At the end of How to win the war (1) we asked: How can we fight an enemy who is not only spread over many countries but is also here in our midst, thriving and increasing dangerously amongst us, and striking at us unpredictably and at random?

There is a way. It can be done. America has fought such an enemy before when it was at war with another collectivist ideology, Communism. It was a ‘cold war’ for as long as the country that was ready to engage America in its name – Russia  – held back from military assault. Hot battles in the war were fought by proxy armies in Africa, South America, the Far East. At home it was fought with words.

Within America itself the war was fought by means of law, propaganda, and intelligence.

Eventually America defeated Russia, but it never won the war decisively on its own soil. Within the United States itself, Communism not only survived, but in certain ways triumphed. Its true believers came to dominate in the fields of education, the newspapers, radio and television, and the highly influential film industry. They established a secure stronghold in the universities, in the law courts, in the Democratic Party, and eventually at the apex of power in the presidency itself with the election of Barack Obama. Right now, it is stronger than it has ever been before in America. And it is in alliance with Islam.

The war against Islam will have to be won more decisively than the war against Communism. So how shall we fight it? What must we do? It is not up to the military alone to fight this war – though the armed forces will play their part. Every individual who values liberty is a soldier in this fight.

We must expose Islam for what it is. It must be shown beyond all doubt to be wrong. It must be defeated in argument.

Islam must be made ashamed of itself.

We must do the very thing that the Islamic bloc in the UN is trying to make universally illegal – criticize Islam.  We must do what weak European leaders say should not be done – treat it with brazen insensitivity, with scorn, with loathing.

We must expose every wrong committed in its name. We must stigmatize it, ridicule it with jokes and satire and cartoons, ‘disrespect’ it, force it to try and defend itself with arguments and counter every one of them. We must concede nothing to this ideology of death.

We must let Muslim men know that what they regard as honor we regard as dishonor. In their twisted morality they consider it necessary for the upholding of their honor that they bully helpless women, force their daughters to marry men they hate and fear, kill them if the don’t obey, if they are raped, if they fall in love with someone they don’t approve of. We must impress upon Muslim men that such deeds are deeply dishonorable, low, beneath contempt, as well as intensely cruel and incontrovertibly wrong.

Far from curbing our free speech, it is precisely with words that we must defeat the ideology of Islam. We must make a better job of it than we did with Communism; do it more the way we did with Nazism, which very few people dare now to defend. ‘Nazi’ has become a synonym for evil; so should ‘Islam’.

Hold fast to the understanding that Islam, like Nazism, is an ideology and must be despised and rejected by humanity as a whole. The evil will of Mohammad must be defeated here and now, at last, all these centuries after he first launched his warriors of death in 78 battles against any who would not submit to his vicious tyranny.

Our war is with a set of ideas and those who take action to force them upon us, not with everyone who is born into Islam. On no account must Muslim citizens in western countries be herded into internment camps. But there should be a total ban on Muslim immigration. And Muslim immigrants already admitted must  integrate fully into our way of life, accept our values, our law, our customs and traditional codes of behavior. They must be given no concessions: no separation of the sexes in gyms and swimming-pools, no time off for prayer, no building of special washing facilities in public places and business premises for their rituals of ablution. There must be no allowing of publicly licensed Muslim taxi drivers to refuse to take a passenger who is carrying a bottle of wine or has a lap-dog with him. No public rallies must be allowed that display placards urging murder. No threats against our free speech must be tolerated. No preaching or sloganeering against Christians and Jews must go unpunished. No new mosques may be built. Exclusively Muslim schools must be closed down.

Captured Muslim terrorists must be forced to talk, then tried by military tribunals and if found guilty summarily executed. Any Muslim who uses violence against us in the name of his religion must expect to be treated as a terrorist.

If there are political leaders who oppose these policies to any degree, they must be forced out of office as soon as possible. The present US administration does not want to accept that Islam is the enemy. If it did, it would have to acknowledge that it is fighting on the same side as Israel against the same enemy. It would support and join Israel in the use of force against Hamas and Hizbullah. It would stop Iran by every means possible from becoming a nuclear-armed power. It would not permit Iraq to reinstate sharia law. It would see the folly of having gone to war against Christian states in the Balkans to protect Muslim rebels.

