Who will miss Western Culture when it is gone? Will the liberals and leftists who espouse tolerance for all belief systems, except right of center western political thought, miss their liberty? Will they lament it, when non-western right of center religious and political systems, and leftist non-religious political systems finally overcome us, because we were so tolerant? We have gotten to the point where we let the fox in the hen house, and refuse to see the danger for fear of being labeled anti-foxists.
The WTC mosque controversy is a glaring example. A vast majority of Americans and of New Yorkers have voiced their opinion against building the Mosque so close to Ground Zero. A vocal minority side with Imam Rauf and his Cordoba Initiative. Rauf and his allies have framed the debate largely in terms of tolerance, or in terms of Constitutional protection of religious freedom. In fact many on the left have implied that the First Amendment guarantee of Freedom of Religion, mandates acceptance, and absolves Islam from criticism. Nonsense, that First Amendment also guarantees our right to voice our concerns about the Mosque, and about Islam in general.
In fact, putting aside the salt in the wound aspect, that placing the Mosque in downtown New York City has for many, the controversy really is about the reach and influence of Islam in America’s future. How much tolerance are we required to extend to Islam, and what is the intent of Islam?
As a religion, Islam’s followers are generally entitled to practice their beliefs. American legal history, does require that they do so in compliance with our Constitution and our laws. While the courts are often required to sort out fine points of religious freedom in the US, egregious violations of our legal tradition have been found to be unacceptable. Hence Indian drug use, and Mormon polygamy are not legal, religious freedom notwithstanding.
Islam should expect a similar reception. Stoning, slavery, corporal punishment for wives etc., are outside the legal norms we practice. In the name of tolerance, however, some liberals have sought to weaken our norms, asserting that we should not force our legal values on Muslims, hence a recent NJ judge's decision not to grant a restraining order against a Moroccan husband (fortunately overturned on appeal). The creation of Sharia only zones in Great Britain, Canada, and France, has encouraged Muslims and apologists to seek similar legal allowances in enclaves in St. Paul Minnesota and Dearborn Michigan. It has troubled police and neighbors where it has been allowed.
So why not? Isn’t “live and let live” part of our values? Isn’t religious tolerance inscribed in the constitution?
How do we deal with Islam, or is it Islamism? Islamism is the name that is catching on to describe those factions of Islam, both radical and mainstream that pursue jihad. Jihad is one of the pillars of Islam; the requirement to “struggle” for one’s faith. This concept of struggling has been described as both internal (within the self) and external. Jihad is used by Muslimsto describe the historical spread of Islam across much of Asia and Africa, by war, trade and assimilation.
Islam is a complex multi-faceted faith with sects and strains, just like all the other great religions. Jihad is central to all of its sects. The external Jihad is deeply entrenched in enough of those strains that it can hardly be called radical. What is now termed radical Islam, consists of those factions which seek a violent spread of Islam today.
Mainstream Islam, as it defines itself, today in the West, does not eschew external jihad, merely violence. We have accepted the Council on American Islamic Relations and Imam Rauf’s Cordoba Initiative as ideals of peaceful mainstream Islam in the US today, and yet they have obviously Jihadist doctrines.
"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."
Omar Ahmad, Co-Founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations
In America, we have a Constitution that created a three-branch form of government - legislative, executive and judiciary. The role of the judiciary is to ensure that the other two branches comply with the Constitution. What Muslims want is a judiciary that ensures that the laws are not in conflict with the Quran and the Hadith.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf
“Well so what?” ask many Americans. After all many religions are evangelical, seeking new converts and aspiring to grow, and even to dominate.
Islam is different . Islam as a religion, includes a complete set of social, economic, political and legal prescriptions. It calls on its adherents to create theocratic states governed by Sharia, Islamic law. While Imam Rauf can soft pedal Sharia as divinely inspired law, akin to the appeal to the creator in our Declaration of Independence, the fact is that Sharia law as it is practices throughout the world is deeply at odds with Western Humanism, whether secular or Judeo-Christian.
Sharia is the law of the land in Saudi Arabia. Sharia allows slavery. Sharia oppresses women, making wives property of their husbands. Sharia calls for the execution of homosexuals. Sharia calls for the stoning of apostates. Etc etc.
Americans simply don’t want to live under Sharia. Liberals, in the media, and in academia have so elevated tolerance as a value that we develop a lack of clarity about what Islam as a belief system promotes. It promotes a non-democratic non-western government and society.
“We could deal with those Islamists except for one thing: A large segment of our fashionable opinion-makers… think that Islamists aren’t as bad as all that; and if they are, then we are still worse, and what we stand for isn’t really worth defending. So the public doesn’t know what to think, and a few self-appointed custodians push them into all manner of doubt and guilt by accusing anyone who criticizes, or — horrors! — laughs at Islamists of Islamophobia, racism, fascism, etc. etc.”
