins. And the nations will sing with one voice the song Cum-bay-ah.

We can all then look forward to even bigger geopolitical goose bumps as we are led toward a brave new world.

The problem with all this, though, is that a “moral authority” approach to behavioral change only works when someone really wants to change. Trust me. Ask Dr. Phil. Moral instruction requires a teachable spirit and an open mind. No matter what the motives for the recent presidential “we”a culpa tour, there is simply no precedent for the idea that speaking softly will soothe the savage terrorist or that any of it will work.

Barack Obama is systematically dismantling a foreign policy that – though far from perfect – has kept us free and relatively safe. He is being more than simply “un”-Bush, he is taking advantage of this unique moment while our nation sleeps and moving us toward the kind of international socialist model so many in this country now seem to admire.

Europe has let us down again and again in the past decades, yet now we are apologizing for our “arrogance.” We are not against Islam is now the cry, and we are sorry for how “we” have misunderstood things in the past. America – instead of being the guardian of so much of the good stuff in the world, is now the perennial bad guy. We have grown accustomed to such criticism from adversaries and fair-weather allies in the past. Now we must learn to like it when these same thoughts are uttered from behind the presidential seal.

While I find the recent Europhilia annoying – even troubling – I am far more concerned about the administration’s body language, not to mention verbal language, toward the Muslim world. Mr. Obama is reaching out in ways that I’m sure are giving many Americans pause, even some who voted for him. He has been on a diplomatic fast track during these first hundred days of his term and we are seeing the world change before our very eyes. And not, I fear, for the better.

The recent selection of a new secretary-general for NATO this past week gives us a glimpse into how Mr. Obama will conduct foreign policy when Islam is a factor. Chosen as the new leader for the 60-year old alliance, one formed long ago when the world was emerging from its most devastating period of conflict only to find itself in the middle of another, was Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. But his selection was not without a measure of controversy. It took the intervention of President Obama to make it all work.

Turkey objected to Rasmussen. Why? Well, among other things, mainly for the fact that in 2006 he dared to speak out in favor of freedom of speech and the press during the uproar over a Danish newspaper’s publication of cartoon caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. You may recall that there was a global Muslim response to the cartoons – one that included the burning of embassies, storming buildings, and more than 100 deaths.

Bear in mind that NATO, its Cold War mission now history, is now largely focused on Islamism as an enemy. Nearly fifteen years ago, one leader of the strategic alliance said: “Islamist militancy has emerged as perhaps the single gravest threat to the NATO alliance and to Western security.”
Enter President Obama. Participating in a series of extensive and intensive negotiations, Mr. Obama gave “guarantees” that reportedly included one new NATO deputy would be from Turkey and that Turkish commanders would be “present” at the alliance’s command.

Daniel Pipes has written about this recently, asking the question: “Does Turkey Still Belong in NATO?” He suggests that the 28-nation organization faces “a completely novel problem – that of radical Islam, as represented by the Republic of Turkey, within its own ranks.” Pipes adds that NATO is becoming “an institution hobbled from within, incapable of standing up to the main strategic threat for fear of offending a member government.”

It seems long ago now, but it has really only been two months since Barack Obama sent a bronze bust of Winston Churchill – one that was the pride of George W. Bush – back to Great Britain. In light of what seems to be happening here and abroad however, that act may now be best seen not as a benign expression of decorative taste, but as a very, very red flag.

Moderate Taliban?

April 2, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, History, Islam, Obama administration, Richard Nixon, Terrorism, War on Terror | 4 Comments 

He was gearing up for just another day of hard work in a mundane job – but at least it was a job. And it happened to be at one of the most prestigious and famous restaurants in the world. In fact, it was on top of the world. Never mind that he didn’t have regular access to the spectacular views from the establishment that occupied the 106th and 107th floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, he could catch a glimpse here and there on his breaks.

On September 11, 2001 the sky was clear and the view was especially breathtaking. But the beauty of that scene would give way to an explosion of horror in a brief and life-shattering moment. Manuel Emilio Mejia – kitchen worker at the Windows on the World restaurant – would become a victim of mind-boggling terror. His friends and family would grieve and the nation would remember.

