In the Red Zone

PATRIOTIC ZEAL WATCH

We've heard it a thousand times:  if we act like the terrorists, then the terrorists win.  And though this may be clichéd, it's true:  Islamists use every abuse they can extract from Abu Ghraib, Guantanomo Bay and homeland calls to limit Muslims' freedom as proof that the United States has embarked on a crusade against Islam.  Unfortunately, many Americans seem intent on proving them correct.  According to USA Today, a nationwide survey of 715 people carried out by Cornell University found

44% favored at least some restrictions on the civil liberties of Muslim Americans...The survey showed that 27% of respondents supported requiring all Muslim-Americans to register where they lived with the federal government.  Twenty-two percent favor racial profiling to identify potential terrorist threats.  And 29% thought undercover agents should infiltrate Muslim civic and volunteer organizations to keep tabs on their activities and fund-raising.

Now, I'm not sure that allowing feds to listen in on some Wahhabi imam exhorting his congregation to attack American interests--or to insure that zakat does not end up in the coffers of Hizb ut-Tahrir or the Moro Islamic Liberation Front--constitutes "restricting" Muslim liberties.  But requiring American citizens to register where they live?  I can already hear Osama chortling from his Waziristani bat-cave.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the poll discovered that "people who paid more attention to television news" were more likely to endorse measures to abridge the liberties of Muslim-Americans.  And giving credence to the Michael Moorian view of Red State America,

Republicans and people who described themselves as highly religious were more apt to support curtailing Muslims' civil liberties than Democrats or people who are less religious.

Maybe these God-fearing patriots should ask themselves a question:  How can we ask our troops to sacrifice themselves in Iraq if we betray the values they're fighting for back home? 

UPDATE:  via Andrew Sullivan, Eugene Volkoh underscores my suspicion that the pollsters expanded the definition of "restricting civil liberties" in order to make a catchy headline.  But the fact that 29 percent of respondees favor Muslim-Americans registering their location with the feds remains deeply disturbing.

EXTRA CHEESE, HOLD THE MUJAHID

When Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri issued their 1998 fatwa proclaiming that every Muslim had an "individual duty" to kill Americans, they justified their declaration on the premise that "crusader armies" are "spreading in [the Holy Land] like locusts, eating its riches and wiping out its plantations."  In other words, Al Qaeda's chieftains argued that because dar-al-Islam was under attack by America and her allies, the situation merited all-out war against the Yankee infidel.  The qualification is important:  according to the Koran, jihad is only for defensive purposes:

Permission to take up arms is hereby given to those who are attacked, because they have been wronged. (22:39)

Salafists have used the "defending Islam" concept to justify terrorist attacks from Mogadishu to Manhattan, Madrid to Mosul.  Lately, however, that notion of "defensive action" has expanded to avenge perceived assaults on Muslim culture--as we first saw with the Rushdie affair and, more recently, the murder of Theo van Gogh.

Which brings us to the "radical Moroccan pizza courier."  No, that's not a character out of South Park, but, according to a December 10th article on Expatica, a website for English expats in the Netherlands, it refers to a pizza deliverer who was allegedly scoping out Amsterdam's infamous Red Light district for a terrorist attack.  Tipped off by anonymous e-mails, Dutch officials arrested a 20 year-old Moroccan identified as Bilal L., otherwise known as Abu Qataadah.

According to Amsterdam's De Telegraaf newspaper, which broke the story last Friday, Bilal L. allegedly hung out with Syrian terrorist Redouan al-Issa, reported head of the Islamist network Hofstadgroep (Main City Group).  Al-Issa, it seems, gave Koranic lessons to Main City member Mohammad B., the suspected killer of Theo van Gogh.  (Strangely enough, one of van Gogh's movies, Najib and Julia, dealt with a love affair between a Moroccan pizza deliverer and a Dutch woman.)  The anonymous e-mails warned that al-Issa planned to attack the Red Light district, in addition to the Dutch Parliament, and that Bilal L. had purchased equipment for the operation. As Expatica explains, the "Muslim extremists were allegedly furious at the lack of morals in the prostitution zone."