David Pryce Jones
If Islam, were not a religion, if it was an otherwise all encompassing belief system, we could talk more freely about its challenges to democracy. Communism was (and still is)a belief system that prescribes an entire set of beliefs about how people should interact, how they should be governed, and even what they should believe about God (he is an imaginary figure). Most Americans, even if they happen to be Marxist in their outlook, do not begrudge an honest discussion about Communism and the advantages and disadvantages of the system, surely even American liberals are not saying that communism is beyond criticism, by virtue of our freedoms of speech, conscience and association. Liberals are rabid attack dogs when challenging any perceived fascism, a much abused word that still includes a definition of Totalitarianism. Atheists and Agnostics are often quite critical of Christianity and Judaism, often because that’s where they started out. But Islam is sacrosanct. As Pryce Jones noted in today’s society criticism of Islam as a thought system=Islamophobia=Racism=Fascism=Evil.
I think that far leftist thought is often rooted in guilt and self loathing. When we no longer care enough about our own culture and traditions to defend them, we have nothing left to fight for. Tolerance is as beautiful a thing as prejudice is ugly, but blind tolerance is blind to threats. Will the last liberal standing please give the Jihadists the keys
20 September 2010
20 July 2010
Jihad and Western thought.
Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.
Winston Churchill 1899
I am always taken aback when Americans will compare the minor flaws of our democracy with the far more oppressive central tenets of our competitors, as if it is beyond rude to point out the flaws of Communism or Islam, without simultaneously denigrating our own system.
It started with the quote from Winston Churchill on Islam, posted on my Facebook page. Actually, it was only part of the quote. In it the young soldier-journalist, and keen observer of the late 19th century world, soon to be the great statesman of the 20th century, identified the flaws in the Islamic system, as he encountered it particularly in the Sudan, where the British fought perhaps the first modern struggle against what would now be called “Radical Islam.”
Immediately, decent, good folks began to call me to task for impugning Islam. I was maligning a religion you see, and that is verboten in the new American era, particularly if the religion is Islam. I have noticed it is not so problematic to criticize Christianity, if the practitioners are middle class Americans, and Judaism can be spoken ill of, provided one calls it Zionism.
I don't totally agree with this quote. Not all muslims are militant, just as not all other faith's are saints. If we don't learn to tolerate and respect each other how we this ever end? We can disagree without being disrespectful.
This was the first objection I heard. It seemed to ignore the actual words of the original quote: Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities.
The objection shows how far the main stream media, academia, and the left have gotten in imposing their group think, political correctness on everyday Americans. I didn’t accuse any particular Muslims of being militant, nor did Churchill. He pointed out that the religion is militant and expansionist. This of course goes against the accepted narrative today, that Islam is a religion of peace, and that a handful of radicals in al-Qaeda and similar movements are hijacking true Islam. That trope, however, is dangerously self deceptive for us as a culture to hold on to. Islam's very words speak against us.
When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent and take to prayer and render the alms levy, allow them to go their way. God is forgiving and merciful. The Koran 9:5
I can hear the objection that the Old Testament preaches similar sentiment. While that is true, the difference between the modern followers of the two texts is substantial. First, both Christian and Jewish scholarship have continued to evolve. Today, Christians largely focus on the New Testaments message of peace. Judaism has developed a profoundly humanistic outlook through centuries of scholarship. In contrast, Islamic scholarship is largely held to have reached its core conclusions by the 9th century. That was during the height of Islam’s expansionist phase, when Allah’s warriors reached into Europe through Spain. Today every serious Koranic scholar within Islam accepts that by 900 CE, Islamic thought was complete.
Thus in Islam there was no Reformation, no Enlightenment. There has been no serious discussion among Islam’s clerics and scholars about how Islam can or should adapt to the changing world. There has been no internal struggle between various philosophies of Islam that led to a modern tolerance as exists among the Judeo-Christian culture of the west. Islamic doctrine still rests in the age of Jihad.
The only serious disagreement within Islam today is over how to carry on that jihad. Through direct use of the Sword as advocated by al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, or by a more political approach advocated by the Muslim Brotherhood. The latter approach requires immigration to western nations and slow and quiet imposition of Islamic values and even Islamic law in western societies. This can be seen in various European cities with no-go areas for native Europeans. It is aided by the acceptance by various of our western governments, allowing some Muslim enclaves to practice Sharia, at least in civil matters, supplanting Constitutional or Common law.
We also see the continued accuracy of Samuel Huntington’s admonition that Islam’s borders are contested borders. His observation, that the places where the Muslim world intersects with other of the world’s major cultures are among the world’s most violence prone, remains as true today as fifteen years ago. Muslims categorize the world into two parts: Dar al Islam or Dar al Salam (literally the world of submission, and the world of peace) on the one hand, and Dar al Harb (house of war) on the other.
I spent a year in Iraq, and a year in Afghanistan each, because Dar al Salam is actually a place of Harb. When I hear Americans remonstrate me for categorizing Islam itself as militant, as dangerous, or when they describe Islam as just another system that relativism can equate with a modern western democratic approach, I am almost speechless. Many of us have become so indoctrinated into politically correct thinking that we are afraid of insulting Muslims by speaking the truth about Islam.
Islam still allows for slavery. While Western Democracy once committed horrible acts in this regard, we have outlawed slavery, and continue to work against it. Islam is doctrinally expansionist, democracies may expand through force, but no democracy’s constitution requires it. Islam is a complete social system encompassing religion, politics and law, apostasy is a capital crime. Democracy is a political and legal system allowing for freedom of conscience and religion. Women, in Islam, are property of husbands and fathers, honor killings and clitorectomies are routine if not common. In the west women and children have robust rights including the protection of their own bodies.
