It’s sure as hell not what the White House thinks it is:
The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.
Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it. We’ll need to get acquainted with the Islamic State’s intellectual genealogy if we are to react in a way that will not strengthen it, but instead help it self-immolate in its own excessive zeal.
But this administration wishes to bury its head in its assthe sand.
It’s a long read, but well worth it, from The Atlantic.
[Update a few minutes later]
And then there’s this:
Many mainstream Muslim organizations have gone so far as to say the Islamic State is, in fact, un-Islamic. It is, of course, reassuring to know that the vast majority of Muslims have zero interest in replacing Hollywood movies with public executions as evening entertainment. But Muslims who call the Islamic State un-Islamic are typically, as the Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel, the leading expert on the group’s theology, told me, “embarrassed and politically correct, with a cotton-candy view of their own religion” that neglects “what their religion has historically and legally required.” Many denials of the Islamic State’s religious nature, he said, are rooted in an “interfaith-Christian-nonsense tradition.”
Every academic I asked about the Islamic State’s ideology sent me to Haykel. Of partial Lebanese descent, Haykel grew up in Lebanon and the United States, and when he talks through his Mephistophelian goatee, there is a hint of an unplaceable foreign accent.
According to Haykel, the ranks of the Islamic State are deeply infused with religious vigor. Koranic quotations are ubiquitous. “Even the foot soldiers spout this stuff constantly,” Haykel said. “They mug for their cameras and repeat their basic doctrines in formulaic fashion, and they do it all the time.” He regards the claim that the Islamic State has distorted the texts of Islam as preposterous, sustainable only through willful ignorance. “People want to absolve Islam,” he said. “It’s this ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ mantra. As if there is such a thing as ‘Islam’! It’s what Muslims do, and how they interpret their texts.” Those texts are shared by all Sunni Muslims, not just the Islamic State. “And these guys have just as much legitimacy as anyone else.”
There is no Pope of Islam. I’m pretty sure they know what Islam is more than our Theologian-in-Chief does.
[Update a few minutes later]
One more point. People who ignore the Caliphate as the goal of the Islamists ignore it at no just their, but our peril. That is the theological importance of ISIS control of territory and declaring itself a state. And as with the mullahs of Iran, do not ignore their own apocalyptic vision.
[Update a few minutes later]
This is a genocidal movement akin to Nazism.
Yes. In fact, it is much more theologically coherent, with a much longer historical pedigree. It’s just been relatively dormant for a few generations, so fools like Barack Obama cannot imagine how it can exist in the 21st century. And yes, unlike Nazism, it doesn’t have a technologically competent industrial state from which to operate. But also in the 21st century, it may not need one. Particularly when the state with the most potential capability to defeat it has a leader that pretends it does not exist.
[Update a while later]
But wait! There’s more! Remember when some people questioned my comment that the Left is implicitly allied with Islam? Check this out:
Abdul Muhid, 32, continued along these lines. He was dressed in mujahideen chic when I met him at a local restaurant: scruffy beard, Afghan cap, and a wallet outside of his clothes, attached with what looked like a shoulder holster. When we sat down, he was eager to discuss welfare. The Islamic State may have medieval-style punishments for moral crimes (lashes for boozing or fornication, stoning for adultery), but its social-welfare program is, at least in some aspects, progressive to a degree that would please an MSNBC pundit. Health care, he said, is free. (“Isn’t it free in Britain, too?,” I asked. “Not really,” he said. “Some procedures aren’t covered, such as vision.”) This provision of social welfare was not, he said, a policy choice of the Islamic State, but a policy obligation inherent in God’s law.
So really, they hate the Enlightenment, they want a welfare state, they’re genocidal, like the Nazis, Stalin, and Mao? What’s not to like?
Every academic I asked about the Islamic State’s ideology sent me to Haykel.
Well it could be that Haykel has studied IS, knows its ideology and is Americas #1 expert on IS, or it could mean that Wood moves in limited circles.