Well, welcome to Amsterdam, boys.  More seriously, though, if Dutch authorities are correct, then al-Issa's aborted attack on sex-workers dramatically widens the "defensive action" justification for jihad.  To Main City Group, at least, it matters not if an outrage perpetrated by unbelievers has a connection with Islam at all--if Netherland's mutawwa'in find it offends their morality, it deserves destruction.  Logically, this potential jihad-list can now include anything that Western cultures do that affronts Muslim sensibilities--which is another way of saying just about anything we do.  Drink alcohol?  Walk about with your "finery" exposed?  Fly the American flag?  Watch Desperate Housewives?  All you canine owners, beware, Mohammad hated dogs...

A GRAND U.S. STRATEGY?

In the darkest days of the war so far, U.S. Marines last April poised for a final assault on the Sunni-insurgent held city of Falluja; meanwhile, 120 miles to the south, other Marines faced a Shia uprising in Najaf.  Rallying to the cause of Falluja, Sunnis and Shias joined forces to ferry supplies from Baghdad to the City of Mosques.  Faced with the nightmare of a country-wide uprising, the Bush Administration halted the attack on Falluja in late April, turning over "control"  to one of Saddam's former generals.  Insurgents soon recaptured the city, transforming it into a base of operations.  And though Marines eventually retook the ancient smuggler's den this fall--at the cost of 130 soldiers and unknown numbers of Iraqi civilians--the April pullback is widely seen as a defeat for the American "occupier" and a moral-boosting victory for the Iraqi "resistance."

Thus the conventional wisdom regarding Falluja.  But is it true?

Consider:  four months later, as U.S. troops encircle Najaf and tighten their grip around rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his al-Mahdi militiamen, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani suddenly returns from London, where he was undergoing treatment for a heart condition; the following day, the 74 year-old leads a march of 10,000 people to end the fighting in the holy city.  During Sadr's similar insurrection in April, Sistani seemed to stay on the sidelines, content to see the U.S. and the chipmunk-cheeked cleric bloody themselves in inconclusive fighting.  Now, however, the Shia's spiritual leader throws the weight of his prestige against Sadr, forcing the rebel to stand down.  Why?  What happened?

The answer may actually be the operational-level manifestation of a larger geopolitical strategy the U.S. is using in its current efforts to democratize the Middle East:  play the Sunnis and Shia off against each other, with a subtle, but noticeable, tilt toward the Party of Ali.

In many ways, the roots of the War on Terror lie in a civil war within dar-al-Islam between an increasingly Wahhabi-dominated ummah and a Shia minority whom many hardline Salafists consider heretical (indeed, according to literature subsidized by Our Friends the Saudis, Shiism is actually a cult initiated by a Jew named Abdullah Saba to undermine Islam).  Certainly, as Stephen Schwartz posits in his book The Two Faces of Islam, Osama bin Laden's bid to become the head Islamofascist was, in large part, an attempt to steal the honor from the Shia heirs of Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini.  With an eye toward the Biblical admonishment that a house divided against itself cannot stand, the U.S. may be exploiting this sectarian rift to insure that the House of Islam--or at least its most virulent aspects--cannot stand against the tide of democracy.

In Iraq, as we know, the animosity between the Sunnis and Shia can run hot and deep.  Ever since the U.S. became embroiled in the Sunni Triangle, the Shia Hawza has watched with satisfaction as we hunt down and eliminate the Sunni gunmen and bases of operations--essentially, as Charles Krauthammer has observed, fighting their side of the Iraqi civil war for them.  But last April, the U.S. suddenly hesitated to land the killer punch.

To the Shia, this must have brought back memories of their disastrous 1920 uprising against the British, which led to an alliance between the U.K. and the Sunnis, condemning them  to 80 years of powerlessness and eventual persecution under Saddam.  Fears that the U.S. might cut a similar deal with the Sunnis may have prompted Sistani's deus ex machina-like descent from his hospital bed to deal, once and for all, with the violent aspirations of Sadr.  Then, in Act Three, the Marines return to Falluja this fall, this time finishng the job.

Tacking back and forth between the Sunni and Shia like this, the U.S.--which, despite what people might think, is neither helpless nor hapless when dealing with refractory religious groups--has managed to keep Iraq from splintering into sectarian pieces in the run-up to elections.

