Islam And "Manliness"

Raymond Ibrahim has an interesting piece in Pajamas Media which raises several points central to the matters of homegrown Islamist terrorism and the presence of Americans and Europeans of the "blond hair, blue eyed" sort in Islamist centers such as Yemen. Ibrahim's main thesis is that the religious tenets of Islam have an essential appeal to young men who are not comfortable with the totems of gender neutrality current in the West generally and the US in particular.

There is no doubt but that a large germ of truth resides in Ibrahim's analysis. The past forty years have not been comfortable ones for those of us of the male persuasion who came of age before the explosive growth of feminism and its concomitant drive for cross-the-board equality. The effects of the feminist and post-feminist thinking on younger men struck the Geek hard as he taught college students who had apparently been led to believe that men were solely and completely responsible for all the unpleasant features of life from wars to crime to, presumably, the flu and common cold.

The eons long "battle of the sexes" has morphed into an uneasy coexistence between parties who do not really know one another beyond the fact that neither can exist without the other's presence, support, and (hopefully) intimate cooperation. It isn't a cold war exactly, but neither is it a hot peace of mutual understanding and appreciation.

There is no surprise that the need for constant reinterpretation, re-engagement, re-evaluation and re-negotiation of the details of life between man and woman in all spheres of life proves more than a little unsettling to some men--both those who are young and those for whom youth is but a faraway memory. Life in the Islamist environment of stiff rules and requirements, clear definition of responsibility--and definite subordination of women would seem halcyon to those who are discommoded by life in the West with its hazy lines, changing rules, and shifting tectonic plates of relationship.

The problem comes in that the Islamist view of the role of men in society as well as their firm belief that men in the West are soft, decadent, and deeply feminized are wrong in all respects. Those who migrate across the great cultural divide between the civilization of the West and the retrograde barbarism of Islamism are pursuing a mirage far more destructive of life than the optical distortions of the desert heat.

The true role of men--both before and after the tidal wave of feminism--is and always has been to protect, cherish, and love. It is not and never has been as the Islamists argue proper or necessary for men to subordinate women--let alone imprison them or kill them over something as specious as honor.

Men do kill. Typically they kill of necessity without any joy or desire. Those who do kill without sufficient cause or justification are considered outlaws not heroes by others of their sex. Similarly, men who hunt without necessity nor discretion are viewed not as supermen but rather akin to a weasel in the chicken pen.

Hunting--and killing--are male. There is room for both, deep and ample room, in the genetically determined back brain of all men. This realization caused men long ago, long back in the deepest fog of the prehistory of our species to derive the rituals of passage between the estate of the boy and that of the man.

All the rituals including those practiced by the Apache portion of the Geek's ancestry emphasized the vulnerability of the individual man, the need for him to cooperate completely with other men for the benefit of the group. A group which necessarily included women and children. These rituals provided the means by which the candidate for manhood would control and focus his aggression, his strength, his totality for the good of all and not simply for himself and his desires.

Islamism does not do any of these things. It places no limits and encourages no man to control his passions, his strength, his aggression for the real, immediate, and specific benefit of the collective of which he is one small but vital component. Rather, Islamism commands men to act as though they have never outgrown the first rush of adolescence when hormones ran high and self-control sank to the lower depths.

In a very real way those males who flee the West with its uncertainties for Islamism with its false sureness are seeking a never-ending bout of untrammeled adolescence where self-gratification and specious notions of potency triumph all else. These fugitives from manhood seek to prolong the freedom of the teenager.

Koranic justifications, invocations of the life of the Perfect Man, Mohammad, or the lives of his nearly perfect Companions do not alter the ground truth. That truth is simply this: False men, living false lives of dreams, dreams of killing, raping, subjugating, are travesties of the reality of manhood.

The reality of manhood is far less attractive. It is accepting the bitter truth that men are expendable. Men take risks. Men are here to face down the mastodon, the saber tooth tiger. To die if need be so that a woman--or another man--might live.

