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Robert Spencer on Radical Islam - Part 2

Larry Elder: You cite Koran passages that state Jews, Christians and nonbelievers have three choices: conversion, second-class citizenship or death. When people say these kinds of things are "taken out of context," you say this simply isn't true?

Robert Spencer: Yes. They're dealing from a broad tradition within Islam that mandates violence against nonbelievers. It's an unpleasant fact . . . but . . . I give abundant testimony from Islamic sources to this effect, and it's no use denying it.

Elder: These madrasas where they are teaching the Koran, teaching hatred of Jews, Christianity and the West -- your argument is that they are not corrupting Islamic text, they are teaching actual text.

Spencer: They're working from very clear Islamic text. Radical Muslims around the world call Jews "monkeys" and "pigs." This comes from several very clear passages in the Koran that say Jews and Christians are under the curse of Allah, because of their disobedience and refusal to accept that Muhammad is a prophet . . . God turned them into monkeys and pigs. The fact that this kind of hatred is so deeply rooted in core Islamic text makes it all the more difficult to eradicate.

Elder: What does "jihad" -- an essential duty of every Muslim -- mean?

Spencer: When people say that jihad is a peaceful struggle -- it means "struggle," literally -- it means to bring the soul into line with the teachings of the Koran and the will of the law, that's true. But it's not the only meaning of jihad, or even the principal meaning. Throughout Islamic history, and Islamic theology and law, you have violent jihad being the primary understanding of what it means -- this collective responsibility of the Islamic community to wage war against non-Muslims until they either convert or submit as second-class citizens under Islamic rule.

Click here for the rest of the interview conducted by Larry Edler. The first part of this partial transcription can be found here.

Profile of a Taliban recruiter...

Where do you think Taliban gets it's recruits? In mosques and madrassas. For more, read this article from the Asia Times.

Abdul Zahir's day starts with morning visits to a number of mosques in the Pakistani border area with Afghanistan, where the faithful gather for the first of their five daily prayer sessions. And once his morning session is over, he goes to some of the many madrassas (religious schools) in the area, or shows up at social gatherings, such as weddings, if there are any taking place.

"Abdul is unflagging in his rounds because he has an almost missionary zeal: to find recruits for jihad - or holy war - waged by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Himself blinded in one eye from action in Afghanistan, Abdul tells prospective recruits: 'You might fight at the front line, or you might stand guard at night. You can cook for other Islamic warriors, or you can be a male nurse. Or you can give the fighters money or grain - everything is welcome because the jihad has started.'

Evidently he has no fear that moderate Muslims in the mosques and Islamic schools where he makes appeals will rise up in indignation and repudiate his extremist Islam.

Current Iraq war taking resources away from war on terror...

Many counter-terrorism analysts are convinced that the real war on terror is being hurt by the drain of resources to the Iraq war. Here is an excerpt of the article:

Experts who have served in top positions in both Republican and Democratic administrations are increasingly suggesting that the Iraq war has diverted momentum, troops and intelligence resources from the worldwide campaign to destroy the remnants of al-Qaida.

They note that the presence of U.S. troops in an Arab homeland is serving as a major recruiting tool for signing up and motivating new jihadis, or Islamic holy warriors.

"Fighting Iraq had little to do with fighting the war on terrorism, until we made it (so)," said Richard Clarke, who was a senior White House counter-terrorism official under Bush and President Bill Clinton.

How We Denied Democracy to the Middle East...

Robert Fisk's essay, "How we denied democracy to the ME," coming in response to Bush's new policy statement, is worth reading. I think it is certainly the case that in the Cold War the US and Britain often did things to destroy democracy in the Middle East and to support various forms of dictatorship, because in so doing they hoped to defeat Communism. The problem with Fisk's op-ed is that it stops at pointing to Anglo-British hypocrisy. What would his policy be in the region, and how would he spur democratization?

Dick Cheney the Radical....

What a marvelous piece on Dick Cheney by Frank Foer and Spencer Ackerman in the new issue of The New Republic.

In early 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney spoke to President George W. Bush from the heart. The war in Afghanistan had been an astonishing display of U.S. strength. Instead of the bloody quagmire many predicted, CIA paramilitary agents, Special Forces, and U.S. air power had teamed with Northern Alliance guerrillas to run the Taliban and Al Qaeda out of their strongholds. As a new interim government took power in Kabul, Cheney was telling Bush that the next phase in the war on terrorism was toppling Saddam Hussein.