Then time would go by and, though those closest to him in life would never fade in their passionate memory of him, the nation would move on – not just to life as usual, but even toward an eventual awkward shift as patriotic fervor and a national sense of resolve morphed into ominous forgetfulness. Some even started to want to “reach out” to those who were responsible for Mejia’s tragic death, as well as nearly 2,800 others who died that fateful, but now long-gone-not-likely-to-happen-again-because-better-people-are-in-charge, day.

New York City’s medical examiner has announced that they have positively identified – via DNA technology – the remains of 54-year old Manuel Emilio Mejia. His name will be in the news for a few days as this announcement cycles through the media. But it will quickly fade into a footnote, because – you see – we are moving on, we are reaching out, we are charting a new course, and we are making the age-old mistake of every generation – by willfully forgetting the past.

The Greatest Generation never forgot Pearl Harbor. That’s one of the things that made them great.

These days – as we witness the spectacle of world leaders gathering in London and talking mostly about the economy – the war on terror is over as a nomenclature as if changing terminology can change reality. But there is a gigantic elephant in that G-20 room. So many of the nations represented have a persistent and growing “Muslim” problem. And it seems as if the so-called “best and brightest” of the most “progressive” nations simply insist on ignoring it.

Can anyone imagine any leader in, say, late 2001 or early 2002 talking about rapprochement with the radical Muslim world with political impunity? Yet here we are not even eight years out from unspeakable horror – with so many evidences since of foiled plots and sinister plans – ready to engage the enemy in ways suggesting he’s not so bad, after all.

Is anyone really noticing that President Obama is much more comfortable talking about his bona fides with the Islamic world as someone who seems to instinctively understand – than he was as Candidate Obama? Sometimes it’s subtle – as when he referred to Iran, in a legitimizing manner, as “The Islamic Republic of Iran” on March 19th – a far cry from the “axis of evil” rhetoric of his oft-ridiculed predecessor. Words are always code; listen carefully.

Of course, the most significant shift in body language, not to mention policy, by the new administration is in the idea of reaching out to the moderate Taliban to make some kind of deal. Or as I am tempted to refer to it: Operation Jumbo Shrimp – An Exercise in Oxymoronic Geopolitics.

Moderate Taliban?

Would FDR have reached out to moderate Nazis? Is it possible for a fanatic to be a-little-bit-pregnant with poisonous ideology?

History tells us that fanatical regimes have a field day with naïve adversaries. Neville Chamberlain comes to mind. He thought he could do business with Adolf Hitler and in doing so he gave away much of the European store.

Lyndon Johnson often lamented that if only he could sit down one on one with Ho Chi Minh, they could actualize the president’s favorite Bible passage from Isaiah, “Come now let us reason together.” Never mind that he always took that scripture out of context.

Sure, Richard Nixon used diplomacy and détente in his day, but it is important to understand context and nuance. As Nixon put it in his book, Leaders: Profiles and Reminiscences of Men Who Have Shaped the Modern World:

There are two kinds of détente: hard-headed and soft-headed. Hard-headed détente is based on effective deterrence. This kind of détente encourages the Soviets to negotiate, because it makes the cost of Soviet aggression too high. Soft-headed détente, by contrast, discourages negotiation, because it makes the cost of Soviet expansion so low that the Soviets find the rewards of aggression too tempting.

Hard-headed détente, backed by the force to make deterrence credible, preserves peace. Soft-headed détente invites either war or surrender without war. We need détente, but it must be the right kind of détente.

The idea of dealing with so-called moderate Taliban reminds me of a story from the 1920s in the immediate aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. In 1921, the Soviet Cheka (predecessor of the KGB and modern day FSB) created a fictitious movement known as The Trust (or Trest) and for more than half a decade this purported neo-monarchist organization wrought havoc on western intelligence operations.

The Cheka was a powerful weapon in the hands of Lenin and his gang as they imposed their will on the population and the military. Under the leadership of the infamous Felix Dzerzhinski, The Trust became a vital and effective counterintelligence operation. Using the name Monarchist Association of Central Russia, they targeted various “counterrevolutionary” elements inside Russia as well as in other countries, convincing them that their organization was a front for an effort to overthrow the Bolsheviks.