In the West, through democracies we have freedom. We have the right to be so relativist in our outlook as to compare ourselves, negatively, to viewpoints which boldly and openly threatens to destroy us. We also have the right to reject such self deceptive and self destructive thinking and openly call the danger out where we see it.
The Bedouin could not look for God within him: he was too sure that he was within God.
T. E. Lawrence
Our real challenge is that, violent or not, Islamic doctrine constitutes a political vision. That is, Islam is not a mere religion as we understand the concept in the West — a set of spiritual guidelines that are denied governing authority in what is a separate, secular realm. Mainstream Islam calls for a comprehensive political, economic, legal, and social theocracy.
Andrew McCarthy 2010
Suggested further reading:
The River War Churchill 1899
The Grand Jihad McCarthy 2010
The Clash of Civilizations Huntington 1996
The West's Last Chance 2005
Winston Churchill 1899
I am always taken aback when Americans will compare the minor flaws of our democracy with the far more oppressive central tenets of our competitors, as if it is beyond rude to point out the flaws of Communism or Islam, without simultaneously denigrating our own system.
It started with the quote from Winston Churchill on Islam, posted on my Facebook page. Actually, it was only part of the quote. In it the young soldier-journalist, and keen observer of the late 19th century world, soon to be the great statesman of the 20th century, identified the flaws in the Islamic system, as he encountered it particularly in the Sudan, where the British fought perhaps the first modern struggle against what would now be called “Radical Islam.”
Immediately, decent, good folks began to call me to task for impugning Islam. I was maligning a religion you see, and that is verboten in the new American era, particularly if the religion is Islam. I have noticed it is not so problematic to criticize Christianity, if the practitioners are middle class Americans, and Judaism can be spoken ill of, provided one calls it Zionism.
I don't totally agree with this quote. Not all muslims are militant, just as not all other faith's are saints. If we don't learn to tolerate and respect each other how we this ever end? We can disagree without being disrespectful.
This was the first objection I heard. It seemed to ignore the actual words of the original quote: Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities.
The objection shows how far the main stream media, academia, and the left have gotten in imposing their group think, political correctness on everyday Americans. I didn’t accuse any particular Muslims of being militant, nor did Churchill. He pointed out that the religion is militant and expansionist. This of course goes against the accepted narrative today, that Islam is a religion of peace, and that a handful of radicals in al-Qaeda and similar movements are hijacking true Islam. That trope, however, is dangerously self deceptive for us as a culture to hold on to. Islam's very words speak against us.
When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent and take to prayer and render the alms levy, allow them to go their way. God is forgiving and merciful. The Koran 9:5
I can hear the objection that the Old Testament preaches similar sentiment. While that is true, the difference between the modern followers of the two texts is substantial. First, both Christian and Jewish scholarship have continued to evolve. Today, Christians largely focus on the New Testaments message of peace. Judaism has developed a profoundly humanistic outlook through centuries of scholarship. In contrast, Islamic scholarship is largely held to have reached its core conclusions by the 9th century. That was during the height of Islam’s expansionist phase, when Allah’s warriors reached into Europe through Spain. Today every serious Koranic scholar within Islam accepts that by 900 CE, Islamic thought was complete.
Thus in Islam there was no Reformation, no Enlightenment. There has been no serious discussion among Islam’s clerics and scholars about how Islam can or should adapt to the changing world. There has been no internal struggle between various philosophies of Islam that led to a modern tolerance as exists among the Judeo-Christian culture of the west. Islamic doctrine still rests in the age of Jihad.
The only serious disagreement within Islam today is over how to carry on that jihad. Through direct use of the Sword as advocated by al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, or by a more political approach advocated by the Muslim Brotherhood. The latter approach requires immigration to western nations and slow and quiet imposition of Islamic values and even Islamic law in western societies. This can be seen in various European cities with no-go areas for native Europeans. It is aided by the acceptance by various of our western governments, allowing some Muslim enclaves to practice Sharia, at least in civil matters, supplanting Constitutional or Common law.
We also see the continued accuracy of Samuel Huntington’s admonition that Islam’s borders are contested borders. His observation, that the places where the Muslim world intersects with other of the world’s major cultures are among the world’s most violence prone, remains as true today as fifteen years ago. Muslims categorize the world into two parts: Dar al Islam or Dar al Salam (literally the world of submission, and the world of peace) on the one hand, and Dar al Harb (house of war) on the other.
I spent a year in Iraq, and a year in Afghanistan each, because Dar al Salam is actually a place of Harb. When I hear Americans remonstrate me for categorizing Islam itself as militant, as dangerous, or when they describe Islam as just another system that relativism can equate with a modern western democratic approach, I am almost speechless. Many of us have become so indoctrinated into politically correct thinking that we are afraid of insulting Muslims by speaking the truth about Islam.
Islam still allows for slavery. While Western Democracy once committed horrible acts in this regard, we have outlawed slavery, and continue to work against it. Islam is doctrinally expansionist, democracies may expand through force, but no democracy’s constitution requires it. Islam is a complete social system encompassing religion, politics and law, apostasy is a capital crime. Democracy is a political and legal system allowing for freedom of conscience and religion. Women, in Islam, are property of husbands and fathers, honor killings and clitorectomies are routine if not common. In the west women and children have robust rights including the protection of their own bodies.
