An excellent article by Diana West at Townhall is about the war we should be fighting. Here is most of it:

Today’s column is for all hawkish Americans currently wrestling with looming doubts about the pointlessness of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and clubbing those doubts down with the much-mentioned perils of leaving Afghanistan to “the terrorists.” In short, it’s about how to “lose” Afghanistan and win the war.

And what war would that be? Since 9/11, the answer to this question has eluded our leaders, civilian and military, but it remains the missing link to a cogent U.S. foreign policy.

It is not, as our presidents vaguely invoke, a war against “terrorism,” “radicalism” or “extremism”; and it is not, as the current hearts-and-minds-obsessed Afghanistan commander calls it, “a struggle to gain the support of the (Afghan) people.” It is something more specific than presidents describe, and it is something larger than the outlines of Iraq or Afghanistan. The war that has fallen to our generation is to halt the spread of Islamic law (Sharia) in the West, whether driven by the explosive belts of violent jihad, the morality-laundering of petro-dollars or decisive demographic shifts.

This mission demands a new line of battle around the West itself, one supported by a multilevel strategy in which the purpose of military action is not to nation-build in the Islamic world, but to nation-save in the Western one. Secure the borders, for starters, something “war president” George W. Bush should have done but never did. Eliminate the nuclear capabilities of jihadist nations such as Iran, another thing George W. Bush should have done but never did — Pakistan’s, too. Destroy jihadist actors, camps and havens wherever and whenever needed (the strategy in place and never executed by Bill Clinton in the run-up to 9/11). But not by basing, supplying and supporting a military colossus in Islamic, landlocked Central Asia. It is time, as Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely (USA ret.) first told me last April, to “let Afghanistan go.” It is not in our interests to civilize it. …

It’s time to toss the policy of standing up Sharia states such as Iraq and Afghanistan onto that ash heap of history. It’s time to shore up liberty in the West, which, while we are stretched and distracted by Eastern adventures, is currently contracting in its accommodations of Sharia, a legal system best described as sacralized totalitarianism.

Such a war — to block Sharia in the West — requires more than military solutions. For starters, it requires an unflinching assessment of Sharia’s incompatibility with the U.S. Constitution, and legal bars to Sharia-compliant petro-dollars now flowing into banking and business centers, into universities and media. It absolutely requires weaning ourselves from Islamic oil — what a concept — and drilling far and widely for our own.

Halting the spread of Islamic law in the democratic West requires halting Islamic immigration, something I’ve written before. But there’s another aspect to consider. On examining a photo of armed Taliban on an Afghan hill, it occurred to me that these men and others like them can’t hurt us from their hilltops. That is, what happens in Afghanistan stays in Afghanistan — or Pakistan or Saudi Arabia — if we (duh) impose wartime restrictions on travel from and to Sharia states.

But that cramps our freedom, critics will say. Well, so does standing in line to de-clothe and show our toothpaste because Hani Hanjour might be on the plane. Funny kind of “freedom” we’re now used to. And funny kind of war we now fight to protect it — a war for Sharia states abroad while a growing state of Sharia shrinks freedom at home.

The faster we extricate our military from the Islamic world, the faster we can figure out how to fight the real war, the Sharia war on the West.

The Israeli government has released 20 Palestinian prisoners – the majority of them members of terror groups – in return for a video that verifies the health of captured solider Gilad Shalit.

In the video, Gilad speaks to the camera:

“Hello, I am Gilad, son of Noam and Aviva Schalit, brother of Hadas and Yoel, who lives in Mitzpe Hila. My ID number is 300097029.

“As you see I am holding in my hands the Palestine newspaper of September 14, 2009, published in Gaza. I am reading the paper in order to find information regarding myself, hoping to find some information from which I would learn of my release and upcoming return home. I have been hoping and waiting for the day of my release for a long time. I hope the current government under Binyamin Netanyahu will not waste the chance to finalize a deal, and I will therefore be able to finally have my dream come true and be released.

“I wish to send regards to my family and say to them that I love and miss them and yearn for the day in which I will see them again.

“Dad, Yoel and Hadas, do you remember the day when you visited my base on the Golan Heights on December 31st, 2005, that if I am not mistaken was called Revaya B. We walked around the base and you took photos of me on the Merkava tank and on one of the old tanks at the entrance to the base. We then went to a restaurant in one of the Druse villages and on the way we took photos on the side of the road with the snow-capped Mount Hermon in the background.

“I wish to say to you that I feel good, health-wise, and the Mujahadeen of the Izzadien al-Qassam Brigades are treating me very well. Thank you and goodbye.”