People tend to believe just what they want to believe so this initiative was highly successful. As they drew opponents of the regime into their web of deceit – boatloads of money and all – they had their enemies right in the line of fire.

Those pesky Commies sure didn’t play fair. They even lied. Can you imagine? Lying in the service of fanatical ideology? For some reason, the impressive sounding lies of fanatics seem to resonate with those who tend to underestimate the darker side of human nature. Later, under Stalin, the Soviets created a loose confederation of international groups under the banner of the Popular Front. This effort neutralized much opposition to emerging Soviet influence. It was all proven to be a fraud when the Soviets signed a non-aggression pact with the Nazis in August of 1939. Fanatics have a real problem with the truth and they don’t play fair.

Bummer, huh?

By now, many Americans are somewhat aware of the Islamic doctrine of Taqiyya – the idea that deceit is a legitimate weapon when dealing with infidels (read: “We the People”). Grasping the fact that our determined enemies will at times use monumental deceit to further their cause is vital right now. Yet, too many – especially those in key positions today – are willing to risk our future on better angels that simply don’t exist.

U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently offered Taliban fighters an “honorable form of reconciliation” and waxed philosophical about efforts to “separate the extremists of al Qaeda and the Taliban from those who have joined their ranks not out of conviction, but out of depression.” Apparently, their “depression” is now all better.

But what if – maybe, just maybe some of those who respond to the new Obama olive branch do so, say – deceptively (cue the scary music here)? It would be not only naïve to think this couldn’t happen; it would be downright dumb.

During the past 100 years we have lurched from one war to another, one ideological conflict to another, seldom really learning important lessons. The seeds of World War II were in the aftermath of its numerical predecessor. The Cold War grew out of mistakes and miscalculations from its forerunner. And the war we now fight – against a virulent ideology and determined enemy – though involving new weapons, still sees some of the old plays being run effectively by cynical adversaries.

It’s like we are Charlie Brown and our adversaries are Lucy holding the football just begging us to kick it – again.

The Indonesian Awakening And The Democracy Agenda

February 19, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Islam | Leave a Comment 

In January, non-clerical parties won an electoral landslide against Islamist parties in what was generally a bloodless day at the polls in Iraq. Ostensibly, what can now be seen as a stable Iraq was the culmination of the surge and an anti-extremist political awakening by local sheikhs throughout the country.

Could Iraq’s example promulgate an anti-extremist effect throughout the Islamic world? Indonesian polls might just be a strong indication to resemble an alternative world exemplified by their Mid-East counterpart.

On the heels of upcoming elections, polls in the most populous Muslim nation illustrate a strong showing for centrist parties, with local sharia administration on the decline:

That comes as a surprise to some. Five years ago, when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono became Indonesia’s first democratically elected leader, the nation was viewed by Western governments and analysts as similar to Pakistan—a place where extremist Islamists were gaining a stronghold.

At that time, homegrown terrorists in Indonesia were mounting attacks on hotels, embassies and nightclubs. Some local governments had begun passing Islamic Shariah laws that included banning alcohol and requiring women to wear headscarves.

Since then, proponents of Islamic law have lost ground. Mr. Yudhoyono’s centrist administration, backed by the U.S. and other Western governments, has presided over a war on terrorism that is widely seen as successful. Scores of Islamic militants have been arrested by a police anti-terrorist unit and convicted by Indonesian courts. While some protested these prosecutions, most Indonesians supported the actions.The few militants believed to remain at large haven’t carried out any major attacks in Indonesia in the past four years.

Horatio Alger Ahmadinejad

February 17, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under International Affairs, Iran, Islam, Islam and the West, Middle East | Leave a Comment 

Catching up on some old reading files, I find some interesting points raised by Turi Munthe in a review of Kasra Naji’s book Ahmedinejad: the Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader.

Naji has spent his life in Iran, reporting for the world’s English-language media. Despite its overblown sub-title – The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader - it is subtle, faultlessly researched, wide-ranging, balanced and well written.

There is a Prophet-like quality in this story of a man’s rise from humble beginnings to the helm of a divinely inspired movement. Ahmadinejad was born in 1956 in the small town of Aradan on the edge of a salt desert in central Iran.

