Islam, Islamism, Conflict & Terrorism (a collection)
Fromt the Jan issue of Army magazine: Islam, Islamism and Terrorism
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The tragedy of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent conceptualizing of the war on terrorism have presented a very difficult problem to those responsible for framing the strategy. The basic problem has been one of defining the enemy. After four years, this problem still eludes a clear definition although the national leadership has been carefully moving toward a more definitive description.
The basic obstacle has been one of clearly describing the enemy without seeming to single out the world’s second largest religion, Islam, as the cause or facilitator of this terrorism. To differentiate the radical forms of Islam from the mainstream Islamic community, the word “Islamism” was coined to describe an ideological movement using Islam as the vehicle to power. Others term it political Islam, while some journalists and media types still refer to it as Muslim fundamentalism. In actuality there is a wide gap between the fundamentalists and Islamists...
AQ Minions V The Green Bay Packers
The other night I heard Nagl on tv being interviewed by an Army Times reporter and a comment he made sticks out in my mind. Nagl said in effect that most likely the conflict with islamic fundamentalists will continue for another 100 years. My first thought was to scoff at that statement but then it dawned on me that the price of a bag of dog food at Wal-Mart is more significant to most Americans than the death toll of muslim-against-muslim violence. The 100+ kill rate of an AQ/terrorist insurgent truck bomb at a muslim religious shrine simply doesn't sink it with the Public and Brett Favre's TDs passes are counted and the number of Iraqi kids by the likes of AQ-minded minions are not. I've been spending most of my time in the islamic sites and chat rooms and there just isn't much condemnation of muslim deaths at the hands of muslims. It's got to be connected to the strategic premise by AQ and fundamentalists in general that the West is on a spiral of devolution away from God(Allah). This apparenctly enables them as well to blame the US in particular for the death toll that continues to rise. They also have mostly ignored our collective history because they are convinced that God is on their side.
That's bad tactical and strategic judgment IMO on their part because it leaves them in a dilemma of either facing total war or to continue with the vitriol from 3rd world hovels and flea infested caves along with the occasional bombs that seem to be killing mostly their fellow muslims. I know alot people think total war against islamic radicals is for all practical purposes impossible nor even practical and morally reprehensible, but from the time perspective of evolution, we are not even an eye-blink away from Dresden and Hiroshima and on the continum of evolution, brief episodes of retrogression are more the norm than not.
links for the interview with Queen Rania of Jordan
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Schmedlap said: Check out the latest GPS podcast with Fareed Zakaria. He interviews the queen of Jordan and talks about this. Aside from being very easy on the eyes, it is also an interesting discussion on this topic.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bes...ef=videosearch
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bes...ania.part2.cnn
Very interesting videos, Schmedlap. Thanks.
I look forward to the possibillity of a book review of Who Speaks for Islam.
Good comment. I'll testify that
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Originally Posted by
Schmedlap
...even though the fervent disdain for America began at least as early as the 1970s, which was hardly the heydey of neo-con foreign policy.
said disdain was prevalent pretty much world wide in the 1950s and was more virulent than today in the late 1960s. It did hit the ME in the 70s but it is absolutely NOT a new phenomenon.
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...Jihadists have been chanting, and attempting to cause, death to America through the administrations of Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush - four administrations whose foreign policies differed significantly.
That got started with the 'success' of the Munich Olympics hostage operation and several subsequent airline hijackings as the ME developed a worldwide focus. However, there is no doubt that the flawed policies and tepid response to provocations from the ME of all the Presidents you named put us where we are today.
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I think the most important question is not, "how do we become less hated?" It is "how do we make the world less hospitable to terrorist networks?"
Yep...
Alternative link to Queen's interview
The links above did not work and found this one did: http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video...ef=videosearch
davidbfpo
Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism
Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism
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Islamism, Islamofascism, and Islam?
Islamism, Islamofascism, and Islam?
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Jihadist Narratives: Democratized Islam and Islamic Nation Building
Jihadist Narratives: Democratized Islam and Islamic Nation Building
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How Politics Has Poisoned Islam
A startling clear NYT opinion by a Turkish author and worth a read. The second passage says:
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Religion is not actually at the heart of these conflicts — invariably, politics is to blame. But the misuse of Islam and its history makes these political conflicts much worse as parties, governments and militias claim that they are fighting not over power or territory but on behalf of God. And when enemies are viewed as heretics rather than just opponents, peace becomes much harder to achieve.
He ends with:
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But when Islam merges with power, or becomes a rallying cry in power struggles, its values begin to fade.
Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/op...slam.html?_r=0
The Left, Islamism, and a Moment of Truth?
The Left, Islamism, and a Moment of Truth?