This unending appeasement of terror for little gain is something that the Israeli state will regret – every act of weakness will be exploited. How many more murderers and terrorists must be released before the Israeli state still fails to return Gilad to his home?

It is a troubling scenario – Israeli has a duty to its soldiers; but it also has a duty to its people, and will granting Hamas agitprop trophies and imprisoned killers do anything for Israel’s fortunes and survival in the long run?

This move will not spell peace for the Palestinians, it will increase the chances of another Hamas-started war. As long as such a despotic group exists, there can be no liberty or democracy for the people of Gaza.

This exchange is reminiscent of the release of Samir Kuntar. The moment he walked into Lebanon as a free man spelt the end of a hard earned 60 years cultivating the image of Israel as a capable, tough and proud state. Samir Kuntar is one of the most despised villains of Israeli society: a vicious murderer, his crimes included the inhuman beating to death of a three year old Israeli girl in front of horrified witnesses.

My horror at the release of this epitome of evil is not the support for his crimes that is propagated by Middle Eastern fundamentalist media outlets and despotic governments; it is not even shock at the (frankly expected) Western indifference for this monster – instead I am appalled by the virus that goes by the name of appeasement that has risen again to infect the integrity – or lack thereof – manifested by the weak politicians and activists of the liberal West.

The release of Samir Kuntar, four other terrorists and the hundreds of remains of dead Lebanese murderers marked the beginning of the end. Israel, more than any country, should realise that appeasement is a policy that will never work to their advantage.Machiavelli once wrote, “…one should never permit a disorder to persist in order to avoid a war, for war is not avoided thereby but merely deferred to one’s own disadvantage.”

Kuntar’s relase sent chilling reminders of Chamberlain’s efforts to secure peace; or the IRA murderers given their ill-gotten freedom by Blair’s government; the US government’s protection of Arafat in 1982; the attempted appeasement of Saddam Hussein before the 1990 Gulf War; the encouraged promotion of Islamic culture above all others in Western countries by Western governments; the suggestions of British judges for allowing some form of sharia law in Britain – the last hundred years have shown a frightening propensity for the West to fail to learn from its mistakes and to allow the forces of evil a chance to exist and prosper.

At the time, the release of the five terrorists for two dead Israeli soldiers, met one of Hezbollah’s few demands, another being the return of the Sheba farms to Lebanon. Is it that these unforgettable years of terrorism, torture, murder – the kind of cruelty unimaginable to civilized society – have all just been for the return of a few hundred yards of farm and a child murderer? – appeasement gives terror groups and terror States the time and support to commit even worse atrocities.

After Kuntar’s release, Hamas decided it was no longer going to agree to Israeli terms for the return of Gilad Shalit and was to demand greater returns for the terrorist group. Furthermore, a group of British MPs called for a dialogue with Palestinian terror groups, Hamas included; breaking the policy of no recognition that most Western countries had pursued at the time.

These endless sacrifices for Shalit may all be in vain. It is Israel’s duty to return that soldier home, but in doing so, should it be risking the lives and well-being of her other citizens?

Sam Westrop runs the Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy

On the fourth anniversary of the publication of the Muhammad cartoons by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, we consider the question: has terrorism proved itself a successful tactic in the Islamic jihad against the rest of the world?:

In the 20th century, in the era of the Cold War, most of the world’s terrorist groups were ideologically communist, whatever else they were: revolutionary, or national-separatist, or national-liberationist. Most of them were aided and abetted by the Soviet Union. (So were small groups of young, free, prosperous West Europeans who committed acts of terrorism on the pretext of serving selfless causes but primarily to get a thrill out of it, such as the so-called Baader-Meinhof group.) There were no terrorist groups within the Communist Bloc.

In Latin America and Africa some groups gained their objectives, and their success may have been due in part to their use of terrorism; but it cannot be said that terrorism proved a reliably winning tactic wherever it was tried, and it certainly cannot be said that Communism won.

In the 21st century, however, terrorism has been highly successful. Almost all terrorist activity since the turn of the century has been perpetrated by Muslims acting in the name of Islam. It can accurately and fairly be called ‘Islamic terrorism’ without implying that every Muslim in the world is a terrorist, any more, it might be said, than ‘Basque terrorism’ taints every citizen of the Basque country. Yet the comparison would be misleading. While it is true enough that every Muslim is not an active terrorist, it is nevertheless the religious duty of every Muslim to help the advance of holy war against the non-Muslim world. Confirmation that Muslim terrorists are intent on fulfilling a religious duty may be found in these unequivocal statements by the 9/11 plotters, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and five others, submitted in writing at their trial in December 2008: ‘Our prophet was victorious because of fear… our religion is a religion of fear and terror to the enemies of God: the Jews, Christians, and pagans. With God’s willing, we are terrorists to the bone. So, many thanks to God… We ask to be near to God, we fight you and destroy you and terrorize you. The Jihad in god’s [sic] cause is a great duty in our religion.’

