What’s Wrong with the World

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

Fragment on Jihad and Total War

Looking over the modern world and all its proliferating works, one may note a strange fact: even when a cliché is easily recognized as such, the recognition only rarely issues in a vigilance against the lazy thinking behind the cliché. Men will chuckle at the folly indicated by the cliché, and then race off in unthinking confidence, impelled by that very thinking.

Modern men will say, with solemn faces, that generals are always “fighting the last war,” precisely as they go about thinking with ironclad consistency about fighting the last war. Now the “last war” for almost all modern men is what has been called Total War: democratic army arrayed against democratic army, nation in arms against nation, whole societies mobilized and on the march in a clash to the bitter end, as in the war that still bulks biggest in our minds, the Second World War.

But our war today is not total war, it is not democratic war, it is not even, for the most part, a war of army against army; and my informed guess is that we may never again see a total war of that sort. Our enemy certainly does not think in terms of Western Total War, and it is high time that we heeded our own cliché and started thinking about the war we’re in.

The plain pulverizing fact is that our war is religious war. It matters not one lick how much our modern mind recoils from this; it matters not one lick that Liberalism barely even has the vocabulary to talk about it, and will react with blind fury against most anyone who does want to talk about it. Nor, indeed, does it matter how fervently we might wish things were otherwise: the simple fact is that when an organized force of cunning men is making religious war against you, you are in a religious war. The impetus of our enemy lies not in his skill at arms, nor even in his anger at us, but in the details of his doctrine. He fights because he believes divine instruction compels it.

Total war hurls whole armies of galvanized nations against each other in horrifying calamities. Ours is not that sort of war. We are not likely to see great clashes of uniformed men, much less whole societies organized by command economy to wartime fervor. Our war lacks that kind of centralized organization, or at least it lacks that on the part of the aggressor side of the war, which must always be the side with the initiative.

But there is a secondary characteristic of our war that is very much unlike the sort of war that our age still recalls most vividly as the last war. Our war is one of skirmish and symbolism. Because the doctrine is permanent, the discharge of the duty it enjoins is undertaken languidly. If you are inspired, or more likely embittered — sure, go ahead learn your purity at war. Adventurism and conquest, sheer self-interest, is blessed by way of the romance of throwing off the infidel oppression. The mercenary is empowered. As a result the aggressor is opportunistic, uncoordinated, and predatory. He combines patience and pragmatism with anarchic decentralization.

He also thinks according to a far longer time horizon than any total war can contemplate. His mind is more historically grounded, and (for example) he thinks it a fact of no small significance that, absent some intervening event of great consequence, Europe will be, in a couple generations, more Muslim than Christian. The 21st century American has little history that he cares much about; the 21st century Jihadist has abundant history that he cares about, even unto death and mayhem.

From all this it follows that any analysis of the Jihad that takes its bearings from Total War of the 20th century is mistaken from the get-go.

Comments (30)

Paul,
I think you are right that this war is not cut from same piece of cloth as previous wars. If so, then to what extent do you suppose that traditional just war theory holds true for the war that is, or that will be? Can we -- must we -- follow traditional rules of war when the enemy we fight follows almost none of them? Should we make a new set of rules? Which?

Michael, what is the point of rules against an enemy that does not follow ANY of them?

The enemy does not care about cruelty, mayhem, collateral damage, or even his own life, unless it furthers the conquest. The doctrine is not merely unreasonable, but dogmatically anti-reason.

I do not believe the West is currently capable of handling the matter at this time. The West does not lack in technology or tools, but rather will. It would take something a thousand times worse than 9/11 for any portion of the West to begin to think of fighting Islam itself. Unless there is a miracle, there will be a massacre, and I don't like the West's chances.