If Muslims use our laws and civil liberties against us, we must do the same against them. For every suit brought by Muslim trouble-makers we must counter sue. Even better, we must sue first and often.

While Muslims may pray to their deity in their own properties, they must be deterred from attempting to do so in public places where, if they do it, they should expect to be mocked and verbally abused. They may dress as they choose, but if their clothing advertizes their faith, they must expect to be challenged. We must make them afraid of our opinion, of our disdain (but not of physical assault which we must abstain from unless in self-defense).

We must make Muslims who want to destroy our values, our liberty, our democracy, our civilization, afraid of us. We must make them afraid to preach their ideology. Also, and even better, we must make them ashamed to preach it.

These measures should be our battle plan. Only if we adopt it in full will we be taking the war and our survival as free people seriously. Only by doing these things will we win the war they have declared against us. Anything short of uncompromising opposition will not do: we will be terrorized, massacred, worn down, until we submit to be ruled by evil, and returned to the darkness of barbarism. We must all be anti-jihad warriors now.

The President told the truth (uncharacteristically) when he conceded, some days after a terrorist tried to blow up a plane over Detroit, that America is at war.

But he did not tell the whole truth when he said who the enemy is. He named al-Qaeda, but that’s like naming one battalion in a conventional engagement. There are many battalions on the enemy’s side in this fight: Hizbullah, Hamas, the Taliban, Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, and many more.

It is absolutely necessary to say plainly who the enemy is.

To call it ‘terror’ was always a misnomer. Terror is an emotion. Even the more accurately referential ‘terrorism’ would not be right. Terrorism is a method, a tactic, a means, not a movement or a cause.

What else has been tried?

‘Extremists’ and ‘extremism’ ?  Wide of the mark.

‘Islamism’ ? Nearer. But wait – ‘Islamism’ does not exist. There is no ‘Islamist Manifesto’. There is no tradition of ‘Islamism’.  Can it even be defined?  It is an invention of Western pundits who want to avoid offending what is charitably called ‘the vast majority of peace-loving Muslims’.

For years now American politicians have been pretending not to see it, refusing to speak it, but they know very well the name of the enemy. And it brings them up against a peculiar difficulty, because it is the name of a religion, and freedom of religion is a foundation stone of the Union. The United States of America is a conscientiously tolerant nation. Within its boundaries, no religion may be prohibited.

Or is that not entirely true? Would religions that require human sacrifice be tolerated? They still exist in Africa and India. Immigrants have brought them to Europe. A couple of years ago the remains of a child was found in the Thames and  investigators found that he had been ritually sacrificed by an African religious sect.

It may be argued that such tribal cults of ritual magic cannot deserve the same respect as a moral religion that has well over a billion followers worldwide, as is the case with Islam.

And Islam is the name of the enemy. In must be said however shocking it feels to say it: The name of the enemy is Islam.

It certainly has over a billion followers, but is it a moral religion? ‘An immoral religion’ would describe it more accurately.

In view of the difficulty Western civilization has in declaring a religion to be inimical, even when it has declared itself to be so, it’s better to think of Islam as an ideology – which it is. All religions are ideologies, even if all ideologies are not religions.

Islam is the religio-political ideology of an illiterate warlord of the dark ages.

It is a totalitarian ideology.

It is a collectivist ideology, and like all collectivist ideologies, it claims to be the unique repository and disseminator of truth, and demands unquestioning submission to its authority.

It is centered on a dual power, a divinity and a particular man inseparably bound to each other. The man, as the sole conduit of divine truth, dictated a book and a body of sayings that established a code of conduct and set of laws. These can never be altered and must be taken literally. They ordain that to kill and be killed for their deity is the highest duty of the faithful. They declare that females are inferior to males, and imply that females exist solely to serve the physical needs and appetites of males.

It is universalist. It assumes the obligation to bring all mankind into its community, or umma. It holds that everyone is born a member of the umma but many fail to realize this and are drawn away to false beliefs and practices. It is the duty of all the faithful to recover the lost members. It will use persuasion, offering to welcome ‘reverts’, but those who cling obstinately to their false beliefs must be forced to capitulate or die. It is therefore unremittingly at war with the rest of humanity. Peace will only come, it teaches, when the whole world is Muslim. In the meantime Islam will allow certain other religions to continue if they are not overtly polytheistic and if their devotees accept social abasement and legal discrimination, and pay tribute to their Muslim overlords.

