Chamberlain's devotion to England

Churchill buries Chamberlain June 14, 2011

Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary , trackback

http://www.strangehistory.net/2011/06/14/churchill-buries-chamberlain/

In winning the Nobel Prize for literature Winston Churchill was placed among writers of the calibre of Thomas Mann, W.B. Yeats and Rudyard Kipling. This is probably – as Churchill was the first to admit – to overstate his talents as an author: there is something to Evelyn Waugh’s bitchy description of Churchill’s ‘pseudo-Augustan prose’. But Churchill had the journalist’s gift of the soundbite and, in some of his war time orations, he created sustained masterpieces that kept up the spirits of an anxious nation and the various captive populations of continental Europe. A minor Churchillian classic that is often overlooked is his obituary on Neville Chamberlain, interesting both as a piece of writing, as parliamentary theatre and as a reflection on the nature of history.For Beachcombing, anyway, it rivals Churchill’s Dream.

In the second half of the 1930s Churchill, as Tory rebel, and Chamberlain, as prime minister, had bitterly fought each other in the Commons over Britain’s attitude towards Germany. Chamberlain followed a policy of detenté and containment: called, perhaps, unfairly ‘appeasement'; while Churchill saw, he believed, deeper into Hitler’s soul and wanted defiance and rollback. When war finally came Churchill served under Chamberlain as First Lord of the Admiralty and here there was some reconciliation between the two: the Chamberlains and the Churchills even shared dinner together at number Ten. Then, when Chamberlain resigned and Churchill became Prime Minister Chamberlain remained in the war cabinet and accommodation between the two men continued despite their very different instincts. However, this phase too ended as 9 November 1940, Neville Chamberlain passed away after a brief battle with cancer.

By the time of Chamberlain’s death Churchill had reconciled himself to his old foe. He personally asked the King that Chamberlain be given access to Cabinet papers in his last days and in Churchill’s bumptious Boy’s Own universe Chamberlain himself was able to see that Britain was going to make it through: ‘I think he died with the comfort of knowing that his country had, at least, turned the corner’. It goes without saying that nobody could have guessed that Britain had ‘turned the corner’ in late 1940, that moment would not come until Japanese bombs fell at Pearl Harbour a year later. But Churchill had the habit of deforming reality so everything fit around his personal mythology of romance and redemption. It is one of the reasons that his Second World War reads so very well and is so often a poor historical source. Still these qualities were always going to make the great man’s speech on Chamberlain’s demise a cracker. Imagine the wartime House quiet with curiosity to hear whether Churchill could bury his old rival without damning him for the sins (as Churchill saw it) of attempting peace with Germany.

At the lychgate we may all pass our own conduct and our own judgments under a searching review. It is not given to human beings, happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable, to foresee or to predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events. In one phase men seem to have been right, in another they seem to have been wrong. Then again, a few years later, when the perspective of time has lengthened, all stands in a different setting. There is a new proportion. There is another scale of values. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days.

What is the worth of all this? The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honour.

It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were these wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart – the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril, and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour. Whatever else history may or may not say about these terrible, tremendous years, we can be sure that Neville Chamberlain acted with perfect sincerity according to his lights and strove to the utmost of his capacity and authority, which were powerful, to save the world from the awful, devastating struggle in which we are now engaged. This alone will stand him in good stead as far as what is called the verdict of history is concerned… Herr Hitler protests with frantic words and gestures that he has only desired peace. What do these ravings and outpourings count before the silence of Neville Chamberlain’s tomb?

Beachcombing is always on the look out for Second World War curiosities: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com

***

15 June 2011: Umbriel writes in ‘I’m not sure I agree that ‘nobody could have guessed that Britain had ‘turned the corner’ in late 1940’ – By the fall, the climax of the Battle of Britain was past, and with it imminent threat of invasion.  The ‘Destroyers for Bases Agreement’ had taken some of the pressure off in the Battle of the Atlantic. Most importantly, Churchill had by that time forged a strong working relationship with FDR (whose reelection occurred only a few days before Chamberlain’s demise, but was never in serious doubt), guaranteeing that the ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ would provide increasing support. While all that might have been of limited comfort to the folks in London enduring the Blitz, the merchant and naval sailors in the Atlantic, and the troops in North Africa, I think the top-level planners realized that the long-term odds were as much in their favor as they’d been in World War I. For additional perspective on this, I highly recommend the recent book, The Wages of Destruction – an economic history of Nazi Germany, it puts in perspective a lot of the industrial and economic factors that drove the war.’ Thanks Umbriel!!

trolling; la la la

Science confirms: Online trolls are horrible people (also, sadists!)

New research out of Canada finds trolls are sadistic. Who knew?

by Nate Anderson - Feb 21 2014, 9:53am NZDT

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Alec Baldwin reminds us of the troll's mantra.

New Line Cinema / Aurich Lawson

If you have siblings, you no doubt harbor a hint of the sadist; who hasn't delighted in getting the occasional rise out of a younger brother by petting his cat after he ordered you not to do so? (To take one, ahem, utterly fictional example that is not in any way drawn from my childhood.) But your run-of-the-mill backseat pokers, hair pullers, and forbidden cat petters don't generally grow up to spend large portions of their time harassing total strangers on the Internet in search of "lulz." They don't, in other words, turn into Internet trolls.

That's because the true troll has a lot more of the sadist hidden deep inside than you do, gentle reader—at least according to a new study, "Trolls just want to have fun,"

Who is my brothers keeper? , in the same boat?

Another thoughtful article written by J. Vanne.

http://americanpreppersnetwork.com/2013/04/are-preppers-selfish.html

Selfishness and Preparedness

Recently, a small firestorm was ignited by Valerie Lucus-McEwen, a government Emergency Management employee,  who had the temerity to accuse preparedness types of “selfishness.” While your immediate reaction may be – as mine certainly was – “Are people really and truly this thoughtless?” – this question does deserve a proper answer, particularly as those who are easily influenced by the leftist media, or who believe the state really and actually is the omniscient, omnipotent savior of  our personal and corporate lives, are actually asking this question. So, let’s examine the issue:

  

First, many preparedness types have, as part of their goal, the intent of helping neighbors and family who were unable – or unwilling – to prepare. In my own case, part of what I have in mind is assisting a large group of mentally retarded and Down’s syndrome children that my church has taken under its wing. (A group the state would do no more than “warehouse” if it were under their direction!). Not all preppers feel this way, but I would bet my bottom can of stored tuna fish there is an exceedingly large percentage of preparedness types who feel similarly.

The non-prepper is, in my experience, generally of socialist orientation. The results of this approach was tried – and found wanting - all the way back in the Pilgrim era. Many of you are aware that when the Pilgrims first arrived, they worked out of a communal system. The result was starvation and death. As this approach did not work, they then “privatized” their system – and of course flourished. You can easily research this history yourself, but if one has any experience with human nature, it is immediately apparent why this didn’t – and has never in history – worked. The issue is that human nature is imperfect and selfish, just as Adam Smith wrote about in the Wealth of Nations. A simple recognition of this basic aspect of human nature – and finding a way to work with this reality, rather than against it, provides the most good for the largest number of people – exactly as Smith wrote, and exactly as history has shown for anyone who has eyes to see. And for those of you with Judeo-Christian worldviews, this issue is why Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn called Communism “a Christian heresy.” Long story short, the question is: Is man perfectible (particularly with the best and brightest, such as Hilary, George Soros, Al Gore and Obama telling – nay,forcing – us what to do!), or are all men fallible, and the dictum of Lord Acton correct that absolute power corrupts absolutely correct. There is an unbridgeable divide between these two assumptions, and this divide makes itself manifest in the Hamlet-like “to prep or not to prep” debate.

