It Is A Mixture Of Stealth And Kinetic Jihad By Col. Tom Snodgrass (Ret.), Right Side News

Islam Is Pursuing A Clash Of Civilizations, The West, Not So Much

In 1993 Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington first introduced the concept of ‘The Clash of Civilizations,’ which pointed out that Islam in is conflict with all other politico-ethic-geocultural-economic-religious societal groupings (Western, Slavic-Orthodox, Hindu, etc.). In response U.S. and international academic elites dismissed Huntington’s thesis on the basis that ‘civilizations’ certainly warred in the past, but modern sovereign nationhood and economics had rendered civilizational warfare archaic. Once the Western intellectual judgment ruled out civilizational warfare on the part of Islam, it became the consensus position of every major Western nation, even after 9/11 and what became known as the Global War on Terror (GWOT).  GWOT is a politically correct evasion of truth — the accurate designation should have been ‘Global War on Islamic Jihad.’ The glaring problem with this Western intellectual judgment was that it was based on the cognitive ‘mirror-imaging’ fallacy that assumes non-Westerners think, act, and have exactly the same social values as people of Western (U.S.-European) heritage, such as a desire for democracy, equality before the law, gender, minority and homosexual equality, and all manner of ‘social fairness.’ Obviously the believer in this mirror-imaging fallacy never investigated Islamic scripture, theology, and jurisprudence. In fact, the holders of such a fact-free concept of Islam, not only were totally wrong, they willfully and purposefully refused to learn the truth. Nothing tells the story of this politically correct foolishness more graphically than the ordeal of Maj. Stephen Coughlin (USAR) who was working in the Pentagon in the capacity of civilian contractor in the J-2 (Intelligence) of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as detailed in his book, Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America In The Face Of Jihad.

Political Correctness, The Determining Force In U.S. Reaction To Jihad

Mr. Coughlin was brought on to the JCS Intelligence staff as a full time civilian consultant because of his demonstrated technical competence in analyzing Islamic doctrine and his legal background in international law. Naturally when he began his duties on the Joint Staff, Mr. Coughlin believed that Sun Tzu’s dictum, “know your enemy,” would be the guiding principle in analyzing Islamic jihad. But he quickly learned that he was wrong; that the senior leadership in the U.S. Government was adamantly opposed to changing the accepted, politically correct narrative that “Islam is peace” and that Islam has been hijacked and perverted by a small percentage of misguided, extremist Muslims. Stephen Coughlin concentrated his analysis of America’s avowed Islamic enemy’s doctrinal motivations as revealed in the Islamic Quran, Sunna, Sira, and Sharia, while the standard and preferred method of others was to use social science modeling and dubious academic constructs. Coughlin’s evidentiary analysis greatly surpassed the competing analyses, resulting in increasing demand for Coughlin to present his conclusions in briefings, which he labeled ‘Red Pill Briefings.’ This characterization was in reference to ‘the Red Pill’ given in the science fiction movie, The Matrix, that enabled seeing the enemy as he really is. In other words, Coughlin’s analysis briefing permitted distinctly seeing and understanding the actual Islamic jihadists and their motivations in the GWOT, instead of being presented the allegedly misguided, extremist Muslims that had hijacked the Islamic religion and their academically-manufactured, politically correct motives. Coughlin’s underlying belief that inspired his analysis and briefings was ‘ignorance kills.’ Unfortunately, willful ignorance is just what the U.S. Government chose in formulating national security policy in responding to Islamic jihad under both presidents George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama’s administrations. Immediately following 9/11, in order to develop a U.S. military, law enforcement, and government strategy that is ‘politically correct’ and ‘Islam-ignorant,’ Bush established the false planning premise that “Islam is peace.” Bush’s false planning premise underpinned the futile and expensive U.S. actions like counterinsurgency and ‘nation-building’ in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then the Bush Defense Department declared and enforced an ‘Islamic-jihad-knowledge-free-zone’ in the Pentagon through the prohibition of study and analysis of the enemy’s strategic war doctrine by firing Stephen Coughlin from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Next, in order to continue on the irresponsible course of being ‘Islam-ignorant,’ Obama’s National Security Council removed terms like “militant Islamic radicalism” from the 2010 National Security Strategy and substituted terms like “violent extremism” and (undefined) “terrorism.” From there the Obama administration’s obstructive effort became even more debilitating when Islamist and militant Arabic groups, representing the Muslim Brotherhood and its front groups, plus the jihadist Hamas terror organization, demanded that the FBI purge its training materials of all information which the Islamists found offensive to their ‘religious sensibilities.’ Such offensive materials included verbatim jihadist mandates in Islamic scripture. Unsurprisingly, Obama ordered that this Muslim request be carried out. The same purge of Islam-associated terminology was conducted with military training materials. But, not only has Obama banned the use of words that accurately describe the inherent imperialist aggression of Islam, e.g., “militant Islamic radicalism,” “jihad,” “Shari’a,” “Islamic terrorism,” etc., in the National Security Strategy and in official correspondence and discourse – he has also attempted to conceal the barbarity of Islam by refusing to acknowledge acts of Islamic jihad for what they actually are as he did at Ft. Hood.