That is the nature of the enemy. It has always been in a state of war against the rest of us by the compulsion of its beliefs. From time to time since its inception in the 7^th century, it has risen and hurled itself in furious battle against the ramparts of our culture. For the last half-century or so it has been in active conflict with the West in general and the United States of America in particular. From its own point of view it is continuing the war it has always waged to subdue the world in accordance with the will of its god and prophet.

This is the war being waged against us now. We have no choice but to fight it.

The name of the enemy is Islam, and once it is identified the next thing to do is devise ways to vanquish it.

How then? If another country is your country’s enemy, you can invade it, or wait for it to invade you and defend yourself from its attack, or you can do both at the same time.

American armed forces are engaged with this enemy in two of the countries where he predominates and in which he plots against us. We may win those battles, but if we do we’ll not have won the war. Victories on geographical battlefields will not vanquish this enemy. Psychological warfare will achieve much more.

Consider this for an act of psychological warfare: At the heart of the haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims are enjoined to make at least once in their lives, is the holy Kaaba, a huge cube of a building covered with black silk in the middle of a mosque. Although it existed before Muhammad was born, it is Islam’s holiest site. All Muslims everywhere turn towards it every time they pray. It shelters the Black Stone, a piece of a meteorite that Islam dates ‘from the time of Adam and Eve’. If the Kaaba were bombed and the Black Stone pulverized, just think how demoralizing that would be for the enemy.

And how else can we defeat a foe who is not only spread over many countries but is also here in our midst, thriving and increasing dangerously amongst us, and striking at us unpredictably and at random?

(More to follow.)

Paul Rahe writes at Power Line:

If there is an alternative to Islamic revivalism on the horizon, it is to be found in Iraq. The simple fact that there are free elections in that country, that there is open debate, and that it is drifting in the direction of genuine prosperity — this stirs dissatisfaction of an entirely different sort in the Arab world — and, as is abundantly evident in Iran, it does so in the larger Muslim world as well. As time passes and the dust settles, George W. Bush may come to look more and more like a hero — both in the Arab world and here in the United States. For, if the Iraqis remain steadfast and succeed, it is to their example that those fed up with Islamic revivalism will look, and it will be remembered just how adamant the second Bush was in his support for the democratic aspirations of the Iraqi people.

We have shown appreciation for Paul Rahe’s wisdom in the past, but with this, much as we’d like to agree with him since we were supporters of George Bush’s regime-changing war in Iraq, we find reason to dissent.

Again it is Diana West who explains why ‘democratic’ Iraq is no model for the rest of the Islamic world:

I don’t know how to candy-coat reality: Post-surge Iraq is a state of increasing repression, endemic corruption, religious and ethnic persecution and encroaching Sharia. Recent media reports flag just some of these glaring truths that American elites, civilian and military, seem to shy away from. …

In November, Reuters highlighted the government crackdown on the media via lawsuits against criticism, and laws enabling the government to close media outlets that “encourage terrorism, violence,” and — here’s a handy catch-all — “tensions.” There are new rules to license satellite trucks, censor books and control Internet cafes. “The measures evoke memories of … the laws used to muzzle (journalism) under Saddam Hussein,” Reuters writes.

In December, the British paper The Observer reported that hundreds of Iraqi police and soldiers descended on Baghdad’s 300 nightclubs where they “slapped owners’ faces, scattered their patrons and dancing girls, ripped down posters advertising upcoming acts and ordered alcohol removed from the shelves.” The official reason? No licenses. But, the paper reports, “the reality is that a year-long renaissance in Baghdad’s nightlife may be over as this increasingly conservative city takes on a hard-line religious identity.”  …

[O]ne particularly shocking, unintended consequence of U.S. involvement has been the religious “cleansing” of Iraq’s ancient Christian populations. In 2003, 1 million Christians lived in Iraq. Six years later, after successive waves of violence and intimidation largely unchecked by either Iraqi government action or U.S. intercession, more than 500,000 Christians have fled the country. It is a crisis that inspired Christian leaders to assemble in Baghdad in December for a conference piteously titled: “Do Christians Have a Future in Iraq?”