It is far easier to take the teenage route. To fancy one the best, the conquerer, the smiter of evil, the killer. It is hard, damn hard, to accept the way of the man, the way of sacrifice, the way of injury, the way of dying to protect another, to interpose one's only body between the perpetual teenager with a gun and the lady one loves.

What Happened To The "Global War On Terror?"

The Geek rarely agrees with any statement by an official of the Feudal Government of Saudi Arabia. Indeed, this may be a first. The first time the Geek has unreservedly agreed with a perspective offered by a Saudi official.

Following the seizure of the Saudi VLCC Sirius Star, the Feudal Monarchy's ForMin characterised the action as one of "terrorism" and demanded urgent action against the Jolly Pirates of Puntland.

For once the duplicity laden ruling family of the Kingdom of Mosques, Oil, and Sand has spoken truly. The favorite aquatic sport of the Somalis is no longer a mere nuisance. It no longer can be argued that the upsurge of maritime banditry is the result of either the absence of an effective government in the geographic expression known as Somalia or the lack of suitable employment and market opportunities for the simple fisherfolk of that region.

The linkage between the seaborne thugs and the land-based terrorists of the al-Qaeda variety is well established. The flow of money from the ransoms extorted by the pirates to the Islamist and jihadist groups both in Somalia and elsewhere including Yemen, Sudan, and points both east and west is likewise well known to the relevant western governments--including our own.

The newly but convincingly demonstrated capacity of the Allah and money driven raiders to operate at great distances from their homeports and employ weapons of greater lethality than previously points to an increase in the support (and thereby implicit command and control) from longer established, more experienced terror groups such as al-Qaeda.

Why this development "stunned" the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as has been reported astonishes the Geek. Even a cursory examination of the trajectory of improvement followed by the pirates of Puntland over the past eighteen months shows the increasingly tight coupling between their activities and the agenda of the al-Qaeda type Islamist/jihadist entities. Since Islamism and jihadism do not live on faith alone, the cash generating capacity of piracy must have been noticed quickly.

Given that the so-far quite successful insurgents in Somalia are Islamist to the max, it should not shock anyone to see the speedy development of mutually beneficial relations between the Islamist movement generally and the pirates. While some money obviously sticks in Puntland and environs, much goes to the Islamist/jihadist groups. In return, the outside entities can provide weapons, instruction, intelligence, and other necessary support functions.

Now that the pirates have shown a direct and material capacity to impair the economic interests of the US and other oil importing countries, the use of piratical terror becomes all the more attractive to the Islamists and their ilk. The goal as with other categories of attack remains the same--to directly, substantially, and materially affect the policy of the US and allied nations.

That is the purpose of terror. Cow the opponent into abandoning or altering policies that the terrorist finds obnoxious. That was the goal on 9/11. That was the goal of the 7/7 attacks in London. It was the goal of the Madrid subway bombers.

It is the goal of the entities that have jacked up the pirates of Puntland from the status of mere nuisance affecting only coastal shipping to that of global threat, putting the price and availability of oil in hazard.

Get a grip on that reality.

There is no excuse for the navies of the US and its NATO/EU more-or-less allies not to take robust action against the pirates. There is no excuse not to take action which will risk the loss of Somali lives or even the lives of crew members of hijacked ships.

The US and other navies have the requisite assets (typified by the Navy SEALS and the British Royal Marine Commandos) to board seized ships and subdue the criminals. True some--or even all--the pirates may head off to Allah in the operation. Such is the risk of piracy.

The US and other navies have the resources necessary to monitor small craft--particularly small vessels operating far from the normal fishing waters--and execute "stop and frisk" operations. In the event pirates fight back as they did last week against a combined UK-Russian force, fine. They will end up dead, as at least two or three pirates did that day. This will make trial unnecessary.

An objection that has been raised to robust action beyond a measure of convoy activity in the Gulf of Aden and along the Somali coast has been the absence of courts able to try suspected pirates. This objection is one which strikes the Geek as being particularly ill-founded, not to say flatly out-to-lunch. The US Code already provides statutory authority for the trial of pirates no matter where apprehended or under what specific circumstances. Other countries have similar laws.