All collectivist ideologies – for glaring examples Nazism and Communism – are intrinsically violent, since the collective obedience of a citizenry can only be sustained by force. Islam is a collectivist ideology and this alone makes it intrinsically violent; but more explicitly, Islam demands of every one of its devotees that he (and she) be a holy warrior against all who remain outside of its collective. It teaches that to die in a violent onslaught against unbelievers is the highest service a Muslim can render to its God, so a ‘martyr’ who kills himself while perpetrating murder will be rewarded by God with instant admission into an eternity of sensual rewards in a leisurely afterlife.

Other collectivist creeds employ torturers and executioners to terrorize their collective into remaining submissive, and employ individuals to deliver their fellow citizens into the hands of the torturers and executioners; but Islam goes further and lays on every one of its votaries a God-ordered duty to kill for the cause of conquest, or at the very least to assist a fellow Muslim to kill. Since they do not fear death, nothing can stop Islam’s holy warriors. Their willingness, their positive eagerness to die for their cause, powerfully promotes success.

No wonder then that Islamic terrorism has succeeded. The ‘Muhammad cartoon’ episode alone demonstrates its triumph. When, four years ago today, a Danish newspaper published cartoons of Islam’s prophet, Muslims reacted by threatening civil disorder throughout Europe, killing Christians in the Middle East, and so intimidating the editors of almost all other newspapers in the world that very few dared to reproduce the cartoons. European governments cringed, apologized, and groveled. Even in America, a book about the cartoons omits the cartoons themselves, because the publishers, Yale University, fear Muslim reprisals.

Fear of Islam has become a fact of life in Europe. All EU governments rush to gratify the demands of their growing and incendiary Muslim minorities. Police are reluctant to enforce the law in ‘Muslim areas’. Judges hesitate or refuse to impose harsh sentences on Muslims who incite and plot violence, or to deport them. The indigenous populations are effectively ‘dhimmified’: rendered subservient to the will of the Muslim immigrants. There, by the use of terrorism, Islam has won.

In America, as this is being written, Muslims have been charged with plotting or attempting to carry out violent attacks with weapons of mass destruction in New York, Chicago, Dallas, and a Marine Corps base in New Mexico. An organizer of the Muslim march on Washington, D.C. on September 25th wrote on his Facebook site: ‘We don’t want to democratize Islam, we want to Islamize democracy.’

The dhimmification of America with its much larger population will take longer than it did in Europe, but day after day, step by step, Islam is making its gains. Governments, editors, police, judges, citizens already hesitate to use their constitutional right to speak freely if what they say might offend Muslims.

Since the mass murder of some 3,000 Americans by nineteen Muslims in 2001, there have been more than 14,000 Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The al-Qaeda organization, probably now headquartered in Pakistan, inspires and trains terrorists from Europe and America to carry out acts of mass murder in Western cities. The Islamic state of Iran sponsors Hizbullah, the terrorist organization that has battened on to Lebanon and threatens Israel; sends arms and equipment through Syria to terrorists in Iraq; supplies the Hamas terrorists with materiel so it can continue to wage perpetual rocket war against Israel from Gaza; and directly threatens Israel with annihilation by nuclear attack.

Against all this the United Nations, sentimentally established after the Second World War to be a peace maker, proves itself worse than useless, having long ago become an agency of the Islamic states, continually manipulated by them to lie and propagandize, and actively enable anti-Western violence.

How can civilization fend off this enemy whose power lies in its invulnerability to physical damage? What strategy can it plan – short of annihilation, which is hardly possible even if it were to be unconscionably contemplated, there being over a billion Muslims in the world? Legislatures cannot do it. Police forces cannot do it. Armies cannot do it.

An optimistic view is that prosperity could do it. Encourage immigration into Western countries and grant massive economic aid to Islamic states. The reasoning goes that as people become more prosperous they become better educated, have fewer children, are less influenced by – or even renounce – religion; they see and desire the benefits of western civilization, take advantage of its openness to individual effort, and try to become part of it rather than destroy it. Unfortunately it is a theory that has been tested and not proved. It is out of the prosperous third generation of Muslim immigrants that Islamic terrorists have arisen in Britain, to place bombs in trains and park a car full of explosive in the streets of its capital. Even if there were strong evidence in favor of the theory, an experiment that requires the First World to pour its resources into the Islamic Third World is unrealistic and impracticable because it is not affordable.