This anti-Christian persecution is a large part of why the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended in December 2008 that the State Department name Iraq a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) — its dread Saddam-era designation. (Recommendation denied.) In May, to strengthen human rights in Iraq, the commission’s Iraq report included suggested amendments to Iraq’s constitution, which, not incidentally, boil down to abolishing the constitutional supremacy of Islamic law. (And yes, U.S. legal advisers helped write this same Sharia-supreme governing document.)

For example, the commission suggested deleting the line in Article 2 that says no law may contradict “the established provisions of Islam.” It suggested revising the “guarantee of `the Islamic identity of the majority’ to make certain that this identity is not used to justify violations” of human rights. It also suggested that “the free and informed consent of both parties (be) required to move a personal status case to the religious law system,” and “that religious court rulings (be) subject to final review under Iraq’s civil law.” Another suggestion was to remove “the ability of making appointments to the Federal Supreme Court based on training in Islamic jurisprudence alone.”

Good ideas — if religious freedom is the objective. But it is not the objective in Iraq, or in other Islamic countries. Which should make the United States, founded and defined by such freedom, look before nation-building, and ask: Do we really want Americans to “surge” and risk death to build nations such as this to stand as monuments to “victory”?

From a military point of view, the Iraq war was an American (or coalition) success. Bush’s surge gained a military victory. And it must be counted as a great good that the sadistic despot Saddam Hussein was overthrown and executed.

From an historian’s point of view, however, not much has been accomplished. There have been elections, yes, but they do not make Iraq a democracy. It is governed by sharia law, and sharia and Western liberal democracy are not only dissimilar, they are incompatible.

How much benefit has America itself reaped from its investment of dollars, lives, blood, sweat and tears ?

On December 18, Diana West wrote about the surge and its success:

Step One worked. Step Two didn’t. The surge, like an uncaught touchdown pass, was incomplete. The United States is now walking off the battlefield with virtually nothing to show for its blood, treasure, time and effort. In fact, another “success” like that could kill us. … When Iraq staged one of the biggest oil auctions in history last week, U.S. companies left empty-handed. Russia, China and Europe came out the big winners.

Today she writes:

So much for the lack of post-surge U.S. business benefits in Iraq, as I wrote last week. Now, what kind of post-surge ally is Iraq?

No kind.

I write in wonder that the ultimate failures of the surge strategy — which include the failure of anything resembling a U.S. ally to emerge in post-Saddam Iraq — have never entered national discourse. Rather, the strategy that “won Iraq” has been mythologized as a “success” to be repeated in Afghanistan.

It’s not that there aren’t hints to the contrary — as when … 42 percent of Iraqis polled by the BBC in March 2008 still thought it “acceptable” to attack U.S. forces. Or when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, as U.S. forces transferred security responsibilities to Iraqi forces in June, obstreperously declared “victory” over those same U.S. forces! …

Of greater consequence are the positions against U.S. interests Iraq is taking in world affairs.

Take the foundational principle of freedom of speech, continuously under assault by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in the international arena. The OIC includes the world’s 57 Muslim nations as represented by kings, heads of state and governments, with policies overseen by the foreign ministers of these same 57 nations. Describing itself as the “collective voice of the Islamic world,” the OIC strives to extend Islamic law throughout the world, and to that end, is the driving force at the United Nations to outlaw criticism of Islam (which includes Islamic law) through proposed bans on the “defamation of religions” — namely, Islam. This is a malignant thrust at the mechanism of Western liberty. Where does post-surge Iraq come down in this crucial ideological struggle?

An OIC nation, Iraq is, with other OIC nations, a signatory to the 1990 Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam. This declaration defines human rights according to Islamic law, which prohibits criticism of Islam. Indeed, Iraq’s U.S.-enabled 2004 constitution enshrines Islamic law above all. Little wonder Iraq consistently votes at the United Nations with the OIC and against the United States on this key ideological divide between Islam and the West, most recently in November.

Then there’s Iran.

