Pierre Legrand’s Pink Flamingo Bar

UPDATE: Apparently�Jim Guirard�does not want to�respond�either to my original question in the form of a comment originally left at his site�or this post which I left a link to on his site. I had hoped that my being published on PJ Media would at least draw out some sort of response. The commentators on Small Wars Journal were very provocative but after my comment there were no takers. Surely their position is defensible? Certainly I was more civil in my response than either Mr. Guirard or his commenters, does that intimidate them?

UPDATED: Moderate Secular Turkey goes for the “Islamists”…wonder if they don’t understand Islam?�

UPDATED: Various folks reassure us that there is nothing to worry about since Turkey has not descended into Sharia bliss just yet.�Well I guess the election of a bunch of Islamists means that Turkey has decided to allow Homosexuals to marry and topless beaches? Perhaps there are�Islamists there who are still hoping to get into the EU and�know how the game is played in the West? Show us some women having fun and we will be lulled into believing anything. We WANT to believe that there is nothing to fear.

Diana West had an article in the Washington Times wondering if the US was not winning the war against Islam because we simply do not understand Islam.

Q: Who is winning the really important war of ideas ? the one between the West and itself? A: Not the side that understands jihad as a foundational Islamic institution. This is nothing new. From September 11 onward, the yeoman effort of elites has been to wrench “Islam” away from all acts of jihad. But now, particularly after the London and Glasgow attacks, their efforts have achieved a deeper level of denial, and, worse, broader consensus. The new British prime minister, Gordon Brown, has directed ministers to omit “Muslim” when discussing (Muslim) terrorism.

Ms. West was making the point that it is policy for our leaders to try and disconnect Islam from the actions of terrorists. In it she had some quotes that seemed to�show Lt Col Kilcullen, General Petraeus’s head of Counter Insurgency in the heralded surge operations in Iraq,�in a bad light.

Case in point: Objecting to a recent column characterizing his views as being non-comprehending or indifferent to jihad, Lt. Col. David Kilcullen, senior counterinsurgency adviser to our forces in Iraq, wondered in an e-mail whether I “may not like Muslims, and that’s your choice.” It was a long e-mail ? one of several ? but even these few words convey the viewpoint, increasingly prevalent, that discounts the doctrinal centrality of Islam to jihad violence convulsing the world, from Iraq to London. In the mental no-jihad zone (and, in Lt. Col. Kilcullen’s case, despite what he calls his “significant personal body count of terrorists and insurgents killed or captured”), only personal animus can explain alarm over the Islamic institution of jihad (let alone dhimmitude). “Alternatively,” he wrote, “you may think Islam contains illiberal and dangerous tendencies.”

Lt Col Kilcullen was responding to Diana West’s article wondering about this quote of his.

“If I were a Muslim, I’d probably be a jihadist. The thing that drives these guys — a sense of adventure, wanting to be part of the moment, wanting to be in the big movement of history that’s happening now — that’s the same thing that drives me, you know?”

There is no doubt that Lt Col Kilcullen has a point at some level. But one has to worry that he truly does not see that Islam as even part of the problem. Surely he may have signed up for the adventure of acting on the world stage but does he really understand the attraction of Jihad? Is Lt Col Kilcullen defending Christianity by his actions in Iraq? No I don’t think he is and that is what makes him blind to the fact that the Jihadists are indeed defending Islam.

Which brings me around to this post attacking Diana West. Penned by Jim Guirard�of Small Wars Journal we see the defense of the idea that it is not Islam we are fighting but a bunch of folks who do not represent “true Islam”.

Diana West’s holier-than-thou attack on Dr. David Kilcullen of Gen. David Petraeus’senior staff in Baghdad must be a delight to al Qaeda and Hizballah propagandists and anti-American brainwashers worldwide.

In a June 1, 2007 Washington Times essay entitled Pay attention to jihad, she slams the Australian-born anti-Terrorism strategist for an assertion several months ago that so-called “jihad” (holy war in the name of Allah, etc.) has assumed the stature of heroic “adventure” in the minds, hearts and souls of many young Muslims.