If all else fails, the UN can create another one of its much loved special tribunals. If apprehending war criminals and bringing them to trial in the Netherlands is important, so also is the ending of a clear and present danger to open maritime commerce. The UN apparently abhors piracy and has called upon countries with navies to do something. It can add on to this inspirational message by creating a Piracy Tribunal so none can cavil at the lack of due process in the protection of pirates' human rights.

The Geek would love to know what brings about the silence in Washington? Where is the belligerent rhetoric of Dick Cheney? Where are the loudmouthed, testicle grabbing neocons? What's wrong, boys? There's no regime to change? No democracy to plant in hostile soil?

Is that why you all are so quiet? Is that why the opening of a new front in your Great Global War on Terror gives you so little cause for alarm? So little desire to "shock and awe?"

Or are you neocons simply sitting by with calmly folded hands hoping that your ideological counterparts in the next administration will screw the pooch as well and truly as you have the past seven plus years?

Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna

There. The Geek has joined the seemingly obbligato post-election paeans of praise to the Agent of Change and General Purpose Deliverer.

The sounds of joy coming from Europe, Kenya and assorted (small) portions of the Mideast in no way obscures a really, really basic fact. The world goes on. Just as it did yesterday. Just as it will tomorrow.

Even if no one else made this reality clear the Russians did. The Geek gives the lads in the Kremlin a big thumbs up for showing that they still have a firm grip on reality even if a goodly chunk of We the People seem to have lost ours.

With a glum grimness which would have done Molotov proud back in the Bad Old Days of the Cold War, the Kremlin muttered that it was ready, willing and able to deploy a new generation of shortish range missiles aimed at Europe unless the (new) US administration backed off from the installation of ABMs in Poland. This hardline stance was underscored in the past few days by the Russians having tested a new ICBM and executing an operational readiness shoot of one of their aging heavy throw-weight boosters.

Time for the man with the Audacity to Hope to get a grip on the fact that the Russians are not going to go away. Neither are they going to be dissuaded from fully regaining not only the reality of Great Power status but the American recognition that they possess that status.

The world goes on in its established trajectories. Slogans and promises of change, rhetorical flourishes delivered in a victory speech don't alter that dynamic in the slightest.

Need more proof?

Perhaps the President-elect can take some comfort from the offer of improved (fraternal?) relations from the Left Socialist strongman of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. OK. Then how about the offer being accompanied by some real action on the one-time paratrooper's part. Say, perhaps ending the ties between his far left government and the Iranian backed jihadists? If that's too much, then how about cancelling his gigabuck arms purchase from Russia? Heck, the Venezuelan economy can't afford it with oil prices going further south than Terra del Fuego.

(Or perhaps, ole Hugo expects that with the Pelosi-Reid-Obama global warming freaks running the US show, the cost of energy will go exoatmospheric real fast.)

The Geek noticed that Kim Jong Il didn't send a congratulatory message. The Hermit Kingdom of the North didn't suddenly wake up and join the world in celebration of a "new dawn." An American election didn't change a single North Korean ambition or calculation.

Throughout the Mideast and the Persian Gulf, the reaction was not much more unrestrained than that coming from North Korea. Carefully calculating and cynical men with many years experience dealing with and observing American politicians both before and after elections has muted any urge to celebrate "change." History weighs heavily in these areas. People know that real alteration in the trajectories of human institutions come slowly--if at all.

The gerontocracy in the Forbidden City is even less likely to be excited by the outcome of the election. No one knows better than the Chinese how little reality changes despite the application of cosmetics. No nation has a better understanding of the power of history. No national leadership understands more profoundly than the Chinese the reality that interests, genuine interests of state and rulers trump all matters of transience such as personality, political agenda or even ideology.

Even in Western Europe where the accolades have been flying with wild abandon, the underlying reality is different. The Europeans have watched US presidents come and go. At the same time they have been forced to recognise that American definitions of American interests remain unchanged. More, these interests remain unchangeable. Unless and until the US declines to second rate status, its self-defined interests will remain paramount whether arrogantly or humbly expressed. The interests of Washington come first.