Iran may be a menace to the West, but it is also Iraq’s largest trading partner. … This disastrous fact should dampen — at least enter into — assessments of the surge strategy’s “success”.

But it doesn’t. Not even the fact that Bank Melli — the Iranian terror bank outlawed by the U.S. Treasury as a conduit for Iran’s nuclear and terrorist programs — operates a branch in Baghdad gives pause to one-surge-fits-all enthusiasts. The Bank Melli example is particularly egregious because the bank funds Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Qods Force, which is responsible for innumerable American casualties in Iraq — American sacrifices on behalf of Iraq. Guess we’re supposed to look the other way. But that’s like applauding the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the United States and Iraq without noticing that the agreement prohibits the United States from attacking Iran (or any other country) from Iraq.

Iraq’s pattern of hostility to U.S. interests continues vis-a-vis Israel, a bona-fide U.S. ally against jihad terror. Whenever Israel strikes back at jihad — whether at Hamas in Gaza or Hezbollah in Lebanon — post-Saddam Iraq is quick to condemn the Jewish state, which, not incidentally, it also continues to boycott with the rest of the Arab League. …

Onto Afghanistan.

… where, even if another military success were to be scored, the chance of that benighted land being transformed into anything significantly better is not just remote but less likely than a Yeti.

We took this map from Dry Bones, the Israeli cartoonist. The Islamic states colored yellow all passionately desire the elimination of Israel. Turkey is warming its diplomatic relations with Iran. Iran is not only actively building up its own military power, including a nuclear capability, but also arming proxy forces on Israel’s borders in Lebanon and Gaza. Two more neighboring Islamic states, ostensibly less aggressive towards Israel but in fact no less desirous of its destruction, are Jordan and Egypt. Beyond Jordan lies ruthlessly jihadist Saudi Arabia. Now imagine the whole of Europe as equally hostile Muslim territory, as it almost certainly will be in just a few decades from now. Bear in mind that the present decider-in-chief of US foreign policy is the son of a Muslim, emotionally pro-Islam, and reluctant to take any action to prevent Iran becoming a nuclear-armed power. What are the odds that the tiny sliver of a state called Israel will survive to the end of this century, do you think?

The quality of mercy in political leaders is sometimes not merely strained but positively contorted.

The excellent Diana West writes about the cruel use of US soldiers as bargaining chips:

We must recognize and protest the travesties of military justice that have tried, convicted, jailed and denied clemency to all too many brave Americans, the same brave Americans who have fought our wars only to be unfairly charged with “murder” in the war zone.

Readers of this column will recall the crushing conviction of Sgt. Evan Vela, a young Ranger-trained sniper and father of two from Idaho, for executing his superior’s 2006 order to kill an Iraqi man who at the time had been compromising his squad’s hiding place in the pre-“surge” Sunni triangle. Ten years in Fort Leavenworth, ordered not-so-blind justice. (There is evidence that Evan’s harsh sentence was a blatant political offering to Iraq’s government.) One reason behind my intense distaste for George W. Bush — my own personal Bush Derangement Syndrome — is the former president’s callousness toward such Americans as Sgt. Vela, who served their commander in chief well in these difficult times of war. As the Bush administration came to an end, talk of a presidential pardon for Vela leaked to the media, no doubt elating the Vela family, but, cruelly, nothing came of it.

It never does. Evan Vela now has all too many brothers-in-arms at Fort Leavenworth prison where they form what is increasingly known as The Leavenworth Ten: Vela (10 years), Corey Claggett (18 years), William Hunsaker (18 years), Raymond Girouard (10 years), Michael Williams (25 years), Larry Hutchins (11 years), Michael Behenna (20 years), John Hatley (40 years), Joseph Mayo (20 years), Michael Leahy (20 years). …

There is, she says, an ‘urgent need for clemency in these cases’ –

– particularly given the mind-boggling fact that the United States has been granting clemency in Iraq to the most murderous detainees our soldiers were sent to fight in the first place. I’m not even referring to the thousands of “lower-level” detainees released over the past year or more from U.S.-run prisons in Iraq. (A senior Iraq interior ministry official told AFP that the two suicide bombers and a majority of suspects in the Aug. 19 Baghdad bombings had recently been released from U.S.-run Camp Bucca.) I’m talking about high-level, known killers of Americans in Iraq, such as Laith al-Khazali, who, along with four fellow Iranian-backed operatives, was released in July. … Al-Khazali is a leader of Asaib al-Haq, an Iranian-backed “special group” that in 2007 kidnapped and killed five American soldiers. Later, the group kidnapped five British contractors, three of whom are known dead. Khazali’s release, a U.S. military spokesman told the New York Times, came as “part of a reconciliation effort between the government of Iraq and Asaib al-Haq.” How sweet. …