Muslims who call the Islamic State un-Islamic are typically, as the Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel, the leading expert on the group’s theology, told me, “embarrassed and politically correct, with a cotton-candy view of their own religion”
Haykel is no more an expert, actually probably less of an expert, on what is expected of Muslims than Muslim scholars who are actually adherents of that religion, and hey, if you’re going to label modern mainstream Islam as cotton candy because it interprets the Koran as less pro-violence than it was perhaps interpreted a thousand years ago, modern Christianity, and most other religions practiced today, are also members of that cotton candy club.
I would refer you to Bobby Jindal’s response to President Obama’s similar flight from reality:
“It was nice of the President to give us a history lesson at the Prayer breakfast,” Jindal said. “Today, however, the issue right in front of his nose, in the here and now, is the terrorism of Radical Islam, the assassination of journalists, the beheading and burning alive of captives. We will be happy to keep an eye out for runaway Christians, but it would be nice if he would face the reality of the situation today. The Medieval Christian threat is under control, Mr. President. Please deal with the Radical Islamic threat today.”
Are you saying that ISIS isn’t Islamic?
IMHO, one question that should be asked (but I’ve yet to see it) is what is ISIS, structurally and tactically?
Looking at maps of ISIS controlled territory gives us a clue;
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/76042000/gif/_76042192_iraq_syria_isis_caliphate_624_03-07-14v2.gif
ISIS is clearly very road-centric; they rely, far more than most modern armies and insurgencies, on roads. This gives the US a rather easy strategic move; to disrupt ISIS, wreck the roads and bridges. Secondly, take out as much of the vehicle-fuel infrastructure as possible.
It’s by no means a total answer, but it’s a good start IMHO. Helping the Kurds would be an even easier move, one we should already be doing but aren’t.
CJ, I get your point, and it is not a bad one. However, using roads to quickly envelope your enemy and take over their supply chains is rather an obvious tactic for ISIS to employ. Further, in terms of analyzing where they are, the people reporting and checking on their progress are likely to use roads as guides whether studying a map or talking to people on the ground. So, I would consider the road part not as telling.
That said, one could argue that air attacks alone are great, because they don’t require roads. However, Obama’s attempt to limit the US military response to air power alone means we can’t exploit the areas off road, which the US Army is well equipped to do; and we can only destroy roads and bridges, rather than take with ground units to be utilized in post ISIS recovery. But hey, we are talking about Keynesian scholars, so they probably think destroying the bridges and roads will improve the Iraqi economy.
That’s an artifact of the settlement patterns of the great Syrian-Iraqi interior. People have been settling along the Euphrates and the caravan routes for four thousand years. It’s blasted desert away from those corridors. For much the same reason that the Jordanians and the Islamic State are not direct neighbors – because there just isn’t much communication between the Jordanian corridor along a lesser historical caravan-route into Anbar and the great Syrian caravan-route. In order to get at each other, they’d either have to take a hook through Anbar or go through the mess around Damascus. Thus, Jordan keeps mounting air-raids, because there just aren’t any logistically tenable military routes directly north to Raqqa.
I find it interesting that the author acknowledges the quietist salafists, but neither the quietist Shia, nor the quietist majority of the non-salafist Sunni population. As do many, he often speaks as though scriptural literalism is the only stance.Still, he *does* acknowledge differing interpretations of Muslim scripture. Islam has the lack of any centuries before its imperial phase to have grown a doctrine separate from the needs of the imperial Caliphate. Christianity had 270 years to do that before Constantine captured Christianity for the Roman Empire. The compilation of what the Sunnah remembered even as they were engaged in coarsening conquest makes Islam’s scriptures far less useful in resisting the revival of an imperial Caliphate than Christianity’s would be in resisting a revival of a Roman Empire based in Constantinople.
The Khomeinists are an aberration within the Shia traditions, which *had* to develop mainly as quietist traditions, because Sunnis would not tolerate Shia in power. Yet, like the salafists, they have the hotajieh, preparing for the end times, and enabling the coming of the 12th Imam by creating chaos in the world. I worry as much about what the Khomeinists will gain in the strife as I am about al-Baghdadi’s cutthroat crew.
