Worldwide Java Jag: 2006-08-20

Thursday, August 24, 2006

BOTTLED-UP AGREEMENT

Sometimes the wind shifts so fast, you find your sails on the wrong side of the boat. That’s how the West now finds its ship of state regarding the Muslim mind. Leading up to 9/11 was the call to jihad. Unbeknownst to the political leaders of the West, the Al Qaeda Wahabi Muslims were set upon transforming themselves into suicidal attackers. Their goal was to punish the west for its arrogance and to rid Saudi Arabia of the crusader armies squatting near Medina and Mecca.
Bin Laden and his lieutenants used Che Guevara–type images to bolster their perception as armed warriors. Always shown with arms, frequently in fatigues, he and his colleagues exemplified the Bedouin-pioneered hit-and-vanish warrior. Al Qaeda was composed of Arab men who could take down a Russian helicopter with a leftover Gurkha-issued Enfield. If necessary, they would use box cutters, but that was just expediency in the name of the goal—reclaiming the entire once-held Arab lands.
Oh for those noble days. Now the jihad mind has been transformed completely. In a sort of West Side Story paraphrase of Officer Krupke, the worldwide jihadists are misunderstood. They’re just victims of western war on them, victims of aggression, and their actions are only “resistance.” They have, like their Sufi cousins, spun and spun until the intoxication has created a spin that is 180 degrees from where they started. If you read the new statements issued by the violent Islamic fundamentalists from Malaysia to London to Sidon, they justify their murderous intentions against the west as a form of revenge for their aggrievement.
The “London Letter” issued by the coalition of Muslim organizations that laid the blame for the jet bombers square on British foreign policy was the climax, the sine qua non, of this new mind-set. The British are to blame. If thousands die midair by volatile shampoo they deserve it!!! What other reaction could a pious Muslim have to British foreign policy blunders? The sense of being put upon, of being aggrieved, of being a helpless Muslim victim, rises from that letter like rancid halal meat. The text (not even sub) sounds like the Beatles song “Act Naturally.” Because, as the text states, the natural reaction to bad policy is slaughter and death.
If I were British I would be in a state of shock. These Muslim youths were born in a democratic country. They have elected members of Parliament, they have countless local representatives, they have always had every freedom accorded all British citizens. To state that political murder is the only avenue they see open to them and to have that viewpoint endorsed by the British Muslim ulama is going to eventually invite a backlash. When it comes, it will be so profound it could shake democracy to its roots. Just imagine if the airborne slaughter had succeeded and the letter was published.
We can see the victim mind-set at word in Shiite Lebanon too. Like Hitler, all wars to Nasrallah are defensive. When Nasrallah talks of the “natural right of resistance,” this is code for “the war will never stop.” It plays on the world stage so much better to be a victim than an aggressor, to “defend” Lebanon rather than to provoke a sovereign state. In the scores of interviews conducted by western journalists, the Lebanese to a person said they were only resisting “Israeli aggression.” Never once did I read anyone saying they attacked and kidnapped. Victims all.
Why is this all so dangerous, so clearly leading to disaster? For two reasons. One, it’s all a lie. Long before 9/11, before Afghanistan, before Iraq, was Strasbourg. The Christmastime plot to bomb the Strasbourg market and kill everyone innocently shopping was an act of Sunni jihad as aggressor, not victim. The mind-set to slaughter European shoppers was deeply ingrained into Al Qaeda. So too the Khalid Mohammed plot to blow up a dozen airliners over the Pacific. These two uncovered prior plots mirror the London Transport slaughter and the foiled airline plot. Yet in those accompanying statements there was never a mention of aggrievement; they were the actions of warriors, acts of aggressive war, and Osama was proud of them. To now lie and claim these murderous actions are purely defensive and a reaction to bad policy is disingenuous and absurd.
Secondly, this victim posture will bring a huge backlash against the Muslim populations of Europe and, when it happens here, the American Muslims. The western democracies have mechanisms to correct policy errors. They are: debate and elections. Any group taking upon itself the right to circumvent these processes and go directly to violence is risking all. Aggressor or victim, the disruption of life will not be tolerated. Think about how far Le Pen got, how far the Austrian nationalists got, on a simple anti-immigrant agenda. Now imagine corpse-strewn cities, trains, and malls and an unrepentant, aggrieved Muslim community claiming it was only “resistance.” The Muslim community should very clearly think about its participation and justification of violence before it is too late. The west’s political elite needs to nip this switcheroo in the bud.