The Fleet Street Letter put this matter perspicaciously a number of years ago, and is worth quoting at length: “There are two major traditions in Western political thought. The first is Aristotelian, logical, rational, centrist, mechanistic. You concentrate power and truth in the centre and apply it outward, shaping the world according to plan. This was the guiding principle of the Roman Empire. It evolved into the Holy Roman Empire and the Church of Rome. Except for Switzerland, it has dominated politics on the continent ever since. Most recently, it has morphed into the European Union. The principle is simple – smart people can figure out how to run things, and should be allowed to do so. This was the idea behind Hillary Clinton’s health care task force (and now ObamaCare), as well as Japan, Inc. and even Adolph Hitler’s National Socialist Germany. It has animated nearly every politician (each one  of whom, as Garrison Keilor notes about Lake Woebegone children, are above average) in this century. But there is another tradition that is much less well understood. It is the tradition of the Roman Republic… of English common law… of Adam Smith and Emmanuel Kant… of Austrian School economists such as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek and of pre-Rooseveltian American. It is organic, rather than mechanistic – the tradition of tradition, based on the recognition that people, no matter how smart, cannot replace thousands of years of accumulated experience. Experience is embodied in the evolved systems of values, customs, rules and traditions that people use to order and give meaning to their lives. A free market and a free society allow people to express these preferences, as well as allowing the process of social and civil evolution to continue. This tradition, in other words, is neither liberal nor conservative in the modern sense, but anti-political. Indeed, it is often seen as “anti-intellectual” because it denies the authority of intellectuals to tell the rest of us what to do (through the political process).”

Perhaps you, like I do, remember the “best and the brightest” who led the Vietnam war? How did that one work out? Or, if that news is too stale, perhaps you care to visit present day Detroit – which was the first city to adopt the socialist “Model Cities Program” in under Mayor Coleman Young a number of decades ago. Similarly, Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” was a quasi- socialist endeavor, which was intended to end poverty. You can judge for yourself what all those $9 trillion dollars spent on this “war” resulted in

All is chemical to fireball

The Obama administration has selectively used intelligence to justify military strikes on Syria, former military officers with access to the original intelligence reports say, in a manner that goes far beyond what critics charged the Bush administration of doing in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war.

According to these officers, who served in top positions in the United States, Britain, France, Israel, and Jordan, a Syrian military communication intercepted by Israel’s famed Unit 8200 electronic intelligence outfit has been doctored so that it leads a reader to just the opposite conclusion reached by the original report.

The doctored report was leaked to a private Internet-based newsletter that boasts of close ties to the Israeli intelligence community, and led to news reports that the United States now had firm evidence showing that the Syrian government had ordered the chemical weapons attack on August 21 against a rebel-controlled suburb of Damascus.

The doctored report was picked up on Israel’s Channel 2 TV  on Aug. 24, then by Focus magazine in Germany, the Times of Israel, and eventually by The Cable  in Washington, DC.

According to the doctored report, the chemical attack was carried out by the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division of the Syrian Army, an elite unit commanded by Maher al-Assad, the president’s brother.

However, the original communication intercepted by Unit 8200 between a major in command of the rocket troops assigned to the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division, and the general staff, shows just the opposite.

The general staff officer asked the major if he was responsible for the chemical weapons attack. From the tone of the conversation, it was clear that “the Syrian general staff were out of their minds with panic that an unauthorized strike had been launched by the 155th Brigade in express defiance of their instructions,” the former officers say.

According to the transcript of the original Unit 8200 report, the major “hotly denied firing any of his missiles” and invited the general staff to come and verify that all his weapons were present.

The report contains a note at the end that the major was interrogated by Syrian intelligence for three days, then returned to command of his unit. “All of his weapons were accounted for,” the report stated.

The New York Times reported this morning  that the White House is now backing off its claims to have a “smoking gun that directly links President Bashar al-Assad to the attack.”

The new argument is more deductive: since the Assad regime has chemical weapons and chemical weapons were used in Mouadhamiya, therefore the Syrian regime must have been the ones to use them.

Another page, plus some good comments after the jump.

Tags: Bashar al-Assad, Kenneth Timmerman, Syria

Police change sides or Public changes sides??

http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2013/03/30/how-kill-the-pigs-became-only-the-police-should-have-guns/

How “kill the pigs” became “only the police should have guns”

How “kill the pigs” became “only the police should have guns”

by Jon Rappoport

March 30, 2013

www.nomorefakenews.com

In the fabled 1960s, the cops were called pigs, and anybody on the political Left who wanted a ticket to the show knew that and mouthed it often.

At rallies, protests, and riots, people said: are the pigs here yet? I heard they were three blocks away. Wonder how many pigs they’re sending today? There! There they are! The pigs!

Now, on the Left, that tradition has morphed into: repeal the 2^nd Amendment; turn in your guns; citizens with guns are satanic; the police will protect us; a private citizen with a gun is a killer and needs psychiatric lockdown; suspend that five-year old with the gun screen-saver.

What happened?

In 1968, if you asked a leftie college student whether a black man living in the inner city had a right to own a gun to protect himself against the cops, the answer, ten out of ten times, would have been yes.

Now, that leftie kid will be talking about the insanity of anybody owning a gun. Except for the cops.

Well, three things have happened since the 1960s. The end of the military draft, and the end of anybody caring who smokes pot or who has sex with who. Those changes melted away the whole “movement.”

A professor friend taught at UCLA during the turbulent 60s and early 70s. He told me as soon as the Vietnam war was over, the campus transformed in a flash. Students were suddenly all about finding a niche in the job market after graduation. Boom. Switch on, switch off.

The titanic idealism was put away in a drawer and filed under “crazy shit I did.”

The one remaining piece from the 60s that has endured is hatred of big corporations. But gradually, a parallel mindset has developed. First, grudging acceptance of big government; then toleration; then admiration.

Now, the Left is all about big government and the “positive changes” it can make.

And when I say the Left, I also mean the center, and a great deal of the right, because they’ve come along for the ride, too. They are the Left now.

In 1968, a big-time liberal presidential candidate, Hubert Humphrey, was the target of riots, by the Left, at the Democratic National Convention. Those riots tore apart half the city. Two years earlier, a march, by the Left, on the Century Plaza Hotel in LA, where Democratic President Lyndon Johnson was staying, sealed his fate. It was the last stone. Johnson, who had presided over the war on poverty and the creation of “The Great Society,” the biggest federal program since FDR’s New Deal, was mangled into oblivion.

Johnson announced he wouldn’t run for office again in 1968.

If Pelosi, Reid, Frank, and Obama had been around then, they would have been hammered in the same way by the Left. If they were for the war in Vietnam.

That was the big key, the war. Or to be precise, the military draft.

“Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?!”

Meaning: “I won’t risk my neck going to Nam!”