An alternative idea is to isolate the Islamic nations: apply extreme sanctions; refuse to trade with them, even though they have the oil that the West needs; do not give them aid; do not permit Muslim immigration into Western countries, and deport back to their countries of origin as many present immigrants as law and civilized values permit; in sum, leave Islam to its own devices, and let internecine conflict, lack of modern technology, poor medical knowledge and general ignorance take their toll of the enemy to reduce it to impotence. This too is unrealistic, if for no other reason than that such measures would offend the sense of moral self-worth that determines the political choices of at least half the people in the Western world; those who hold compassion as their highest value and vote for parties that claim to be motivated by it – in other words, the political left.

There is no easy answer. The civilized world has at present the intellectual and economic, as well as military advantage over Islam. But if it cannot find a way with all its powers to preserve itself, it will be overcome. Europe has chosen not to resist. When most of Europe as well as most of Asia have become fully Islamized, as they very likely will be, how might America, if it is still free, deal with such a changed world? What will it do to ensure its survival when it is the last stronghold of civilization?

Jillian Becker September 30,  2009

Unlike, apparently, most of the rest of the universe, we were all for the war on Saddam Hussein. We rejoiced in his defeat and capture and hanging. We wish that all tyrants could be punished in the same way. We believe that America won the war, though we don’t believe that Iraq has been transformed into a democracy or is likely to be. We would be happy to see Libya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, North Korea and above all Iran overcome by American might. We believe such victories are perfectly possible militarily, but impossible under the leadership of an Islam-loving, America-hating, radical left administration. We are of course for the pursuit and destruction of  al-Qaeda and the Taliban. If war in Afghanistan would achieve their destruction, we would be  for its continuance. But we don’t believe in the possibility of any sort of victory in that benighted country; not even if the war was being prosecuted as ruthlessly as war should be. Since it  is to an absurd extent being ‘fought’ as a form of community service – not even as ‘an overseas contingency operation’, to use the Obama official euphemism for fighting terrorism – we recognize that there is zero chance of achieving anything there at all. The onslaught was started in order to destroy al-Qaeda, rightly blamed for 9/11, but it hasn’t and it won’t. It has long since become an exercise in community outreach. The feebly-named International Security Assistance Force (American and British troops – who are really fighting bravely –  plus some German snoozers and a few not very vigorous others) is  there primarily, according to General McChrystal, to ‘provide for the needs of the Afghan people’. (As we have opined in our post of September 21 below, The stupidest reason for a war – ever?, this is the stupidest reason for a war, ever.) The use, by a  Commander-in-Chief and his generals, of soldiers as social workers is an extremely expensive, idiotic, and ruinous exercise in national self-abasement.

The fact is that the appalling method of terrorism has won huge victories in this century, in which almost all terrorism has been committed in the name of Islam. The West has let its practitioners win. The jihadists have won all over Europe,  by using and all too credibly threatening violence, as in their protests over the Danish cartoons of Muhammad. All west European nations have already been reduced by their own fear and moral weakness – aka political correctness  – to dhimmi status. Islam goes from triumph to triumph in Europe, and is being allowed steadily to gain power in the United States. The Islamic jihadists are plotting against us in our cities, in Europe and America. They have murdered thousands of Europeans and Americans. Daily, they carry out acts of torture and murder in Asia and Africa. At the time of this writing, there have been more than 14,000 Islamic terrorist attacks since 9/11 (see our margin where we quote the tally being kept by The Religion of Peace). No wonder the greater part of the world has become Islamophobic in the true meaning of the word: it is afraid of Islam. Why do Muslims object to that? Isn’t it precisely what Islam has always intended to achieve? It is the barbaric enemy of our civilization.

Nothing that is done in Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iraq, not even total military victory – however that could be reckoned – will defeat Islamic jihadist terrorism. The one and only use now of military force that might score a victory against it, would be the physical destruction of Iran’s nuclear capability. Iran is a  terrorist state, spreading terrorism in the Middle East through its proxies in Lebanon, Gaza, and Iraq, so that is where force is needed and would be truly effective. Such a strike would not only disarm the mullahs, it would also send a shock-wave throughout the Islamic world.

That will not be done. But other than for that, what is the use of vast nuclear and conventional arsenals, huge armies, great navies, fighter aircraft that can elude radar-detection, if the enemy is standing beside you and has only to utter a threat to make you fall on your knees and give him whatever he asks?