Would President Obama have it any other way? Would he have the US attempt to resign its status as a Great Power? Would he and his supporters and cheerleaders alike argue that the world would become a far better place if the US retreated to its own borders and stopped polluting the Earth with its presence?

No. Of course not. No Great Power in history has ever successfully resigned its status. No Great Power has ever been allowed to resign. The world wouldn't let the US step down from Great Power status when we desperately wanted to back in the Twenties and Thirties. The world wouldn't let us crawl back into our hemispheric hole in the Seventies when, following our defeat in Vietnam and the scandals of Watergate, We the People demanded that we do so.

No. Subjectively defined American interests don't change. No responsible government anywhere wants them to. Sure, many would like us to act as George W. Bush promised we would so many lies ago, "humbly." And, perhaps we should.

But, not so humbly as to seem to be losing our political will and nerve. Governments around the world, those who wish us well and those who wish us ill want to know where the US stands, what it will tolerate, what it will seek, what it will ignore. Without the US providing a firm place, a solid stance for and against which other states can react, the order of the world crumbles, slightly perhaps but noticeably.

Whether We the People and those we elect like the idea or even have wit enough to recognise the existence of the idea, a fundamental reality exists today as it did yesterday and will tomorrow. It's a simple idea.

Get a grip on it.

The US is a Great Power. Beyond that, it is first among the several Great Powers of the world. Not France. Not Great Britain. Not Russia. Not China. Nor Japan. Nor Germany. Nor India.

The US alone is first among Great Powers.

As the old cliche has it, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

Some Muslims Live In the Land of Newspeak

The most chilling feature of George Orwell's classic 1984 (at least to the Geek) was the intentional impoverishment and distortion of language embodied in the new form of English called "Newspeak." The purpose of the new language was to enable people to engage in "doublethink," the holding of two mutually contradictory ideas simultaneously--and believe each was true.

A second goal of Newspeak was to make holding certain ideas literally impossible as there would be no words, no symbols to represent them.

Some Muslims at least accept both goals. They not only practice doublethink but want all of us to join them in the process. Beyond that they desire the eradication of some words in order that people not be able to formulate certain ideas which these Muslims find odious.

The statement, "Islam is the religion of peace" is on a par with the Orwellian phrases, "War is Peace," or "Freedom is Slavery."

Or, if you don't find "Islam is the religion of peace" sufficiently redolent of Newspeak, how about calling on a "Most Merciful and Compassionate" deity in a fatwa authorizing the death of an author or even an anonymous group of women and children?

Newspeaking Muslims include not just the usual deniers of Islamic rooted terrorism such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) or other offshoots of the Islamic Brotherhood, but purportedly responsible leaders of governments formally aligned with the US in the fight against jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda and Taliban. Neither are Muslim Newspeakers confined to the Wahabist clerics or Iranian ayatollahs.

They include the Speaker of the National Assembly in Pakistan. As reported yesterday by the Associated Press of Pakistan, http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=38881&Itemid=2, the Speaker, Dr. Fehmida Mirza, proclaimed to a visiting delegation of Iranians, "Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance that abhors terrorism and extremism in all it forms and manifestations and it was the responsibility of religious scholars to play their role to remove the misperceptions of the West about Islam."

Right.

Unfortunately the Speaker didn't explain how this position squared with a report coming from the very same country she allegedly helps govern. The story (but not the video) ran on CBS. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/20/cbsnews_investigates/main4110408.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4110408)

The star is a young boy, estimated to be about twelve years old. The featured supporting player was a man of unknown age accused of spying on the jihadists who is prone on the ground, trussed and bound.

The action is simple. The kid wields a machete. Cuts off the head of the man on the ground. Holds it up to the camera.

The dialogue is even simpler. The kid crys, "Allah o Akbar." The Geek presumes that the head chopping kid is praising the Most Merciful and Compassionate One.

This video and many like it were and are being made in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, The two Waziristans (North and South, for those of you who like details) are also the center of al-Qaeda and Taliban training, logistics and base camps offering support to those fighting the Americans, NATO and, lest we forget, Afghans across the border.

