60 Minutes - Yemen & war on Terror

[Pete]

Originally Posted by silentreader

.........

Perhaps this is correct, but there is still a lot of room for grey area. Instead of your three distinctions of Jihad, I would use two groups of two: Inner (greater) vs outer (lesser) and defensive vs offensive. It would be EXTREMELY rare to find an Imam advocating offensive Jihad...............

There is no gray area in Islam. What Islam is - is not what you think - it is what the Koran says.

'Ol Ruth came here saying she wanted to pick and chose the best parts of Islam - and got slammed on her blog by Muslims.

As long as Muslims believe the Koran there will be Jihad.

I asked Richard one time to name a Muslim majority country where Christians and other religions enjoyed the same protection under the law as Muslims - the best he could do was a country in the Balkins.

So I'll ask you - name the countries with an Islamic majority where other religions are treated equally under the law. Not that has a good size population.

So I'll ask you again how Christians are fairing in Egypt theses days.

[Defend]

Originally Posted by ”SilentReader”

While I am not "in the know" it is my impression that one of the great successes of US intelligence in the years since 9/11 has been decimating the once-significant funds of AQ and its ability to move those funds.

You don’t think total domination and control of Yemen would affect their financial resources? From my understanding, although we have made it much more difficult for AQ to get their funding their resources still exist. This would be an interesting subject for further study. I might have to find a way to use it for an International Business assignment this semester.

Originally Posted by ”SilentReader”

Rather, it was that these people, with some AQ sympathies, are the very people we're competing for.

We’ll never win. Instead, we can make it so they don’t give enough of a $#!% to engage in activity or support of activity against us (=success). That is what I was addressing in my first post on this thread.

Originally Posted by ”SilentReader”

However, Sharia may be the perfect system of governance in Islam, but the history of Islamic society is the history of debating exactly what Sharia is and who gets to decide it.

And who keeps winning that argument?

Originally Posted by ”SilentReader”

Yemen is far too divided to be dominated by what remains of AQ: its future is that of intense tribal warfare over a dying and over-crowded land.

Again, go back to my first post on this thread. AQ’s strategy is to unite the tribes. Today Yemen is too divided to be dominated by the US backed government, because we haven’t taken the necessary steps to make AQ look less attractive to the tribes. No matter how much aid we give a tribe, they still won’t like the US Government. They will however give less of a $#!% about us going after AQ, and be less likely to accept AQ into their district, village, etc. It’s the same concept as Baksheesh. If you can make me happy, I don’t really care what you do.

Originally Posted by ”SilentReader”

Derived, not coincidently, from the same root as Salaam, or peace.

And which do you think comes? The world living in submission to Allah, or peace?

Originally Posted by ”SilentReader”

However, the thing about Allah is this; it is really tricky to figure out what he wants, especially in the modern world. Is Allah pro or anti-democracy? That's really tough to say, considering it was never addressed. The Qur'an is a notoriously...tricky... document.

Really tricky to figure out what Allah wants? Have you read the Qur’an? Have you read ANY of the Hadith? The Sunnahs? Mohammad did a pretty good job of defining what Allah meant. And any subject Mohammad was silent on meant he consented. For the last 1300+ years Islamic scholars have nitpicked the meanings of the Hadith and Sunnah. They have it down to a science. Imams across the world seem to have a pretty good mutual understanding of what Allah wants. Total global domination.

Originally Posted by ”SilentReader”

Instead of your three distinctions of Jihad, I would use two groups of two: Inner (greater) vs outer (lesser) and defensive vs offensive. It would be EXTREMELY rare to find an Imam advocating offensive Jihad.

The two groups of Jihad you present are the FIELDS of Jihad, not the levels. Now, within the levels, there are METHODS of Jihad. Those are Physical, Social, and Economic. Yes, that means you can use physical force to obtain spiritual victory in yourself. If my math is correct, there are 18 possible combinations of Field, Method, and Levels.

On the issue of offensive/defensive, how are you defining offensive? To me suicide bombers in crowded marketplaces of women and children is offense. To most Muslims, it is defense.

Originally Posted by ”SilentReader”

Even if you're completely right about the demands of Islam on its believers, the vast majority of Muslims would not answer the call to arms against the west unless they believed they literally had no other choice

This goes back to the level of $#!% they give. The less they give, the better off we are.

