Yesterday I addressed the issues in Gaza,
Namazu on Gaza as the morning broke Hamas used the latest "humanitarian" ceasefire to position agents in Jerusalem to immediately begin slaughtering Israeli civilians as soon as the ceasefire ended. Meanwhile in Iraq the so called "Islamic State" ( ISIS) has seized the dam and reservoir for Baghdad and are starting to use tunnels built by Saddam Hussein to infiltrate the city. Meanwhile thousands of Muslims who don't care for the ISIS brand of Islam or the Islamic state have been voting with their feet trying to get behind the lines of the Iraqi army. God have mercy on these fleeing civilians who get caught by the ISIS terrorists, being machined gunned to death is the best they can hope for. Where time and numbers allow these barbarians like to crucify those who don't agree with them.
The ISIS force is still only about 18,000
( Editor's note: 5/8/2015 estimated strength now about 35,000) but they are ruthless killers now in possession of oil and other sources of revenue. They now control a large geographic area and can compel the services of the population, of course after killing a suitable number, so that the useful remainder know that "resistance is futile". They are quite open about the fact that they intend to conquer the world and impose their peculiar and some claim heretical brand of Islam on everyone at the point of a gun.
(See:
One Scary Tweet) . According to their own press ISIS expects in the next five years to push Israel into the sea, and control Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Turkey.
(Editor's note: 5/8/2015: ISIS is now operating inside Libya and is infiltrating agents via illegal alien boats and overwhelming European coast guards with waves of refugee/migrants/agents) After that is Rome, no doubt by way of Greece. They haven't given a hint on a time frame for London or New York yet but according to their scumbag leader New York is definitely on their agenda.
(Editor's note 5/8/2015 : They have already opened fire in Texas but both ISIS terrorists were killed by Texas law enforcement. ISIS states that they supposedly have 75 trained agents in America right now mostly focused on murdering outspoken critic of Islam, Pam Geller. This specific threat against a specific American citizen has not drawn any FBI or Secret Service protection to the Geller family, or even any expression of interest by the FBI. ). All this from a barely militarized band of cut throats so far with no armor and no air forces. Right now this band of brigands could be wiped out in just a few air actions if they converge forces such as for an assault on Baghdad. But they probably won't, instead they'll cut the water supply, infiltrate and conduct a terror campaign for days or weeks causing a strategic retreat by the technologically and numerically more advanced army of Iraq. With Obama in the White House the U.S. will do nothing, and NATO will do nothing as usual for fear of "offending the Muslim World" meaning the loud and vocal minority of adherents of political Islam in their countries.
(Editor's note 12/18/2014 Limited U.S. air strikes, the entry into the fray by Kurdish forces and a bit of a rally by Iraqi forces pushed back the ISIS from the immediate vicinity of Baghdad. To put the U.S. contribution to the push back on ISIS in perspective consider that the U.S. is doing between 5 and 8 airstrikes a day now compared to about 80 day at the height of the war against Saddam Hussein. ISIS is supported by Hamas, which is supported by the Muslim Brotherhood, which in turn is supported by CAIR which has a close association with the White House ) The very liberals who cry out against Western "provocations" of the "Muslim World" would have a cow if Western governments began to speak in terms of a "Christian World". When these self appointed guardians of the separation of church and state endorse and use the term "Muslim World" they implicitly accept that Islam has a political Sovereignty.
Why is it that for Western liberals Islam is allowed a political soverignity, and its OK in their view that Islam is a political and imperial project; but Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism which only seek to respond to the very human religious impulse should be suppressed and banned from all political and public dialogue? I think the answer is simple. The liberals hate the "establishment" and any formal form of societal discipline or rules. While there is no more draconian system on earth than political Islam, the liberals have miscalculated and assume they are too weak to overtake the West. The liberals want to create a theocratic state in which secular humanism is the official religion. They feel as a non religion (actually an anti religion) that the Western constitutions will actually fail to stop them from becoming the infallible guide to public policy. Modern day Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhist are loath to forcibly curtail the Liberals free speech even when liberals are forcefully advocating things they find reprehensible. The liberals on the other hand have no compulsion about attempting to use government to force all religious viewpoints out of the public debate. Since Islam has no tolerance for promiscuity, gay anything much less marriage, or the advocacy of any ideas not in conformance with Sharia law; the liberals may expect to be the first to be dragged to the cross or buried up to their necks and stoned to death if the "Islamic State" actually came to power.
Unfortunately the liberals simply don't believe that undermining the rest of the bipeds who don't want to be any part of an Islamic State will result in Islamic rule. Think again mush for brains, the birth rate among Muslims in the United States alone in slightly less than three times the birth rate for the non Muslim bipeds who have bought into your preachment on birth control.