The elite Left has become the personification of the soccer mom now. Worries about everything. Danger everywhere. Needs more helmets. Schedules more play dates. Wants more state surveillance. “If you’re against intrusion on your privacy, maybe you have something to hide.” “Keep the poor bottled up in inner cities, give them anything they want, just don’t let them into my neighborhood.”

The Left has also become the promise of a vague fairyland new age. “We’re all in this together.” “We can raise up the lowest among us (by printing more money).”

women in combat

WILLIAM KRISTOL

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https://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/no-better-critics_698023.html?page=1

I’m a female veteran. I deployed to Anbar Province, Iraq. When I was active duty, I was 5’6, 130 pounds, and scored nearly perfect on my PFTs. I naturally have a lot more upper body strength than the average woman: not only can I do pull-ups, I can meet the male standard. I would love to have been in the infantry. And I still think it will be an unmitigated disaster to incorporate women into combat roles. I am not interested in risking men’s lives so I can live my selfish dream.

We’re not just talking about watering down the standards to include the politically correct number of women into the unit. This isn’t an issue of “if a woman can meet the male standard, she should be able to go into combat.” The number of women that can meet the male standard will be miniscule–I’d have a decent shot according to my PFTs, but dragging a 190-pound man in full gear for 100 yards would DESTROY me–and that miniscule number that can physically make the grade AND has the desire to go into combat will be facing an impossible situation that will ruin the combat effectiveness of the unit.

First, the close quarters of combat units make for a complete lack of privacy and EVERYTHING is exposed, to include intimate details of bodily functions. Second, until we succeed in completely reprogramming every man in the military to treat women just like men, those men are going to protect a woman at the expense of the mission. Third, women have physical limitations that no amount of training or conditioning can overcome. Fourth, until the media in this country is ready to treat a captured/raped/tortured/mutilated female soldier just like a man, women will be targeted by the enemy without fail and without mercy.

I saw the male combat units when I was in Iraq. They go outside the wire for days at a time. They eat, sleep, urinate and defecate in front of each other and often while on the move. There’s no potty break on the side of the road outside the wire. They urinate into bottles and defecate into MRE bags. I would like to hear a suggestion as to how a woman is going to urinate successfully into a bottle while cramped into a humvee wearing full body armor. And she gets to accomplish this feat with the male members of her combat unit twenty inches away. Volunteers to do that job? Do the men really want to see it? Should they be forced to?

Everyone wants to point to the IDF as a model for gender integration in the military. No, the IDF does not put women on the front lines. They ran into the same wall the US is about to smack into: very few women can meet the standards required to serve there. The few integrated units in the IDF suffered three times the casualties of the all-male units because the Israeli men, just like almost every other group of men on the planet, try to protect the women even at the expense of the mission. Political correctness doesn’t trump thousands of years of evolution and societal norms. Do we really WANT to deprogram that instinct from men?Regarding physical limitations, not only will a tiny fraction of women be able to meet the male standard, the simple fact is that women tend to be shorter than men. I ran into situations when I was deployed where I simply could not reach something. I wasn’t tall enough. I had to ask a man to get it for me. I can’t train myself to be taller. Yes, there are small men…but not so nearly so many as small women. More, a military PFT doesn’t measure the ability to jump. Men, with more muscular legs and bones that carry more muscle mass than any woman can condition herself to carry, can jump higher and farther than women. That’s why we have a men’s standing jump and long jump event in the Olympics separate from women. When you’re going over a wall in Baghdad that’s ten feet high, you have to be able to be able to reach the top of it in full gear and haul yourself over. That’s not strength per se, that’s just height and the muscular explosive power to jump and reach the top. Having to get a boost from one of the men so you can get up and over could get that man killed.

Without pharmaceutical help, women just do not carry the muscle mass men do. That muscle mass is also a shock absorber. Whether it’s the concussion of a grenade going off, an IED, or just a punch in the face, a woman is more likely to go down because she can’t absorb the concussion as well as a man can. And I don’t care how the PC forces try to slice it, in hand-to-hand combat the average man is going to destroy the average woman because the average woman is smaller, period. Muscle equals force in any kind of strike you care to perform. That’s why we don’t let female boxers face male boxers.Lastly, this country and our military are NOT prepared to see what the enemy will do to female POWs. The Taliban, AQ, insurgents, jihadis, whatever you want to call them, they don’t abide by the Geneva Conventions and treat women worse than livestock. Google Thomas Tucker and Kristian Menchaca if you want to see what they do to our men (and don’t google it unless you have a strong stomach) and then imagine a woman in their hands. How is our 24/7 news cycle going to cover a captured, raped, mutilated woman? After the first one, how are the men in the military going to treat their female comrades? ONE Thomasina Tucker is going to mean the men in the military will move heaven and earth to protect women, never mind what it does to the mission. I present you with Exhibit A: Jessica Lynch. Male lives will be lost trying to protect their female comrades. And the people of the US are NOT, based on the Jessica Lynch episode, prepared to treat a female POW the same way they do a man.

I say again, I would have loved to be in the infantry. I think I could have done it physically, I could’ve met almost all the male standards (jumping aside), and I think I’m mentally tough enough to handle whatever came. But I would never do that to the men. I would never sacrifice the mission for my own desires. And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if someone died because of me.

- Sentry

Unheard Gun Positives

http://www.newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin711.htm

DON'T TRY THAT IN MONTANA

By Chuck Baldwin
July 26, 2012NewsWithViews.com

We Will Never Surrender Our Firearms! Never

By now, everybody in the country knows about the horrific shootings at a packed theater in the metro Denver area last week. Twelve people were killed and scores were wounded. Predictably, gun-control zealots nationwide are shouting for stricter gun control laws. Not only that, some are even calling for the TSA to set up airport-style screening devices in movie theaters.

So, if the TSA is going to set up screening devices for movie theaters, why not grocery stores, department stores, malls, strip malls, churches, boy scout meetings, girl scout meetings, soccer matches, little league baseball games, concerts, rodeos, etc., etc. Heck, let's just put TSA screeners at any gathering that attracts more than, say, ten people! What about the cost, you ask? Who cares? It's all about being safe, right? If big-government toadies have taught us anything over the past several years it is that the American people are a bunch of helpless, defenseless sheep who owe all of their safety and security to the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-caring federal government, right?

Whether the Denver shooter was a plain old wacko or a product of some sort of sophisticated MK Ultra-type assassination program, as some are suggesting, the reason twelve people died and so many were wounded is because the laws of the city and rules of the movie theater demanded that patrons disarm themselves. Had only one or two individuals in that movie theater been armed, the outcome could have been much different. Twelve people are dead, because the movie theater was a gun-free zone! Obviously, bad guys do not pay any attention to gun-free zones, except to note that such zones create a free-killing environment.

Have readers ever noticed that these so-called "madmen" are never crazy enough to try and attack guys at a gun range? Gee! I wonder why not?

One thing the national news media will always ignore is the practice of lawful self-defense. For example, most people are probably not aware of the fact that American citizens use a firearm to defend themselves more than 2.4 million times EVERY YEAR. That is more than 6,500 times EVERY DAY. This means that, each year, firearms are used 60 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives. Furthermore, of the 2.4 million self-defense cases, more than 192,000 are by women defending themselves against sexual assault. And in less than eight percent of those occasions is a shot actually fired. The vast majority of the time (92%), the mere presence of a firearm helps to avert a major crime from occurring. That is what Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) concluded after extensive research. According to Rep. Bartlett, the number of defensive uses is four times the number of crimes reported committed with guns.