People who ignore the Caliphate as the goal of the Islamists ignore it at no just their, but our peril. That is the theological importance of ISIS control of territory and declaring itself a state.
They also display the same pre-9-11 ignorance that caused so many to dismiss Bin Laden as incapable and uninterested in hitting the US hard despite the WTC bombing and embassy attacks. The propaganda and recruiting websites were easy to find in the days just after 9-11. The message then is the same now, they want to restore the Caliphate and expand it.
One other reason to recognize the religious aspect is to understand the mood and tactics that will be employed. I criticize CJ above, but at least he is working on strategy. That’s what understanding ISIS religious context will aid as well. They will attack and destroy enclaves of other religions or sects. When they succeed, they will not take prisoners unless those prisoners can be ransomed off to fund additional attacks. Even then, as we saw with the Jordanian pilot, the ransom effort is so much perfidy, which suggest they are better funded now.
As Wodun has noted, if the enemy is killing the captured innocent, and they are; then assaulting their strongholds is far less a threat of harm to non-combatants and non-ISIS supporters. In short, we don’t need to be as restrictive in fighting ISIS. Neither is fire bombing or nuking necessary. The US does need to show an overwhelming display of force but we have a more effective arsenal than available in WWII. We can do far more military damage with fewer and more precise weapons, and we can make some of those weapons do spectacular things that scare the hell out of the enemy. Put an AC-130J with some A-10 support, and you will demoralize the enemy faster than with a predator drone. But you won’t win the war with air power alone. You need boots on the ground to help refuges, to build up infrastructure, and particularly to capture the enemy so you can gain information for exploitation and hasten the end of the war.
But to even win a war, you have to acknowledge who the enemy is and what their motives are. We can continue to pretend their is no war. That ISIS is only an enemy if we let them be. Fantasy like that has no track record of success.
Why us? ISIS is a direct threat to Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. Why not let those countries fight their own battles?
Why us? For one, Iraq is an ally and friend of ours who still needs our help to grow into a country that can take care of itself. Before the age of Obama, we used to help our friends when they needed it. Now, we just throw them under the bus when things get tough and Obama lobbies Democrats in the media not to report on events around the world.
For two, the rise of ISIS is due in large part to Obama’s foreign policy blunders in Libya, Egypt, and other Arab Spring countries but especially his policies in regard to Syria. The Islamic militants that Obama armed and trained in Libya, later joined up with ISIS and took those arms and training with them.
Obama’s dogmatic ideological refusal to allow American troops to stay in Iraq, like in Germany and Korea, also contributed to the invasion of ISIS and the inability of the Iraqi military to respond effectively. This wasn’t a bad choice just from a military perspective but also a diplomatic one but then again Obama totally disengaged diplomatically as well.
“Why not let those countries fight their own battles?”
Why not help them? We share a common enemy. Syria was promised American help but then denied. Turkey is a member of NATO. Iraq is an ally and so is Jordan. How can you claim to want to fight ISIS, as Obama has done, and then not help the people doing it?
Why not help them?
We are helping them. But we shouldn’t make it our fight. ISIS says it offers the one true model for Muslims society. It needs to be defeated, both militarily and theologically, by Muslims offering superior alternatives.
” But we shouldn’t make it our fight.”
It is our fight but that doesn’t mean we have to do it alone. No one ever said we had to do it alone.
“t needs to be defeated, both militarily and theologically,”
How can that happen when the President always says it isn’t a military problem and that ISIS isn’t Islamic?
Why us?
For far better reasons than the answer given for the same question in relation to how to pay for Sandra Flukes sexual habits.
The Atlantic article was terribly depressing. I do not believe we have the fortitude or strength of convictions any longer to actually defeat this foe. The best we can hope for, barring some shocking revival of sanity here, is some sort of half-hearted holding action that will bleed us dry, Vietnam-like, until we give up.
I disagree. We will have the fortitude, but it will only come when non sentient people like Jim can actually sense the pain. For many, 9-11 was just that, because who could deny Americans were not being harmed when you see them jumping for their lives from 90 stories up. Alas, those pictures were replaced by Rosie explaining how steel doesn’t burn. Fantasy and ignorance is more blissful.