Originally Posted by ”SilentReader”

If Islam demands Jihad, do we concede 1.5 billion people to the terrorists? Do we poison the sea to kill the sharks, to use Pete's analogy? Or do the four main points I listed still apply? Isolate and neuter the radicals, support those who deserve it, and accept some degree of risk? If the Islam as diametrically opposed to Western society hypothesis is right, what can we do? Kill them all? What would happen to us in such a scenario?

Once again, my answer from my perspective of what our government can/should do is contained in my first post in this thread. We concede that we can’t trust 1.5 billion people and that 1.5 billion people are prone towards support of Islamists. You can’t isolate and neuter the “radicals”.
I think Pete already covered a lot of it.

-out

[silentreader]

Originally Posted by Pete

There is no gray area in Islam. What Islam is - is not what you think - it is what the Koran says.

'Ol Ruth came here saying she wanted to pick and chose the best parts of Islam - and got slammed on her blog by Muslims.

As long as Muslims believe the Koran there will be Jihad.

I asked Richard one time to name a Muslim majority country where Christians and other religions enjoyed the same protection under the law as Muslims - the best he could do was a country in the Balkins.

So I'll ask you - name the countries with an Islamic majority where other religions are treated equally under the law. Not that has a good size population.

So I'll ask you again how Christians are fairing in Egypt theses days.

Pete,

Obviously, what is happening in Egypt right now is bad. Christians throughout the Middle East live in a tenuous position. In some countries such as Syria, Lebanon and Morocco, it's a better position. In others its worse, much worse in countries like Iraq right now or Egypt. William Dalrymple wrote an interesting travelogue about Middle Eastern Christian communities and the challenges they face if you're interested (From the Holy Mountain).

I'm not here to argue that Islam is this new-agey feel good religion. It's not. You and I clearly have different perspectives on what Islam is, and I doubt these will be reconciled in this thread, though I certainly appreciate being forced to think critically about my assumptions. However, even if I concede you're right, or we'll go farther and assume Pastor Terry Jones is right and Islam is of the Devil, what then? How does that effect the grand strategy of the United States of America? Should it? I still hold that our best option is to attempt to isolate, contain and marginalize Takfiri radicals while working with and through the rest of the Muslim world to strengthen our bonds of common interest. This is not something I'm pulling out of my ass either, David Kilcullen's book The Accidental Guerilla is a great read and a much more detailed response to MtnGoat's original question than I could ever give in this forum. If there were a PS.com book of the month club, I would lobby for it to be read every day until Uncle Sam takes away my internet privileges.


edit: didn't see Defend's last post before I put this up. Short answer is this: "them" not giving a shit is good enough for me.

second edit: I reread your first post. It's good. However, I think you give too much credit to the tribes, both in your historic examples and in the context of today. The Islamic expansion in the 7th and 8th centuries is explained as much by the effects of the devastating wars in-between the Byzantine and the Sassanid empires as it is by the fervor and prowess of the Arab tribes. The Arab revolt of World War I also exploited a rotting Empire and was a completely regional conflict that utilized guerilla tactics designed to stretch the already thin resources of the Ottomans to the breaking point. It was also highly dependent on the simultaneous presence of a conventional British Army on its Western flank. Today, the tribes certainly are powerful actors, especially in areas such as Yemen and Iraq. However, they remain largely regional forces and have seen their influence erode as the process of urbanization has radically changed the basic realities of life for many within the Arab world. The unified tribes of the Arabian peninsula do not pose an existential threat to American power, unless we are drawn into a never ending series of small wars.

[Defend]

Originally Posted by silentreader

...I think you give too much credit to the tribes, both in your historic examples and in the context of today.

Historically, I still say what has happened could not have happened without the tribes uniting. Other factors were at play, but tribal unity was still a requirement.

Have you ever tried to get two Arab offices (Government, University, or anything else with bureaucracy) to coordinate? It won't happen - until you figure out who in Office A is from the same tribe as the director in Office B, and you "just so happen" to be friends with somebody from that tribe as well. Bingo, you have your transcripts released early, or you are out of trouble for XYZ, and you have the social protection of both offices.

Tribal power has not been eliminated by urbanization. It has simply taken a different form of expression.

Learn how to use tribal division and unification to accomplish your mission, and you will go far!

-out