John Lott, senior research scientist at the University of Maryland, agrees with Bartlett. His book "More Guns, Less Crime" documents the fact that firearms in the hands of private citizens are actually a major deterrent to crime--instead of being a cause of crime.

One thing America's founders unanimously agreed on was the necessity of free people to keep and bear arms. In light of the Denver shootings, Thomas Jefferson's counsel makes even more sense. He said, "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor
determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." If the Denver killings prove anything, they
prove Jefferson's perceptive pronouncement.

But civilian disarmament has consequences even greater than those of a lone gunman attacking people in a movie theater.

conservative to social democracy

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=215813

The philosophical foundation of a republic includes the idea that people are sovereign and that the government people create derives its power from the consent of the governed. A social democracy thrives on the idea that the government is sovereign and may grant or deny freedom to the people as it may please government.

In a republic, the primary function of government is to protect the rights endowed to people by their Creator and to defend the people from all enemies, foreign and domestic. In a social democracy, the function of government is to manage the people's behavior and activities to achieve whatever goals the government defines.

A republic recognizes that the less involvement government can have in the marketplace, the more prosperous that marketplace will be. In a social democracy, government manages the marketplace to achieve social objectives rather than prosperity.

Henry Lamb is the author of "The Rise of Global Governance," chairman of Sovereignty International and founder of the Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO) and Freedom21 Inc.

What Who Why fights terror

MikeNZ (3,076) Says:

October 29th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

To stand up for something, you must believe in its worth. To stand up to something, you must believe that it is less worthy. If you don’t believe that, then it is easier to sit down, to give in and let them do whatever they want

A long article but this sentence highlights a problem or vacuum we have in Western society today.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2010/10/national-survival-for-america-and_4531.html

Clouds in My Coffee, Fear to Fear

Clouds In My Coffee
Submitted by JR Nyquist on Fri, 1 Oct 2010
The leading hit song in 1973 was Carly Simon's You're So Vain. It's about disappointed love, and contains the following line at the heart of the song: "I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee...." Last month the Center for Security Policy presented the political equivalent of Simon's song to the national security establishment, titled Shariah, the Threat to America; An Exercise in Competitive Analysis, report of Team 'B' II, which touches many a cloud in our national coffee.

The Team B Report doesn't walk into the party as if onto a yacht, with its hat strategically dipped below one eye; and there isn't an apricot scarf. In fact, there's no concern for fashion of any kind. The vanities of political correctness, multiculturalism, and the lingua franca of self-abnegating tolerance do not appear. We are in a war for our existence, says Team B. We are fighting a subversive and well-organized subset of Muslims. "In keeping with Article VI of the Constitution, [we need to] extend bans currently in effect that bar members of hate groups ... from holding positions of trust in [government]."

But the national security establishment couldn't possibly agree with this. For them, it is unacceptable to identify America's enemies or to deny Muslims coveted posts. Opinion leaders like journalist Fareed Zakaria, as well as President Barack Obama, would rather talk about tolerance and inclusion. After all, if we don't embrace Muslims we will offend them. In that event, the next terrorist attack really will be our fault. And besides, a xenophobic display would damage our position overseas. Here is the main and immediate objection to Team B. As Zakaria explained in The Post-American World: America lacks legitimacy, unlike the rock singer Bono who excels because he is able to "capture the intellectual and moral high ground."

Instead of bogus national power based on military capabilities, we can found our security on the moral high ground, on vanity. Who needs to think of enemies, or the kind of vigilance required in preparing for war? We can do what Denmark, Luxembourg and the Baltic States did in 1940. And to do this all-the-better, we must follow Zakaria's suggestions. We must avoid publicly naming our enemies since this will only serve to unite them into a more compact mass. "Stop cowering in fear," warned Zakaria. Fear is the enemy. There is nothing to fear but fear itself, said FDR. There is nothing to fear because, as President Barack Obama recently told Bob Woodward, "We can absorb [another] terrorist attack...." If thousands die, if skyscrapers fall, if the Pentagon burns -- absorb it! Get over it! Grow up! America's strength is found in its tolerance, not in its ability to strike back.

But before Zakaria and Obama can fly off to Nova Scotia for a total eclipse of the sun, we should consider Team B's comeback. First, the issue at hand is not a matter of a few thousand dead or a few tumbled skyscrapers. It is a matter of life and death for an entire nation; because the United States is in a struggle for its existence. The enemy adheres to an "all encompassing Islamic political-military-legal doctrine known as shariah" which aims at global Islamic supremacy. Of course, a large number of Muslims don't follow the directives of shariah. On the other hand, a large number agree that they ought to. This nuance shouldn't be passed over in silence. Furthermore, as Muslims flood into the United States to live and work, we find ourselves unable to distinguish the moderates from the radicals. According to Team B: "the most difficult attack to defend against is the one that comes from inside the defensive perimeter...." The Report continues, "That is the situation of America today. We have an enemy inside our perimeter." Millions of Muslims live and work in America today. Which of these are enemies, and which are friends? The President says it doesn't matter because we can absorb an attack. Zakaria says it doesn't matter, because our best defense is to let everyone in (and include everyone). But is this really a defense? Or is it clouds in our coffee?

Defectors from the Muslim Brotherhood have already attempted to warn the American people that the Brotherhood seeks to destroy the United States Constitution and replace it with shariah. "These brave men," says the Team B report, "are helping to define the enemy." But the American establishment doesn't want to listen. They do not want definitions. They want inclusion, tolerance, and a blurring of every line of demarcation. They don't want to identify Islam with the cause of the enemy. They don't want to address the issue of forced marriages, honor killings, female genital mutilation, polygamy and domestic abuse. The Team B report says, "Evidence of the extent to which shariah is being insinuated into the fabric of American society abounds, if one is willing to see it."

Does Team B exaggerate the Islamic threat? If you read the Report you'll find that it discusses long-term Islamic subversion, stretching to the end of the present century. The main issues are cultural rather than military. The Report discusses our "national lack of moral certitude." It suggests that a failure to side with one's own society, customs and folkways is tantamount to taking the "other" side in a long-term struggle over values (theirs versus ours). Diversity, under these circumstances, is not automatically good. "Under sway of the multicultural credo, notions of the superiority of Western culture are heretical, an imminent threat to the leveling arrangement that makes the European Union's so-called 'meeting of different civilizations' possible."

But are such things truly possible? In real life, as opposed to childish dreams about life, you have to stand up for yourself. This doesn't mean that you have to be a bully. It means that if you aren't for yourself, then who is? In place of this sort of advice, our president gives the counsel of vanity, attempting to win approval overseas. Should we reconcile ourselves to absorbing a massive terrorist assault for the sake of maintaining what Zakaria calls "legitimacy" (which otherwise belongs to rock stars, and to Luxembourg)? Is national survival and persistence our goal, or do we crave international applause? Should America take a rock star as its model? Or should we sing the words set down by Carly Simon?