Michael, I have made exactly that point for the last 2 years or so: some of the international "rules" around war are rules that only make sense in the context of state versus state, and possibly in the context of a distinction between state and religion. The rules about POW's, for example, were organized in a context where a person is morally allowed to surrender - i.e. morally allowed to say "I cease and desist my attempts against you". When you are a soldier operating on behalf of a state, which is not your ultimate good, you have a right to cease and desist. Not quite so clear if you are acting for religious principle. Giving your parole (which is the medieval origin of modern 'surrender') can only mean something if your enemy has a reason to believe that you are capable of telling the truth in giving your parole. If your enemy knows beforehand that you don't even believe yourself when you offer your parole, then he has no reason to accept it.

Nevertheless, that doesn't imply that we can abolish, or simply set aside, the entirety of the rules of war in this war against jihad. At least in some measure, the rules spring out of what we are. Unless we want to give up being civilized, we cannot wholly abandon civilized behavior, even to our enemies. Thus torture, rape, etc are out of bounds regardless of what the enemy is like.

Paul, I think that the most difficult problem right now, in practical terms, is turning to thinking of the enemy as a non-state amorphous body that is only partly political (or rather, uses politics for non-political ends). Whether those ends are religious or not may not be quite so important, practically, as the fact that they don't find expression via a state as such.

Further, with a religious war, it would be a mistake to automatically treat the entire Muslim world as the direct enemy in this war - there may be at least a large minority who would disown terrorist jihad at all events, who would accept a complete annihilation of the terrorists without batting an eyelash. And yet, it is very difficult to target the fundamentalist, fascist jihadis without embroiling less eager, less martial Muslims in the effort. The real trick of the war may be centered on that very thing: getting non-violent Muslims to separate themselves from the violent minority. From what I have heard from soldiers coming back from Iraq, in roughly 9/10ths of the country people simply are not interested in violent response to western people, ideas, etc, and would be happy if they never heard from any "insurgent" again.

Patrick,
Islam's more consistent followers have declared war on all of American society, and therefore consider all members of our society fair game, so to speak. They kill children because children grow up to be soldiers. They kill young women because young women give birth to more soldiers. They kill workers because workers pay taxes that feed the military machine that resists the global imposition of sharia. No one is safe because, to them, no one is innocent.

When I say Islam's more consistent followers, and not Islamic extremists, attack us, I am saying, contrary to former President Bush, that Islam is not a religion of peace, either in its sacred texts or in its history. It is a religion at war, and continually so, for centuries upon centuries. Violence is not an aberration. Violence is the modus operandi.

Perhaps it's a defect in my character, but my mind runs habitually to the worst case scenario: dirty bombs, deadly chemicals, and poisonous biological agents all smuggled over American borders, both from the north and the south -- coupled with an American regime intent upon suing at law any state audacious enough to want to protect its citizens from that invasion in even the most innocuous ways. In other words, the worst case looks very much like today, when about one in ten of the illegal immigrants who invade our nation in that way is of middle eastern (and presumably Islamic) background.

I read long ago that, given the desperately fallen character of our world, if you are not protected against the worst case scenario, you are not protected. The worst case sometimes happens. If you are not protected, your peace depends upon the good will of your enemy. In that case, you have no peace. The only real peace is a defendable peace, and ours, at the moment, is not properly defended. To defend it now requires more -- much, much more -- than we have ever done, both here and around the world. The Obama regime is not up to the task, and never will be. It thinks that diplomacy is the answer to the war threat we face, and by "diplomacy" they mean going into campaign mode, as if a teleprompter were a nuclear deterrent.

I think that the most difficult problem right now, in practical terms, is turning to thinking of the enemy as a non-state amorphous body that is only partly political (or rather, uses politics for non-political ends). Whether those ends are religious or not may not be quite so important, practically, as the fact that they don't find expression via a state as such.

Well, the one caveat is that the Jihad is certainly not averse to using states if it can capture them. There is nothing that prevents the opportunistic use of state actors. It won't be long before Islam wields real political power in Europe, so its advantages in terms of making war by means of the state may soon increase.