In the West, through democracies we have freedom. We have the right to be so relativist in our outlook as to compare ourselves, negatively, to viewpoints which boldly and openly threatens to destroy us. We also have the right to reject such self deceptive and self destructive thinking and openly call the danger out where we see it.
The Bedouin could not look for God within him: he was too sure that he was within God.
T. E. Lawrence
Our real challenge is that, violent or not, Islamic doctrine constitutes a political vision. That is, Islam is not a mere religion as we understand the concept in the West — a set of spiritual guidelines that are denied governing authority in what is a separate, secular realm. Mainstream Islam calls for a comprehensive political, economic, legal, and social theocracy.
Andrew McCarthy 2010
Suggested further reading:
The River War Churchill 1899
The Grand Jihad McCarthy 2010
The Clash of Civilizations Huntington 1996
The West's Last Chance 2005
23 June 2010
10 September 2009
A Few Questions on Healthcare?
Having re-read the speech I want to know: can Obama answer these questions?
1. If non-profit independent health care cooperatives are such a good idea, why don't we have them already? Liability? Non-viability? Bueller?
2. When you say anyone can lose their health care, did you forget that you and anyone who's ever been in Congress can't?
3. Are you aware that for all your horror stories about our current system there are worse stories from Canada, Britain etc.?
4. Since only YOU, exalted one, can fix, fraud, waste and abuse ( well no one else has been able to) and wring TRILLIONS of savings from the health care system, what do WE do when you're gone? You are planning on leaving office in the next 4-8 years? Aren't you?
5. If nothing in the plan requires VA patients to change their careplan why did you want to bill their insurers earlier this year?
6. When you compare your new requirement for all Americans to carry health insurance to states requiring drivers to carry auto insurance, do you realize that ONLY those who choose to drive are forced to purchase auto insurance. Are you aware that Americans can opt out of auto insurance by not driving?
7. Where in the constitution is the authority to require Americans to purchase health insurance?
8. Not that I personally care, but has it crossed your mind that this requirement will further stigmatize illegal immigrants by forcing them to commit another crime?
9. Will REQUIRING businesses to cover costs of health care hurt the economy by discouraging enterpeneurs and by forcing even more jobs overseas? If not, why not?
10. What happens when a person purchasing her own insurance loses an income source?Has unexpected expenses? Misses a few payments? Is it a federal offense? Does it make you a criminal? Felony, misdemeanor, violation?
11. Isn't choosing how to spend our own money and deciding where to take risks what the founding fathers meant by "pursuit of happiness?"
12. When you say: "Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75 percent of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90 percent is controlled by just one company." Why then are you opposed to allowing insurers to do business across state lines?
13. "Now, Here's what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future." Starting when? Really? Because wouldn't that be a change from the first 8 months of Obamasatan?
14. "And -- and I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need." How?
15. "And we will also create an independent commission of doctors and medical experts charged with identifying more waste in the years ahead." How does your Messiahship plan to reconcile this with the previous statement?
16 When you say "...reforming malpractice laws..." do you mean tort reform? Will Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid seriously entertain that? If they do who will fund the DNC in the next election cycle?
17. Do you think that Ted Kennedy's will leaves more money to purchase health insurance for the poor than it leaves wealth to his children?
18. Is it possible to oppose this reform, without being demonized by the president? Does my conscience count, or am I being unpatriotic?
1. If non-profit independent health care cooperatives are such a good idea, why don't we have them already? Liability? Non-viability? Bueller?
2. When you say anyone can lose their health care, did you forget that you and anyone who's ever been in Congress can't?
3. Are you aware that for all your horror stories about our current system there are worse stories from Canada, Britain etc.?
4. Since only YOU, exalted one, can fix, fraud, waste and abuse ( well no one else has been able to) and wring TRILLIONS of savings from the health care system, what do WE do when you're gone? You are planning on leaving office in the next 4-8 years? Aren't you?
5. If nothing in the plan requires VA patients to change their careplan why did you want to bill their insurers earlier this year?
6. When you compare your new requirement for all Americans to carry health insurance to states requiring drivers to carry auto insurance, do you realize that ONLY those who choose to drive are forced to purchase auto insurance. Are you aware that Americans can opt out of auto insurance by not driving?
7. Where in the constitution is the authority to require Americans to purchase health insurance?
8. Not that I personally care, but has it crossed your mind that this requirement will further stigmatize illegal immigrants by forcing them to commit another crime?
9. Will REQUIRING businesses to cover costs of health care hurt the economy by discouraging enterpeneurs and by forcing even more jobs overseas? If not, why not?
10. What happens when a person purchasing her own insurance loses an income source?Has unexpected expenses? Misses a few payments? Is it a federal offense? Does it make you a criminal? Felony, misdemeanor, violation?
11. Isn't choosing how to spend our own money and deciding where to take risks what the founding fathers meant by "pursuit of happiness?"
12. When you say: "Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75 percent of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90 percent is controlled by just one company." Why then are you opposed to allowing insurers to do business across state lines?
13. "Now, Here's what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future." Starting when? Really? Because wouldn't that be a change from the first 8 months of Obamasatan?