JR Nyquist
jrnyquist @ aol.com http://www.jrnyquist.com
Other Articles by JR Nyquist
•The Peace Fairy
•Standing Up When It's Too Late
•No Country for Silly Men

"Cold War"

FROM "COLD WAR" TO GUERRA FRIA?
Patrick L. Moore
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Despite the much celebrated Israeli/Palestinian settlement, Yasser Arafat recently made some curious statements during a trip to South Africa, especially for a man supposedly promoting authentic peace in the Middle East. First, he called for "a jihad [i.e. an Islamic Holy War] to liberate Jerusalem."[1] After vehement protests by the Israelis and Americans, he "clarified" that comment by saying he meant a "peaceful" jihad. Second, he described the PLO/Israeli agreement as of no more significance than the Pact of Hudaibiya (a treaty signed between the Prophet Muhammad and the Quraish tribe of Mecca in 628 A.D.).[2] That agreement was supposed to last ten years, but it soon proved to be a Carthaginian peace for the Quraish and it was abrogated the next year by the Muslims at the first opportunity, leading to the fall of Mecca and the victory of Islamic forces in Arabia.[3] "Hudaibiya" is especially noteworthy because "[i]n later times, the agreement ... served as the prophetic precedent, to determine the Shari`a [Divine Law] rules governing the interruption of the jihad for negotiation and truce."[4] The lesson of Hudaibiya referred to by Arafat, then, was that no "peace" with non-Muslims could be final.[5]
What must be realized about Arafat's statements is that they are specifically relevant and meaningful on an important, objective level and are not mere hyperbole or fundamentalist cant. The references to jihad and the Pact of Hudaibiya are compass headings to the heart of traditional Islam. They are not decipherable as such, however, without adopting an attitude of respect for Islam itself as a proclaimed world faith and candidate guide to ultimate truth, which also involves a similar respect for the factual history of Islam, its internal development and its interactions with the world of the West. If American policymakers are to properly understand Islam they must strive to overcome the dominant Western prejudice of "modernism" which sees all religions as mere irrational, personalist and primitive superstition, functionally irrelevant to public affairs (except, perhaps, as psychologically symptomatic). Functional and philosophical modernism is an attitude of intellectual immaturity or carelessness which has blinded American policy decisions in the Middle East and elsewhere in this century.[6] To deal effectively with Muslims and Islam, Americans must first respect Islam and come to know it as it really is - especially the history and meaning of jihad.

There are five especially critical aspects about Islam's doctrine of jihad which must be brought out to properly understand the significance of Islam as it relates to the United States and the West.[7] In summary, the meaning of jihad in its primary sense is military and coercive; it is central to the universalist doctrine of the Islamic belief system; its operational aim is political domination of non-Islamic territories (i.e. rather than forced conversion); it is offensive or aggressive in nature in the first instance (and not merely "defensive"); and, finally, jihad is continuous in character (i.e. pending the ultimate victory of the forces of Islam).

jihad is primarily "military" in character. The term jihad has both a common and a legal meaning - but its legal meaning has become the primary definition. In its common (rather than technical) meaning it describes a state of effort or striving, in the sense of "exerting oneself as much as one can." However, jihad in its legal sense (as adopted by Islam in application to the formal relations between Muslim and non-Muslim peoples) is defined (according to historically attested Islamic authorities) as, e.g. "fighting the unbelievers by striking them, taking their property, demolishing their places of worship, smashing their idols and the like." Whenever the term jihad is used without qualification (as when Arafat first used it in his un-"clarified" comments in South Africa) it always means the "jihad of the Sword," i.e. "fighting the unbelievers for religion's sake."[8] Some modern Islamic apologists (as with the waffling Arafat), try to deflect or redirect attention from the traditional Islamic, military meaning of the duty of jihad by equivocating, ignoring or minimizing its legal meaning in favor of its common or informal meaning of "spiritual striving."[9] The effort simply does not square with the historical evidence and juridical teachings over the centuries. Although the term originally contained a non-military significance, it has historically been defined by the Islamic authorities of note in its doctrinally military and combative sense.[10] (Additionally, jihad is not the same as "just war," as defined in the Western tradition of that name, although some try to say so or imply it.[11] Not every just war is a Christian holy war or Crusade.[12] Just War, in the first and Western sense, has always meant a morally "permissible" rather than a holy, laudatory or mandatory war. Just Wars may be fought while Holy Wars or Crusades should be fought. On the other hand, all jihad is "holy war" by inherent meaning as a term in religious law or fiqh. In Islam, it is only religious war which is licit—i.e. jihad[13].)

Furthermore, jihad is not a peripheral or subsidiary doctrine of Islam (as is the "Just War" theory of Christendom). jihad is actually at the active center, the core, the ratio and raison d'etre of Islam. It has sometimes been called the "sixth" pillar of Islam, the unnamed key-stone resting on the explicitly named "five pillars" or essentials, i.e.: profession of the faith (Shahada), ritual prayer (Salat), fasting in Ramadan (Sawm), pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj) and almsgiving (Zakat).[14] Above all, jihad is the enabling mechanism, the method of choice, for the announced goal of Islamic universalism. It is the "name" for the duty of a striving Islamic universalism itself. jihad, in its primary military/ideological sense, is the mandated vehicle of Islamic "universalism" (i.e. the religious claim that Islam is the true faith to whose temporal as well as spiritual authority the whole world must submit).[15]

Islam itself means "submission" while "Muslim" means one who has submitted" to the will of Allah.[16] The initial operational goal of Islamic universalism, its missionary extension into the lands of unbelief, is the political subjugation of the non-Islamic world.[17] Islam requires Muslims to strive to impose Muslim rule on the non-Muslim world in order to, in effect, make the world safe for Islam—i.e. the enforcement of Shari`a or divine law. jihad should not mistakenly be confused with forced conversion— which is not allowed under Islam.[18] Forced conversion is not the purpose of jihad, but rather its aim is political conquest and control. "The warriors of Islam had as their immediate concern the subjugation, rather than conversion, of the unbelievers."[19]

Historical Islam sees jihad as an affirmative duty which is operationally offensive or aggressive (in the traditional military sense) and not merely "defensive." Modern Islamic apologists sometimes assert that jihad is now only "defensive," but their definition of that concept is highly questionable.[20] As one commentator noted: "[J]ustifications for launching an Islamic 'defensive' war may include "justifications for war that are not recognized in public international law" and "assertions that Islam allows wars only in self-defense must be subjected to scrutiny to ascertain whether the Islamic concepts of self-defense being used do in fact correspond to the concepts of international law."[21] For instance, cited Islamic causes for initiating war include showing hostility, opposition to the mission of Islam or contempt for it (which are all religious reasons in the nature of refusing a call to convert or submit to the forces of Islam or failing to treat Islamic missionaries with respect) and, therefore, resistance to Islamic universalism or lack of respect for the Islamic faith or its mission is classically considered a casus belli or aggression against Islam.[22]

The Islamic "modernist" interpretation of so-called defensive restrictions on jihad actually arose within Islam after the failure of the Great Mutiny in India in 1857 which left the Indian Muslims (reputed to have strongly supported the rebellion) socially, politically and militarily isolated and exposed to British retribution. Some Indian Muslim intellectuals endeavored to redefine the classical doctrine of Islam so as to avoid a direct, religious/ideological confrontation with the superior colonial might of the British Empire. A similar effort was involved in Egypt, but there the Islamic revisionists insisted that "defense" included opposition to colonial administrations as well. Both positions were not in accord with the fundamentalist or orthodox opinion of the majority of Muslims who saw the duty of jihad in the primary, classical sense of expansionary geopolitical struggle to dominate non-Muslim territories whenever feasible.[23]