In September, more than 100 more Iraqi Shiites belonging to al-Khazali’s group were released. Also released this year was Mahmud Farhadi, whom Bill Roggio of the Long War Journal describes as a key Iranian leader in the Ramazan Corps, which, Roggio writes, “is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.”

I don’t mean to equate Iraqi and Iranian terrorists with U.S. soldiers. But I do mean to question a government that frees its enemies in a sham of “reconciliation” and leaves its soldiers to rot in a sham of “justice.”

And I challenge readers to do the same.

The Ottoman Empire sided with Germany in World War I, and was broken up by the victorious allies. Parts of it became Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel.

Mustafa Kemal, later known as Kemal Atatürk, was the president of the first Turkish republic brought into existence by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.

The Turkish sultan had borne the title of Caliph. Under Atatürk the caliphate was abolished in 1924. Turkey became a constitutionally democratic state with an elected parliament. Even women were enfranchised in 1934.

From 1928, Islam ceased to be the state religion. Men were forbidden to grow beards. If they did, Atatürk had them forcibly shaved. He forbade polygamy. Women threw off the veil. In fact, despite the institutions and procedures of democracy, Atatürk wielded dictatorial powers, but he used them to modernize his country.

By the time he died in 1938, the republic was firmly established as a secular state.

In 1952 Turkey became a member of the (then three year old) North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The second Turkish republic, established with a new constitution in 1961, proved itself a firm friend and ally of the United States.

After an outbreak of civil violence in 1980, in which more than 2,000 people died, the army intervened, martial law was declared, General Kenan Evren seized control of the government and restored order. A new constitution of 1982 established the autonomy of the army and gave it extraordinary powers over civilian affairs. The army remained the guarantor of Turkey’s secularism, even after martial law was lifted in 1987.

In 1991, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and the US went to war to force his withdrawal, Turkey permitted the American air force to launch strikes against Iraq from its territory.

A woman, Tansu Çiller, became prime minister in 1993 – to the consternation, no doubt, of the Islamic world. A year later a downturn in the economy led to loss of faith in the secular government among some sections of the population, and Islamic fundamentalism began to spread. In elections of 1995 the largest share of the vote went to an Islamist party, which acquired modified power in a coalition government under Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan of the Islamist party. This development threatened an end to the secular state.

The army intervened. It forced the resignation of Erbakan and his replacement by a secularist.

In 1991, Turkey took military action to put down an armed rebellion of Kurdish nationalists. The Kurdistan Workers Part (PKK) used terrorist methods, including suicide bombing. In 1999, with the capture of the rebel leader, the conflict died down. In that year Turkey was invited to apply for membership of the European Union (EU).

The invitation did not provide an easy path for Turkey’s accession. First the Brussels bureaucracy objected to Turkey’s ‘human rights’ record. When Turkey made reforms in order to become more acceptable, it was told that the power of the army was an impediment to its joining. Woodenly, the EU decision-makers either didn’t understand or deliberately ignored the fact that the Turkish army was what kept Turkey the sort of country that could co-operate successfully with Western powers, by keeping it from becoming an Islamic state.

Popular support for Islamism grew. Relations between Turkey and the West deteriorated. In 2003 the parliament refused permission to the United States to invade Iraq from US bases in Turkey. At that point Turkey should have been expelled from NATO. It wasn’t, but a rift came between Turkey and the United States. A long-established friendship between Turkey and Israel also began to cool.

Islamism continues to gain popularity in Turkey. An Islamist party is in power. Beards and the veil have made a comeback. The army is losing power. It has not succeeded in opposing a developing alliance between Turkey and Iran. It was almost certainly against the wishes of the army that Turkey recently cancelled joint military exercises with Israel.