14. "And -- and I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need." How?
15. "And we will also create an independent commission of doctors and medical experts charged with identifying more waste in the years ahead." How does your Messiahship plan to reconcile this with the previous statement?
16 When you say "...reforming malpractice laws..." do you mean tort reform? Will Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid seriously entertain that? If they do who will fund the DNC in the next election cycle?
17. Do you think that Ted Kennedy's will leaves more money to purchase health insurance for the poor than it leaves wealth to his children?
18. Is it possible to oppose this reform, without being demonized by the president? Does my conscience count, or am I being unpatriotic?
06 September 2009
George Will Needs To Know: Afghanistan Matters!
George Will laid down the gauntlet. While a few conservatives have always been reluctant about our efforts in Afghanistan, Will’s September 1, column advocating withdrawal has opened a rift on the American right with conservatives taking sides. George Will says it’s time to quit Afghanistan. As a soldier who was in Afghanistan for most of 2008 I say unequivocally George Will is wrong; Afghanistan matters.
Will has surprising allies including former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy. They say we can’t win, though we managed to achieve success in Iraq. They claim that our struggle is against al-Qaeda not the Taliban. This is akin to saying our fight was against the Japanese and giving Hitler a pass. They say Pakistan is more important, but they don’t say how losing our base in Afghanistan will solve that nation’s problems.
The debate is set against the background of an expected decision by President Obama on whether to heed his generals who are calling for an Iraq like Surge, or to find a quicker way out. Obama may have campaigned on the premise of supporting the “right war” in Afghanistan, but liberals, including most of the democratic congress are opposed to any expansion of US forces abroad. The left is now getting help from Will and McCarthy on the right. But the stakes in Afghanistan are high. The Taliban, our enemy, are resurgent there, enabled by NATO’s inability to fight a consistent counter-insurgency campaign, and the porous border with Pakistan.
Pakistan, aye there is the rub. That nation has slowly descended into its own chaos. The area along Pakistan’s Afghan border known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), is a Pashtun-Taliban enclave, inaccessible to any forces friendly to the US and its allies. The Pakistani military, a nuclear armed force of over a million men including reserves, cannot even access, much less control its own border.
The mountainous region, including the FATA, which straddles the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, is at times referred to as Pashtun-istan. The Pashtuns, a 42 million strong ethnic group, are minority populations in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. They have always been the core strength of the Taliban. Not all Pashtuns are Taliban, but most Taliban are Pashtun. Tribal ties, tradition, and ethnic politics lead most Pashtuns to support the Taliban.
Afghanistan continues to be a failed state, Pakistan is failing. We have the opportunity to continue to influence events in the region due to our presence in Afghanistan. Should the US withdraw entirely from Afghanistan certain events are highly likely to unfold. The first would be a Taliban victory in Afghanistan. They might not see the complete victory they achieved in 1996. They would at least end up seizing and dominating several provinces. These provinces would certainly include several, North and East, which dominate the landlocked nation’s rudimentary road net. The Taliban would gain a stranglehold on the Afghan economy.
They would also rule the Pashtun speaking border region. The resulting consequences of this outcome are impossible to predict. However a larger autonomous Taliban dominated zone would surely threaten the weak Pakistani government. The unspoken, nightmare outcome, we all seek to avoid, is the takeover of Pakistan by the Taliban.
Pakistan is a nuclear power. Yet in spite of this modern achievement, it is a failing nation. Assassination and civil violence have dominated recent politics. The populace is fragmented ethnically and politically. The urban elites live western lives with modern hopes. Most others live poor desperate lives. Islam is the single greatest unifying factor! Many Pakistanis of various ethnicities have shown a consistent predilection for anti-American, anti-western, pro-Taliban politics.
Two or possibly three Talibanized nations in place of today’s Afghanistan and Pakistan are in no one’s interest, especially if one of them is nuclear armed. Let us recall further that Afghanistan’s western neighbor is the WMD seeking state of Iran. That nation has infiltrated arms and personnel into the western Farsi speaking provinces of Afghanistan to pressure the US and Afghan governments, and to create its own sphere of influence.
George Will’s imagined scenario of special-forces and airpower serving in place of boots on the ground in Afghanistan surely sounds good to deskbound policy wonks. But they would do well to remember that policy failed us through the Clinton era. At that time Pakistan was under the more stable hand of Musharraf.
If we abandon our foothold in Afghanistan, we abandon our contacts on the ground. In order for predators, cruise missiles, and SF operators to succeed repeatedly against al-Qaeda, or any other enemies, our forces need human intelligence. This is why al-Qaeda and the Taliban high command retreated to and continue to hide in the inaccessible reaches of Pakistan. It’s why al-Qaeda chose the then closed state of Afghanistan as a base in the first place.
Additionally, a premature withdrawal from Afghanistan will surely present a tremendous propaganda victory to the Taliban. This would be a strategic weapon for all of our Islamist enemies in the current struggle. George Will has stepped up his campaign, and now wants to quit Iraq early as well. He mentions the ties that Shiite Iran has established with Shiite Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki as a reason to end our commitment there.