The bodies of Christians and Jews who have disagreed with the "Islamic State" litter the Middle East, but their numbers pale beside the numbers of Muslim dissidents hanging from cranes, makeshift gallows and crosses or buried beneath the stones used to painfully kill them. We point to Muslims martyred by the "Islamic State" as partial proof that there is a religious core to Islam that tries to respond to the human religious impulse. There is a faint but discernible line between the Islamic religion and political Islam. Western governments have to be able to articulate that line and protect those Muslims who live within it and purge those Muslims who are not loyal citizens. But let's pause for a moment and address the "human religious impulse".
As I have mentioned on occasion I'm 3,000 years old and emerged from the collective human consciousness of the Japanese people of a particular time. I will live as long as the collective human consciousness still has some use for me. If the vast majority of you bipeds including the Muslims are right in assuming that man has an immortal "soul" then I should go on forever in your collective memories. Of all that I'm quite certain. Contrast that with what you bipeds actually KNOW. You are born on a specific date, you enter the world upside down, coated in slime, and condemned to death. You get a brutally short span on the planet , then you die. This gives the overwhelming vast majority a "religious impulse".
For an intelligent self aware being to just cease to exist seems unthinkable, and it does present some problems today with certain laws of thermodynamics. So the concepts of an afterlife, an all powerful God, ultimate justice, ethical behavior etc began to form. Once in a while a particular individual gained a unique insight and was hailed as "enlightened", a "prophet", or whatever. The art of theology was born with religion, the various means by which you bipeds try to get your heads around the basic idea of why you are collectively and individually in the Cosmos. A minority known as "liberals" or "secular humanist" , atheist, or agnostics didn't like what was coming out of all of the theological thought , especially "morals" and other codes to live by. That the different religiously inclined bipeds who were the overwhelming majority often disagreed on the "rules" and sometimes took to killing each other over them didn't make the liberal bipeds any more confident that any good was going to come out of this theology business. But the religious impulse is deeply ingrained in the biped DNA. So in the West religion was privatized, but certainly not banned from public policy debates.
Most Western nations such as England formed an official state church but institutionalized religious tolerance. In the United States the constitution went so far as to ban the federal government from establishing any state religion, and later constitutional interpretations extended the band to the individual states. However, the words "
wall of separation between Church and State" so beloved by the liberals who covet the position of ultimate arbiter of societal values don't appear in the Constitution. They appeared in one pamphlet by one firebrand pre-constitutional adoption commentator. The founding fathers simply voted that the government would not make any law establishing an official religion or prohibiting the free practice of religion. But there is, and was a caveat, religious practices that are "inimical to the public safety and good order" may be suppressed. So after a number of accidental deaths and amputations from snake handling by a certain strange nominally Christian sect in America, the practice found itself subjected to state regulation which stood the test of constitutionality.
While the United States and other Western nations may be extremely tolerant of even the most obnoxious speech especially when pronounced under cover of religious expression, there are limits there too. In times of war, not even from the pulpit of most nations, may a "religious" leader promote active aid and comfort to the enemy or channel congregational funds to the enemy. Nor in peace time may a "religious" leader incite murder, genocide , or violence from the pulpit. In the Western nations our own predominantly Christian experience has demonstrated the necessity for this level of control by the State over religiously inspired speech and practices. Its simply this, your RIGHT ( including religious right) TO SWING YOUR ARM ENDS WHERE THE OTHER GUY's NOSE BEGINS. Christianity had some blood drenched moments that we have learned from. Perhaps the worse was the Spanish Inquisition. But the Spanish Inquisition killed fewer people over a century and half than Political Islam or "Jihad" ( an concept used by Muslims behind the violence to justify the violence ) do in a typical year. Because of the vocal objections of Muslim minorities living in the West and the cowardly failure of liberal politicians to enforce the rules, practitioners and supporters of Political Islam, (the idea that the entire world must be governed by a particularly severe brand of Sharia law administered by a global dictatorship known as the "Caliphate" ) have literally gotten away with murder for years. Yes, literally murder in the form of unpunished "honor killings", aiding and funding terrorists organizations through particular "charities" ( and taking tax credits for such treasonous activities).
Many Western residing Muslims, many with citizenship in Western states, have crossed the line into illegality in the realm of "hate speech" and funding of enemies of the state. The Worm is about to turn, the line must be defined and the law enforced. The success of the ISIS in forming the "Islamic State" in the sense of actually controlling a large territory, population and resources changes everything. If the West can gain the courage and intelligence to act, the Islamic State changes the entire legal and moral context of the long standing armed conflict between Western States, Political Islamic terror organizations, and Muslim states that resist such organizations.