Jillian Becker    September  25, 2009

Today it is officially announced that Obama has broken America’s promise to Poland and the Czech Republic to supply them with anti-missile defense shields – as we said he would two weeks ago (Obama abandons Poland and Czech republic to the enemy, September 3). Why is he doing it? The Russians were furiously against the plan, so that’s one poor reason. But the main and outrageous reason is, of course, that Obama is not interested in defending America or its allies or the free(-ish) world.

At ‘the corner’ of the National Review Online, Jay Nordlinger writes:

I thought Barack Obama would be a poor and troublesome president. Did I think he would yuk it up with Hugo Chávez, smirk with Daniel Ortega about the Bay of Pigs, turn his wrath on a Central American country trying to follow its constitution, denounce President Bush abroad, bow to the king of Saudi Arabia, endorse a radical Middle Eastern view of how Israel came into being, knock Western countries that try to protect Muslim girls from unwanted shrouding, invite the Iranian regime to our Fourth of July parties, stay essentially mute in the face of counterrevolution in Iran, squeeze and panic Israel, cold-shoulder the Cuban democrats in order to warm to the Cuban dictatorship, scrap missile defense in Eastern Europe, and refuse to meet with the Dalai Lama [this item doesn’t annoy us as much – JB] — in addition to his attempts to have government eat great portions of American society? No, I did not. You?

Yes, we did. We said so, in generalized prediction. We only don’t understand why the whole country couldn’t see what Obama would set about trying to do: at home, turn America into an impoverished socialist country, and abroad, ally America with its enemies and alienate its friends.

We applaud Vijay Kumar’s prescriptions for winning the war against Islam – or, as he puts it, against Universal Jihad. Here’s a part of his essay (read it all here):

The conflict between Universal Jihadists and the West is philosophical. Strength is necessary to bring and maintain order, but force alone can never prevail. Reason, empiricism, and the scientific method are our greatest weapons against the religious fanaticism of Political Islam’s militant theocracy.

Non-Islamic nations must correctly classify the doctrine of Universal Jihad as a subversive paramilitary political movement whose core ideology, of record, demands the overthrow of the existing forms of governments. Civilized nations recognize that such subversion, in times of war, constitutes treason.

And Universal Jihad is a declared war. It is a war of Islamic theological exclusivism against pluralistic democratic traditions. They are mutually exclusive. Islam’s Sharia is the antithesis of individual intellectual and spiritual freedom. It stands in direct opposition to the very existence of any constitutional democracy, and to the very right to existence of any other religion or belief.

Therefore, in order to prevail in this war against the rest of mankind, we must do the following.

Build a global united alliance of nations against Universal Jihad. Jew and Gentile, Anglo-Saxon and Slav, Hindu and Buddhist, Norwegian and Nigerian – all have been victimized by Jihad. Never has any barbaric imperialism so universally threatened mankind without regard to national or ethnic or philosophical or geopolitical boundaries. Whatever our differences, in this war we are allies unified by a common ruthless enemy that will not rest until we and our cultures and nations have been conquered through conversion, domination, or death. United, we cannot be overcome.

Systematically remove all advocates of Political Islam’s Universal Jihad from every nation of the Western world-which, by their own definition, is Darul al-Harb (Land of Hostility, governed by the infidels). The claims and requirements of Literal Islam’s mandated theocracy call for overthrow of the American and Western forms of government in a declared war, and the supporters of Universal Jihad have committed and condoned acts of war on our soil against our people and our nations. That is treason.

As a united alliance of nations against Universal Jihad, cut off all trade and diplomatic ties to the Empire of Universal Jihad: Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. Enforce these sanctions until their governments publicly, formally renounce and disavow Universal Jihad by official proclamation.

As a united alliance of nations against Universal Jihad, use the combined resources of all affected nations to demilitarize, secularize, and democratize the Empire of Universal Jihad.

As a united alliance of nations against Universal Jihad, demand and exact compensation from the Empire of Universal Jihad for having supported global terrorism for at least the past half-century.

If any of these steps to victory seem draconian or undemocratic, pause to reflect that they are far more humane and civilized then the strategies and tactics of Political Islam and its 1,400 years war that has decimated entire civilizations and murdered countless millions. These steps are far more humane and civilized than dropping atomic bombs on civilian populations… These are sober, attainable and necessary steps that must be taken if the rationality and freedoms gained by mankind over thousands of years of social evolution stand any chance of surviving the Universal Jihadist’s onslaught of barbarism and mass murder to the end of totalitarian rule of the world.

To survive at all and preserve our cherished rights and freedoms, our cultures, our religions, our civilizations, we must declare an ideological war against Universal Jihadists. We must do so now. They long ago declared war on us.

