"Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, Jihad or the Islamic State", "no religion condones terrorism"... we know the politically correct libations to the gods of multiculturalism all too well. But what is really behind this obvious nonsense?
Not Ayn Al Arab nor Kobani, it became Ayn Al Islam. ISIS latest video. With English translation. - H/t @HananShamounNL
Not Ayn Al Arab nor Kobani, it became Ayn Al Islam. ISIS latest video. With English translation. - H/t @HananShamounNL
The Islamic State has produced a 20 minute film, including an English translation. It's a must see for every student as it may lead to specific insights that can easily be missed watching events from the same Western conceptual framework. For those who are prepared to see it, interviews with American military brass touch the essence of the problem. In any war, but especially one which is existential, the equation couldn't be worse. A lack of weapons would have been preferable to demoralized leadership.
All through this war Obama has shown reluctance to fight: the will is simply missing. Politically this is explicable from his electoral platform against the war in Iraq (Bush's bad war), and to a lesser extent against the war in Afghanistan (the 'good' war). Obama as a Presidential candidate announced publicly that he would end these wars, signalling to the enemy that all they needed to do was to sit it out.
Obama went into the war in Syria from a confused conjuncture that is key to what's wrong with fighting the secular Assad: that Islamic State helps the war effort against Assad and IS are therefore the good guys. But when the Jihadists spilled over the border into Iraq the West was shocked and awed because now IS were obviously hostile to the fragile status quo in Iraq. Here IS are the bad guys.
To postmodernists the contradiction is a perfectly acceptable mental feature. But in the real world contradictions are a huge stop sign, and an unmistakable token that something is wrong in the premises. And there is!
Assad may be aligned with the wrong guys in Tehran and Moscow, but his opponents are even worse. Those that went through the events in Egypt know, a movement for democracy perhaps there is, but from the chaos emerges rule by the Muslim Brotherhood. Syria is not different.
To postmodernists the contradiction is a perfectly acceptable mental feature. But in the real world contradictions are a huge stop sign, and an unmistakable token that something is wrong in the premises. And there is!
Assad may be aligned with the wrong guys in Tehran and Moscow, but his opponents are even worse. Those that went through the events in Egypt know, a movement for democracy perhaps there is, but from the chaos emerges rule by the Muslim Brotherhood. Syria is not different.
A political and military leadership laboring under such a contradiction isn't going to work in the real world! As the IS video production shows, the power of the Islamic State is not limitless. The tone in the video is a lot less martial than we heard in the past. In places it's almost apologetic. And they are on the point of losing this symbolically and psychologically important battle at Kobane. (Source)
Let's get real here. The handful of vermin that calls itself the Caliphate could be destroyed in a jiffy. They are no match for the coalition which has members in its ranks that are military power houses by themselves. (Source)]
The contribution of Muslim states to the coalition will necessarily be very limited, and not only because IS is a threat to the leadership. In fact IS is their brainchild because of their policy to externalize the threat. In principle they can't oppose the Caliphate, because no Muslim can be against the ideal Islamic state. (Source)
Let's get real here. The handful of vermin that calls itself the Caliphate could be destroyed in a jiffy. They are no match for the coalition which has members in its ranks that are military power houses by themselves. (Source)]
The contribution of Muslim states to the coalition will necessarily be very limited, and not only because IS is a threat to the leadership. In fact IS is their brainchild because of their policy to externalize the threat. In principle they can't oppose the Caliphate, because no Muslim can be against the ideal Islamic state. (Source)
The nonsense spoken by Obama and the Pentagon's top brass that "there is no military solution" speaks volumes of the mindset on the Western side caused by the inability of Obama to fight Muslims.
One of the first coalition air assaults was directed against a shady group called the Khorasan in north western Syria. After days of media speculation it turned out to be core Al Qaeda that had moved here from Pakistan. The group required another name, because the Obama administration had claimed it had become virtually non existent after the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Even this morning another attack was launched on Khorasan (source) ostensibly since the group is plotting imminent threats to Western interests. This serves a purpose, although it is unclear which at this point. It may have to do with international law.