The Clash Of Civilizations

The first order of business is to establish that there is in fact a ‘clash of civilizations’ and demolish the myth of the jihad-deniers. The foundation setting up the ‘clash of civilizations’ is found in basic Islamic doctrine requiring the division of the world be codified as “Dar al-Harb” (domain of unbelievers in which Muslims make jihadist war) versus “Dar al-Islam” (Islamic domain where Sharia is the law). According to Oxford Islamic Studies Online:

Dar al-Harb: Territory of war. Denotes the territories bordering on Dar al-Islam (territory of Islam), whose leaders are called upon to convert to Islam. Jurists trace the concept to Muhammad, whose messages to the Persian, Abyssinian, and Byzantine emperors demanded that they choose between conversion and war.

Dar al-Islam: Territory of Islam. Region of Muslim sovereignty where Islamic law prevails.

  When this division of the globe into the ‘world of jihad’ and ‘world of Sharia’ is considered along with Mohammad’s declaration of unending jihad until Islam conquers the world, the on-going ‘clash of civilizations’ is undeniable and irrefutable.

Bukhari (2:24) – “Allah’s Apostle said: ‘I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah’s Apostle’.”

Although Bush and Obama contend that ‘we are not at war with Islam,’ Islam is at war with us. Furthermore, the jihadists believe they have been at war with the ‘infidel forces’ we represent to them since the founding of Islam. It is impossible and illogical to assert that only one side is at war. It would be as if we had tried to pretend that only the Japanese were at war with us, but we were not at war with them after they attacked us at Pearl Harbor. However, in the 21st century, Bush and Obama have actually tried to elude reality and pretend that we are not at war with the Islamic jihadists who attacked us on 9/11 (and numerous times before and since), thereby defying the logic that there cannot be a war only waged by one side. The purported reason given by Bush and Obama for denying we are at war with Islam is that they don’t want to give cause for the jihadists to inflame the Islamic world ‘umma’ (world Islamic community) into believing that the U.S. is engaged in a religious war against Islam. But the simple truth is that such a belief is ingrained in the Muslim religion worldwide, irrespective of whether U.S. presidents say it or not. The perennial enemy ‘other’ concept is baked into Islam. There is another reason why Islam is at war with us that is also built into the very fabric of the religion of Islam. Mohammad’s genius was to unite feuding Bedouin tribes into a cohesive polity by instilling a shared tribal mentality through creating a tribal religion that had the imprimatur of the God that Mohammad appropriated from Judaism and Christianity. Mohammad’s genius is explained by the Middle East Quarterly:
Building on the tribal system, Muhammad framed an inclusive structure within which the tribes had a common, God-given identity as Muslims. This imbued the tribes with a common interest and common project. But unification was only possible by extending the basic tribal principle of balanced opposition. This Muhammad did by opposing the Muslim to the infidel, and the dar al-Islam, the land of Islam and peace, to the dar al-harb, the land of the infidels and conflict. He raised balanced opposition to a higher structural level as the new Muslim tribes unified in the face of the infidel enemy. Bedouin raiding became sanctified as an act of religious duty. With every successful battle against unbelievers, more Bedouin joined the umma. Once united, the Bedouin warriors turned outward, teaching the world the meaning of jihad, which some academics today say means only struggle but which, in the context of early Islamic writing and theological debates, was understood as holy war. Tribal identity coalesces in opposition to the “other.” Common Muslim attitudes toward non-Muslims reflect the influence of these tribal values. The historical evidence for the degradation of Christian and Jewish dhimmi [subjugated religious minority] in Muslim lands is overwhelming, both in quantity and near unanimity in substance.
Tribes cannot exist without enemies, and Islam cannot exist without the ‘clash of civilizations.’

Islam’s Organizing Principle

During Mr. Coughlin’s in-depth study of Islam, he found that the primary organizing principle of Islam is the implementation of Islamic Sharia law as the sole jurisprudence in territory of Dar al-Harb. The logic behind that strategic doctrine is to establish the legal framework and authority to remove any and all obstacles, human, legal, and cultural, to the eventual installation of Islam. Once the Sharia is ‘the law of the land,’ then the choices of the Quranic suras 9:5 and 9:29 can be dictated to unbelievers: 1) convert to Islam; 2) surrender and pay a yearly extortion tax to buy their life; or 3) resist and die. If an unbeliever chooses 2), he becomes a ‘dhimmi’ under the ‘Pact of Umar’ that puts heavy restrictions on him, making him a second class citizen. Should a dhimmi violate the Pact of Umar restrictions, he reverts to prisoner of war status, that is, he can be freed, ransomed, exchanged for Muslim prisoners, enslaved, or executed. Therefore, being a dhimmi means being ‘a prisoner of war in abeyance.’ It is the jihadists’ initial imposition of Sharia law in conquered territory and the Quran option to become a dhimmi that permit the Islamic claim that they do not forcibly convert non-believers to Islam.