Not that we expect any of these measures to be carried out or even considered! The Darul al-Harb, or Dar el-Harb (House of War, the non-Islamic world) prefers not to notice that it is being steadily conquered by forces of darkness.

Here are three recent news stories:

From the Mail Online, a display of criminal ignorance by  a UK judge:

A judge lambasted a rapist for claiming his victim was a liar – then commended him for becoming a Muslim. Judge Anthony Goldstaub QC sentenced Stuart Wood for seven years for the attack, then told him: ‘You have turned to Islam and this promises well for your future, particularly as you are now an adherent of a religion which respects women and self-discipline.’

From The Daily Star, Bangladesh, an example of how Islam respects women:

A septuagenarian moneylender has married a 13-year old girl in Muladi upazila [district] of Barisal after her poor father failed to repay him the borrowed money. The marriage between Akhinur and 75-year old Lokman Sikder was solemnised on September 4, as Azhar Bepari, father of the girl, could not pay Tk 4,000 he had borrowed from Lokman after cyclone Aila hit their Banimordhon village in May this year. Locals said Lokman took advantage of the financial crisis of the poor family and forced Akhinur’s parents to marry off their under-aged daughter to him in default of non-repayment of his credit. When The Daily Star correspondent visited the remote Muladi village after the marriage, there was literally no move to catch the moneylender, who coerced the Bepari couple to marry off their daughter to him [against her will] and also against the will of Lokman’s first wife Ayesha Bibi, 53.

And here’s an AP report giving another example from Yemen:

A 12-year-old Yemeni child-bride died after struggling for three days in labor to give birth … Fawziya Abdullah Youssef died of severe bleeding on Friday while giving birth to a stillborn in the al-Zahra district hospital of Hodeida province, 140 miles (223 kilometers) west of the capital San’a. Child marriages are widespread in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, where tribal customs dominate society. More than a quarter of the country’s females marry before age 15 …  Youssef was only 11 when her father married her to a 24-year-old man who works as a farmer in Saudi Arabia …

From American Thinker:

It must be recognized and acknowledged by Americans that all governments of Islamic countries, secular and sectarian, cannot divorce themselves from the religious Jihadist aspect ever-present in their societies. The yearly surveys showing large majorities in these countries favoring strict Shariah is but one piece of the evidentiary puzzle. Almost without exception, to a greater or lesser extent, the governments of Islamic nations, irrespective of their official ties to Islam, find themselves in a confrontation with a discontented Jihadist element in their respective populations. In order to preserve their iron grip on the national treasury and the security forces, these governments (examples: our “allies” Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia), either directly or through surrogates in the royal or landed aristocracy, direct and support the Jihadist hostility toward kafirs, unbelievers in Islam, that are most often represented as Israel and the US; although Britain and India are also frequent Islamic terrorist targets. Even Turkey, founded 86-years-ago as a secular state to free the Turks from their repressive Ottoman Muslim past, has recently come under increasing Shariah-Islamic influence. The unavoidable conclusion is that radical Islam (understood as Shariah-Islam), often manifesting itself in Islamic Jihad, is a fact of life in all of our dealings and endeavors in the Islamic world. This omnipresent jihad aspect of Islam is the element that must be added to the debate over our Afghan strategy to supply the much needed clarity.

So how does this reality factor into the military strategic equation? Primarily it means that no Islamic government can ever be truly counted on to affirmatively eradicate Jihadist violence against US interests. This in and of itself suggests at the very least that the objective of nation-building in Afghanistan is a fool’s errand simply or so remote as to make it foolish. It also … would mean that, while it may be to our tactical advantage to temporarily ally with Islamic governments, it would be blood and money wasted to invest in trying to change an Islamic society. Consequently and most importantly, it would mean that, while denying Afghanistan to al Qaeda as an operational base and assisting the Pak government in defeating the Taliban and al Qaeda within Pakistan are vital national priorities, the delusion that these Islamic societies can be “Westernized” must be re-thought…

The American illusion that we can ever fight “a war to end all wars” is just that, an illusion. Shariah-driven Islam has been waging Jihad against the West for 1300+ years, why would we expect it to stop because we manage to facilitate democratic elections that empower corrupt Islamic leaders like Nouri al-Maliki or Hamid Karzai? We are just going to have to “shoot the closest bear” one at a time and reconcile our thinking that Jihad will reappear periodically like Haley’s Comet.

We think it probable that one great shock, such as a devastating attack on Iran’s nuclear installations, could send a message that would keep the jihadists still and trembling for years to come.

We do not think it remotely likely that Obama will order such a strike.

The world must look to Israel to save it from a nuclear-armed Iran.