It is also worth noting that the preferred tactic of the "Holy Warriors of Islam" is the bombing of civilians.

"Religion of peace and tolerance that abhors terrorism and extremism in all forms and manifestations..." So said the Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan. And, she must be an honest and honorable woman.

"Doublethink!" The Geek thinks.

No response was quoted for the delegation of the Guardian Council from the Islamic Republic of Iran. But, it's probably fair to think they agreed with the Speaker.

After all, the Iranian mullahocracy has often stated that Iran abhors terrorism and would never, never, never have anything to do with sponsoring or supporting it. And the assorted mullahs and ayatollahs who comprise the Iranian government must all be honest and honorable men.

Another example of Muslim style Newspeak that particularly rankles is the term "honor killing."
How is killing one's own daughters because they dressed and acted like the American teenagers they were a matter of "honor?"

How is killing one's sister (whom one has abused before) for no particular reason a matter of "honor?" The Geek would list more but it makes him sick.

Killing, particularly the killing of unarmed, defenseless women is not and can never be "honorable." It is true that women, children and other people without means of defending themselves are killed. With few exceptions the goal of military operations has not been the killing of civilians--even adult civilian men.

The Muslim "honor" killing is not an act of war. It is not even the act of the suicide bomber hitting the clicker in a crowded marketplace. It is an act of cold, ruthless murder. The act of murdering, not a stranger, but a person's own daughter, sister, wife.

Only a person well versed in the practice of doublethink could make any effort to justify it as a matter of family "honor." Only a person well versed in the practice of doublethink could see despicable up close and personal homicide of this sort as fitting with the demands of a Most Merciful and Compassionate deity.

It is not "Islamophobic" to point out the doublethinking nature of some Muslims. It is not "Islamophobic" to reject the Newspeak demands of some Muslims. It is neither insensitive nor phobic to insist that language be used correctly, even bluntly.

Remember in 1984 Newspeak was not only the prime tool of government control of all aspects of life. Newspeak aided mightily in assuring that perpetual war was the fate of the human race.

The war with Islamists and jihadists need not--can not--last forever. If we are going to end it with our victory, the calls to adopt Newspeak and doublethink, Muslim style must be rejected fast and hard.

Words, Words and More Words--About Words

Question 1. A jihadist is not a jihadist if--
A.) he is dead
B.) the fatwa authorizing his jihad is cancelled by clerical authority
C.) the clicker on his vest/vehicle/roadside bomb fails
D.) the National Counterterrorism Center and Department of Homeland Security
pronounce that the word must never be used except in a peaceful way
E.) none of the above.

Question 2. An Islamist is--
A.) an adherent of Islam
B.) a student of the foundations and tenets of Islam
C.) a political radical seeking the imposition of Islamic law on a people
D.) a believer in the necessity, desirability and inevitability of the global caliphate
E.) a figment of the fevered minds of Islamophobes

Question 3. A moderate Muslim is--
A.) a member of the silent Islamic majority who may or may not support terror
B.) a Muslim who rises in indignant opposition to those who pilfer Islam in the
cause of killing women, children and other civilians
C.) the target audience for US public diplomacy
D.) a Muslim the US must not risk offending lest he join the black hats
E,) nonexistent given the radical political nature of Islam from a Western
perspective

Question 4. Which statements are true
A.) Muslim terrorist is an oxymoron
B.) Jihad refers to peaceful internal struggle
C.) Jihad refers to peaceful struggle against human enemies such as poverty and
racism
D.) Calling suicide bombers "jihadists" or "mujahideen" confers legitimacy on
them
E.) According to the US Government, all of the above.

(If you answered 1-E, 2-E, 3-C and 4-E you are a US Government approved Sensitive Person. You have also had your visa to the Republic of Reality cancelled.)

The United States is not engaged in a Great Global War on Terror. We are haphazardly skirmishing with a specific and easily defined transnational group including both non-governmental actors and States which espouse the supremacy of Islam and pursue a political agenda which is hoped will lead to the establishment of a global caliphate and the universal application of Islamic law and principles.

What's hard to understand in that?