His father was a blacksmith called Ahmad Sabaghian (or “Dye-master”) who would later change his “peasant” name when they moved to Teheran a few years later. “Life was difficult for our family and my birth made it more difficult,” the president wrote on his blog.

His rise to prominence from a shabby suburb of Teheran was due to a combination of intellectual brilliance and Islam.

In its context, it has a touch of heroism: the story of a nobody who triumphed in the national school-leaving exams but gave up his place at a prestigious university to stay near his spiritual mentor; of the genius who dedicated his twenties to the Revolution and the war against Saddam; of the underdog who became mayor of the capital but refused the palace and salary; and finally, of the presidential candidate who campaigned in the streets of the capital as “the Iranian nation’s little servant and street-sweeper”.

Naji clearly traces the moral code and real social conscience behind the president, which help us to understand his popularity and also the man himself.

Naji points out that Ahmadinejad is driven by a messianic belief in God and his own role in bringing about the return of the Shia’s quasi-messiah – the Mahdi or “Hidden One”.

In 2005, he warned the UN General Assembly to be ready for “the emergence of a perfect human being who is heir to all prophets”.

Ahmadinejad believes he will be at the herald of a “third revolution”, an Aryan Dream (with explicit gestures to the Third Reich) with anti-Semitism at its heart, and that he will lead Iran into battle against the “Jerusalem-Occupying State”.

Naji is even more impressive on the vote-rigging, political manipulation and cheating that characterised Ahmadinejad’s presidential victory in 2005. And he shows that, despite seeming to the outside world to be a purely theocratic state, Iran has a surprisingly vibrant (if monstrously corrupt) political engine.

Here is the paradox of Iran. It is a theocracy that wants to drag its population back to the social norms of early Arabia, but it has a blogosphere so huge it has made Farsi the fourth most common language used on the internet.

Iran is devoutly Muslim but anti-Arab; it wants to lead the Muslim world against what Ahmadinejad calls “the world-devouring powers”, and yet its self-image is as the “martyr state”.

Would You Turn Your Cheek For A Terrorist?

February 6, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Barack Obama, History, Islam, Islam and the West, Religion, Terrorism, U.S. History, War on Terror | 4 Comments 

During a recent interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, President Obama indicated that his administration is in fact moving away from the of the phrase “war on terror.” Recognizing that “we have a battle or a war against some terrorist organizations,” he sees those groups as not “representative of a broader Arab community.” Presumably, his use of the word “some” in reference to terrorist organizations does not mean he thinks other terrorist organizations are less dangerous, but is just a case of awkward phrasing.

Then again, he did say that “words matter.”

The president told Cooper that “words matter in this situation because one of the ways we’re going to win this struggle is through the battle of hearts and minds.” My question is this: Are we now trying to win over the hearts and minds of terrorists?

Certainly there are issues that need to be debated in the marketplace of ideas. There are a vast number of Muslims in the world who are not radicalized. And we certainly want to use reason, intelligent argument, and appeals to justice, mercy, and compassion as part of a concerted effort to prevent some from crossing over to the dark side.

But for those who are already indoctrinated, immersed, and otherwise in bondage to a fanatical Islamist ideology, it is foolhardy to think that any words from anyone in the west will disabuse them of their destructive notions and deadly ambitions.

Mr. Obama reminded those gathered at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington the other day that he is not naïve. But some of the signals being sent by him and his administration are, at best, mixed on the subject. If you have to say you are tough, you’re probably not. And if you have to say you are not naïve, you just might be.

Frankly, I – along with so many others – have never been a fan of the whole “war on terror” nomenclature. It smacked of vagueness and misdirection, directing focus on one particular methodology in a larger conflict. I have always thought we should be demonizing an ideology – one very worthy of such a characterization.

We should have, all along, been saying that we are in a war against a vile, loathsome, and pernicious ideology – Islamism. It is only a combination of a misguided sense of political correctness blended with a cowering fear of inciting dangerous people that has kept us from telling it like it is.

