Critical thinking: How did Islam spread?
Ever wonder just how the so-called “religion of peace” expanded to into other lands? From Jacques Ellul’s Les Chreientes d’Orient entre Jihad et Dhimmiude. VIIe – XXe (via Andrew Bostom’s excellent book, The Legacy of Jihad):
“In a major encyclopedia, one reads phrases such as: “Islam expanded in the eighth or ninth centuries…”; “This or that country passed into Muslim hands…” But care is taken not to say how Islam expanded, how countries “passed into [Muslim] hands.” … Indeed, it would seem as if events happened by themselves, through a miraculous or amicable operation. … Regarding this expansion, little is said about jihad. And yet it all happened through war!
… the jihad is an institution, and not an event, that is to say it is part of the normal functioning of the Muslim world. … The conquered populations change status (they become dhimmis), and the shari’a tends to be put into effect integrally, overthrowing the former law of the country. The conquered territories do not simply change “owners.”
In: Religion · Tagged with: dhimmitude, Islam, jihad
The best article on counterinsurgency
I just came across an incredible article on not only counterinsurgency, but one that also addresses the ideology of our enemies (something our government and military will not do) – jihad. Sergeant Major Jim Sauer (USMC, ret.) makes more sense than anyone I have come across yet. A must read for anyone who seeks to understand counterinsurgency or the situation in Afghanistan.
In: Military, Religion · Tagged with: counterinsurgency, Islam, jihad
Military Roundup 9 Apr 2010
Photo of the Day: Drew Brees trains with Marines in Africa
Afghanistan: Taliban release video showing U.S. Prisoner of War Bowe Bergdahl
Multi-million dollar poppy eradication program fails, U.S. troops now focused on Taliban
Air Force special operations CV-22 Osprey crashes in Zabul Province killing four, Taliban claim responsibility
Kyrgyz violence casts uncertainty on U.S. presence at Manas – at least 75 dead, president has fled
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula moves from Yemen to Somalia after Yemeni security forces tighten noose
Obama Bans Islam, Jihad From National Security Strategy Document
Who is America Fighting – Jihadists or Extremists?
Stolen Valor: Coast Guard retiree sentenced to prison, forced to repay fraudulent benefits received for claiming to be a Navy SEAL, wearing decorations he didn’t receive
National Guard: Obama admin ignores Arizona governor’s repeated requests to secure the border
In: Uncategorized · Tagged with: Afghanistan, jihad
Military Roundup
Get out your flags! Today is National Medal of Honor Day. On this day in 1863, the first Medals were awarded. And as a reminder, the 2010 Medal of Honor convention will be held in Charleston, S.C. from Sept. 29 – Oct. 30.
Osama bin Laden threatened to kill more Americans if al Qaeda detainees are executed (as if he wouldn’t have done so otherwise).
Photo of the day: the Navy’s futuristic ride that belongs on a Bond film
Private security contractors have killed a Somali pirate for the first time.
This week in U.S. military history
An al Qaeda group in Indonesia has been kind enough to clear up the confusion about whether Jihad is peaceful or violent (the Qur’an also covers this matter – see for yourself).
In: Military Roundup · Tagged with: al Qaeda, jihad, Medal of Honor, Osama bin Laden, pirates, US Navy
Definition of Jihad
“To all members of Jemaah Islamiyah, unite! Jihad is not waged with pens or wearing prayer caps and sarongs. No, you fight jihad with weapons. Before your hair goes grey with age, join us!”
- Member of the Indonesian terrorist group al Qaeda in Aceh
In: In Their Own Words · Tagged with: al Qaeda, al Qaeda in Aceh, Indonesia, jihad
Victory defined
Can we achieve victory in our current conflict? Although our president won’t use the term “victory,” we at least owe it to our troops to remember what it means and to keep charging forward. Victor Davis Hanson illustrates:
Victory has usually been defined throughout the ages as forcing the enemy to accept certain political objectives. “Forcing” usually meant killing, capturing, or wounding men at arms. In today’s polite and politically correct society we seem to have forgotten that nasty but eternal truth in the confusing struggle to defeat radical Islamic terrorism.
Humans have been fighting wars since before Moses was a corporal – and always will – because it’s basic human nature for one group to want something they don’t have, or want to eradicate people they don’t like. And while we would prefer that wars could be executed with technology, non-lethal ammunition, and negotiations, the truth is that war will always be decided by soldiers and Marines with guns.
In the case of our current conflict, the U.S. military is defending against (albeit with either one or sometimes both hands tied behind our backs) a supremacist movement that wants to kill/convert/subjugate those who don’t practice their form of Islam.