Bush was well aware that several of his senior aides wanted to take the battle to Iraq. When his advisers had convened at Camp David the weekend after the September 11 attacks, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz argued on three separate occasions that the United States should immediately target Iraq instead of the more difficult Afghanistan. Bush had settled the matter by instructing his chief of staff, Andrew Card, to quiet Wolfowitz--a moment humiliatingly enshrined by Bob Woodward in his book Bush at War. But, in early 2002, Cheney dispensed with the policy arguments for taking down Saddam in favor of a far more personal appeal. He said simply that he had been part of the team that created what he now saw as a flawed policy--leaving Saddam in power at the end of the Gulf war--and now Bush had a chance to correct it.

His plea was enormously successful. "The reason that Cheney was able to sell Bush the policy is that he was able to say, 'I've changed,'" says a senior administration official. "'I used to have the same position as [James] Baker, [Brent] Scowcroft, and your father--and here's why it's wrong.'" By February, observes a since-departed senior National Security Council (NSC) staffer, "my sense was the decision was taken." The next month, Bush interrupted a meeting between national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and three senators to boast, "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out."

It not only goes into fascinating detail about the back-and-forth between Cheney's Office of the Vice President and the CIA over the last two years, it also gives an insightful reading of the evolution of Cheney's own foreign policy views going back into the mid-1980s, placing that development in a sometimes rightly sympathetic light.

This is the piece on Cheney, the intel wars, and Iraq that convinces me even more of something I've thought for some time: that Cheney's office is a rogue operation in this administration and one with the defining influence.

"That Was Then: Allen W. Dulles on the Occupation of Germany"

In thinking about the reconstruction of Iraq, many have looked for insight to the American experiences in rebuilding Germany and Japan after World War II. Optimists point to similarities across the cases and argue that they bode well for the Bush administration's efforts today. Pessimists point to differences and draw the opposite conclusion. In truth, some aspects of the occupations look familiar and some do not. As the saying goes, history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes. What is most striking about the comparison is that in all three cases, several months into the postwar era the future of the country was still hanging in the balance.

Picking their way through the rubble, officials early in the Truman administration had as little clue about the eventual outcome of their experiments as their counterparts in Washington and Baghdad do today. They saw little choice but to grope forward as best they could, responding to immediate problems and fast-moving events while trying to keep their eyes steady on a grand long-term vision. Knowing how the story ended, it is difficult for us to escape the tyranny of hindsight and see those earlier cases as they appeared to contemporary observers -- in their full uncertainty, as history in the making rather than data to be mined for present-day polemics. Foreign Affairs is pleased, therefore, to be able to open a window directly onto occupied Germany seven months after V-E Day, taking readers back in media res.

During World War II, Allen W. Dulles served as the Bern station chief for the Office of Strategic Services. (He would later serve as the head of a successor organization, the Central Intelligence Agency, from 1953 to 1961.) Dulles was the main American liaison with the German resistance and a close observer of the early stages of the postwar occupation. After the OSS was disbanded in late September 1945, he decided to return to private life. On December 3, less than a week before leaving government service, he gave a frank and unvarnished update on the situation in Germany to an off-the-record meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Click here for the full text.

Intolerant Saudi Culture

A Saudi woman and her husband have been sentenced to 500 lashes each because they married too soon after the woman divorced her former husband:

A Jizan court has sentenced a young woman to 500 lashes for allegedly spending time alone with a young man and marrying him hours after divorcing her former husband, Al-Madinah reported on Sunday.

According to the court ruling, the groom will also get 500 lashes while the mazoun who married them will get 30 lashes for violating Shariah rules.

The woman was on bad terms with her former husband and entered into a romantic relationship with the young man. But under Shariah, she was required to wait for three months before marrying another man, the paper said.

Click here for the full story.

This is truly appaling. Is this the system of justice, the Saudis have been spending billions of dollars to spread around the world?

Robert Spencer on Radical Islam, Iraq e.t.c

An interesting interview with Robert Spencer who talks about radical Islam, the challenges the moderate Muslim face, Iraq e.t.c Here is an excerpt:

John Hawkins: Why haven't moderate Muslims been able to stop the spread of violent Islam?

Robert Spencer: While there are moderate Muslims, moderate Islam is something else again. There are Muslims who are very peaceful people, who would never wage jihad, and who don't approve of those waging jihad in the name of Islam today. But the fact is that the radicals actually do have a stronger theoretical, theological, and legal basis within Islam for what they believe than the moderates do. They're able to intimidate moderates into silence because if the moderates speak out, they're labeled as disloyal to the religion.

John Hawkins: Given that, do you see Islam moderating anytime soon?

Robert Spencer: The only way it can is if there is a large scale, multi-national movement from Muslims themselves to repudiate violent jihad and all the doctrines and laws that go along with it once and for all. This would be a large scale reformation and no, I don't see any chance of that happening in the near future. But very surprising things have happened in history and I won't say it could never happen.

John Hawkins: You know, when I interviewed Daniel Pipes he even told me that he thought moderate Islam was actually on the retreat.