On October 28, 2009, the prime minister of Turkey, Tayyep Recep Erdogan, and the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, met for talks. According to Israeli sources (in a report of November 10, 2009), they agreed that Turkey, still a member of NATO, will pass on intelligence to Tehran concerning any preparations Israel makes for a strike on Iran’s nuclear development facilities. Presumably this would mean that intelligence concerning Israel-US military co-operation can fall into Iranian hands.

What seems certain enough is that Turkey is now aligned with the Islamic enemies of the United States, and NATO is harboring a traitor. The US should be taking damage-limiting action. But we don’t expect Obama to be troubled enough by this development to do anything about it. He’s probably in favor of it.

Jillian Becker  November 14, 2009

The Berlin Wall was not defensive. It was built by the Communists to keep their serf populations from escaping. As Europe celebrates its fall, a Muslim, Shiraz Maher, writes in Standpoint about barrier walls built by Islamic states, never noticed by those who vituperatively condemn the defensive barrier Israel has erected against suicide bombers and other terrorist attackers:

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. During that time scores of other barriers and walls have gone up around the world …

Of course, the one we’ve all heard about is the Israeli security fence which attracted fierce criticism after its construction in 2003. Built in response to the Palestinian intifada which claimed more than 900 lives since September 2000, the fence has dramatically halted the number of terrorist attacks inside the country.

Excuse the pun  but from the wall-to-wall coverage it received  you could be mistaken for thinking that Israel’s decision to defend itself in this way was unprecedented. Yet, not only is this wrong but, ironically, a lot of the physical barriers currently in place are located in the ‘Muslim world’.

The Saudi-Yemeni border is just one place where a physical barrier is used by a Muslim regime to defend itself against ‘smuggling’ and ‘terrorism’. … Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen has always been problematic, providing a trafficking route for weapons smuggling. Indeed, the explosives used in the 2003 Riyadh bombings which targeted compounds housing western expatriates were blamed on Yemeni smugglers. It was not the first time Saudi Arabia blamed the Yemenis for not doing enough to stop terrorism. Yemeni smugglers are also believed to have helped facilitate the bombing campaign against US military bases in the mid-1990s.

Once the Saudi government lost confidence in Yemen’s ability to curb domestic terrorism, they decided to build a physical barrier. Much of it runs through contested territory. According to the 2000 Jeddah border treaty between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, a demilitarised ‘buffer zone’ should exist between both countries, protecting the rights of nomadic Bedouin tribes which live in the cross-border area. Yet, parts of the Saudi barrier stand inside the demilitarised zone, violating the 2000 agreement and infuriating Yemen. …

More recently, Saudi Arabia has also built a physical barrier along its border with Iraq to stop jihadists from the Kingdom going over to join the mujahideen. …

Beyond the Middle East, Iran’s 900 km border with Pakistan is currently being replaced by a concrete wall (10 feet high, 3 feet thick), fortified with steel rods. Ostensibly built to thwart drug traffickers and terrorists, the local Baloch people oppose its construction as it cuts across their land and separates communities living on either side of the divide. The opposition leader of Balochistan’s Provincial Assembley, Kachkol Ali, has bitterly opposed the wall saying his people were never consulted about it and that it cuts off families from one another. … A number of Baloch communities, particularly in the Kech district of south-western Balochistan, straddle the Iranian-Pakistani border area. After Iran began construction of its wall, many of those residing on its side were forced back across the border into Pakistan where they are separated from their families and land. …

There are plenty more examples of this within the Muslim world too. In the Western Sahara desert Morocco has built a massive wall, spanning more than 2700 km. Its primary aim is to guard against Sahrawi separatists who organised themselves into the Polisario Front – a political and terrorist movement – which seeks independence for the Sahrawi people. Much of the wall is lined with barbed wire and landmines, which is something it shares in common with parts of the Pakistan-Indian border (particularly in Kashmir).

Twenty years on from the collapse of the Berlin Wall physical barriers continue to be employed around the world. They may not be pretty, but they are effective. Indeed, even Israel’s biggest critics would have to concede that suicide bombings have fallen away sharply ever since the construction of the security fence in parts of Gaza and the West Bank. Yet, Islamists and parts of the political left obsess only about Israel but do not extend similar condemnation to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, or Pakistan. …

It’s a metaphor from the German-speaking world: a bicyclist – one who treads down hard (as when pedaling) on those he despises while he bows (as over handlebars) to those he respects.