If we were to follow Mr. Will’s prescription, by 2011 we could be facing a hostile band of powers stretching from the India-Pakistan border through Syria, to the Mediterranean. This would be the worst middle-eastern scenario the US ever faced, as bad as the Soviet dominated region envisioned by Carter and Reagan circa 1980. We could face two Islamic, hostile, nuclear powers. Such an outcome would represent the beginning of the end for Israel. It would signify the end of American hegemony, and the start of a truly new world order; one that would be highly unfavorable to our interests.
These are just the consequences for us. Mr. Will would also abandon the Afghans, the Iraqis and others to the Taliban to the likeminded Shia of Iran, and to al-Qaeda. He and his applause section remind us that Islam is incompatible with democracy, that extremism pervades the region, and that generally we have no business there anymore.
While not subscribing to the left’s drivel that poverty and frustration are the root of terrorism, I think that a poorer more Islamic mid-east will be more miserable for the Afghans and Iraqis, and the Pakistanis and Iranians. Having spent time in both Iraq and Afghanistan, I have seen that most people there want peace and prosperity. They want to end the violence and raise their children more comfortably than poverty and war has thus far allowed.
While Islam may indeed lend itself to oppressive rule, so did Christianity, for nearly two millennia of Romans, feudalism, and absolutism. Today, millions of Iraqis and Afghans have shown an appreciation for democracy, and the idea of peaceful, lawful change of governments. Come to think of it, so have the much abused Lebanese. In Iran, millions voted, and when the mullahs executed a massive electoral fraud millions protested. In India millions of Muslims regularly live peaceful lives in a democracy.
It is true that democratizing the Islamic world is not, and should not be the primary prescriptive mission of the US military. However to cede the entire middle-east to the forces of extremism, to abandon our allies, to surrender our security, and make the world a much more dangerous place seems folly. And to do it so that we can say we are not nation building, so that our military is doing what a few purists claim is “its job” is beyond foolishness. My job as a soldier is to preserve the security of my nation by whatever means necessary. Right now I can’t think of a better way we can do that than holding the line against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Will has surprising allies including former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy. They say we can’t win, though we managed to achieve success in Iraq. They claim that our struggle is against al-Qaeda not the Taliban. This is akin to saying our fight was against the Japanese and giving Hitler a pass. They say Pakistan is more important, but they don’t say how losing our base in Afghanistan will solve that nation’s problems.
The debate is set against the background of an expected decision by President Obama on whether to heed his generals who are calling for an Iraq like Surge, or to find a quicker way out. Obama may have campaigned on the premise of supporting the “right war” in Afghanistan, but liberals, including most of the democratic congress are opposed to any expansion of US forces abroad. The left is now getting help from Will and McCarthy on the right. But the stakes in Afghanistan are high. The Taliban, our enemy, are resurgent there, enabled by NATO’s inability to fight a consistent counter-insurgency campaign, and the porous border with Pakistan.
Pakistan, aye there is the rub. That nation has slowly descended into its own chaos. The area along Pakistan’s Afghan border known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), is a Pashtun-Taliban enclave, inaccessible to any forces friendly to the US and its allies. The Pakistani military, a nuclear armed force of over a million men including reserves, cannot even access, much less control its own border.
The mountainous region, including the FATA, which straddles the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, is at times referred to as Pashtun-istan. The Pashtuns, a 42 million strong ethnic group, are minority populations in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. They have always been the core strength of the Taliban. Not all Pashtuns are Taliban, but most Taliban are Pashtun. Tribal ties, tradition, and ethnic politics lead most Pashtuns to support the Taliban.
Afghanistan continues to be a failed state, Pakistan is failing. We have the opportunity to continue to influence events in the region due to our presence in Afghanistan. Should the US withdraw entirely from Afghanistan certain events are highly likely to unfold. The first would be a Taliban victory in Afghanistan. They might not see the complete victory they achieved in 1996. They would at least end up seizing and dominating several provinces. These provinces would certainly include several, North and East, which dominate the landlocked nation’s rudimentary road net. The Taliban would gain a stranglehold on the Afghan economy.
They would also rule the Pashtun speaking border region. The resulting consequences of this outcome are impossible to predict. However a larger autonomous Taliban dominated zone would surely threaten the weak Pakistani government. The unspoken, nightmare outcome, we all seek to avoid, is the takeover of Pakistan by the Taliban.
Pakistan is a nuclear power. Yet in spite of this modern achievement, it is a failing nation. Assassination and civil violence have dominated recent politics. The populace is fragmented ethnically and politically. The urban elites live western lives with modern hopes. Most others live poor desperate lives. Islam is the single greatest unifying factor! Many Pakistanis of various ethnicities have shown a consistent predilection for anti-American, anti-western, pro-Taliban politics.
Two or possibly three Talibanized nations in place of today’s Afghanistan and Pakistan are in no one’s interest, especially if one of them is nuclear armed. Let us recall further that Afghanistan’s western neighbor is the WMD seeking state of Iran. That nation has infiltrated arms and personnel into the western Farsi speaking provinces of Afghanistan to pressure the US and Afghan governments, and to create its own sphere of influence.
George Will’s imagined scenario of special-forces and airpower serving in place of boots on the ground in Afghanistan surely sounds good to deskbound policy wonks. But they would do well to remember that policy failed us through the Clinton era. At that time Pakistan was under the more stable hand of Musharraf.