Then again it may also be related to the fact that Khorasan (a Nusra related group, source) this weekend routed a US aligned group of 'moderate Syrian rebels' SRF/FSA who left a trail of tortured bodies in their wake. (Tweet) (Source) The bulk defected to Nusra, while he leader, Jamaal Marouff, fled to Turkey. (Tweet)
Then again it may also be related to the fact that Khorasan (a Nusra related group, source) this weekend routed a US aligned group of 'moderate Syrian rebels' SRF/FSA who left a trail of tortured bodies in their wake. (Tweet) (Source) The bulk defected to Nusra, while he leader, Jamaal Marouff, fled to Turkey. (Tweet)
Obama, and politicians who think like him, have made Al Qaeda/Khorasan into a scapegoat, an organization on which all hostilities can be projected. It's a kind of 'social contract'. We blame Al Qaeda for all evil, so that Muslims can feel exonerated of all blame. This arrangement enables Western politicians to distinguish between good Muslims and bad Muslims.
It is therefore no surprise that fighting IS was initially limited to reluctant air support of the Kurds in Kobane and in aid of the beleaguered Yezidis on Mount Singal: but it was the public outcry that demanded that intervention. It was not the leadership's free choice. They were dragged to it.
It is therefore no surprise that fighting IS was initially limited to reluctant air support of the Kurds in Kobane and in aid of the beleaguered Yezidis on Mount Singal: but it was the public outcry that demanded that intervention. It was not the leadership's free choice. They were dragged to it.
This moral distinction between good and bad Muslims, between moderate and extreme Islam is a construct devized in the West that has nothing to do with reality in the Islamic world for the same reason that the concept of terrorism can't be explained to Muslims: Islam makes no such moral distinction. A recent article, "The Poison Tree" written by Matthew Continetti explains what is going on:
The persistent denial of the ideological unity of Islamic terrorism—the studied avoidance of politically incorrect facts that has characterized our response to the Ft. Hood shooting, the Benghazi attack, the Boston Marathon bombing, the march of the caliphate across Syria and Iraq, and the crimes of Hamas—is not random. Behind it is a set of ideas with a long history, and with great purchase among the holders of graduate degrees who staff the Department of Justice, the National Security Council, Foggy Bottom, and the diplomatic corps. These ideas are why, in the words of John McCain, the terrorists “are winning, and we’re not.”
A report by Katherine Gorka of the Council on Global Security, “The Bad Science Behind America’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy,” analyzes the soil from which the poison tree draws strength. Since the Iranian revolution of 1979, Gorka writes, U.S. policymakers have faced a dilemma: “how to talk about Islam in a way that is instructive in dealing with Muslims who are enemies but not destructive to those who are friends.” For decades, the preferred solution has been to declare America’s friendship with Islam, and to distinguish between jihadists and everyday Muslims.
One of Gorka’s earliest examples of this policy comes from former Assistant Secretary of State Edward Djerejian, who said in 1992, “The U.S. government does not view Islam as the next ‘ism’ confronting the West or threatening world peace.” Similar assurances were uttered by officials in the Clinton administration, by Clinton himself, and by President George W. Bush. The policy was meant to delegitimize terrorism by denying the terrorists’ claim that they are acting according to religious precepts. “Policymakers believed that by tempering their language with regard to Islam, they might forestall further radicalization of moderate Muslims and indeed even potentially win moderates into the American circle of friendship.” (Source)
Obama's bizarre comments that "Islam has nothing to do with the Islamic State" and the obvious fallacy that "no religion condones terrorism" are in the same vein: it enables a distinction that doesn't exist. It is in compliance with the 'social contract' with Muslims, but it turns the citizens of free world into sitting ducks for Islam inspired terrorism which according to recent developments has just been 'popularized'. (Source)
There's another aspect to the IS' propaganda film about Kobane that must be pointed out, since it is no less revealing: the question why IS and Turkey feel the same hatred for the Kurds, specifically the Marxist PKK/YPG/J as they feel for Assad.
It's not because the PKK is a terrorist organization; Islam hardly understands the concept of terrorism. And it's not hatred against Assad for being a dictator; the Middle East is full of dictators for the one reason: to prevent political Islam from ever grabbing power. Turkey, IS and the Muslim Brotherhood hate the Kurds, the PKK and Assad because they are Godless apostates!
It's not because the PKK is a terrorist organization; Islam hardly understands the concept of terrorism. And it's not hatred against Assad for being a dictator; the Middle East is full of dictators for the one reason: to prevent political Islam from ever grabbing power. Turkey, IS and the Muslim Brotherhood hate the Kurds, the PKK and Assad because they are Godless apostates!
Related
- Jihad Isn't Crime; It's a Special Kind of World War
- Erdogan of Turkey and the Politics of Deception
- From the Mouth of Babes: "Islamic State is Right"