Further, with a religious war, it would be a mistake to automatically treat the entire Muslim world as the direct enemy in this war - there may be at least a large minority who would disown terrorist jihad at all events, who would accept a complete annihilation of the terrorists without batting an eyelash. And yet, it is very difficult to target the fundamentalist, fascist jihadis without embroiling less eager, less martial Muslims in the effort. The real trick of the war may be centered on that very thing: getting non-violent Muslims to separate themselves from the violent minority. From what I have heard from soldiers coming back from Iraq, in roughly 9/10ths of the country people simply are not interested in violent response to western people, ideas, etc, and would be happy if they never heard from any "insurgent" again.

I agree with all that. Few things infuriate me quite like when US reluctance to enter into the doctrinal realm has hung our Islamic allies out to dry. There was a case in San Francisco some years ago where, to summarize vividly, an Islamic hippie had built a peace mosque (probably right next door to a pot cafe or something). In time a group of radicals forced their way in and through legal maneuvering expelled this hippie from his mosque, converting it into a much more sinister establishment.

Here is a case that fairly cries out for US law to reflect our antipathy toward the warmaking doctrines -- Holy War and Holy Subjugation. The hippie should be defended and his adversary undermined in law. We don't have to be neutral as to these doctrines; it is folly to insist on neutrality.

When I say Islam's more consistent followers, and not Islamic extremists, attack us, I am saying, contrary to former President Bush, that Islam is not a religion of peace, either in its sacred texts or in its history. It is a religion at war, and continually so, for centuries upon centuries. Violence is not an aberration. Violence is the modus operandi.

Michael, from what I have read of the Koran, and about various strains of Muslim thinking, you may be correct. Yet history does pose periods of non-violence, and periods of co-existence that can be considered at least a kind of peace, between individual Muslim states and neighbors. The current political map of Muslim states includes states that seem willing to work in peace with western states. Current Muslim practice throughout the world indicates there are some Muslims who want to live in peace with westerners. It is not obvious that the best way to treat with these non-violent states and these non-violent Muslims is by considering them unfaithful Muslims (even if that's what other Muslims consider them), and thus effectively lumping them in as "future violent enemies" as if that is a foregone conclusion. Since Islam is a false religion, there is nothing about it that mandates that it remain "faithful" to any internally consistent, bedrock truths. It can be changed by people, Muslims, moving in new directions, unlike Christianity which has God as its primary mover.

Paul, I agree: we need to turn the US to understanding that even a state enamored of religious freedom among its highest ideals can rightly treat another entity, even a religion, as an enemy. The US cannot afford to reject that its own existence rests on ideas that are in direct opposition to the ideas in other religions, and therefore treating those religions with a hands-off approach is sheerly suicidal.

Tony, I have no hope whatsoever for getting "peaceful" Muslims to separate themselves from violent ones. People have been trying and trying, and it never happens. The supposedly "moderate" leaders always turn out _at a minimum_ to want to impose sharia upon America eventually. And why should they not, as long as they remain Muslims? And their denunciations of terrorism usually have some glaring loophole to those who know enough to point it out.

I think, too, that a focus on terrorism in isolation from sharia is a mistake. Once you start broadening your focus to those Muslims who a) give financial support to terrorists, b) have some significant sympathy for terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, c) feel at least highly uncomfortable unequivocally condemning such groups and want to change the subject to making excuses for them and bashing America, d) dislike Jews intensely, e) believe that sharia is good and should ultimately be imposed on their society and at least on their families, unpleasantly if necessary, f) arrogantly insist on unreasonable accommodation of their religious practices in American culture and law...

Well, you get the picture. We have a problem. It just isn't enough to point at certain people and say, "Hey, look, they're living peacefully with their neighbors and not planting any bombs."

Nevertheless, that doesn't imply that we can abolish, or simply set aside, the entirety of the rules of war in this war against jihad. At least in some measure, the rules spring out of what we are. Unless we want to give up being civilized, we cannot wholly abandon civilized behavior, even to our enemies. Thus torture, rape, etc are out of bounds regardless of what the enemy is like.

While that is true, our real problem is that we, as a people, live in denial about what war is really like.

In Afghanistan, the rules of engagement are so complicated a soldier can barely raise his weapon without fear of a court martial.

We'd do well to adopt three categories:

1) Those shooting at us.
2) Those helping those shooting at us.
3) Everyone else.