If we abandon our foothold in Afghanistan, we abandon our contacts on the ground. In order for predators, cruise missiles, and SF operators to succeed repeatedly against al-Qaeda, or any other enemies, our forces need human intelligence. This is why al-Qaeda and the Taliban high command retreated to and continue to hide in the inaccessible reaches of Pakistan. It’s why al-Qaeda chose the then closed state of Afghanistan as a base in the first place.
Additionally, a premature withdrawal from Afghanistan will surely present a tremendous propaganda victory to the Taliban. This would be a strategic weapon for all of our Islamist enemies in the current struggle. George Will has stepped up his campaign, and now wants to quit Iraq early as well. He mentions the ties that Shiite Iran has established with Shiite Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki as a reason to end our commitment there.
If we were to follow Mr. Will’s prescription, by 2011 we could be facing a hostile band of powers stretching from the India-Pakistan border through Syria, to the Mediterranean. This would be the worst middle-eastern scenario the US ever faced, as bad as the Soviet dominated region envisioned by Carter and Reagan circa 1980. We could face two Islamic, hostile, nuclear powers. Such an outcome would represent the beginning of the end for Israel. It would signify the end of American hegemony, and the start of a truly new world order; one that would be highly unfavorable to our interests.
These are just the consequences for us. Mr. Will would also abandon the Afghans, the Iraqis and others to the Taliban to the likeminded Shia of Iran, and to al-Qaeda. He and his applause section remind us that Islam is incompatible with democracy, that extremism pervades the region, and that generally we have no business there anymore.
While not subscribing to the left’s drivel that poverty and frustration are the root of terrorism, I think that a poorer more Islamic mid-east will be more miserable for the Afghans and Iraqis, and the Pakistanis and Iranians. Having spent time in both Iraq and Afghanistan, I have seen that most people there want peace and prosperity. They want to end the violence and raise their children more comfortably than poverty and war has thus far allowed.
While Islam may indeed lend itself to oppressive rule, so did Christianity, for nearly two millennia of Romans, feudalism, and absolutism. Today, millions of Iraqis and Afghans have shown an appreciation for democracy, and the idea of peaceful, lawful change of governments. Come to think of it, so have the much abused Lebanese. In Iran, millions voted, and when the mullahs executed a massive electoral fraud millions protested. In India millions of Muslims regularly live peaceful lives in a democracy.
It is true that democratizing the Islamic world is not, and should not be the primary prescriptive mission of the US military. However to cede the entire middle-east to the forces of extremism, to abandon our allies, to surrender our security, and make the world a much more dangerous place seems folly. And to do it so that we can say we are not nation building, so that our military is doing what a few purists claim is “its job” is beyond foolishness. My job as a soldier is to preserve the security of my nation by whatever means necessary. Right now I can’t think of a better way we can do that than holding the line against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
05 September 2009
Reason Enough to Fight On
Just over one year ago, on August 19, 2008 my friend was murdered. Taliban gunmen assassinated Mohammed Ayoob on his doorstep, in a village along the
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Not the toughest soldier, Ayoob sometimes seemed to fear his own shadow. His commanders assigned him to the supply section; the Taliban noted his gentler nature and targeted him. In the end, he was tougher than he realized. Courageous in the face of death, when three terrorists ambushed him with AK-47 assault rifles, he drew his sidearm, and fired a single round at his killers before falling, the pistol smoking in his hand.
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My friend’s death exemplifies the dynamics of the violent struggle for
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The last time the Taliban ruled
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As an American soldier, I was proud to call Ayoob my friend, but language and culture made understanding difficult. I never knew whether he was more concerned with defeating the insurgent than with holding a paying job. I suspected the latter. Ayoob, and his family, lived in a state of poverty. Like most Afghans they scraped by as best they could from year to year.
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Whether he fought for patriotism or money, Ayoob chose to stand up to the Taliban. Despite the risks involved, Sgt. Ayoob accepted a job that endangered his life. He demonstrated personal courage and a rejection of the Taliban. Soon after he died, I realized his family stood with him.
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Muslims must be buried within twenty four hours of death. The day after Ayoob died, my team, continued our own anti-Taliban efforts in the district. On the way back to our base we passed Ayoob's funeral. In a nation where few people have cars, I saw dozens of cars, packed with hundred’s of friends and relatives at the hilltop cemetery where they laid Ayoob to rest. Attendance at Ayoob’s funeral represented a public rejection of the Taliban.
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Ayoob’s friends and family are hardly unique in their rejection of the Taliban. Last week, Afghan presidential elections were held for the second time this decade. While insurgents intimidated millions of Afghans into staying home, millions more risked heir lives to vote.
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Today, in the
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McChrystal, the new commander of US and NATO forces in
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McChrystal surely envisions the “Iraq Surge” as a model for the way forward in
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Our president, who owes his political career to the far left, is now caught between his core and his campaign. He promoted the “right war” on the campaign trail to capture the middle. Now, he can expect serious pressure from his allies in Pelosi’s Democratic congress to resist an “Afghan Surge.”
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Americans may be weary of the war after eight years. Surely though, we are not more weary than the Afghans; they have known only war and terror for decades. The difference is that millions of Afghans know this war is worth fighting.