Jim is right about other national priorities. Sandra Fluke needs birth control. Obama needs immigrants to build the voter base he lost when failing to deliver on his promises. The GOP leadership needs to cling to power until they die, and the GOP young bloods need to convince the leadership to relent before all the likely voters leave the party. ISIS can just be shelved until the Europeans handle it, just see their track record of success in stopping tyranny on their own in the last century.
The priority will change because ISIS wants it to change, and no one will stop them until then. It’s like you always find something the last place you look, because it is inevitable you will stop looking. It is inevitable that ISIS will over step and cause Americans to sense the pain and make them a priority. The only question is how much pain will it take?
The good news is ISIS is less a slow growing cancer and more like a heart attack. You may ignore the occasional numbness, but you will eventually feel the undeniable chest pain that modern technology can heal. A cancer tumor will slowly grow on an unimportant organ until one day it suddenly spreads to an important organ and it becomes to difficult to remove.
I think it’s a fascinating article, and depressing in terms of what ISIS portends for anyone who lives in its territory, and the misguided Muslims flocking there. But it also makes clear that ISIS doesn’t pose any direct threat to the West — its agenda is to set up a state and gradually expand its borders by taking territory from its Muslim neighbors. ISIS’s theological need for a formal state that administers a fixed territory makes it both less threatening and an easier target than stateless underground terror networks.
ISIS’s theological need for a formal state that administers a fixed territory makes it both less threatening and an easier target than stateless underground terror networks.
Weren’t you just telling us yesterday that:
Which is it? A non-state that is therefore less dangerous, or a non-state that is more dangerous?
It’s a poor, backward, geographically fixed state. That makes it less dangerous to its neighbors than a rich modern state (like Nazi Germany), and less dangerous to the rest of the world than a stateless terror group (like Al Qaeda).
So, owning oil wells doesn’t constitute rich? This is from a liberal rag, Newsweek:
But it is so much easier to blame it on the Crusades, or just ignore it. That’s what we did in the 90s.
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/11/14/how-does-isis-fund-its-reign-terror-282607.html
Jon,
Did you catch the state department nitwit that claimed just after the half dozen beheadings that one solution for fighting ISIS is finding them jobs? The day after her idiocy, I saw an exclusive from an Egyptian that managed to avoid being captured by ISIS, his brother was one that was beheaded. What ISIS did was go into a town and disguised suggested there were job opportunities in Libya, help wanted. Several men in the town drove to Libya hoping to find work and were captured. But the US State Department thinks the ISIS murderers are the poor people just looking for a job.
ISIS is very poor by comparison to Germany.
“ISIS is very poor by comparison to Germany.”
So? Are you saying we should be sympathetic to ISIS because they are poorer than Germany? That we should overlook them because they don’t have as much money as Germany? That they only act the way they do because of poverty?
Why does their income matter? How does it effect their ideology and their goals?
They are doing well enough off their current income. Waiting until they have more income is retarded.
Jim,
Please tell us your definition of the term “direct threat” as used in your post above, specifically, “…ISIS doesn’t pose any direct threat to the West…”
Thanks in advance..
If ISIS had the means and motive to kill lots of Western civilians, or damage Western economies, it would pose a direct threat. But if you believe the linked article, ISIS’s top priorities are to enforce its version of Islamic law in the territory it controls, and gradually take territory from its neighbors. So it will kill the handful of Westerners that fall into their hands, but it isn’t capable of or focused on attacking what Bin Laden called the “far enemy”.
Do you believe the Atlantic article? The author makes a number of assertions about ISIS’s motives and its plans. Today, I believe neither the author, you, nor I can predict with any certainty what ISIS will do tomorrow, let alone next month or next year. Nor do the three of us know ISIS’s current capabilities for attacks on the West, or what those capabilities may be in the future. Therefore, claims that ISIS does not pose a “direct threat” to the West can only be based on assumptions.