The bedrock doctrine of Islam which impels the duty of jihadic universalism is that one must "command the good and forbid evil."[24] Compare this to the critical (and less geopolitically compelling) foundation of Christianity which says that one should strive to do good, and avoid that which is evil.[25] Similarly, Islam commands the faithful to "slay them [i.e. the unbelievers] wherever ye find them"[26] while Christianity merely enjoins "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations ... ."[27] The difference is not just academic. Under the belief system of classical, orthodox Islam, a Muslim cannot be genuinely free or exercise "freedom of religion" unless he is in command of society.[28] Therefore, the duty of the Muslim is to strive in all ways to expand Islam and to subjugate the non-Islamic world to Islamic power.[29] "Until that happens, the world is divided into two: the House of Islam (dar al-Islam), where Muslims rule and the law of Islam prevails; and the House of War (dar al-Harb), comprising the rest of the world. Between the two there is a morally necessary, legally and religiously obligatory state of war, until the final and inevitable triumph of Islam over unbelief."[30] Offensive (expansionary) military jihad is the constant duty of the community as a whole while strictly defensive jihad becomes a personal and particular obligation as well.[31] Even when it is defensive, however, it is not always so in the sense we have come to define that word.[32]

Finally, jihad is and must be permanent. jihad is "a permanent obligation upon the entire Muslim community."[33] It may pass into periods of dormancy,[34] but the obligation of jihad can never end short of the complete subjugation of the non- Muslim world.[35] This is the principle implied in the precedent of Hudaibiya as alluded to by Yasser Arafat (a principle which is the operational expression of strict Islamic universalism). Treaties can never be more than truces.[36] Always and at some level, Islam is at war with the non-Islamic world. While there may be an interruption of open hostilities between the West (or any other non-muslim territory) and Islam in specific cases, or even a "peace" with Muslims who choose not to adhere to traditional Islamic teaching in this regard, there can never be peace between unbelievers and Islam, i.e. orthodox, historical Islam.[37] In fact, under the orthodox Islamic doctrine of jihad, relations between the House of Islam (Islamic territory) and the House of War (territories of unsubjugated unbelievers) can never ameliorate past the level of low- intensity conflict or Islamic "insurgency" against the infidels.[38]

To so describe the authentic Islamic doctrine of jihad is not to in anyway malign Islam or Muslims, no more so than describing the orthodox Catholic teachings on an all male clergy, divorce and artificial birth control would be to insult Roman Catholics. All it says is that those teachings and doctrines are, in fact, what they are. The orthodox doctrine of jihad has been historically announced and defined.[39] Those who would argue that it has changed (contrary to the historical record of thirteen centuries) bear a serious and heavy burden of proof to establish that proposition, especially to the satisfaction of Islam's rank and file. There is great pressure on modern Islam to "get with it" and dispense with its less "modern" or fashionable doctrines.[40] As one traditional Islamist put it: "In order to be strong, we are told, we must reject 'traditional' interpretations of the Quran and read it 'rationally' in the light of modern life."[41] However, as the encyclopedist D. B. Macdonald said: "Islam must be completely made over before the doctrine of djihad [sic] can be eliminated."[42]

Individual Muslims will, of course, make their own decisions in the world of everyday life, but it is no small thing to remember that, while they are free to ascribe to something other than the orthodox, classical doctrine of jihad, what they espouse will not be genuine, mainstream Islam. A Catholic who supports a right to procure an abortion is not promoting a Roman Catholic doctrine. A Muslim denying the duty of jihad would be in a similar situation. They may so profess, but they are no longer professing historical, orthodox Islam.[43]

Islam is a strong and robust religion driving a rich family of cultures which, for good or ill, are not the same as ours in the West. Islamic values and beliefs are often different from Western values and beliefs which are based on a competing Judaeo/Christian and Classical heritage, despite certain common origins and roots. To gloss over those differences is irrational and potentially dangerous.[44] For American policy makers to ignore the unique character of Islam and its tenets could be catastrophic. Someone once said, apparently in a hurried fit of summary, that "Communists" were, after all, only "Democrats in a hurry." How tragically wrong he was. It would be foolishness on a similar scale to assume that Muslims are merely ethnic or colorful "Unitarians" whose core beliefs may be blithely disregarded for reasons of ignorance, political correctness or Modernist insensitivity to the power of religious conviction. Failure to properly understand the historically-based meaning of jihad in orthodox Islam would also de-emphasize or derail investigation into the valid avenues of possible change in Islamic doctrine, thus foregoing the real chance of engaging in honest dialogue with the Muslim world to encourage an authentic development of doctrine (when and if feasible) so as to soften or defuse the import of jihad in Western-Islamic relations.[45] To do so, however, would again require an appreciation or sensitivity for religious issues and beliefs, and a long-term commitment or consistency in expressing Western values and interests, which traits have not been demonstrated qualities in recent American foreign policy.

Few chroniclers of recent history have noted that Spanish Christians had a distinctive name for the continuing low-intensity warfare separating the periods of active, full-scale operations which punctuated the eight hundred year Reconquista, or reconquest of the Iberian peninsula. They called their continuing struggle to push back Islam the Guerra Fria—or as we would say it, the "Cold War."[46] Only intelligent respect for religion in general and Islam in particular will afford us the chance to realistically confront and assess the practical role of the historically-derived, anti-Western concept of jihad in Muslim thought and policy and thus avoid potential default in, or exacerbation (through ignorance) of, another ideological "cold war."


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ENDNOTES

1. Charles Krauthammer, "Israel is taken in by Arafat's deadly zero-sum game," THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, May 20, 1994.

2."Arafat's Parable," THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, May 27, 1994.

3. H. U. Rahman, A CHRONOLOGY OF ISLAMIC HISTORY: 570-1000 C.E. (Boston, 1989), p. 15-17.

4. Bernard Lewis, THE ARABS IN HISTORY (9th ed. Oxford, 1993), p. 43.

5. "Muslim jurists conclude that treaties of friendship should not be concluded with non-Muslims in perpetuity. Generally the jurists agree that ten years should be the maximum period." Muhammad Hamidullah, THE MUSLIM CONDUCT OF STATE, 7th rev'd. ed. (Lahore, 1977), p. 266.

6. See e.g., Angelo Codevilla, INFORMING STATECRAFT: INTELLIGENCE FOR A NEW CENTURY (New York, 1992), p. 7; and Adda B. Bozeman, "U.S. Conceptions of Democracy and Security in a World Environment of Culturally Alien Political Thought: Linkages and Contradictions" in U.S. DOMESTIC AND NATIONAL SECURITY AGENDAS: INTO THE 21ST CENTURY, ed. Sam C. Sarkesian and John Mead Flanagin (Westport, CT 1994) p. 54.

7. For a more detailed description of the strategic ideology of jihad, see Patrick L. Moore, "Jihad" and Conflict in the World of Islam, CJ INTERNATIONAL, Office of International Criminal Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago, (January- February, 1994).

