number of warriors available for jihad is immense,

[maruf]

Published on TaipeiTimes
www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/07/14/2003178955

The war is not on `terror' but militant Islam

By Richard Halloran

Wednesday, Jul 14, 2004,Page 9
`Trying to forge a strategy to counter something as elusive as terror only leads down a blind alley.'



Ever since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush has urged the civilized world to join the US in what he calls a war on terror. Voices are being raised now, however, to say that this is misleading and the war should be fought not against terrorism but against an adversary defined as militant Islamic extremists.

The argument is this: Terror is a tactic, not an identifiable enemy. Militant Muslims, in contrast, are people with names, organizations and assets like camps and bank accounts who use terror to achieve their political ends. They can be identified and captured or killed.

Further, this contention holds, it is important to know your enemy to devise a coherent strategy to deter or defeat him. Trying to forge a strategy to counter something as elusive as terror only leads down a blind alley.

The godfather of this thinking is Harvard professor Samuel Huntington, who published a seminal and controversial article in 1993 entitled The Clash

of Civilizations? in which he asserted that conflicts in the 21st century would be cultural, not ideological or economic.

Huntington argued that "conflict along the fault line between Western and Islamic civilizations has been going on for about 1,300 years." This quarrel, he predicted, "could become more virulent."

More recently, a member

of the Sept. 11 Commission inquiring into the US failure to guard against the assaults of 2001, John Lehman, said in a speech: "We are currently in a war, but it is not a war on terrorism." Rather, he contended, the West is in a religious war: "Our enemy is not terrorism. Our enemy is violent Islamic fundamentalism."

Similarly, a retired Army colonel who is a specialist on the Middle East, Melvin Kriesel, wrote: "We are in a global war with Islamic extremism ... Our enemy in this war is not `terrorism.' We cannot attack terrorism, because there is no state or political entity by that name."

Instead, Kriesel said: "We are at war with Islamic extremists who have declared a jihad against us." He pointed out that the West is being confronted

by millions of Muslims who directly or indirectly support the militants.

An estimated 1.5 billion Muslims, or a quarter of the world's population, are spread in an arc stretching from the southern Philippines and Indonesia across South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa to Morocco on the Atlantic Ocean.

"If a global conflict with Islam were to occur the number of warriors available for jihad is immense," Kriesel said.

Mamoun Fandy, a Muslim columnist for the newspapers, Asharq al-Awsat in London and al-Ahram in Cairo, traveled a few weeks ago to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Lebanon, and reported that the press there fans the flames of jihad by portraying "terrorists as resistance fighters."

"In each country," he wrote, "I was struck that al-Qaeda and its ideas are no longer perceived as extreme. Indeed, al-Qaeda has become mainstream and being part of the movement is `cool' in the eyes of young people."

Why? Arab culture is being corrupted by the media that glorify violence, but also by schoolbooks that present only one role model for Arab children: the jihadists and those who excelled at battling non-Muslims.

From these experts comes a consensus on the objectives of the Muslim militants: Drive the US and other Western powers from the Middle East, destroy Israel and overthrow Muslim regimes they consider to be secular. The Muslim world is

to be united in a new empire governed by Muslim religious law.

Israeli scientist Haim

Harari said in a speech that this Muslim extremism creates a "breeding ground for cruel dictators, terror networks, fanaticism, incitement, suicide murders and general decline. It is also a fact that almost everybody in the region blames this situation on the US, on Israel, on Western civilization, on Judaism and Christianity, on anyone and anything, except themselves."

"A word about the millions of decent, honest, good people who are either devout Muslims or are not very religious but grew up in Muslim families: They are double victims of an outside world, which now develops `Islamophobia' and of their own environment, which breaks their hearts by being totally dysfunctional."

The vast silent majority of Muslims are not part of the terror, Harari said, "but they also do not stand up against it." Muslim political leaders, intellectuals, and business executives "become accomplices by omission."