We can perhaps detect this strategy throughout the larger Middle East.  In a recent interview with Washington Post reporters, Jordan's King Abdullah expressed fears of a Shia "crescent," extending from Iran and Iraq into Lebanon--where Shiism is the largest of the country's numerous religious sects--and Syria, where the Allawi (an offshoot of Shiism) hold political power.  Abdullah, a Sunni monarch--hence a man with reason to fear both democracy and Shiism--told the WaPo

If Iraq goes Islamic republic, then, yes, we've opened ourselves to a whole set of new problems that will not be limited to the borders of Iraq...Even Saudi Arabia is not immune from this.  It would be a major problem.

Our hearts bleed.  A look at a map shows the possibility of Shia-dominated areas soon ringing OFTS, reminiscent of the way the U.S. surrounded the Soviet Union with bases, missiles and client states.  Note as well that the Saudis 200,000 or so Shia reside in the oil-rich areas of the desert kingdom.

As the U.S. surrounds Iran with bases in its client states of Afghanistan and Iraq, it also seems to be laying the foundation for a Shia encirclement of Saudi Arabia.  The key, of course, is Iran.  As long as the mullahs retain control of the country, and continue to spread mischief in Iraq and surrounding areas, we will not soon see a pro-American "green belt" of Shiism encircling the font of Wahhabi evil.  But the Iranian people are perhaps the most disposed toward the U.S. in the Middle East. Once the mullahs fall--as they will before long--we could witness democracy, or something close to it, sweep through the heart of the Muslim world, fulfilling the long-deferred dreams of the Shia faithful.

THE TROUBLE WITH HUBRIS

or, The Only Way to Defeat Al Qaeda

We regret to inform you that you are the worst civilization in the history of mankind.

--  Osama bin Laden, Letter to the United States, October, 2002

Having revealed himself as "Anonymous"--the author of two provocative books on the War on Terror, Through our Enemies' Eyes and Imperial Hubris--Michael Scheuer resigned last month from the CIA and has recently taken to the media to explain to the American people how we are losing the battle against Al Qaeda.  Returning the favor, we might take time to revisit Scheuer's assessments, particularly his oft-repeated jeremiad that the U.S. faces a choice between "war and endless war."  For although Scheuer advises how best to prosecute the first alternative, his view of our enemies seems almost certain to result in the second. 

For those who need reminding, Scheuer's books purport to offer a lucid, unsparing portrait of Osama bin Laden.  No homicidal maniac plotting mayhem in Waziristani caverns, says Scheuer, ObL is the scion of a super-wealthy Saudi businessman, who opted to take a sort of Muslim Pilgrim's Progress to the Celestial City of Terror.  Steeled by his Afghan experiences, bin Laden became a

...pious, charismatic, gentle, generous, talented and personally courageous Muslim who is blessed with sound strategic and tactical judgment, able lieutenants, a reluctant but indispensable bloody-mindedness, and extraordinary patience.

To demonstrate that his "bloody-mindedness" is in fact rational and legitimate, Scheuer presents bin Laden's familiar bill of indictment against the U.S.:  support for Israel, American occupation of Muslim lands, aid to tyrannical Arab regimes, and so on.  These charges, the author deems, confirm that bin Laden and his followers are attacking America out of a

...love for Allah and their hatred for a few, specific policies and actions they believe are damaging--and threatening to destroy--the things they love.

Scheuer even likens the terrorist to Abraham Lincoln.  Noting that Honest Abe believed in a "moral universe in which men could know right from wrong and act accordingly," the author declares, "I would argue that bin Laden believes in the same universe, and that Muslims love, respect and support him because he speaks of and defends that reality."

That's a whole lotta love for a man who has masterminded some of the most heinous acts in recent history.  But let that pass.  The real problem is that nowhere in his books or public statements does Scheuer discuss the nature of ObL's religious beliefs.  No mention, in other words, of how this Ibrahim Lincoln is informed by Wahabbism, the ultra-puritanical religious sect that provides the basis for Islamofascism.  No discussion, moreover, of what the terror master stands for.  In many ways, his treatment of bin Laden mirrors hagiographies of Robert E. Lee:  the brave, resourceful, noble, honorable, dignified, brilliant Confederate general who unfortunately happened to fight for the preservation of human slavery.  Not surprisingly, Scheuer sprinkles multiple references to the Virginian throughout his books.