8. Rudolph Peters, ISLAM AND COLONIALISM: THE DOCTRINE OF JIHAD IN MODERN HISTORY (The Hague, 1979), p. 10.

9. E.g., Suzanne Haneef, WHAT EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ISLAM AND MUSLIMS (Lahore, 1985), p. 118-19.

10. Bernard Lewis, THE POLITICAL LANGUAGE OF ISLAM (Chicago, 1988), p. 72.

11. E.g., "the jihad - holy war, or bellum justum as later European jurists would have called it ... ." Philip C. Jessup, Judge, International Court of Justice in his forward to Majid Khadduri, THE ISLAMIC LAW OF NATIONS: SHAYBANI'S SIYAR (Baltimore, 1966), p. ix. "Thus in Islam, as in Western Christendom, the jihad is the bellum justum." Majid Khadduri, id. at 59.

12. William V. O'Brien, LAW AND MORALITY IN ISRAEL'S WAR WITH THE PLO (New York, 1991), pp. 285 and 311.

13. "Islam prohibited war in every form save in the fulfillment of a religious purpose, the jihad." Majid Khadduri, THE ISLAMIC LAW OF NATIONS: SHAYBANI'S SIYAR (Baltimore, 1966), p. 16.

14. Cyril Glasse', The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam (San Francisco, 1991), p. 132; and Ian Richard Netton, A Popular Dictionary of Islam (London, 1992), p. 39.

15. Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (New York, 1993), pp. 46-47; Majid Khadduri, WAR AND PEACE IN THE LAW OF ISLAM (Baltimore, 1955), p. 64.

16. Ian Richard Netton, A Popular Dictionary of Islam (London, 1992), pp. 126 and 182.

17. Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (New York, 1993), p. 47.

18. Speaking of the falsely ascribed tenet of "forced conversion" Edward Gibbon said it was a "charge of ignorance and bigotry" but he also noted the well-known Islamic drive for universal political domination in that "it cannot be denied that ... in peace and war, they assert a divine and indefeasible claim of universal empire; and that, in their orthodox creed, the unbelieving nations are continually threatened with the loss of religion or liberty." Edward Gibbon, DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, vol. 7, ch. LVIII, J.B. Bury ed. (1912), p. 277.

19. Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, translated by Andras and Ruth Hamori (Princeton, N.J. 1981), p. 27.

20. A popular source for the "defensive"-only theory of jihad is the work of the 13th century jurist/theologian Taqi al-Din ibn Taymiyah (1263-1328). He reportedly "reinterpreted" the doctrine of jihad so as to restrict war against non-believers so that "[r]esort to force is allowed only as a defensive or self-protective measure." Qamaruddin Khan, THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF IBN TAYMIYAH (Islamabad, Pakistan 1985), p. 157. Reliance on Ibn Taymiyah's opinions as an authoritative revision of Islamic jihad doctrine, however, is highly dubious. He was definitely and directly at odds with the majority Sunni religious authorities, receiving "colossal opposition" from them. Id. at p. Ibn Taymiyah was supposedly convinced of the need to redefine jihad as solely defensive by a realistic assessment of the decline of Islamic power, especially in the wake of the Mongol invasions. But mainstream Islam clearly did not agree with him. "[T]he Muslim jurists were not prepared to be convinced by these facts. They continued to preach the theory of undiluted jihad." Id. at 158. Ibn Taymiyah's attempt to reinterpret jihad was thus a failure. "Unfortunately Ibn Taymiyya's approach was not accepted." Tamara Sonn, Irregular Warfare and Terrorism in Islam: Asking the Right Questions in CROSS, CRESCENT, AND SWORD: THE JUSTIFICATION AND LIMITATION OF WAR IN WESTERN AND ISLAMIC TRADITION, ed. by James Turner Johnson and John Kelsay (Westport, Ct. 1990), p. 135. His signal lack of success bolsters the durability of the historical, orthodox teaching of permanent, unremitting jihad which may descend into low-intensity conflict (or "dormancy") but which may never end until the universal triumph of Islam over unbelief. Then again, Ibn Taymiya's theory of jihad might also be seen, as a practical matter, as more on a par with Stalin's tactical retreat from "world revolution" in his concept of "socialism in one country," i.e. concentrating on internal development and buildup pending remergence of world-contesting power. E.g., "Ibn Taymiya legitimated what has been called 'jihad within the commnity' ... ." Gilles Kepel, MUSLIM EXTREMISM IN EGYPT: THE PROPHET AND PHAROAH (Berkeley, 1993), p. 199. In any event, Ibn Taymiya's ideologically iconoclastic ideas eventually became the intellectual and religious basis for the significantly unorthodox, puritanical and "steadfastly fundamentalist interpretation of Islam" in the Wahabi sect which holds sway in Saudi Arabia. Cyril Glasse', THE CONCISE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM (San Francisco, 1991), p. 414. At best, Ibn Taymiyah's view was a distinctly minority, non-mainstream theory of jihad.

21. Ann Elizabeth Mayer, "War and Peace in the Islamic Tradition and International Law" in JUST WAR AND JIHAD: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON WAR AND PEACE IN WESTERN AND ISLAMIC TRADITIONS, ed. by James Turner Johnson and John Kelsay (Westport, Ct., 1991), pp. 203-05.

22. E.g., Opposition to or placing obstacles in the way of the "call" to Islam could give rise to a "defensive" jihad. Ayatullah Murtada Mutahhari, Jihad in the Quran in Jihad and Shahadat: Struggle and Martyrdom in Islam, Essays and Addresses by Ayatullah Mahmud Taleqani, AYATULLAH MURTADA MUTAHHARI AND DR. ALI SHARI'ATI, ed. by Mehdi Abedi and Garry Lagenhausen (Houston, Texas 1986), pp. 109-113. "When a Muslim State is free from internal commotion and strife, and has sufficient power ..., then it is its duty to invite the neighboring non-Muslim sovereigns to accept the unity of God ... in short to embrace Islam. If they do, they will retain their power ... . If the invitation is rejected, the non-Muslim chief [outside Arabia, may, in the alternative] pay yearly jizyah or protection tax ... . If both these alternatives are rejected and all peaceful persuasion and reasoning fail, then it is the duty of the Muslim State to declare war in the name of God until it conquers or receives the jizyah ... ." Muhammad Hamidullah, THE MUSLIM CONDUCT OF STATE, 7th rev'd. ed. (Lahore, 1977), p. 171-172.

23. See generally, Rudolph Peters, Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History (The Hague, 1979), especially pp. 151-165. As Peters describes it, the Modernist gloss is "A new interpretation of the jihad-doctrine" which is put forth in writings of a "highly apologetic character" wherein "[t]he classical doctrine of jihad has been stripped of its militancy ... ." Id. at p. 150.

24. E.g., Koran, 3:104, 110, 114; and 9:71.

25. E.g., KJV, Psalms 34:14; Luke 6:35; Romans 13:4 and 1 Peter 3:11.

26. Koran II:191; and see James J. Busuttil, "Slay Them Wherever You Find Them": Humanitarian Law in Islam, Military Law & Law of War Review (1991), p. 112.

27. KJV, Matthew 28:19. While proper provision of armed force is not forbidden by Christ, it is strictly limited (e.g. Luke 22:36-38, where "they said, Lord, behold, here [are] two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough.").

