Fjordman

Online Workshop Part 3: What are Islam's Weak Points, and How do We Exploit Them? What are Ours, and How do We Fix Them?

How do we defeat Islam? What are Islam's weak points, and what are ours? Ali Sina from Faith Freedom International wants to confront Islam by education. I support and applaud his efforts, but I don't think they will solve all the problems. Quite a few hardcore Islamists have more than average education, for instance. Islam has rational components. It is an excellent warrior creed (or at least used to be) and is great as an excuse for plundering the wealth of others. But first and foremost, it is an irrational cult based on fear. As such, it may not always be susceptible to rational arguments. So what is the solution? Please give your thoughts about this, and I'll make another post about the issue later. For inspiration, you can start with reading a couple of essay by Ohmyrus over at FFI, and continue with some comments by readers over at the Gates of Vienna:



Once were warriors: Why Islam failed Muslims

Islam is a warrior’s creed that served its early followers well. From impoverished desert tribes, they rose to forge an empire in a short time that stretched from Spain to India. The ethos it engendered – brotherhood for believers, contempt and hatred for non-believers, belief in heavenly rewards for fallen warriors, a high fertility rate (which requires the subordination of women), blind obedience – created formidable warriors. But these same qualities are handicaps for Muslims in the age of the microchip. Today they lead to poverty, belligerency, war and defeat. Many Muslims look back with fondness to their days of glory and try to recover their former days by using the old methods. That is why there is today a rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism across the Muslim world. They are bewildered at their weakness and look for conspiracy theories. Muslims think their failure is due to some Jewish or American plot not realizing that failure comes from within themselves. They are out of touch with reality. Once were warriors, Muslims are now like Don Quixote tilting at windmills in a world they no longer understand.

World War IV

Islam also teaches Muslims to see themselves as part of a nation of Muslims who happen to live in different countries – even in non-Muslim ones. Their loyalty to the nation state is subordinated to the loyalty to the Ummah. This is so even if they are second or third generation British or American or whatever. Each new generation will be taught by Islam to maintain its primary loyalty to the Ummah. Even new converts switch loyalty. In World War IV, the US has handicapped itself by making false declarations such as “Islam is peace”. All world wars have at least three components – the military, ideological and the economic. In World War III, the ideological component was more important than the military one. In World War I and II, it was the military component that was more important. Yet by praising Islam, Bush and Blair have already given up the ideological warfare without firing a shot.

You cannot defeat Islamism without defeating Islam. It is like trying to fight Communism while praising Marxist economic theories! In the Cold War, the US and its allies did not hesitate to argue that Marxism is a false ideology. Marx's ideas are wrong and cannot lead mankind to a better future. The democratic world must make the same case against Islam. Otherwise, we cannot win without relying heavily on the military component, which means more bloodshed. Perhaps we cannot win at all. Remember what Sun Wu said in his classic, “The Art of War”. The side with the higher moral standing is more likely to win. To do this, a leader must convince his people that their cause is just. You cannot persuade your people to make exertions if they do not understand what they are up against. Thus the burden of ideological warfare falls on groups like FFI.

Confronting the Enemy

peggy said...

I have been saying for a long time that the solution to the problem that islam poses is a simple one if we only have the courage and vision to pursue it relentlessly. Just tell the truth about it. The truth is our greatest weapon. We should only resort to other means if our free speech to protest against islam were threatened by the powers that be and then it is our right as citizens to fight those powers. The average muslim person should never have to worry about our intentions towards their persons or families or property or businesses or prayer centers as long they abide by the laws of our land. If we keep to the high ground, we should with time be able to turn things around. The first idea we must get across with meticulous care is this: It is possible to oppose islam without bearing hatred towards all those who believe it and everyone should be able to freely and openly dispute the ideas and beliefs of others by right as long as they dont call for violence against the other group in an indiscriminate way that would hurt peaceable folks.

Heloise said: Mohammed was a brilliant intuitive leader/general/ and he and his companions devised a near perfect closed system of war aginst the rest of humanity. Although a large percentage of the muslim world is illiterate, I don't believe that education is the answer here for I know muslims with PhD's that want the world to become islamic and for the sharia to be the law of all lands. Rather, I think, only by showing allah is not infallible can we be victorious in keeping our freedom, our life, our liberty and pursuit of our happiness.

