The War on Islamism

With the death toll in Iraq mounting, and the barbarous beheading of Americans occuring again, readers new to Democracy Project might gain some insight from a two-part blog written by John Agresto and posted here in August. We've also received a fair number of visits from people performing searches for Prof. Agresto. His blog was originally delievered as a commencement address at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, in May.

The first half is here; the second half here.

From Iraq the Model comes an essay by Joseph Ghougassian, who formerly served as US Ambassador to Qatar and CPA Advisor in Iraq. It addresses Kofi Annan's absurd, cynical, and harmful criticism of the Iraq war. I'm not sure if the English below is the ambassador's or the blogger's translation, as there are some grammatical infelicities; the meaning of the words, however, is crystal clear.

Key points:

"Annan calling the war 'illegal' at this point in time has many significant and troubling consequences. The logical inferences are such that if I was to defend Saddam Hussein or for that matter any of the 60 held prisoners belonging to his regime, I would quote Annan and argue that the removal from power of these individuals was illegal; the holding them in custody is illegal; the formation of the tribunal looking into their prior activities is illegal. The declarations made by Saddam that he is currently the legitimate President of Iraq would be considered valid. In brief, I would list Annan as my star witness in defense of Saddam."

And: "Kofi Annan's declaration of the war in Iraq by the US led coalition and its logical consequence of occupation as 'illegal' is ill timed and no more useful in bringing peace than Senator John Kerry's assertions that the US should have not prosecuted the war against Saddam Hussein. Annan and Kerry are playing with the life [sic] of million [sic] of Iraqi people and with the life [sic] of thousands of Americans and that of others in Iraq. This is not the time to demoralize our forces, nor is it prudent to make statements that will be interpreted by the terrorists as a justification to pursue their criminal ends in Iraq as the case happened when the President of the Philippines caved in to the demands of the terrorists by withdrawing her troops from Iraq."

Victor Hanson addresses the corrupt institution Annan leads, the U.N., in today's WSJ (free). Hanson writes with a sense of moral outrage, as he should, but beneath that lies a recognition that, in his words, "Our own problems with the U.N. should now be viewed in a context of ongoing radical change here in the United States, as all theprevious liberal assumptions of the past decades undergo scrutiiny in our post 9/11 world. There are no longer any sacred cows in the eyes of the American public."

One hopes his last sentence is correct upon reading Dan Pipe's "The Islamic States of America?"

"The hardest thing for Westerners to understand is not that a war with militant Islam is underway but that the nature of the enemy's ultimate goal. That goal is to apply the Islamic law (the Shari‘a) globally. In U.S. terms, it intends to replace the Constitution with the Qur'an.

"This aspiration is so remote and far-fetched to many non-Muslims, it elicits more guffaws than apprehension. Of course, that used to be the same reaction in Europe, and now it's become widely accepted that, in Bernard Lewis' words, 'Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century.'" (The Lewis link is to an interview, published today in German, by Die Welt.)

Pipes writes of the aspirations of the Muslim Brotherhood -- the Islamization of America. It's a chilling article in which Pipes writes: "This Brotherhood approach is in keeping with my observation that the greater Islamist threat to the West is not violence – flattening buildings, bombing railroad stations and nightclubs, seizing theaters and schools – but the peaceful, legal growth of power through education, the law, the media, and the political system."

Another worthwhile read is (via Power Line) Ralph Peters's Dead Soldiers, which supports the arguments of Ambassador Ghougassian and begins with these blunt words:

"IMAGINE if, in the presiden tial election of 1944, the can didate opposing FDR had in sisted that we were losing the Second World War and that, if elected, he would begin to withdraw American troops from Europe and the Pacific. We would have called it treason. And we would have been right. In WWII, broadcasts from Tokyo Rose in Japan and from Axis Sally in Germany warned our troops that their lives were being squandered in vain, that they were dying for big business and 'the Jew' Roosevelt. Today, we have a presidential candidate, the conscienceless Sen. John Kerry, doing the work of the enemy propagandists of yesteryear. Is there nothing Kerry won't say to win the election? Is there no position he won't change? Doesn't he care anything for the sacrifices of our troops in Iraq? And if he does care about our soldiers and Marines, why is he broadcasting remarks that insist — against all hard evidence — that the terrorists are winning?"

Finally, also via Power Line, Laura Ingram reaches the same conclusions as Hanson about the American public's disgust with Europe and the U.N., both of which still serve as models for culture and (in)action on the left. Her free advice to the Kerry camp:

"If John Kerry wants to turn this election around, he has got to accept the fact that Americans see no reason to trust the rest of the world. Until he and the other Democrats show that they will stand up to anti-Americanism, Zell Miller will remain a hero, and the Republicans will keep getting big cheers for their applause lines about 'not outsourcing our foreign policy' and 'not getting a permission slip from the U.N.' And unless Kerry turns this thing around very quickly, the America-bashers around the world will help put George Bush right back into the White House."