1-2 being targets of opportunity at all times.

Michael,

I didn't suggest that you were wrong in your appraisal. I am merely stating the fact that we have three options: a miracle, suicide, or atomic war (Troops and tanks are farts in the wind unless you take a Reconquista approach). Our current state of fidelity hampers the first, nearly half of the West are desirous of becoming dhmimmi, and the third is reprehensible.

So, no, the bleakness of the future is not your imagination.

Paul,

An interesting fragment. Quickly, I have to disagree with this as a summary description of WWII:

Now the “last war” for almost all modern men is what has been called Total War: democratic army arrayed against democratic army, nation in arms against nation, whole societies mobilized and on the march in a clash to the bitter end, as in the war that still bulks biggest in our minds, the Second World War.

I'm not sure I would characterize the Axis Powers as "democratic armies" -- or even all the Allies come to think of it.

Otherwise, I basically agree with the rest and have always thought your more specific proposals around some sort of jihad sedition law to be on the mark.

Lydia,

While I agree with you about sharia, I read Tony's remarks in a broader geopolitical sense, meaning it is worth looking to Indonesia and Malaysia as two very large Muslim countries that seem to want to coexist peacefully with the West and don't churn out many jihadis. So perhaps as a strategic matter, we want to support and strengthen our ties to these (Sufi?) Muslim counties and use them to attempt to counteract the influence in the Muslim world of the Saudis and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Jeff, try this. Google:

site:http://www.jihadwatch.org Indonesia

Browse what comes up. Internally, Indonesia is nasty enough to its Christian population, among others, that I would hesitate to get too cozy with them. Generally I'm hesitant to go running to make closer and closer ties with Muslim countries that mistreat their citizens, especially their Christian citizens.

In terms of jihad, here's one for you:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/07/jihad-advancing-in-indonesias-suburbs.html

Or how about this: Indonesia thinks a great way to fight terrorism in its midst is to _pay_ terrorists to give it up--

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/indonesia-bribing-jihadists-to-give-up-jihad.html

When they aren't paying their homegrown terrorists, they're reducing their sentences and then having to re-arrest them:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/08/indonesia-founder-of-group-behind-bali-bombings-re-arrested-for-jihadist-activities-of-new-group.html

You know, somehow, I just don't think Indonesia is a good helper in the fight against jihad.

Lydia,
Have you noticed how many times in recent years Indonesia has been visited by devastation?

One might begin to think that Someone was trying to send a message.

Jihad is just not total war, it eternal war. Ever since the Muslims tore out of Arabia, they have always wanted to wage war on us, to convert us or to kill us for refusing to worship Allah. We, by the grace of God, have beat them on the battlefields of Tours, Vienna, Lepanto and other places. But in spite of all our
victories, they keep coming back for more. There is no reasoning with them, they are fanatics. The Islamic culture lost it ability to think critically when Islam accepted the Ash'arism school of thought. I'm reading a book called "The Closing Of The Islamic Mind" by Robert R Reilly. it shows how Islam committed intellectal suicide almost 1000 years ago when they shut out Western thinking and said everything had to come from the Koran. I wish I could tell you more about the book, but I just started to read it myself. I hope that two or three people on this board will read the book, because it will give you a better understanding of why we will have to fight Islam to the death unless God miraculously converts in mass, the whole Muslim world.

The only way to resolve the issue is to remove Muslims from our midst. With no or very few Muslims in our society, things simplify immensely.

It's not our job to determine who is a nice Muslim and who isn't. Trying to distinguish has been a fatal flaw. It allows Muslims to follow their ideological war to great effect. Instead, we might actually get some action from the Muslims who realize there is a problem and want to solve it if we began blaming them along with their brethren. They might realize their own comfort is at stake.

Let's say that about 10% of Christians in this country supported the use of violence to close abortion clinics and another 35% tacitly supported them. You can pretty much guarantee there wouldn't be any open abortion clinics with large concentrations of Christians in the area, except with massive government security measures. The same thing happens (women having to wear the hijab, no alcohol, etc.) when Muslims reach a certain percentage.