Note: Jim, I suggest you stick with the Administration’s approved lingo, and use the term “existential threat” rather than “direct threat.” The Ivy Leaguers chose that word carefully, and skillfully. No one can credibly argue today that ISIS poses a near-term threat to destroy the United States. IMHO, that terminology gives them plausible cover for their “Strategic Patience” dealing with ISIS. Unfortunately.
“o it will kill the handful of Westerners that fall into their hands, but it isn’t capable of or focused on attacking what Bin Laden called the “far enemy”.”
Uh huh. I guess we should just forget what happened in France and the USA.
They want to do both things, attack the west and enforce their version of Islam in the lands they conquer.
“But it also makes clear that ISIS doesn’t pose any direct threat to the West ”
You must not listen to the things they say. Not only are they a threat to the west but all of humanity. It is interesting how you just write off the genocide, beheadings, crucifixions, throwing gays off rooftops, and the fact that they operate all over the middle east and northern Africa.
“its agenda is to set up a state and gradually expand its borders by taking territory from its Muslim neighbors.”
Gradually? You seem to be saying don’t worry, when they have a state then we can reason with them. What about when they have several states?
Have you watched any videos of these Islamic militants during their attacks or of their punishments? Have you seen any of their videos where they preach their message?
You must not listen to the things they say. Not only are they a threat to the west but all of humanity.
They have delusions of grandeur.
It is interesting how you just write off the genocide…
Keeping some perspective isn’t writing off anything. ISIS is doing terrible things. Boko Haram is doing terrible things. The anti-balaka are doing terrible things. None of them are anywhere near the top of the list of threats to U.S. citizens.
the fact that they operate all over the middle east and northern Africa
You’re buying into their propaganda. Anyone can pop up anywhere in the world and claim to be doing something as part of ISIS (or Al Qaeda, or Asian Dawn for that matter). That doesn’t mean that ISIS as an organization has any control over those people, or even knows who they are, or that flooding Iraq and Syria with U.S. ground troops and killing every last ISIS member there would solve the problem (in fact, it’d almost certainly make it worse).
You seem to be saying don’t worry, when they have a state then we can reason with them.
Try again, I’m saying nothing of the sort. They won’t be defeated by the U.S. reasoning with them, they’ll be defeated militarily and ideologically by their Muslim enemies.
Have you watched any videos of these Islamic militants during their attacks or of their punishments?
There’s no need to indulge their propaganda efforts. They want to provoke us — why let them?
” There’s no need to indulge their propaganda efforts. They want to provoke us — why let them?”
So you don’t know wtf is going on. We knew that but it is nice to have conformation.
” the fact that they operate all over the middle east and northern Africa
You’re buying into their propaganda”
You are clueless. You don’t know what is going on.
“That doesn’t mean that ISIS as an organization has any control over those people”
They don’t need to control them. It is a decentralized movement. Not everyone is a Democrat that needs to have direct control over other’s lives through the power of the states. They have control through adherence to a common ideology. They are free to act as they want as long as it is in support of the ideology.
“they’ll be defeated militarily and ideologically by their Muslim enemies.”
What about their other enemies like us or the Christians being crucified? Gays being thrown off buildings? Women being sold into slavery?
What about their other enemies that can not fight back and are also victimized by other Muslims?
“They want to provoke us — why let them?”
I think that us not getting involved is what they really want. We own them on the battlefield. Whatever failings we have had over the last 15 years, it isn’t that our troops don’t kick butt, it is that our politicians don’t kick butt and one party has an affinity with the people we are fighting.
But wait! There’s more! Remember when some people questioned my comment that the Left is implicitly allied with Islam? Check this out:
How does anything in the quote that followed make me implicitly allied with Islam? By that logic, Sweden’s secular government is as well. Perhaps we should bomb Stockholm.
Wait, I can do that one, too. Rand, I’m sure you’re in favor of a powerful military. So was Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Why are you implicitly allied with authoritarian dictatorships?