And why should this struggle be so “confusing?” Our enemies have done us the favor of identifying themselves. All we have left to do is acknowledge their declarations of war and return the favor. We aren’t fighting Muslims as many have wrongly suggested, otherwise we would have long since bombed U.S. mosques and Islamic centers. We are fighting jihadists. It’s just that simple.
What stopped the imperial German army from absorbing France in World War I and eventually made the Kaiser abdicate was the destruction of a once magnificent army on the Western front — superb soldiers and expertise that could not easily be replaced. Saddam Hussein left Kuwait in 1991 when he realized that the U.S. military was destroying his very army. Even the North Vietnamese agreed to a peace settlement in 1973, given their past horrific losses on the ground and the promise that American air power could continue indefinitely inflicting its damage on the North.
When an enemy finally gives up, it is for a combination of reasons — material losses, economic hardship, loss of territory, erosion of civilian morale, fright, mental exhaustion, internal strife. But we forget that central to a concession of defeat is often the loss of the nation’s soldiers — or even the threat of such deaths.
Our enemies know they have no chance on the battlefield, which is precisely why we are fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, and not fighting Iran and Saudi Arabia in a conventional war. But while we are beating them on the battlefield, little damage has been done to our enemies on other fronts. When your enemy is committed to an ideology that treasures death more than life, then “material losses, economic hardship,” etc. will have far less effect than it would on say, Germans. But this is no reason to throw in the towel. The more mujahideen we kill, the more suicide bombers blow themselves up, the more resources our enemy expends, the less they have.
And as we kill the jihadists on one hand, on the other we are helping the non-jihadist Muslims wherever our troops operate. Our enemy can’t maintain their populations in a perpetual dark ages, surrounded with death and destruction, while the U.S. is constructing roads, schools, and dams. Sooner or later people will realize that the jihad means death while cooperation means prosperity.
Victory is most easily obtained by ending the enemy’s ability to resist — and by offering him an alternative future that might appear better than the past. We may not like to think all of that entails killing those who wish to kill us, but it does, always has, and tragically always will — until the nature of man himself changes.
All that remains is for us to maintain our resolve and to show our enemies that we will not compromise with supremacists.
In: Military · Tagged with: Afghanistan, Iraq, jihad
Military needs to trash jihad coverup policy
One of the things helping jihadists attack this country the most could be the policy Obama signed last year forbidding our military from mentioning jihad, Islam, or any such terms that could anger our enemies. Granted, this nonsense started under the Bush administration. But when it comes to our national security, which is government’s primary responsibility, it doesn’t matter who is to blame. What matters is that we fix it.
Case in point: In December, five Muslims were arrested for allegedly attempting to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson. The incident is still under investigation.
From Fox News:
Five suspects, detained in December, were part of an Arabic translation program called “09 Lima” and use Arabic as their first language, two sources told Fox News. Another military source said they were Muslim. It wasn’t clear whether they were still being held.
And from CBN News:
A source with intimate knowledge of the investigation, which is ongoing, told CBN News investigators suspect the “Fort Jackson Five” may have been in contact with the group of five Washington, DC area Muslims that traveled to Pakistan to wage jihad against U.S. troops in December. That group was arrested by Pakistani authorities, also just before Christmas.
Now this, from The Palmetto Scoop:
Army officials, however, denied the allegations and said none of the men were Muslim.
So 09L’s – who speak Arabic, Dari, Pashtu, Farsi or Kurdish as a first language, who may also be in contact with other Jihadists in Pakistan – aren’t Muslim?
Why are we learning of this two months after the fact? When a non-Muslim commits a violent act, such as the man who killed the abortion doctor “Tiller the killer,” journalists pass along everything there is to know about the man. However when the perpetrator happens to be Muslim, and especially when the crime is an act of jihad, we don’t see a name or any religious connection until the last few paragraphs – if they are reported at all.
Why is this right? What kind of Mickey Mouse leadership stands by while Maj. Hasan spouts his jihadist rhetoric for years before murdering 14 innocent Americans, then says they have no freaking clue as to the alleged assailant’s motivations? And then has the audacity to warn of anti-Muslim backlash rather than have soldiers be on the lookout for other jihadists in the ranks. And then has the audacity to say that the loss of the Army’s “diversity” would be a greater “tragedy” than the 14 Americans that Hasan murdered.
Let’s not “jump to conclusions” my ass, Army! How about let’s not jump FROM conclusions.