Like Lee, however, Osama bin Laden fights on the side of evil.  Is that word too strong?  Well, imagine what will happen--Allah forfend--if the pious Muslim actually wins the War on Terror and Wahabbism emerges triumphant.  Let's avert our eyes from the smoking craters that were once Israeli cities.  Instead, let's just extend the conditions found the Wahabbi state of Saudi Arabia throughout a resurrected Caliphate stretching from the Caucuses to the Pyrenees.  Penal floggings and amputations; executions by beheadings; frequent arrests of Christians worshipping in private.  Mutawwan'in--religious police--harassing women they believe are improperly attired.  Prohibitions on women traveling alone, on driving; on being in a car with a man who is not a close relative; on eating in restaurants with men who are not family related; on seeking medical treatment in a hospital without male consent.  Shari'a courts, divorce by repudiation, workplaces segregated by gender--and this doesn't take into account the garden variety despotism found in nearly all Middle Eastern countries.

By their actions shall you recognize the wolves in sheeps' clothing, Jesus tell us.  Bin Laden is no antichrist, of course--but he is someone whose "love," "sound strategic and tactical judgment" and "piety" seeks the enslavement and death of millions and the further degeneration of Islam into nullity and despair.  In this way, he is closer to another killer who also inspired deep loyalties among his followers, Charles Manson--who, interestingly enough, entitled his 1970 folk-rock album, Lie:  The Love & Terror Cult.

To combat Al Qaeda, Scheuer recommends a kind of strategic appeasement:  acknowledge bin Laden's Zarathustrian qualities, placate the Islamofascists on Israel (to which Scheuer displays a thinly-disguised animus), develop energy independence--and unleash the full might of the U.S. military on our enemies.  "Get used to and good at killing," the author advises.  Killing whom, however?  Since no administration is likely to blitz Damascus, Riyadh or Tehran (despite the wishes of many Americans), we are left with Scheuer's first alternative--capitulation.  In the end, both of Scheuer's choices--appeasement or brutal military force--promise nothing but endless warfare against terror masters who have weaponized a religion, a culture and, soon perhaps, an entire civilization.

There is however, a third alternative we might pursue, one which Scheuer's laudatory tracts neglect to offer:  tear off the mask of the terrorist's piety.  Reveal to the Muslim world itself how Wahabbism has twisted their own religion and narrowed the scope of their lives.  In short, follow the strategy pursued by Lincoln in the Civil War, who, rather than concede to the Confederacy, coupled Union war machine with a moral offensive.  The 1862 Emancipation Proclamation may have freed few actual slaves, but the document had a more important psychological impact by effectively declaring that the Union's true enemy was not Southerners, but slavery.  Justifying his actions in a humanitarian cause, Lincoln was able to unleash his army's terrible power without compunction or doubt.  "War is hell," Sherman noted, as he put Georgia to the torch.

Like Lincoln, we must declare that our armies do not fight to destroy Islam, but to free those pressed beneath the yoke of Wahabbi despotism--religious minorities, Shiites and most especially, women.  We need a  Second Emancipation Proclamation that links bin Laden, Al Qaeda and Wahabbism to the barbarisms enshrined in Shari'a,  or strict Islamic law.  A doctrine that makes Islamofascist leaders synonymous with honor killings, polygamy and the Mutawwa'in; that fuses in the public's mind the "piety" of radical imams with burning churches and Shiite mosques, in addition to women forced to don hejab.  And we must convince Hollywood, Madison Avenue, the media, "progressive" activists and other facets of our cultural overclass to participate in the emancipation project.  "No blood for oil," cries the Left; somehow, "No blood for women's rights" seems less appealing.

But I dream.  I dream that our old-fashioned New Leftists snuggled in their anti-GOP cocoon will bestir themselves to mount a campaign against Islamofascism on behalf of human rights.  What is really troubling, however, is when trained analysts like Scheuer become so enamored of the illusions spun by the enemy they seem to lose their moral bearings.  Judging by the fruit of his actions, Osama bin Laden is an evil man; his Wahabbi beliefs inflict true evil on human beings.  Scheuer may neglect this fact, but we cannot.  The sooner we define our enemy, and show the world that he, not the United States, fights on the wrong side of morality and history, the sooner we will win the War against Islamofascism.