It isn’t like we don’t see Democrat’s activists regularly siding with militant Islamists. Are we just supposed to wipe that from our memory? If you don’t like that the association exists, it would be better to take it up with your fellow Democrats rather than the people who point out the relationship exists.
We are also supposed to forget Obama mentioning the Crusades followed by ISIS beheading 21 Christians in Libya referred to by the executioners as Crusaders.
It isn’t like we don’t see Democrat’s activists regularly siding with militant Islamists.
Do you also see a big rabbit named Harvey?
Here is the non-conservative Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/why-obama-wont-talk-about-islamic-terrorism/385539/
Calling the Paris shooters, “random”, calling the Fort Hood shooting “workplace violence”. You are siding with the attackers by not naming them.
There is also Obama at the UN General Assembly saying the future does not belong to those who blasphemy The Prophet. That along with calling modern Christians “Crusaders” will get you 40+ immolations and 20+ beheadings all in the name of stopping the apostates and Crusaders. Heckofajob Barack Hussein Obama.
Note how Obama isn’t going on about how videos of immolations and beheadings are inflaming sensible and peaceful people in the west. The reason to truck down to the UN and complain about videos is when they make fun of
religionIslam.You are siding with the attackers by not naming them.
Obama does not side with the Paris shooters, or the Fort Hood shooter. If he actually sided with the Paris shooters he’d praise their actions and call for more of the same. If he actually sided with the Fort Hood shooter he’d pardon him. Is it really so hard to see the difference?
This idea that if someone does not talk about killers using rightist-approved language he is on the side of the killers is a completely ridiculous form of political correctness.
Sure, whatever you say, Neville.
Here are Democrat activists shouting Alahu Akbar at Jewish students. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/3/university-of-california-students-chant-allahu-akb/
When Democrats hold protests, I like to go read their message boards, look at pictures from the protests, listen to speakers, and watch their live streams. Since the year 2000, there is an undeniable defense by Democrats of the actions of Muslim militants usually predicated on anti-colonial and anti-American views. They always claim that the Islamic militants are justified in their actions because of some past deed by someone else, sort of like when Obama brought up the Crusades and said that they have “legitimate grievances” in the LA Times op-ed today.
Just like communists, you wont find a Democrat protest without a contingent of people advocating on behalf of Islamic militants, even at global warming and Ferguson protests.
Nothing in your link refers to Democratic activists. The Democratic party does not support anti-Israel boycotts.
The problem is that whenever you see people saying things you don’t like, you automatically assume that they represent the Democratic party (which, in your mind, is called the Democrat party). That’s your issue.
The BDS movement is a creation of the Democrat party and widely accepted by the party. You want to say that Democrat activist groups are not affiliated with the Democrat party but in reality they are the heart blood of the party.
If it wasn’t accepted by Democrats, there wouldn’t be votes in state legislatures and pressure campaigns against companies.
I guess for you, being a Democrat means never having to acknowledge the activities your party engages in.
Have no fear, Obama will fight to our deaths to maintain his delusions.
The ignorance of those equating hebrew and muslim history is stunning (and shows the appalling lack of perspective typical of the left.)
Muslims are to kill or enslave everyone. Passive Muslims are the heretics. Jews were instructed to war for a very limited purpose in a very limited area. Not at all the indiscriminate Jihad of Islam.
The people described to occupy the promised land before the Jews were judged because of what they did (barbarity greater than Islam ever commits… but give them time to catch up.)
Sodom and Gomorrah, for example, were destroyed for cause, not for whim. These are examples for us today because it is not without purpose that nations have a sword… Dresden, here they come.
I disagree that Islam is genocidal to the same degree as Nazism. Islam makes no distinction based on race. The distinction is based on religion alone.
I also disagree that the Koran is substantially more noxious than the Ancient Testament. This is not just about Sodom and Gomorrah. The Ancient Testament is littered with descriptions of forced conversion, in particular with circumcision, with the alternative to that being death. It has instances where believers forcibly take married gentile women from their gentile husbands by killing their husbands and raping them. To a certain degree this was understandable because most of it happened in the context of invasion by the Sea Peoples but it still doesn’t make it acceptable.
