Fitzgerald: Obama Still Locked Into Folly In Afghanistan, Part III

We are all waiting for someone, a sensible Republican or a sensible Democrat, who recognizes that the best argument for staunching the flow in Afghanistan depends on recognizing the threat of Islam. Obama put himself into a box of his own making. When he gave his Cairo speech, he uttered such untruths about Islam that he could not get out. He saw Bush, and raised him. Raised him, in fact, that the argument that might have been available to Obama, who is clearly so terrified of appearing to be weak in the "war on terror" that he is wiling to go along, despite his long-standing but confused reservations, with those who want to send more troops.

He is willing, that is, to sacrifice another few thousand lives, and another one or two hundred billion dollars, because he cannot go back on what he has said. He cannot begin to recognize that throughout the American government, and among those whom those in the government claim to protect and instruct, there has been an effort to obscure the truth about Islam and the history of Islamic conquests over the past 1350 years. What, after all, could one learn from John Esposito or his "Al-Waleed Center"? What, for that matter, could one learn at Columbia, from Joseph Massad or Rashid Khalidi or Hamid Dabashi? What could one learn from a few dozen other major universities, where the teaching of Islam is firmly in the hands of Muslims or of non-Muslims who have shown themselves eager to act not as scholars and teachers, but as apologists of Islam? (For a little more, google "MESA Nostra").

By being easy on Islam, Obama now must be extra "tough" in the misleadingly-named " war on terror." And the so-called "conservatives," who back in 2003 locked themselves into a policy of unthinking loyalty to the Bush Administration's naïve campaign to "bring freedom" to "ordinary moms and dads" in the Middle East, and then to do something of the sort in Afghanistan as well, are also in a box of their own making. And the only people who are not in some kind of box are those of us - you, dear reader, and I - who began by ignoring the repetition of pieties about Islam and instead chose to find out something about the ideology of Islam and the history of Islamic conquest, and to see if the observable behavior of Muslims around the world today appeared to reflect that ideology of Islam, and that history, or if it did not.

And tiens, it turned out that a knowledge of the texts, tenets, history of Islam gave one the ability to make sense of events around the world, and not merely to make sense of what had occurred, but to accurately predict what would happen. As we have, here, with Iraq, ever since calling for a withdrawal from that country at the end of February 2004, and with Afghanistan - where it seems we are to go in deeper because Obama doesn't want to reconsider what he said at Cairo, doesn't want to think too clearly, or to prepare himself too well, on the subject of Islam. And his opponents on the other side think Iraq is a "success" and that somehow our goals improve our position, when our position could only be improved, in Iraq and in Afghanistan, if the end result is a dividing and demoralizing of the Camp of Islam, by ceasing to prevent those countries from going to their natural hell.

What could be done with 1% of what is going to be wasted in Afghanistan? I don't mean what could be done for medical care, road repairs, teacher training, and so on. No, I mean what could be done to more cleverly defend the interests of the imperiled West, and of all Infidels, everywhere?

Well, here's just one thing. We could recognize the need for propaganda. Not the Bush Administration "propaganda" where Karen Hughes was talking non-stop about how wonderful it was for Muslims in America, what success stories they were, and how we had no problems with Islam at all. No, we get quite enough of that, and we certainly don't need more. It does nothing to protect our interests, and instead of weakening the hold of Islam on Muslims, makes them think that they are on the side that will inevitably grow stronger, and win.