Send Muslims home and let The Eternal War be a cold one.

Well, we cannot justly expel all Muslims. Some are loyal American citizens. Like the DeKalb County detective who helped roll up a Jihad conspiracy in Atlanta.

I would say the policy to focus on right now is reducing Islamic immigration, ultimately to zero.

The US is at the point where is could get away with stopping Muslim immigration and expelling Muslim non-citizens. Europe probably has to be more drastic if it hopes to survive.

While I'm sure there are loyal Muslims, what does the detective in question think about Sharia? It's only a question of method if he supports moving towards Sharia, even if it is through legal means.

Have you noticed how many times in recent years Indonesia has been visited by devastation?

One might begin to think that Someone was trying to send a message.

Yeah? What's the message Someone might be trying to send, Michael?

William,
That message might be, since Indonesia is home to the greatest concentration of militant Muslims on the planet, that this isn't the way.

"all smuggled over American borders, both from the north and the south -- coupled with an American regime intent upon suing at law any state audacious enough to want to protect its citizens from that invasion in even the most innocuous ways."

Arizona's law is nothing more than a conservative Republican legislature and conservative Republican governor playing the race/immigrant card for short term gains in an election year.

One of the glaring failures of the previous administration was its neglect of border and port security as well as things like security at our domestic chemical industry; said industries lobbied like mad to avoid the extra costs, of course. Folks living in places like Southern California should take a field trip to the ports and petroleum/chemical plants and reflect on the tens of thousands of containers and large tanks of things like HF scattered about.

Schlepping enough chemicals to cause a serious problem across the desert doesn't seem likely for a number of reasons. A dirty bomb would be inconvenient but hardly a game changer and biologicals are tricky. A small nuke would represent a huge investment - one that one isn't likely to risk by crossing at the corridor between Tucson and Yuma (hint, the West from eastern California through Utah and New Mexico and south of I-80 is largely empty and has many places to land a small plane - check out Google earth), A group sophisticated enough and possessed of the means to acquire a nuke isn't likely to run afoul of a DOB (driving while brown) state law (and they can afford a Cessna).

"To defend it now requires more -- much, much more -- than we have ever done, both here and around the world. The Obama regime is not up to the task, and never will be."

First of all, you might be more specific. Since you reject diplomacy and we've already tried war and torture (that worked out well), how about less emoting and more policy.
Are you proposing we police the world while creating a garrison state at home? As Bush/Cheney couldn't do it and, according to you, the Obama administration can't do it, we would seem to have a problem.

Or, perhaps all this is a pleasant distraction from our real problems - mentioning the Arizona law merely demonstrates a certain unseriousness, doesn't it?

P.S. would the person writing, "The US is at the point where is could get away with stopping Muslim immigration and expelling Muslim non-citizens." explain how that happens with our Constitution?

"Europe probably has to be more drastic if it hopes to survive."

Would you share your Solution?

since Indonesia is home to the greatest concentration of militant Muslims on the planet, that this isn't the way.

Or it might just be that the Indonesian archipelago sits on the edge of the Ring of Fire.

William,
Why not both? They are not mutually exclusive considerations. Providence can easily find ways to combine the facts so that what needs to be done gets done.

Arizona's law is nothing more than a conservative Republican legislature and conservative Republican governor playing the race/immigrant card for short term gains in an election year.

Nothing but? You mean, they really have absolutely NO reason to be bothered by Mexican gangs controlling swatches of counties where the Sheriff's dept is proscribed from showing its face?

Why not both? They are not mutually exclusive considerations.

Exactly. They could, at one and the very same time, both be electioneering tools, AND intended to deal with a real problem. Wow, that would take some kind of genius, wouldn't it! Worse yet (for the libs, that is) it might even be the case that the first ties in to the second because of some inherent _principle_, something like: the reason the Repubs think that they can swing elections by this trick is that not only THEY think that dealing with illegal Mexicans is worthwhile, lots and lots of Arizonans do too, and the reason so many Arizonans think so is because it is true that the common good requires dealing with the illegals. Liberalism's worst nightmare - truth become obvious to too many people at the same time.