What matters is the truth. If the truth hurts the feelings of the jihadists who declared war on us 1300 years ago, then so be it. Regardless what our Commander-in-Chief thinks, the U.S. military is not there to soothe the feelings of our enemies, or to become a proving ground of diversity. The military is there to deter our enemies from attacking us. When all else fails, the military KILLS our enemies. And while the forces on the ground have been working miracles, our leadership has been undermining their work at home with asinine policies that prevent us from looking into religion or ideology.
How many more Americans will die before Washington gets their heads out of their asses? Thousands of Fort Jackson soldiers could have been endangered by an attack on the food supply. When will these politicians realize that Americans don’t like to live under the threat of terrorism?
In: National Security · Tagged with: Fort Jackson Five, Islamic crime, jihad, Nidal Malik Hasan
Government must drop partisan politics on national security
In an opinion piece for a major newspaper, a White House official lashed out at critics of the Obama administration’s ability to defend against terrorism. John Brennan, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, wrote in a USA Today op-ed on Tuesday, “Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda.”
Does Brennan truly think criticizing government’s self-admitted “shortcomings” and “systemic failures” constitutes serving the goals of al Qaeda? And with the spate of al Qaeda attacks on our homeland, our concerns are anything but “unfounded fear-mongering.”
What Brennan sees as attempts to score “cheap political points” might be more accurately viewed as Americans expressing unease with poor handling of the War on Terror.
His sub-heading reads “Administration disrupts terrorists’ plots, takes fight to them abroad.” But the administration certainly didn’t disrupt the Fort Hood jihadist massacre. To be fair, the shooter served under both Obama and Bush – despite being a card-carrying member of Soldiers of Allah (literally). While the government can’t disrupt every attack, officials should at least correctly identify the reason the attack happened in the first place. In this respect, the government failed miserably.
The 86-page report on Ft. Hood released by the Pentagon following the attack avoided any mention of the jihadist ideology that appears to be the motivation behind the attack. But the report did mention “animal rights,” “disgruntled employees,” and “white supremacy” as factors in terrorist attacks.
I ask Mr. Brennan: Does the administration’s whitewashing of the jihadist attack on Fort Hood help or hurt al Qaeda?
In: National Security · Tagged with: al Qaeda, Fort Hood tragedy, George W. Bush administration, jihad, John Brennan, Obama administration, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
Afghan interpreter kills 2 US soldiers, US gov’t makes excuses
Last Friday an Afghan interpreter shot and killed two U.S. soldiers before being killed himself.
“Initial indications are this was a case of a disgruntled employee,” a military said according to Reuters.
An Afghan provincial official, who also asked not to be named, said the interpreter had quarrelled with the soldiers over pay and treatment, before opening fire.
Circumstances surrounding the incident are strange: Little to no information on the shooting is available – ISAF only issued a two-sentence statement, only a handful of publications (mostly foreign) have picked up the story, and the names of the fallen soldiers are still not listed a week after the incident.
With that in mind, can we trust this unnamed “Afghan provincial official” (perhaps he is disgruntled, too)? But if what he says is true, why was the interpreter disgruntled? Are we about to witness a string of disgruntled interpreter attacks? Could the 13 year-old Afghan boy who was injured the following day when the IED he was placing prematurely detonated have done so because he too was disgruntled? Were we attacked on 9/11 by disgruntled individuals?
Perhaps our government thinks that this whole war is being fought against enemy who is simply disgruntled, which would make more sense as to why Obama thinks that the Taliban can simply be paid off (with our tax dollars). Disgruntled employees can be placated with money, but uncompromising ideologues can not.
It is plain to see that the U.S. government covers for Islamic jihad at every opportunity. But why?
And while they tell us not to jump to conclusions, they are jumping from conclusions. Which is worse? The truth is what counts, not perceptions.
In: Geopolitics, Military · Tagged with: Afghanistan, jihad
US Muslim soldiers are betraying Islam?
“Working in the American Army to kill a Muslim is a betrayal to Islam. America today is yesterday’s Pharaoh; it is an enemy to Islam. A Muslim is not allowed to work in the American Army unless he intends to walk in the path of Brother Nidal [Malik Hasan].”
- Anwar al-Awlaki
(in an interview with Al Jazeera – translated by NEFA Foundation)
Imam al-Awlaki was the “spiritual adviser” to two of the 9/11 hijackers, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan (the Fort Hood shooter), and to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (attempted to detonate a bomb on a flight to Detroit). He was born in the U.S. and lived here until 2002 before fleeing for Yemen.
In: In Their Own Words · Tagged with: Anwar al-Awlaki, Islam, jihad, Nidal Malik Hasan