The theme is Islam is misunderstood by those who are presently engaged in a war against us. I suppose that it was misunderstood by the 58% of Indonesians who in a Pew Poll in 2003, a mere year and a half after�Bin Laden�had murdered 3,000 folks,�had “confidence in�Bin Laden”. Indonesians are supposed to be “moderate”. Maybe some remedial work in Islam by Jim Guirard and staff is in order for the, in rough numbers, 100 million or so Muslims in�Indonesia�who thought Bin Laden�was peachy keen for committing what Jim Guirard declares not Jihad. Lets let the rest of the Islamic population slide for a moment.

In the article Unwarranted Attack on Petraeus aide�he goes on to make these points.

• UBL calls what he and his killers are doing “Jihad.” Diana West enthusiastically agrees and even seems to insist that no other word will do.

And 58% of moderate Indonesians agreed with Bin Laden. Your point?

• UBL justifies all of these holy, heroic and Paradise-bound activities as a proper reward for killing all of us “infidels.” Here again, Ms. West fails to point out (as she most certainly knows) that the Quran itself quite clearly states that Christianity and Judaism are not infidel religions — but are brotherly Abrahamic religions, instead.Unwarranted Attack on Petraeus Aide (SWJ Blog)

It also quite clearly states that in the order of status the Christians and Jews while above animists and idol worshippers�are below Muslim women and Muslim Slaves and most of all below Muslim Males. At least it is comforting to know where we stand. But trying to portray that stance as equals is disingenuous. If you don’t believe me here is Amir Taheri to explain it all.

Lest us return to the issue of equality. The idea is unacceptable to Islam. For the non-believer cannot be the equal of the believer. Even among the believers only those who subscribe to the three so-called Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam ( Ahl el-Kitab) are regarded as fully human.

• Here is the hierarchy of human worth in Islam:
• At the summit are free male Muslims
• Next come Muslim male slaves
• Then come free Muslim women
• Next come Muslim slave women.
• Then come free Jewish and /or Christian men
• Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian men
• Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian women.
• Each category has rights that must be respected.

The People of the Book have always been protected and relatively well-treated by Muslim rulers, but often in the context of a form of apartheid known as dhimmitude.

So then lets go back to an earlier portion of the article Unwarranted Attack on Petraeus aide:

This addiction to the “Jihad” label is so powerful as to exclude from her own lexicon virtually all of the Arabic and Islamic labels which would serve to draw a bright-line distinction — a “disaggregation” Dr. Kilcullen calls it — between these suicide mass murdering terrorists (genocidal irhabis in Arabic) and those “moderate Muslims” who most experts say constitute the great majority, albeit a frustratingly passive majority, of the Muslim World.

To this I responded in the comments…

Very interesting article. I will probably be characterized as a “Lets kill all the Muslims” by some of you. That is not what I believe but it seems that both sides in this argument work better from generalizations. Perhaps that is simply the way the human mind works.

I believe that we are at war with Islam, we are fighting against a way of life that demands submission.

The writings of Islam and the example of its founder Mohammad give its followers the right to attack us to expand the religion. For over 1300 years that is exactly what the fighters inside of Islam have tried to do. For very long periods they were immensely successful.

It is true that the fighters are just a small minority of the population. That is also true of our nation. Does that mean that our soldiers are any less Americans than those they fight for because there is such a small minority of people willing to fight? Are those who stay at home any less Americans than those who fight? No both are equally Americans.

So why is it that we try to separate the fighters of Islam from the rest? Would that work in our country?

And lets remember that in polls around the world we have seen a great deal of admiration for Bin Laden. Indeed in 2003 in Indonesia over 58% of the people polled had a good deal of admiration for Bin Laden. That is remarkable considering that he had just murdered 3,000 innocents. Sure we can point to the 2005 poll where that ardor had cooled to a mere 36% but considering that Indonesia is supposed to be a moderate Islamic state it should be a bit more worrisome than it seems to be.

Which leads me to wonder if Lt Col Kilcullen is correct in believing that we can “de-aggregate” those inside of Islam. Certainly by and large you cannot “de-aggregate” those inside of America.

One of these days it might behoove us to actually understand our enemy. I believe that it is a terrible vision that will�greet us when we finally open our eyes. To be involved in an age old medieval war of religions seems so 10th century and yet whether we will or not our opponents are fighting us…one of these days it would be nice if we would recognize it.

Technorati tags: kilcullen, thomas madden, national review, crusades, religious war, dhimmitude, jews, christians, catholic, terrorism, bin laden, indonesia

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