If President Obama wanted to move away from “war on terror” and toward “war on Islamism,” he would have my support. But his move away from George W. Bush’s definition of the conflict is in the wrong direction. He and those around him apparently think that “war on terror” is just too strong.

At a time when this country needs to be vigilant and focused on a very real enemy – one determined to end our way of life as we know it – Mr. Obama has blurred the issue. He is moving us away from a war mindset to something more surgical and limited. This should be no surprise to observant Americans. After all, he didn’t really have much to say on the issue during his campaign.

To minimize or marginalize danger is to ignore it. And to ignore danger is how to quickly become blind and vulnerable.

Make no mistake, anything less than a clear commitment, born of national self-interest and concern for international justice and stability, to destroy Islamism in this generation the way we defeated Nazism nearly 65 years ago, is, in fact, the epitome of naivety. Reaching out to moderate Muslims has its place, but not without a clear challenge to them to be on the front lines of resistance to Islamism.

Islamism is not synonymous with Islam, per se – but unless Muslims rise up and fight against the radicals, it may one day be. Much is made of the fact that Islamists only make up a small percentage of Muslims worldwide. But as I have written before, that kind of dismissal ignores the fact that we are still talking about more actual people than the total combined populations of Germany, Japan, and Italy, as the world went to war in 1939.

There are, in fact, clear parallels – even direct connections – between Islamism and the mechanisms of fascism and Marxist-Leninism.

As Daniel Pipes has noted, “Islam is the most political of religions, the one most oriented toward power.” He further suggests that Islamism – the kind that is radical, utopian, and totalitarian, “is a modern evolution of something that was always in Islam but takes it to an ideological extreme.”

It would follow, therefore, that Muslims themselves – particularly those who fly the flag of moderation – must deal with the cancer in their own religious body. Otherwise, they run the risk of ensuring the ultimate identity of Islam with terror, hunger for power, and violence.

In the 1920s, when the Ku Klux Klan paraded through the streets of America preaching a doctrine of bigotry and attaching their venom to an image sacred to all Christians – the cross – it took many Christians a long time to repudiate the hooded fanatics.

Why was that?

It was simply because many “Christians” (all white ones, of course) found themselves sympathizing with some of what the Klan stood for. They preached a form of patriotic Americanism that resonated with many in America’s heartland – especially during that decade of seismic social change.

Sure they wore hoods and had funny titles for everything, but they also waved the flag and carried the cross. So what if they burned the latter. This is how some rationalized their sympathy with such a glaringly un-Christian cause.

Using Christian imagery, clergymen, and even churches, for a short time the KKK had a place in the hearts of many “God-fearing” Americans. In some places, a person could not be elected to office without Klan support – it was a big deal for a while. It was an ugly chapter in the history of Protestantism in American church history.

When the KKK was finally repudiated as a major movement in America, it still took some “Christians” a long time to get it out of their system. The “nativist” instinct lived on, though spoken of only in whispers and with subtle winks of the eye.

I suspect it is that way with many of our Muslim neighbors these days. They may not buy into the terrorism and violence, as they practice a more moderate Islam, but there may be a few things that simply resonate with them. Possibly this is why it is so hard to find moderate Muslims who will actually renounce Islamism.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney may well be one of the most unpopular people in the country these days, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. And when he warns us – as he did this week – that the country is swiftly becoming more vulnerable to terrorist attack, in light of the body language of the new administration, he may be on to something.

Cheney, speaking of Islamist terrorism in general, and particularly Gitmo detainees, recently reminded us “These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.”

It’s like that old story about the man who sold a mule, telling the buyer that the animal would do anything as long he was asked nicely. The next day, the buyer returned and shared a tale of frustration because the stubborn mule would not do a thing – no matter how many times he was asked nicely.

The seller picked up a wooden two-by-four that was leaning against his barn. He walked right up to the mule and hit the animal in the head. Then he whispered, “Please pull that plow.” The mule started moving as fast as he could.

“I thought you told me to never mistreat your mule,” the farmer told his neighbor with a questioning look on his face. The farmer hesitated and said, “Like I said, talking nice to him works every time. But, sometimes you have to get his attention first.”

I am all for reaching hearts and minds, but German entnazifizierung (denazification) could not happen until we had their attention by actually winning a war.