Islamism and jihadism have been around a long while. Since the purported receipt of the Word From On High by the Prophet Mohammad. Nothing hard to grasp there.

Nothing inherently wrong with the idea either. Islamists are welcome to have their beliefs. They are welcome to hope, pray and even argue that their desired end goal will come to fruition.

Islamists and their more action oriented kin, the jihadist, must not be permitted to use force, the threat of force or subversion to impose their vision upon individuals and nations that do not wish to live in an Islamic Paradise. (Or go there post-mortem.)

Drawing and defending that line is or should be the focus of the United States and kindred spirit countries. It is no more and certainly no less than what we did with respect to expansionist oriented, Soviet Union powered Communism during the Cold War.

Yes, the Geek readily acknowledges that the US government engaged in infuriating excesses of thought policing during the Cold War. As a historian he can cite chapter, verse and line about those excesses both foreign and domestic.

The Geek is quite well aware that the US often committed the fatal blunder of confusing short-term order under a repressive dictator with long term stability within a foreign nation. He knows the US often, all-too-often tried to put the brakes on change within another society and culture with long-term disastrous results for both them and us.

Recognising all of this it is still necessary to state unequivocally that during the Cold War the US understood the nature and character of the threat--the enemy, if you'll permit the Geek to use a harsh, blunt word.

More, the US understood the nature, character and appeal of its values, beliefs and institutions--warts, scars and all. We knew ourselves as we were and showed it to the world even if many were unwilling or unable to accept us as we presented ourselves.

The knowledge of ourselves and our adversaries served us well. It was a (perhaps the) key to understanding the final outcome of the Cold War.

Now it appears that we have thrown all that aside. Our government is unwilling or unable to define who the enemy is and where the threat originates.

Worse, our government--at least the current administration--seems to be gripless regarding just who or what we are and how best to present that to the world. Particularly that portion of the world covered by the word, Muslim.

The effort by the National Counterterrorism Center and the Department of Homeland Security joined by the State Department to become the Word Police has been given wide currency over the Internet. There is no need for the Geek to summarize the NCTC-DHS dictat.

Wrong headed attempts to assuage the ever-so-sensitive feelings of some American resident Muslims might be warm and fuzzy, but they are ultimately counterproductive in a world filled with cold sharpies.

The last time the US government tried such an exercise in the softening of terms was in 1948 and 1949 when members of the Truman Administration referred to the Chinese Communists of Mao as being "agrarian reformers."

Islamists and jihadists wear the label with pride. They know what they want. They know who they are. There is no reason for the government not to use the same terms.

If some non-Islamist, non-jihadist Muslims take unwarranted offense, that is their problem and the government need take no responsibility for it. There are more than enough multi-cultural oriented academics to wring their hands and view with dismay. The government and the rest of us don't have to join in the circle of tears.

More importantly, the US would be best served not by tender ministration to easily bruised sensitivity but by a robust declaration of what we stand for and why we stand for it.

Unlike the death worshiping Islamists/jihadists, the people of the United States are life oriented, life-affirming. We see both the risks and, more, the opportunities of life. We pursue life and all it has to offer with very few of us casting glances at some presumed pit of hell waiting to swallow our souls.

Unlike fear ridden, eager-to-submit to Higher Authority Islamists and jihadists, We the People are willing, even eager, to stand tall and proud, meeting authority on our terms--not its. We can admit our collective mistakes, the "sins" of our ancestors, rectify the wrongs and seek a better collective future.

Yes, we may take our individualism too far. Yes, we may be a messy people given to too much consumption (at least in the eyes of some). But, in our boisterous and often too exploitative way, we have been living up to that long ago vision of John Winthrop of establishing a "shining city."

Instead of playing the role of the politically correct English Department, the US government should speak of our adversaries bluntly and directly, calling them what they are. More, We the People best demand of the next administration that it get on with the task of letting all those "moderate" Muslims of the Islamic Silent Majority know just what we are and why we are that way.

Perhaps, just maybe, then the Silent Muslim Majority will find its collective voice and drown the demands of the Islamist for more martyrdom in a chorus of "No!"