Robert Spencer: I would agree. The problem is as I said that moderates don't have a strong theoretical foundation within the classic Islamic texts. That being the case, they're not able to sustain a large scale movement. That's because they're constantly placed on the defensive by people who go back to the text and quote these passages that radicals use to justify violence. If they say, "We simply don't take that as being our marching orders for today" they're charged with disloyalty. So this is why moderate Islam is in retreat, because the radicals are so explicitly & persistently explaining what they do in light of the classic teachings. So there are millions of moderate Muslims, but moderate Islam is something that is only formulated by particular individuals in particular places. Most of the Muslims who are moderates are simply just ignoring the other aspects of the religion without confronting and refuting them on Islamic grounds.

Amnesty International USA On Terrorism

In a recent interview, the Directo of Amnesty International USA concedes that military intervention at times is the only realistic alternative to genocidal thugs. He also makes some good points about the Patriot Act--although perhaps not the points he was trying to make:

Recently several Democratic U.S. senators spoke out in favor of the PATRIOT Act. According to the Washington Post, Joseph Biden, D-Del., said popular criticism of the legislation has been "ill-informed and overblown," and even Russ Feingold, D-Wis. -- the only U.S. senator who actually voted against the legislation -- said he supports "90 percent" of its provisions, and that the rest are "fixable." What's your view of PATRIOT? Can we stop terrorism without it?

There's little evidence at this point that the PATRIOT Act is a critical factor in defending the country against terrorism. The Justice Department has acknowledged that they have used it exceedingly sparingly, and that when it has been used, it's been against non-terrorist criminal elements. This isn't to say that there aren't parts of it which are reputable, about which civil libertarians and human rights advocates should have no complaints.

It's clear that the major element of the PATRIOT Act that's drawn criticism is its short-circuiting of the traditional process of seeking subpoenas from an independent court for retrieving personal information. I've seen no evidence, from Feingold or anyone else, that sidestepping the traditional process of going to court -- where you have to show at least some degree of evidence as to why such information is relevant to the pursuit of a suspect -- is a necessary provision. The Justice Department itself, by saying it has rarely used the provision, appears to be acknowledging it isn't necessary.

That knocks out a fundamental argument in favor of PATRIOT in the first place: You have to be able to prove that some derogation of traditional rights is not only effective, but necessary to pursuing the protection of security -- that without the suspension of these rights, the public's safety will be considerably jeopardized. Thus far I haven't seen such evidence. [emphasis added]

He is arguing that it doesn't appear to have been much used, and even seems to be acknowledging that it hasn't really been abused. Of course, just because it hasn't been used much in the struggle against terrorism doesn't mean that it couldn't be used for that purpose. It does suggest a pretty admirable level of restraint by the Justice Department.

Compare this to World War I, when a movie director who made a movie about the American Revolution was sentenced to prison because the film was too anti-British! Or compare the situation to World War II, when 110,000 people were locked up because they were of Japanese ancestry.

Other parts of the interview emphasize that support for human rights doesn't require pacifism--and indeed, he argues at one point:

I personally believe that in the face of genocide the world community should intervene militarily. That situation clearly trumps national sovereignty. I think it was the Clinton administration's greatest shame that it blocked the United Nations from intervening in Rwanda. I think the intervention in Kosovo is defensible on human rights grounds, and there may be others.

...

To the best of my knowledge, neither Amnesty nor any other human rights organization had documented active genocide going on in Iraq. There were profound human rights violations going on, and I think there's an arguable case that those violations may very well have justified some sort of international military intervention. That's a case I'm certainly prepared to discuss.

Incoherence of America-hatred...

Mark Steyn tackles the incoherence of America-hatred:

The fanatical Muslims despise America because it's all lapdancing and gay porn; the secular Europeans despise America because it's all born-again Christians hung up on abortion; the anti-Semites despise America because it's controlled by Jews. Too Jewish, too Christian, too Godless, America is also too isolationist, except when it's too imperialist. And even its imperialism is too vulgar and arriviste to appeal to real imperialists: let's face it, the ghastly Yanks never stick it to the fuzzy-wuzzy with the dash and élan of the Bengal Lancers, which appears to be the principal complaint of Sir Max Hastings and his ilk. To the mullahs, America is the Great Satan, a wily seducer; to the Gaullists, America is the Great Cretin, a culture so self-evidently moronic that only stump-toothed inbred Appalachian lardbutts could possibly fall for it. American popular culture is utterly worthless, except when one of its proponents - Michael Moore, Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon - attacks Bush, in which case he or she is showered with European awards and sees the foreign-language rights for his latest tract sell for six figures at Frankfurt. The fact that the best-selling anti-Americans are themselves American - Moore, Chomsky - is perhaps the cruellest manifestation of the suffocating grip of the hyperpower.