Jason_Pappas said...

Be honest – brutally honest. Peggy covered this but let me put it in my words. Call things as they are. We are civilization and we should boast of our aspirations and achievements. We are facing Islamic barbarians and we should make the appropriate moral judgments without hesitation. I trust I don’t have to explain this point in this venue. Nor do I have to contrast this with the moral equivalence, relativism, and multi-cultural nonsense. Let’s appreciate two important points about being honest – its effect on us and its effect on them. Being honest will reaffirm our values, maintain our intellectual and moral clarity, and maintain morale. It’s the only way to live. That being said, there is also the instrumental effect on the enemy. Arab societies are very sensitive to humiliation and shame. During the 19th century, when the British weren’t shy about their cultural greatness, they helped to virtually eradicate slavery around the world. They shamed Arabs into changing. Muslims never developed Abolitionist Societies but they did capitulate and marginalize many aspects of their religion.

PD111 said...

joec:

Your comparison of islam to cancer, set me off in a flight of whimsical thought, yet again.

Over the years islam has been a compared to a virus, cancer, a pandemic. In some ways yes. However, such diseases are unthinking, they are bacteria, virus or the body attacking itself. None of these are able to plan and think. Islam OTH is carried forward by human beings capable of planning, thinking, and organising a plan of devouring infidel cultures, all in keeping with explicitly written down instructions in the jihad manual. Islam in my view, is more like a predator- a tiger or lion, and one that operates in the social domain. Islam is really a very good predator in the cultural domain, in and off human cultures. There is no other predator in the cultural domain except islam.

If we regard islam as a top predator and the rest as prey, it is easy to see why no other culture, whether Hindu, Buddhist or Christian has been able to withstand islam. No matter if a deer resists or not, it has no chance against a tiger or lion. The deer can preach the benefits of vegetarianism to the tiger as much as it likes (as our politicians are doing right now), the tiger will merely smile and then proceed to devour the deer.

Here again is an oft quoted view of Churchill on islam.

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”

—Sir Winston Churchill, from The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).

Note in particular the last sentence. Christianity withstod islam not because of its martial strength but because it was fortunate enough to invent modern science and its handmaiden - technology.

So how do we tackle a predator such a tiger or a pride of lions prowling about our towns and cities. There are two humane options in current use.

1. Dart and confine them to a zoo (prison), where they are unable to harm humans.

2. Sedate and then ship back to the wilds i.e. to their native habitat.

We are at the moment employing option 1 i.e. after the predator has killed a human or several humans.

Islam is a code of life that was codified by Mohammed for a tribal and nomadic culture. If some humans persist to live by this code in civilised and settled societies such as ours, then a severe clash is inevitable, as we are finding out. If in addition the tribal culture is predatory, then we have virtually no options left except 2. The lion or the tiger will not lie down with the lamb.

I believe that option 2 is far better. We are happy and the predator is also more content in his native habitat.

The Carnival of the Armchair Generals

Bill said...

I'm not taking exception here about the posters who desire the "high ground." It is a strategy to win, and that alone makes it unassailable from the standpoint of those who would surrender. However.... Why should America bother to take the high ground? Someone explain to me the benefits of America playing by "white glove" rules when no one else will play by them? Who are we trying to impress? Our own egos? The rest of the world will undoubtedly write a history that excoriates our war and how we win it (under the assumption that we will). If we are the bad, evil bastards no matter how we wage this war, does it make any logical sense to hamstring our efforts to win as quickly and as efficiently as possible? We're going to be villains no matter how we act. Just look at Gitmo for any indication of the world's opinion, no matter how far we push the royal treatment on people that have never before seen such luxury. This high ground? Is this just a salve for our own conscience as secularist Americans (whatever religious background) because we're engaging a war against a politically correct religion in contravention of all politically correct righteousness? More lives will be spent this way.

The playing field will NEVER be level, Peggy. Islam fights from Heaven. You cannot change that fact, for devout Muslims. There is no higher place than heaven. Muslims have no need for a level field. They, according to their Qu'ran, are gods chosen ones. There is no "high ground" that we can occupy, in regards to Islam. We will win, or they will win, by the sword.

posted by Unknown @ 3:01 PM