Re-education is much more effective as a post-war exercise.

The Other November 4

November 5, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Election 2008, International Affairs, Islam, Terrorism | Leave a Comment 

Was also The National Day of Global Arrogance, celebrated on the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

What Is To Be Done – To Us?

October 16, 2008 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Book Review, Domestic issues, Economic issues, Election 2008, History, Islam, Islam and the West, National Security, Religion, Russia, Terrorism, War on Terror | Leave a Comment 

The final debate between John McCain and Barack Obama was primarily about the economy. That was appropriate and understandable. The big winner was Toledo’s new favorite son, Joe the Plumber – who will now be able to charge a lot more for his pipe-wrench artistry. And he will never again have a problem getting a table at Tony Packos.

It would be wise, however, for all Americans to remember something very important that is being overshadowed by the current cultural obsession. We are all concerned about our money. But the stakes right now are higher than mere dollars and cents.

In other words: It’s not just the economy, stupid.

As the long and hard fought presidential election campaign moves into the final frenetic stretch, there is an important court trial underway across the Atlantic – in Scotland. Two men have been charged with plotting terrorist bombings in Glasgow and London last year.

Two Muslim men – Mohammed Asha is from Jordan and Bilal Abdullaf is from Iraq.

Both are medical doctors.

While Americans worry about the possibility of another Great Depression, it is worth asking if we are in danger of being preoccupied with a Great Distraction at a crucial moment in our history.

Of course, our economic woes are quite real – ominous, in fact. And they cannot and should not be ignored. Not watching the store is what got us into this fix in the first place. But one has the sense that this nation is an increasingly soft target for something worse. And if it ever were to turn out that while we focused like a laser beam on the economy, our enemies decided to exploit our myopia, we could be in a bigger mess than we have ever imagined.

I am not trying to be “gloom and doom” here – just saying that it has probably crossed the mind of an adversary or two that this would be a fitting time to unleash something bad.

Bad, as in “where, oh where are you Jack Bauer?”

It is important for all of us to realize – even if it involves interrupting our current morbid fascination with the Dow and all things monetary – that the greatest strategic threat against our nation is not something that has been, or could be, done by people named Freddie or Fannie. Not even close. Our greatest enemy is, and will be long after the current financial mess is cleaned up, Islamism and its agenda to subdue all who persist in the audacity of being non-Muslim infidels.

In the sixth century B.C., Sun Tzu, in Art of War, said:

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will fight without danger in battle. If you know only yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or lose. If you know neither yourself, nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

He also said: “All warfare is based on deception.”

There is an elephant in the big room under America’s spacious skies. It has to do with the potential for us to eventually see some of the same things happen here that are happening more and more frequently in Europe. I am referring to things like two presumably intelligent, and certainly well educated, doctors in a plot to bomb and kill.

Daniel Pipes is a widely read expert on the threat of radical Islam. He is a director of the Middle East Forum and calculates that, “10 to 15 percent of Muslims worldwide support militant Islam.” Let’s do the math (a fine young man on my staff, who has a graduate degree in theoretical mathematics would remind me here that this is arithmetic, not math – but you get my drift).

Estimates of the global Muslim population range between 1.3 and 1.6 billion – roughly one in five human beings. This means, if Pipes is right (and it is possible his estimates may be on the conservative side) – that there may be between 130 and 240 million people in the world who, in the name of Islam, hate America. These are the people who had a party on that sad September day seven years ago.

By the way, the total combined population of an earlier axis of evil enemies – Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan in September of 1939 – was approximately 194 million. That’s total – as in every man, woman, and child.

How about the statistics right here in the U.S.? Well again, the estimates are all over the place, but it is generally accepted that between three and five million of our neighbors are Muslim. An article in Newsweek last year used the figure eight million. Applying the Pipes formula to here at home, we come up with the potential for anywhere between 300,000 and 1,200,000 people in this country who may be less-than-enamored of the rest of us. Or worse, some may be longing for the day when the fruited plain becomes a Muslim caliphate.