Bitterly, and justly, Ralph Peters writes in the New York Post:

We resolved that we, the People, would never forget. Then we forgot…

Instead of cracking down on Islamist extremism, we’ve excused it.

Instead of killing terrorists, we free them.

Instead of relentlessly hunting Islamist madmen, we seek to appease them.

Instead of acknowledging that radical Islam is the problem, we elected a president who blames America, whose idea of freedom is the right for women to suffer in silence behind a veil — and who counts among his mentors and friends those who damn our country or believe that our own government staged the tragedy of September 11, 2001.

Instead of insisting that freedom will not be infringed by terrorist threats, we censor works that might offend mass murderers. Radical Muslims around the world can indulge in viral lies about us, but we dare not even publish cartoons mocking them.

Instead of protecting law-abiding Americans, we reject profiling to avoid offending terrorists…

Instead of insisting that Islamist hatred and religious apartheid have no place in our country, we permit the Saudis to continue funding mosques and madrassahs where hating Jews and Christians is preached as essential to Islam.

Instead of confronting Saudi hate-mongers, our president bows down to the Saudi king.

Instead of recognizing the Saudi-sponsored Wahhabi cult as the core of the problem, our president blames Israel.

Instead of asking why Middle Eastern civilization has failed so abjectly, our president suggests that we’re the failures.

Instead of taking every effective measure to cull information from terrorists, the current administration threatens CIA agents with prosecution for keeping us safe.

Instead of proudly and promptly rebuilding on the site of the Twin Towers, we’ve committed ourselves to the hopeless, useless task of rebuilding Afghanistan…

Instead of taking a firm stand against Islamist fanaticism, we’ve made a cult of negotiations — as our enemies pursue nuclear weapons; sponsor terrorism; torture, imprison, rape and murder their own citizens — and laugh at us.

Instead of insisting that Islam must become a religion of responsibility, our leaders in both parties continue to bleat that “Islam’s a religion of peace”  …

Instead of requiring new immigrants to integrate into our society and conform to its public values, we encourage and subsidize anti-American, woman-hating, freedom-denying bigotry in the name of toleration.

Instead of pursuing our enemies to the ends of the earth, we help them sue us.

We’ve dishonored our dead and whitewashed our enemies. A distinctly unholy alliance between fanatical Islamists abroad and a politically correct “elite” in the US has reduced 9/11 to the status of a non-event, a day for politicians to preen about how little they’ve done.

We’ve forgotten the shock and the patriotic fury Americans felt on that bright September morning eight years ago. We’ve forgotten our identification with fellow citizens leaping from doomed skyscrapers. We’ve forgotten the courage of airline passengers who would not surrender to terror.

We’ve forgotten the men and women who burned to death or suffocated in the Pentagon. We’ve forgotten our promises, our vows, our commitments.

We’ve forgotten what we owe our dead and what we owe our children. We’ve even forgotten who attacked us.

We have betrayed the memory of our dead. In doing so, we betrayed ourselves and our country. Our troops continue to fight — when they’re allowed to do so — but our politicians have surrendered.

On this day when we should remember, we recall that 9/11 was a profoundly religious act.

We have repeatedly said that Islam is an immoral and intolerable ideology and that the way to deal with it is to argue against it constantly and thoroughly. (See for instance our post How to defeat Islam, July 20, 2009.)

The ruling political parties of Europe refuse to admit, let alone deal with, the ruinous encroachment of Islam throughout the continent. As a result, they are driving ever-growing numbers of their electors into the arms of smaller parties that preach and may soon practice force against Muslims.

Opposition to an ideology – whatever form it takes, in this case a religion formulated in the dark ages – is properly verbal. Attack should be by words on words, not by people on people. If criticism and argument are forbidden, the attack of people on people will surely happen instead.

But governments in dhimmified Eurabia do not see this. They prohibit criticism of the monstrous ideology that is replacing their traditions and darkening their future.

For example, this happened recently in Finland:

Jussi Halla-aho, a member of the Helsinki City Council, has been found guilty of defamation of religion by the Helsinki District Court. He was ordered to pay a fine of 330 euros… Prosecutor Simo Kolehmainen said Halla-aho had publicly defamed the Islamic faith in his blog writings… The prosecutor said Halla-aho’s writings insulted Muslims residing in Finland and endangered religious peace.

Throughout the Western world, the political left denies the oppression, intolerance, ignorance, cruelty, and injustice that characterize Islam. Not a word of protest do we hear from the ‘progressives’ or ‘liberals’ about Islam’s treatment of women. The physical, mental, and emotional pain that is a woman’s constant condition of existence under the oppression of Islam (as detailed by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, for instance – see our post immediately below), does not in the least trouble those bleeding hearts, those humanitarians who claim that their high political mission is to alleviate the lot of the poor, the downtrodden, the exploited. Well, it’s not news to us that they are hypocrites.