Richard Halloran is a journalist based in Hawaii.


Copyright © 1999-2004 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved.

[maruf]

Here is a Sister's reponse from a yahoo group:

As salaamu alaikum:
Surely they don't mean Muslims. We might comprise one quarter of the earth's population, but the earth is spacious and as an Ummah we know it. The oceans are more than huge bodies of water. They are dividing lines for us. We have imaginary walls that have become forcefields. We are separated by culture, tradition, ideology.

Before we can unite to go to war, we first have to get over Arab arrogance, Pakistan Racism, American Salafi, Wahabism. We have to see past that little piece of cloth that women wear on their heads or over their faces by wether or not by choice, the brothers that dress in Armani, rather than thobs and kufis. We have to get past the fact that not everyone wants a name that sounds Arabic. We have to let go of the idea that we are not all Sunni, Shia, Sufi. That some of us smoke, some listen to music, dance. We are not all scholar/hadith worshippers, nor do we all only follow Quran. We have to stop being Christians in our thoughts, in our hearts, in our minds and actions. We all don't belong to an individual masjid. We belong to any masjid in the world that has been placed there FisibillALLAH.

Once we get past those things, then we can start to clean our own houses. Start with Turkey. Then move to Saudi, Yemen Iran,Iraq. While you're there, smack a few of those honour killing brothers in Pakistan. Educate sisters so that they in turn can educate their children. Follow Quran and Sunnah.

I'm sure that Kreisel thinks that we are an immense force. But he's only counting numbers. He has yet to factor in the internal damage that we do to each other.

Sister




And here is my response:



wa'alaykum as-salaam!

Yes surely he does mean Muslims. This is why sister they work day and night to divide us.

Do not forget that Lawrence of Arabia and The British played a role in turning the Arabs against the Turks and rebelling against the khilafah.

Please do not forget that the Colonial Powers brought Nationalism in the Muslim World. This is not Ma'ruf talking here...Go read their own books and they will tell you because it is viewed as History, but they should follow it with explaining that this War continues till today.

The believers and I know you have met some have left all the national/race/diving lines along. Those who understand and practice their Deen understand this. This is who he is talking about. The ones you are talking about are not even struggling in the first place; they are not standing up for the Ummah and Islaam.

What he understands is when this Khilafah State Comes, and Allah promises in the Qur'an that it will, the West will be in trouble. This is what he is saying, when the State is re-established how can you stop the Muslims who are not afraid to Die and will fight to the end?

You do not even need a Billion of Muslims, just small % of this Ummah sister, and you and I and him and them, would see something never seen by our present generation. I sense the victory, Insha Allah soon. Muslims have been tortured, killed, slaughtered, raped, imprisoned, deported, abused, tricked, divided, lied to, humiliated, etc. After all Muslims have went through it is evitable that we would be pushed back to our Deen.

The Mujahideen are sincere, the Da'wah carriers are sincere, Muslims like you and I are sincere, Insha Allah. Brothers and Sisters who call for Islaam are sincere. Brothers and Sisters who have given their lives are sincere for Islaam. Those who were tortured and are being tortured for Islaam, not Nationalism, are sincere.

Let us to a degree forget about those who are not sincere or sinful. Let us work with the Ummah and work on our concepts about the Deen as the way Allah and Rasuluullah showed us.

And Btw, the only way to correct this is for Muslims to be socialized under and Islaam system. I remember how Rasuluullah disciplined the Sahabah for making a derogatory comment about Bilaal (saying "Son of a Black Woman"). So we see that Islaam has addressed these issues and sincere Muslims understand and accept this. We are hopeful and work to correct faulty concepts about the Deen. Not to hurt Muslims but to bring Muslims together, Insha Allah.

May Allah bring to life what this man understands, unfortunately better than some Muslims, will be a force to deal with and will provide a solution and justice to man's problems (social, economical, political, etc.)