Sunni Islam’s Strategy Against America In Accordance With Sayyid Qutb’s Milestones

Employ the following agents of Islamic jihad:

 
  1. Office of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) represents the ‘umma’ and serves as the de facto caliphate being the inter-governmental body composed of the 57 Muslim states in the UN; acts to infiltrate international organizations in order to blind non-believers to the truth of jihad and sabotage all non-Islamic organizations.
  2. Muslim Brotherhood (stealth jihadists), their innumerable spin-off front groups, and like-organizations perform “Dawa” (proselytizing/preaching Islam), while clandestinely functioning to place political agents of influence in the U.S. Government to obfuscate the true jihadist nature of Islam, and also to conduct “lawfare,” which is to stealthily introduce Sharia piecemeal into U.S. jurisprudence. It is these ‘Dawa jihadists’ that the naïve and ignorant Western public mistakenly and dangerously misidentifies as ‘moderate Muslims.’ Another clandestine function the stealth jihadists perform during the Dawa phase is to use the shaming of ‘Islamophobia’ to shut down all public analysis of Islam, and if that shaming tactic doesn’t work, then to employ physical intimidation as in the attempted attack of the ‘Mohammad cartoon event’ at Garland, TX.
  3. Kinetic jihadists (e.g., Al-Qaeda, Al-Nustra, Taliban, the Islamic State, Hamas, etc.) that attack after the Dawa organizations have undermined the enemy spiritually by sowing uncertainty, confusion, and terror, ultimately resulting in psychological and physical dislocation. Depleting the enemy’s physical and spiritual stamina before the attack are considered more important to successful jihad than the active war. The Islamic strategy is that kinetic jihad is not undertaken until the necessary Dawa preparation has been accomplished.

Dawa Preparation Phase:

 
  • Dominate the information battlespace by confusing the U.S. government and public about the true jihadist nature of Islam, thus creating a ‘pseudoreality’ that Islam is too ‘complicated’ for non-Muslims to understand; consequently, only foreign Islamic advisors can supply an accurate picture of ‘the real non-jihadist Islam.’ Bush and Obama have been very willing to comply with their misleading characterizations of Islam as peace and transforming Islam into ‘violent extremism’ to perpetuate the fiction that ‘Islam has nothing to do with jihadist terror.’ Gullible and ignorant government, media, academic, and religious ‘useful idiots’ eagerly assist the jihadists by spreading their mischaracterizations of Islam throughout American society. The objective of Dawa is to drain enemy’s moral reserve and shatter the public’s confidence in their leadership.

Kinetic Jihad Phase:

 
  • Attacking to spread mayhem, doubt, confusion, and psychological terror. In the first two Arab (632-750 AD) and Turkish (1071-1683 AD) jihads the objectives were to defeat enemy armies in pitched battle; however, in present day jihad, engaging and defeating Western armies is beyond the capability of jihadists. Consequently, today’s Islamic jihadists have taken a page from the North Vietnamese war plan to fight ‘the long war’ in order to psychologically wear down and demoralize the superior Western forces. In the jihadists’ view, implementation of Sharia installation will perhaps require generations to achieve, but Islamic jihadists think in terms of centuries since they believe this war began in the 7th century.
Conclusion Just about everything the U.S. has attempted since 9/11 in the GWOT to stem the Islamic jihad has been ineffective or inconclusive (aside from killing bin Laden and ‘droning’ some jihadist leaders). Without a doubt the policies of both Bush and Obama have actually impeded American acquisition of knowledge of the enemy and, therefore, thwart effective strategy development by insisting that the U.S. rely on foreign Muslims as the primary sources of our information about Islam and jihad. This inexplicably wrong-headed policy has played right into the jihadist strategy of dominating the information battlespace and confusing the U.S. government and public about the true aggressive jihadist nature of Islam. The strategically sought-after ‘pseudoreality’ has been achieved. Further, two very wrong-headed strategies followed by both presidents that have played into the jihadists’ ‘long war strategy.’ The first was Bush’s pursuing counterinsurgency and nation-building (endeavors that typically require decades) and second was Obama’s ‘degrade and ultimately destroy’ jihadism in Syria and Iraq strategy. By such an open-ended and nebulous policy Obama is approving ‘war without end.’ Since the jihadists see their path to victory through wearing down Americans psychologically and morally through unending war, Bush and Obama could not have served up more jihad-friendly strategies. Everything about Islam is diametrically opposed to Western philosophical and political beliefs in regard to democracy, equality before the law, gender equality, freedom of speech, and religious freedom. It makes no sense to believe that Islam with its ‘Dar al-Harb’ destroy-the-West doctrine and its intolerant Sharia jurisprudence can coexist in or with free Western societies. The facts of this reality demand a sea-change in Western strategy that openly admits and publicizes the truth about Islamic jihad’s imperialistic objectives and implements war-fighting that does not accommodate the jihadists’ ‘long war strategy.’ The World War II strategy of decisively destroying the enemy’s will and capability to make war is a must, since the Islamic jihadists are every bit as fanatical as the German Nazis and Japanese Shinto-Bushido worshippers. See the Colonel’s Archive]]>