Tony, I believe MB's post was referring to his notion that geologic phenomena are signs of God's displeasure with Islam.

No swatches of counties are off limits to law enforcement, that was just more electioneering (the Sheriff in the ad was not from a border county). Also you are conflating problems associated with illegal immigration with Michael's point that the law in question would have a serious role in detecting Jihadi WMDs which is ridiculous. The law in question is a Palmer era throwback. Why we keep returning to things that only embarrass us later is a mystery. Any way we need more Border Patrol officers (I was just visiting south of Tucson and I did see a heavier BP presence then during previous visits) and we need to start putting employers in jail. That will stop the illegal immigration problem.

P.S. would the person writing, "The US is at the point where is could get away with stopping Muslim immigration and expelling Muslim non-citizens." explain how that happens with our Constitution?

The Federal government is responsible for controlling the borders. As such, it has the power to determine who and who does not enter the country. There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents the Feds from stopping all Muslim immigration or making non-citizen Muslims leave the country.

Would you share your Solution?

Why don't you just say Final Solution al and quit dancing around?

Some solutions are (beyond the above recommendations):
- paying Muslims to leave
- prohibiting Muslim attire, such as the hijab, burka, etc.
- permanently closing any mosque that promotes sharia or jihad
- deport any Muslim that supports/promotes sharia or jihad
- cut off all foreign money supporting Mosques and dawah

In general, Europe can make it so that many Muslims will leave voluntarily and with minimal violence. Of course, on its current trajectory there is going to be a lot of violence unless something like the above is done.

A small nuke would represent a huge investment - one that one isn't likely to risk by crossing at the corridor between Tucson and Yuma...

First, the Arizona law doesn't prevent people for crossing the border. It is interior enforcement. And catching someone who isn't obeying traffic laws is a fairly common way of catching people who are violating more serious laws. (FYI, as people who have ridden with cops will tell you, it is usually difficult (and much harder at night) to tell the race of the driver of a vehicle.)

Second, sending the people over the southern border is probably the easiest way to get in. You can either ship the materials some other way or acquire what you need in the country.

Submitted for your consideration,

We're talking about Islam in general, not simply al Qaeda.

You mean, they really have absolutely NO reason to be bothered by Mexican gangs controlling swatches of counties where the Sheriff's dept is proscribed from showing its face?

I guess al missed the signs that tell US citizens it isn't safe to use the national park they pay for.


First and foremost Islam has Mohammed's skeleton to protect. Any reasonable person can easily conclude that this brigand, murderer and all-round philanderer cannot be a model of perfection. But this position is precisely what the Muslims have to defend. The issue has never been about the nature of Allah or the Holy Trinity or anything abstruse. Most people can agree to disagree over such lofty matters, but when it comes to something as shameful as Mohamed's abvious depravity, the Muslims cannot but rely on violence and lies to maintain their equanimity.

Why not both? They are not mutually exclusive considerations.

They are, in that I have evidence for one consideration and none for the other. I guess Someone was sending a message to Haiti as well, even though they have no Muslim extremists.

William,
Try reading your OT. Try thinking about providence in light of it.

I guess Someone was sending a message to Haiti as well, even though they have no Muslim extremists

They make up for it with a dark pagan spirituality.

There is also the possibility that it is just Satan wrecking havoc. After all, he is the "god of the world" in this age.

Embrace the good news found within this thread; Providence will allow us to keep our hands clean by ruthlessly visiting death, destruction and disease on Indonesia, Pakistan and wherever else the Mujahideen gather.

No need fretting over Just War theory, constructing Ticking Time Bomb rationales and suffering conscience pangs distinguishing between jihadists and innocent men, women and children.

God is not bound by wimpy Rules of Engagement. Instead, He will sort them all out, as He goes all Charles Martel-like and bests Allah in a cosmic battle fought with earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and famines.

I'm going to sleep easier tonight, grateful that I have been absolved from any responsibility.


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