[lit-ideas] Re: The Strident Voice of Defeat
- From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 15:17:11 EST
========Original Message======== Subj: [lit-ideas] The Strident Voice of
Defeat Date: 1/11/2007 1:59:06 P.M. Central Standard Time From:
_lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx) To:
_Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) Sent on:
I noticed quite a long time ago in Islamic theology that they believe God
decides who wins a battle or a war. I also noticed that American politicians
were paying little attention to that. During the Bush Sr. & Clinton
Administrations the U.S. gave various Islamic groups reason to claim victory.
Whether
it was Al Qaeda or Saddam’s Iraq, they were encouraged and exerted
themselves even more because Allah was on their side. Allah had given them
the
victory. We need to be especially careful of that now in Iraq. As Thomas
Barnett
said in the interview Brian posted, if we don’t do it right, we shall very
likely have to go back.
I’ve been reading the Brian-recommended The Looming Tower, Al-Qaeda and the
Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright. Wright provides an excellent example of how
defeat is viewed. On page 38 Wright writes, “. . . The speed and
decisiveness of the Israeli victory in the Six Day War humiliated many Muslims
who had
believed until then that God favored their cause. They had lost not only
their armies and their territories but also faith in their leaders, in their
countries, and in themselves. The profound appeal of Islamic fundamentalism
in
Egypt and elsewhere was born in this shocking debacle. A newly strident voice
was heard in the mosques; the voice said that they had been defeated by a
force far larger than the tiny country of Israel. God had turned against the
Muslims. The only way back to Him was to return to the pure religion. The
voice answered despair with a simple formulation: Islam is the solution. “
“. . . The primary target of Egyptian Islamists was Nasser’s secular
regime. In the terminology of jihad, the priority was defeating the ‘near
enemy’
– that is, impure Muslim society. The ‘distant enemy’ – the West –
could
wait until Islam had reformed itself. To Zawahiri and his colleagues that
meant, at a minimum, imposing Islamic law in Egypt.
“Zawahiri also sought to restore the caliphate, the rule of Islamic clerics,
which had formally ended in 1924 following the dissolution of the Ottoman
Empire but which had not exercised real power since the thirteenth century.
Once the caliphate was established, Zawahiri believed, Egypt would become a
rallying point for the rest of the Islamic world, leading it in a jihad
against
the West. ‘Then history would make a new turn, God willing,’ Zawahiri
later wrote, ‘in the opposite direction against the empire of the United
States
and the world’s Jewish government.’”
The Schmoos slogan, the more Islamists we kill, the more we create is of
course nonsense. There is nothing like that in Islamic tradition. If we kill
the Militant Islamic enemy and in the process defeat him, then Allah has
somehow allowed this. It is inconceivable to them that Allah would favor
infidels, so there must be some other reason. A variety of other reasons have
been
produced but the one we are most concerned about is the reasoning of Islamic
Fundamentalism. Islamic Fundamentalists argue that the less than orthodox
Muslims who were defeated deserved to be defeated. The way to achieve victory
is to return to pure religion. What we see now in Iraq are many who fancy
they adhere to Pure Religion fighting against us and our protégées in the
new
Iraqi state. Yeah, it’s expensive but we need to tread carefully now. If
when we leave, the Islamic Fundamentalists can declare victory, that is if we
don’t leave the present Iraqi government in a very strong position, then we
shall be buying trouble for ourselves. As Barnett suggests, we shall probably
have to go back again. We won’t save money by leaving prematurely.
Lawrence
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