The Muslims need to learn how to separate their historical religion, in its own context, from the current context. They also need to understand the necessity of the existence of the secular state as separate from their own religion. Ataturk got that but the current Muslim leaders don’t.
“I disagree that Islam is genocidal to the same degree as Nazism. Islam makes no distinction based on race. The distinction is based on religion alone.”
Does the race angle matter? Sure they don’t do genocide based on race, they do it based on whether or not someone is the right kind of Muslim or a non-Muslim. Basically, they want to exterminate everyone regardless of race if they do not follow their specific brand of Islam. That casts a far wider potential net for genocide victims than the Nazis had. They already have a good start on matching the body count from the concentration camps too. Left to their own devices, they will surely reach or surpass it.
“The Muslims need to learn how to separate their historical religion, in its own context, from the current context.”
Yes, that is a good point. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all share a common history and it isn’t just one of holy books. They all sprang forth from the same culture. In many ways these cultural and religious issues have intermixed because culture and religion were so close to each other thousands of years ago for most humans and Islam today. The problems don’t arise just from religious beliefs but from cultures who’s roots predate Islam, Christianity and possibly even Judaism.
“It has instances where…”
Can you cite some of these? I’m not doubting or denying it. I’m just not a Biblical scholar, and am genuinely interested.
The point you left out Godzilla, is the bible unlike other books, does not leave out the bad actions of it’s people doing things that god disapproves of, from individuals to the entire nation. It’s one of the things that makes it more trustworthy.
Blaming god for evil is a common mistake. When you look into a matter closer you find it just isn’t so. God created everything, but didn’t create Satan. Logically that doesn’t make sense, right? But that’s ignoring the actual truth. God made angels, along with all creation, that was good. He gave them free will. Would you argue that free will is bad? One angel used his free will to become Satan.
Not understanding why god allows evil for a time is another mistake. He could eliminate free will or take away any penalty for wrong… but that’s human thinking. Eternity is a long time.
The Muslims need to learn how to separate their historical religion, in its own context, from the current context.
They can’t remain Muslim and do so. Partly this is a problem with the fuzzy definition of Muslim which is both an ethnicity and a follower of Islam (ethnicity not being right either.)
The Muslims you would like to ‘separate’ would be heretics. The only true solution is for a Muslim to declare they aren’t one. Which has two problems. Islam says that is a death penalty and the ethnicity muddy waters.
“They can’t remain Muslim and do so.”
Sure they can. He is talking about a reformation type of event. All groups and ideologies change over time, even religions.
A reformation has to have something to hang it’s hat on. Islam has its pacifist offshoots, but they aren’t Islamic and can’t be because they don’t hold to the Koran.
Imagine if the christian reformation could only happen by abandoning the bible? (ok, some would argue exactly that.)
“But to even win a war, you have to acknowledge who the enemy is and what their motives are.”
I see the core objectives of ISIS as “purifying” the religion and eventual world domination. Their tactics include extermination of entire cities that resist them. No measure of brutality appears beyond them. While they may, for the moment, be focused on local conquest, given the chance to consolidate gains and become a secure state they Will launch credible military raids on wider targets. If they somehow obtain WMD they will be used, even at the cost of their own soldiers. Even now they recruit or inspire individuals and small groups throughout the world to make attacks on their behalf.
In short, ISIS is a growing threat. It will be stopped only by strong forceful measures. There is no avoiding the death of many innocents.
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all share a common history
Not according to Islam, which is one of the few things they get right.
Mohammad saw this christian thing taking off and wanted to get on the band wagon but had a problem. Arabs saw themselves as sons of Abraham, but through Ishmael, rather than Isaac. So Mohammad turns the story on its head a says the promise was to Ishmael instead of Isaac. The problem there is Mohammad also wants to claim Jesus as an Islamic prophet (because that’s the mojo he wants to tap into in the first place) but that’s a real problem because Isaac is in Jesus’ lineage.
You can only twist the truth so far, and the illiterate family murdering child rapist, piss be upon him, just couldn’t get it all right.