28. "[R]eforms which Islam wants to bring about cannot be carried out by sermons alone. Political power is also essential to achieve them." Sayyid Abul A'La Maududi, The Islamic Law and Constitution (Lahore, 1990), p. 5. "Similarly [quoting Ibn Taymiya], all the obligations of religion, like jihad, justice, arrangement for hajj and Id and Friday congregations, extending help to the oppressed and the enforcement of the penal provisions of the Quran, cannot be fulfilled without power and authority." Qamaruddin Khan, THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF IBN TAYMIYAH (Islamabad, Pakistan 1985), p. 3 Also, Bernard Lewis, ISLAM AND THE WEST (New York, 1993), pp. 52-53.

29. "Islamic rule is to be established by all means." Muhammad Hamidullah, The Muslim Conduct of State, 7th rev'd. ed. (Lahore, 1977), p. 170.

30. Bernard Lewis, The Political Language of Islam (Chicago, 1988), p. 73.

31. Bernard Lewis, The Political Language of Islam (Chicago, 1988), p. 73.

32. It should also be noted by way of comparison that the "Crusades"—one of the isolated instances of Western "Holy War" - have long been recognized as being in the nature of a counter-offensive while, without doubt, the successive Islamic waves of conquest were entirely aggressive in character. E.g., Bernard Lewis, Islam: from the Prophet Muhammed to the Capture of Constantinople, Vol. 1: Politics and War, ed. and translated by Bernard Lewis (Oxford, 1977), p. xiv; J. J. Saunders, A HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL ISLAM (London, 1965), ch. X, "The Christian Counter-attack."

33. Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Baltimore, 1955), p. 64.

34. Majid Khadduri, The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani's Siyar (Baltimore, 1966), pp. 17 and 15.

35. "The basis of the Islamic attitude towards unbelievers is the law of war; they must be either converted or subjugated or killed (excepting women, children, and slaves); the third alternative, in general, occurs only if the first two are refused." Joseph Schacht, AN INTRODUCTION TO ISLAMIC LAW (Oxford 1964) pp. 130.

36. There is at least "uncertainty" about "the binding force of some treaties, such as ones that would permanently fetter Muslims' ability to conduct a jihad." Ann Elizabeth Mayer, "War and Peace in the Islamic Tradition and International Law" in Just War and Jihad: Historical Perspectives on War and Peace in Western and Islamic Traditions, ed. by James Turner Johnson and John Kelsay (Westport, Ct., 1991), p. 201.

37. Compare the Marxist-Leninist concept of "peaceful coexistence" which ultimately aims at neither peace nor mutuality, but rather is a reduction of tensions until the "correlation of forces" once again favors the Socialist Camp. See e.g., John P. Roche, THE HISTORY AND IMPACT OF MARXIST-LENINIST ORGANIZATIONAL THEORY (Cambridge, Mass., 1984); Roberta Goren, THE SOVIET UNION AND TERRORISM (ed. by Jillian Becker), introduction by Robert Conquest (Boston, 1984); SOVIET PERCEPTIONS OF WAR AND PEACE, ed. by Graham D. Vernon (Washington, D.C. 1981); John Norton Moore and Robert F. Turner, INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE BREZHNEV DOCTRINE (Lanham, Md. 1987); J. A. Emmerson and Hans Bax, The Soviet Concept of "Peace," STRATEGIC REVIEW (Fall, 1983); and Patrick L. Moore, A Dictionary of Soviet Double-Talk and Gulag Glossary Reveals Some Unusual Etymologies, NEW YORK CITY TRIBUNE, June 18 and 19, 1986.

38. "Consequently, one may view a Muslim's entire life as 'a continuous process of warfare, psychological and political, if not strictly military,' [quoting Majid Khadduri] and conclude that Islamic precepts advance a doctrine of permanent war regardless of whether or not believers are actually engaged in military activities. And, in fact, as the power of the Arabized and Islamized states declined, this doctrine became largely dormant, leaving Muslims in a condition roughly comparable to what is known in international law as a "state of insurgency [emphasis added]." Adda B. Bozeman, "War and the Clash of Ideas," in CONFLICT, CULTURE, AND HISTORY: REGIONAL DIMENSIONS (Air University Press, Maxwell Air Force Base, Al., 1993) pp. XLIV-XLV.

39. It is the historical record which must demonstrate what such religious doctrines are. See e.g., Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (New York, 1993), p. 194, ch. 8, n. 1.

40. See, e.g. Bassam Tibi, Islam and the Cultural Accommodation of Social Change, trans. by Clare Krojzl (Boulder, Co. 1990) and Milton Viorst, Sandcastles: The ARABS IN SEARCH OF THE MODERN WORLD (New York, 1994).

41. Maryam Jameelah, Islam and Modernism (Lahore, 1988), p. 48.

42. D. B. MacDonald, "djihad" in Shorter Encyclopedia of ISLAM, ed. by H. A. R. Gibb and J. H. Kramers (Leiden, 1991), p. 89.

43. "The largest group of Muslims are the Sunnis, often known as 'the orthodox', who recognize the first four Caliphs, attribute no religious or political functions to the descendants of the Prophet's son-in-law `Ali, and adhere to one of the four Sunni Schools of Law." Cyril Glasse', The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam (San Francisco, 1991), p. 382. The Sunnis comprise about ninety percent of all Muslims. Id., at 449. It is the Sunni or orthodox doctrine of jihad which is treated here.

44. "[T]he intellectual and religious background of the world of Islam is very different from that of the West and as such it becomes difficult for the Western and the West- oriented observers to grasp and appreciate the situation. It is, therefore, necessary that the Islamic concept of religion and the Muslim outlook on politics should be clearly understood at the very outset." Sayyid Abul A'La Maududi, THE ISLAMIC LAW AND CONSTITUTION (Lahore, 1990), p. 2.

45. See e.g., Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, translated by Andras and Ruth Hamori (Princeton, N.J. 1981), especially chapters II and III, The Development of Law and The Growth and Development of Dogmatic Theology; Joseph Schacht, AN INTRODUCTION TO ISLAMIC LAW (Oxford 1964), chapters 6 through 15, especially chapter 10, The 'Closing of the Gate of Independent Reasoning' and the Further Development of Doctrine; and articles or entries on such as Fiqh, Hadith, Ijma, Ijtihad, Koran, Qiyas, Sunnah, Usul in, e.g., Cyril Glasse', THE CONCISE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM (San Francisco, 1991), SHORTER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM, ed. by H. A. R. Gibb and J. H. Kramers (Leiden, 1991), and Ian Richard Netton, A POPULAR DICTIONARY OF ISLAM (London, 1992). A genuine development of doctrine of such magnitude would be a long and difficult process at best and largely conducted, of course, by Muslims themselves within Islam.

46. Adda B. Bozeman, "U.S. Conceptions of Democracy and Security in a World Environment of Culturally Alien Political Thought: Linkages and Contradictions" in U.S. DOMESTIC AND NATIONAL SECURITY AGENDAS: INTO THE 21ST CENTURY, ed. Sam C. Sarkesian and John Mead Flanagin (Westport, Ct. 1994) p. 53.

© 1994 by Patrick L. Moore
June 30, 1994




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