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Like the loved ones of Mohammed Ayoob, they clearly want to end the violence. Their communities have been torn apart by decades of violence, but they will not surrender to terror to achieve peace. They know that the peace of the terrified is no peace at all.
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Here at home, Americans are bombarded by the objections of the political left, and spoon-fed the dubious opinions of mainstream media pundits, but hopefully we will remember our own recent past. Eight years ago the Taliban allowed al-Quaeda to plan and train in
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Today liberals, and an increasing number of conservatives are willing to allow that same Taliban to reclaim rule over
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John Byrnes is a member of Veterans for Freedom. As a Staff Sergeant in the National Guard he spent most of 2008 in
27 August 2009
Surge Ahead!
Last week, half of those surveyed told a Washington Post-ABC News poll, that the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting. In two weeks General Stanley McChrystal will report his assessment of the situation in Afghanistan to President Obama. McChrystal, who recently assumed command of the US/NATO mission in Afghanistan, is expected to ask for another increase in US troop levels.
In December of 2006, half of the voters surveyed in a Washington Post-ABC News poll thought the USIraq; a month later President Bush approved the troop “surge” requested by General David Petraeus, the new senior US commander in Iraq. was losing in
President Obama campaigned last fall, promising to fight the “right war” in Afghanistan. The president should accept General McChrystal’s suggestions, and approve any call for additional troops. McChrystal is expected to request that the President honor his commitment to send another 17,000 troops raising the US total to nearly 85,000.
In the weeks before Iraqi Surge, liberal activists protested any troop increase. Today those liberals are pushing President Obama to abandon Afghanistan. They espouse varied reasons: the war is un-winnable; Pakistan is now the real problem; and for some, just plain pacifism. Their reflexive opposition to US military action abroad will ensure the resistance of congressional Democrats to a troop increase.
Speaker Pelosi and her loyalists will quote polls, claiming that voters are tired of the war. They will pressure President Obama to forget his promises and abandon the Afghans. Obama needs to stand up to his left leaning allies and listen to his generals.
Two years ago, hoping to prevent the surge, the same congressional Democrats quoted those polls about Iraq. Liberal Democrats virulently resisted the Iraqi surge, until it became clear in 2008 that the surge was working. That president, ignored the polls, stood firm behind General Petraeus and gave him time to achieve results. Today we continue reducing troop levels in Iraq, and while there is still violence, the Iraqi government is standing up to the Insurgency.
Afghanistan troop levels have been restricted for several reasons including the need for a larger number of troops in Iraq. Additionally, the 2002 accord put NATO in charge of military operations in Afghanistan. Some NATO allies, the British, Canadians and Dutch, have fought hard since the Taliban insurgency began. Last year, however, I personally encountered many NATO forces who were only interested in “peace keeping” operations.
Peacekeeping! I overheard NATO officers use this term, describing their mission in Northern Afghanistan, where the German Army is in charge. Aghast I had to wonder; between which factions are they keeping peace? Between a legitimate Afghan government and a Taliban insurgent force?
Peacekeeping! I overheard NATO officers use this term, describing their mission in Northern Afghanistan, where the German Army is in charge. Aghast I had to wonder; between which factions are they keeping peace? Between a legitimate Afghan government and a Taliban insurgent force?
I won’t under-value the valiant effort of thousands of NATO soldiers. During my year in the German sector of Northern Afghanistan I worked with many professional NATO soldiers. But domestic politics across Europe has corrupted the efforts of several nations from the outset.
An example: thousands of US soldiers operate in northern Afghanistan as advisors to Afghan forces. Last year we had no certainty of medical evacuation by helicopter. Allied air forces would not guarantee an immediately respond to US requests for medical evacuation. US commanders had to add limit missions, damaging our ability to complete missions.
Creating effective local security forces is the priority in Afghanistan. NATO’s constraints severely limited ou r efforts to mentor the Afghans. Now the Taliban has re-asserted itself in the northern province of Kunduz; no doubt because of NATO’s timidity and restrictions on the smaller US contingent there. A robust US presence could easily reverse these events, and hold the province until Afghan forces are ready to stand on their own. The Iraq surge succeeded through these tactics.
NATO signed up for peacekeeping, not counter-insurgency. General McChrystal specializes in counter-insurgency; he adapted US efforts to this difficult style of war. Ready to use the Iraqi surge as his model, if he can get the forces he needs he will win. A fresh infusion of US troops will secure the population, and train and mentor the Afghan security forces. A coordinated counterinsurgency effort with enough US forces, can and will succeed in Afghanistan.
If Obama truly believes that Afghanistan is the “right war,” he will use the Iraq surge model. The last administration overcame the anti-war faction in Congress, including then Senator Obama. They convinced a doubting electorate to support a new strategy. Obama must face down his own allies on the left to support an Afghan surge.
The alternatives are bleak. The Afghan war is not un-winnable, but failure to fight effectively now, could strand us in Afghanistan for years. The worst outcome would be to abandon the Afghanistan people to the Taliban. A failed, or Talibanized Afghanistan, adjacent to a weak and unstable Pakistan is not in anyone’s interest. The problem is limited to neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan. Any solution must be truly regional, therefore we must secure Afghanistan from the Taliban and its al-Quaeda allies.
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