Here is where it gets complicated. We are a nation of people fierce about liberty. We believe in things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to assemble, to vote, and hold these things to be precious. We have no desire to become a police state, with neighbor turning on, or turning in, neighbor. We do not want to become hysterical and paranoid.

But there are bad people out there. They have guns and bombs and ugly ideas. And they have no problem “blending in” – even spending a long time cultivating a reassuring cover.

Bear in mind that the guys on trial across the pond right now are doctors.

There is a precedent for this, and it is one Americans should study. A few years ago, Margaret Thatcher, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979-1990, described an often-overlooked previous pattern for what we are now witnessing.

Writing in 2002, she said:

Perhaps the best parallel is with early communism. Islamic extremism today, like bolshevism in the past, is an armed doctrine. It is an aggressive ideology promoted by fanatical, well-armed devotees. And, like communism, it requires an all-embracing long-term strategy to defeat it.

The Iron Lady nailed it. Though the terms Islamo-fascist and Islamo-nazi are used these days with regularity, perhaps Islamo-bolshevik should become part of our vocabulary. Though Islam and communism as ideologies bear little resemblance to each other, beyond a mutual affinity for subduing and controlling others, they do have much in common methodologically.

It is a mistake to think of terror as the only weapon in the Islamist arsenal. It is a very public one, indeed – and horrifying. But behind the ugliness of terrorism lies a persistent and pernicious pattern of deceit and manipulation. The term taqiyya refers to the practice of deliberate deceit in the service of Islamist goals. The ends justify the means, in other words – lying, fraud, stealing, cheating, all things that most religions commonly consider sins, are perfectly appropriate in the pursuit of jihad.

John J. Dziak, Ph.D., a professor at The Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., has written extensively on Russian Intelligence. Last year, his article, Islamism and Stratagem, appeared in The Intelligencer: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies. He drew parallels between the methods used by current day Islamists, and those used ninety-plus years ago by Lenin and company:

The Bolshevik regime was a conspiracy come to power. The Soviet Union in practice was a seventy-one-year old counterintelligence operation raised to the level of a state system.

Organic to such a counterintelligence system is the widespread practice of provocations, diversion, deception, disinformation, ‘maskirovka’ (military focused deception), penetration, and other active measures of a highly aggressive nature.

He also noted that, “from its earliest history Islam has practiced what westerners label stratagem, deception, dissimulation, concealment, etc., in its dealings with not only the Infidel but with other Muslims, as well.” He identified Islamism as, “the twenty-first century heir to the counterintelligence state traditions of the totalitarian systems of the last century.”

During a recent

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, Brigitte Gabriel, author of the new book, They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It, told me, “history reveals very clearly that the apathetic give way to the passionate, and the complacent are subdued by the committed.”

I have written before about the love Islamists have for a spurious document called, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This anti-Semitic tract, though long-ago exposed as a forgery created by the Tsar’s secret police to foster anti-Jewish sentiment in early 20th century Russia, has long been a favorite of demagogues from Adolf Hitler to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The ironic thing is that, though the idea of a vast Jewish conspiracy to control the world has been so clearly proven as false, a group called the Muslim Brotherhood actually did write a plot of their own.

And this document is no forgery.

Brigitte Gabriel devotes an entire chapter to this in her book and it is chilling to read. Discovered in Switzerland just a few weeks after September 11, 2001, “The Project,” as it has come to be known, outlines a century long plan “to dominate the West and establish an Islamic government on earth.”

It is a 14-page “How To” manual about infiltrating a society en route to eventually subjugating it. Among its instructions are such motivational nuggets as:

• Avoiding open alliances with known terrorist organizations and individuals to maintain the appearance of “moderation.”
• Infiltrating and taking over existing Muslim organizations to realign them toward the Muslim Brotherhood’s collective goals.
• Using deception to mask the intended goals of Islamist actions, so long as it doesn’t conflict with Sharia law.
• Involving ideologically committed Muslims in democratically elected institutions on all levels in the West, including government, NGOs, private organizations, and labor unions.
• Instrumentally using existing Western institutions until they can be converted and put into the service of Islam.
• Collecting sufficient funds to indefinitely perpetuate and support jihad around the world.

And so on.

Lenin could not have said it any better in What Is To Be Done.

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