But – mirabile dictu – there are those among them who actually extol the way women are forced to live under Islam.

The Communist writer Naomi Wolf has done just that. Phyllis Chesler – doughty warrior on the feminist battlefield – has been arguing with her. Anyone who has read the testimony of Ayaan Hirsi Ali must surely find outrageous Wolf’s defense of the subjugation of Muslim women most visibly evinced by their total concealment in black bags –  which Wolf declares to be ‘liberating’.

Here is a part of  Chesler’s comment:

Women in chadors are really feminist ninja warriors. Rather than allow themselves to be gawked at by male strangers, they choose to defeat the “male gaze” by hiding from it in plain view.

But don’t you worry: Beneath that chador, abaya, burqa, or veil, there is a sexy courtesan wearing “Victoria Secret, elegant fashion, and skin care lotion,” just waiting for her husband to come home for a night of wild and sensuous marital lovemaking.

Obviously, these are not my ideas. I am quoting from a piece by Naomi Wolf that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald a few days ago. Yes, Wolf is the bubbly, feminist author who once advised Vice President Al “The Climate” Gore on what colors he should wear while campaigning and who is or was friendly with Gore’s daughter…

Wolf recently traveled to Morocco, Jordan, and Eygpt, where she found the women “as interested in allure, seduction, and pleasure as women anywhere in the world.” Whew! What a relief. She writes:

“Many Muslim women I spoke with did not feel at all subjugated by the chador or the headscarf. On the contrary, they felt liberated from what they experienced as the intrusive, commodifying, basely sexualizing Western gaze. … Many women said something like this: …’how tiring it can be to be on display all the time. When I wear my headscarf or chador, people relate to me as an individual, not an object; I feel respected.’ This may not be expressed in a traditional Western feminist set of images, but it is a recognizably Western feminist set of feelings.”

Really? If so, I’m the Queen of England…

Well, what can I say? Here’s a few things.

Most Muslim girls and women are not given a choice about wearing the chador, burqa, abaya, niqab, jilbab, or hijab (headscarf), and those who resist are beaten, threatened with death, arrested, caned or lashed, jailed, or honor murdered by their own families. Is Wolfe thoroughly unfamiliar with the news coming out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan on these very subjects? Has she forgotten the tragic, fiery deaths of those schoolgirls in Saudi Arabia who, in trying to flee their burning schoolhouse, were improperly veiled and who were beaten back by the all-powerful Saudi Morality Police?

Most Muslim girls and women are impoverished and wear rags, not expensive Western clothing beneath their coverings. Only the pampered, super-controlled, often isolated, and uber-materialistic daughters of wealth, mainly in the Gulf states, but also among the ruling classes in the Islamic world, match Wolf’s portrait of well kept courtesan-wives.

Being veiled and obedient does not save a Muslim girl or woman from being incested, battered, stalked, gang-raped, or maritally raped nor does it stop her husband from taking multiple wives and girlfriends or from frequenting brothels. A fully “covered” girl-child, anywhere between the ages of 10-15, may still be forced into an arranged marriage, perhaps with her first cousin, perhaps with a man old enough to be her grandfather, and she is not allowed to leave him, not even if he beats her black and blue every single day…

And, by the way, the eerie effect, ultimately, of shrouded women is that they become invisible. They cease to exist. They are literally ghosts.

Wolf presents the West as anti-woman because it treats women as sex objects. Am I happy about pornography and prostitution in the West? Hell no and, unlike Wolf, I’ve fought against them – but to portray these vices as a “Western” evil, and one that the Islamic world opposes, is sheer madness.

It is well known that the Arabs and Muslims kept and still keep sex slaves – they are very involved in the global trafficking in girls and women and frequent prostitutes on every continent. You will find pornography magazines in every princely tent – those for boys as well as for girls. I am told that the Saudis fly in fresh planeloads of Parisian prostitutes every week. Perhaps they veil them before they conduct their all-night and all-day orgies. Or, perhaps they view them as natural, “infidel” prey.

Let me suggest that Wolf read … the works of Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Infidel) and Nonie Darwish (Cruel and Usual Punishment) for starters.

Then again, I suspect that Wolf is not necessarily looking for any “nuanced” truths about “female freedom” but is, rather … positioning herself within the Democratic Party. After all, what she has written in this brief article supports President Obama’s position vis a vis the Muslim world.