*

Ben Rhodes, who is Obama’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications and the writer of many of his foreign policy speeches (now you know the name of the culprit), said, according to The Washington Post:

“Our interests are the same with our allies and our adversaries. We’re saying the same thing to everybody. Our interests are the same no matter what country we’re talking to.”

If this were really the Weltanschauung shaping Obama’s foreign policy, it would be not merely misconceived, not just naive, not even simply stupid – it would be lunatic.

But in fact he doesn’t treat friends and foes alike.

Bowing to America’s ‘adversaries’, he  –

Gently propitiates the Mullahcracy of Iran and lets it become a nuclear power. Ditto the Despotism of North Korea. Kindly lets Iranian and al-Qaeda terrorists roar back into Iraq. Cozies up to Dictator Hugo Chavez. Literally bows to Saudi Arabia’s tyrant-in-chief who is spreading ‘soft’ jihad throughout America and the whole Western world. Lends a sympathetic hand to the flesh-eating Molloch of the Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, to help him evade trial. Yields graciously to rapacious Russia. Implores the barbaric Taliban to grant him a face-saving peace in Afghanistan [see the post immediately below]. Creeps cap-in-hand to Communist China. Plays nice with the slave-keepers of Cuba.

Stamping on America’s friends, he –

Snaps his fingers at Britain. Bullies Honduras. Cold-shoulders Colombia. Alienates Israel. Refuses to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Looks the other way while Georgia is invaded and partially occupied by Russia. Breaks US promises of defense shields to Poland and the Czech Republic and, as an afterthought, lets them know his irrevocable decision with a casual midnight phone call – or does he get Hillary to text them the message?

One of our readers, Hawk2, has commented on our post below, Question, providing the sort of answer we are looking for.

We think his/her comments are so interesting that we are posting them in full here on our front page.

US foreign policy should be grounded in two essential considerations, and only these two:

1. Profitable trade

2. National security

With these in mind, the only recent war that must be seen to have had no justification whatsoever is President Clinton’s war in the Balkans. It did nothing for trade. It gained America nothing. It was not worth what it cost. What is worse, its rationale was the protection of Muslim rebels, at a time when Islam was fast becoming the major enemy of the Western world.

Oil is a very good reason to go to war. It satisfies both considerations. If the US had gone to war to seize the Saudi Arabian oilfields in 1974 when the price of oil was hyped as an attack on the US economy, it would have been right to do so.

If the wars against Saddam Hussein were waged for oil, they were necessary and worth what they cost. Also if they were waged to protect America from WMD, they were necessary and worth what they cost. If, on the other hand, they were waged to protect Kuwait from conquest, or Iraqis from tyranny, they were unnecessary and not worth what they cost.

The war against the Taliban/al-Qaeda was justified by 9/11. But having soundly beaten the Taliban, the US should have withdrawn, leaving a clear message that if the US were struck again the Taliban would be beaten again. Staying on to build schools and clinics which the Taliban will demolish is senseless, and not worth what it costs. There is no saving the Afghans from themselves: from corruption, the subjugation of women, the growing of opium.

As to the argument that it is always in the interests of the US to protect freedom in the wider world, that is true, but the threat to freedom must be a real one. It was why America was right to go to Europe’s aid in the in the First and Second World Wars. It may be a reason for America to go to war again. America’s own freedom was under threat then as it is now, this time by the creeping colonization of Europe by Islam. ‘Spreading democracy’ – another reason given for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – does not guarantee the spread of freedom. Germany was a democracy when Hitler came to power by being democratically elected. Zalaya was democratically elected in Honduras, and was deposed because he was trying to establish his dictatorship. But the State Department insists that he should be reinstated. This is staggeringly stupid if not treacherous. The preservation of freedom on the South American continent wherever it exists is plainly essential to US security. Hostile regimes in the hemisphere are a serious threat, as Hugo Chavez proves by his alliance with would-be-nuclear-armed Iran.

This reasoning would fully justify an immediate military attack on Iran and North Korea.