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The challenge of Islamism
A commentary by Sir John Jenkins, an ex-UK diplomat and Middle East SME, that has a wider application than the UK:https://policyexchange.org.uk/a-state-of-extremes/
Two "tasters":
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Islamists are by definition revolutionary. They reject most existing political systems as un-Islamic – something they claim exclusively to define. They seek to replace the secular and neo-Westphalian with a new Islamised order nationally and internationally. This does not mean that they all seek revolution now. Some do. Others value patience and seek to manufacture consent. They are prepared to use force where this is not effective or fast enough or where they are not allowed to operate with sufficient freedom.
The penultimate sentence:
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Above all we need to recognise the threat for what it is, one of the most significant ideological challenges to our conception of ourselves and our societies since the Second World War.
The new great game in the Middle East
Sir John Jenkins, a retired Uk diplomat, has a wide ranging overview of the Middle East; sub-titled:
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Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Iran has become ever more powerful in the region. But now a new Saudi-led alliance is fighting back. Are we heading for a catastrophe?
Link:https://www.newstatesman.com/world/m...me-middle-east
RE: John Jenkins on "The new great game in the Middle East"
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Originally Posted by
davidbfpo
In response...
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Originally Posted by John Jenkins
It is also true that the latest Kurdish disaster in Iraq is far more consequential than previous ones. This is not simply about the Kurdistan regional government: it is about the Middle East as a whole. The failure of the Kurdish referendum project has given Iran in particular an opportunity to weaken the one part of Iraq that has consistently been pro-Western and open for business. And it has given Iran the ability to shape Kurdish politics not just inside Iraq but also in Syria, where the Western-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which have led the ground assault against Islamic State, will have drawn lessons from President Barzani’s apparent abandonment by the US and the UK – and inside Iran itself. The Kurdish failure gives Iran leverage inside Turkey, through the links it has cultivated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. And it has strengthened some of the key sectarian militias inside Iraq. It has shown Turkey that the US will not stand with the Kurds if it has bigger interests at stake, a lesson that Turkey will apply in north-western Syria, where it is seeking to make an extension of Kurdish control impossible.
Thus far, Iraq has merely returned the situation to the pre-2014 status quo, which was not unfavorable to the Kurds. The Kurdistan Regional Government has been “pro-Western and open for business” because it has been a U.S. client or protectorate for over a generation: specifically since 1991. The same is hardly true of the Turkish and Syrian Kurds, who are mainly under the control of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and its Syrian branch, the Democratic Union Party.
Unfortunately, Jenkins makes the grave error of conflating Iraqi and Syrian Kurds, the KDP and the PKK, and the Peshmerga and the YPG. Barzani attempted a fait accompli despite Western warnings, and despite the fact that the West was not about to allow Iraqi Kurdistan to be overrun by Iraqi Shia militias and subjugated into a unitary Shia-dominated state. Iraqi Kurdish frustration with the status quo was understandable, but so too should have been the necessity of continuity. Unless the U.S. was planning on expelling Turkey from NATO and championing Kurdish independence against opposition from Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria (which are united on that particular issue), any unilateral declaration of independence was sheer folly.
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Originally Posted by John Jenkins
…but they [the Saudis] are no nearer a conclusion to the war in Yemen, where the Houthis remain defiant and Iran can keep its modest but still significant military supply lines open.
As CrowBat and others have noted, the Iranian “military supply lines” to the Houthi/pro-Saleh forces in Yemen are very “modest” indeed. Houthi successes have more to do with former president Saleh’s support than Iran’s.
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Originally Posted by John Jenkins
…it is inconceivable that Riyadh, whatever discussions may have taken place in private, will be able to rush Israel into launching a war against Hezbollah in or outside Lebanon, or against Iranian forces inside Syria. Egypt is characteristically reluctant to get involved. And in any case, Israel is the only actor with the ability to take them on in any serious way, for reasons of geography, capability and competence. Although Israel constantly plans for the next conflict and is determined that Iran will not threaten its borders, it is unlikely that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu wants war now, any more than Hezbollah or Iran does. They all have other priorities and may not have decided yet whether it would make sense to fight each other directly at any point in the short to medium term.
Jenkins seems to ignore the fact that aside from the perception that Iran is now more influential in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria now, than it was in 2011, Iran has had to marshal all of its resources in order to preserve Assad’s rule in perhaps one-third of Syria. Not only are the IRGC and foreign Shia militias occupied in Syria or Iraq (~35,000 of them), but Syria’s once-formidable air defenses (at least 4X more capable than Iran’s) have been neutralized by the war, and no longer provide any protection from or early-warning of an airstrike on its nuclear facilities, ostensibly by Israel. In addition, Syria’s arsenal of tanks and artillery are now denied to Iran in the event of conflict with Israel. Iran’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs aside, Israel is less threatened by Iran’s allies or auxiliaries than ever before, and Lebanese Hezbollah is in no position to pummel northern Israel as it did in 2006.