The ISIS leaders have declared themselves heads of state and government, and announced that they intend to extinguish every other state and soverignity around the world . They have literally declared "war" on the rest of the World. They meet the minimal definition of a state by taking control, within a specific area, of the governance of populations, industries, and institutions. They hang anyone who doesn't recognize their government within their presently held territory. As they expand their territory they expand their recognition and submission or death program. But they are an illegitimate renegade thug state. So were the Nazis. But the ISIS/ Islamic State is a declared state and may now be treated like the renegade state that they are.
Under the United Nations Charter the signatory nations have given up the right to make "war" except for defensive war. "
War" is defined as a state of armed conflict between states. Non state organizations (NGOs) have no legal status to be engaged in even defensive war. Armed aggression by NGOs is criminal and many states respond to particular incidents with police style "rules of engagement" which in the police context are called "use of force policies" . When the ISIS declared themselves to be the "Islamic State" at a time when they are holding territory and controlling populations changes their legal status, if the West and or beleaguered recognized Islamic states, choose to so react, the ISIS. "Islamic State" changes from terrorist NGO to outlaw state. In short they can be made "war" on.
"War", real war, is conducted in accordance with the Law of Armed Conflict and local "Rules of Engagement". The rules are much tougher. There are no needs for elaborate classification or trials for prisoners of war (POW) , an enemy combatant is taken in the field and he is incarcerated "for the duration". Its all in accordance with international law and no civil rights lawyers are involved. A POW who is not charged with a "war crime" may be held indefinitely until the two "states" have hammered out a cessation of hostilities and a repatriation of prisoners. Pursuit of "combatants is different from the pursuit of criminals. Combatants may be shot while fleeing, out flanked and ambushed, no need for warning or reading of Miranda rights. The only enemies who can't be shot are the unarmed wounded, parachuting air crewmen abandoning doomed planes (paratroopers may be shot), sailors in the water in life jackets, and those who surrender. Most importantly states at war may go after the entire support structure of the enemy. Money sources may be attacked , munitions plants, roads, bridges, electrical systems absolutely anything that may contribute to the war effort except churches, schools, hospitals, libraries, and similar cultural features. Having said all that, "collateral damage" is to be expected and is far more excusable in war than in police actions. surgical accuracy is appreciated, morally desirable, but not an absolute requirement. For example if Gaza were to be recognized as a state, Israel would be under no obligation to go in on foot and extract the enemy. Israel could stay under its Iron Dome as long as it didn't deliberately target actual residences and other prohibited targets, it could just return Hamas fire. Eventually the combination of destruction of targets and permissible collateral damage would leave Gaza a rubble pile. Not only would Israel not be under an international legal obligation to rebuild Gaza, but upon surrender, it is conceivable that Israel could demand war reparations since Hamas started the hostilities. The ISIS even at double their present strength wouldn't last six days against a concerted NATO attack that was only obligated to conform to the laws of armed conflict.
What worries the West now that the ISIS / Islamic State has put all the cards on the table is the possibility of attack from within. An insurgency that lurks within a religion automatically has a global network. Muslims have demonstrated in Germany chanting in Arabic "Death to the Jews" and never been denied a parade permit, while sometimes Jewish counter protesters instead of being protected have been carted away by police in "protective custody". By law, the Muslim protest should have been broken up and any one carrying signs or or vocalizing "death to the Jews" arrested. If a citizen, such protesters should have been charged under existing German law, and if resident aliens immediately deported. Once "war" is declared the laws change. Anyone who does not apply for asylum from within the territory of the enemy is classed an enemy alien and may be either immediately deported or incarcerated until deportation is possible, no trials. Muslim protesters who favor "the Islamic State", the Caliphate, the forced assertion of the Sharia law on Western societies have been enjoying more free expression of hate speech and incitement to violence speech than the law allows because of lax enforcement due to confusion over the issue of religious freedom.
A declaration of war, now made possible by the claims and actions of the ISIS / Islamic State changes everything. Western governments must prepare now to be able to distinguish the legitimate religion of Islam from the political Islam that has now formed a renegade state. Where is that line? Given the diversity of belief within the big tent that is Islam, does anyone know? We submit that Islam doesn't draw the line, though they exhibit a feint one; Western law does. Actions and Speech in support of the enemy and /or enemy objectives simply are not protected by claims of "religious freedom". Past speech in time of war can be cause for demanding loyalty oaths or other controls. Despite demands by ISIS for Muslims of every stripe to join them in a terror war against the West the terrorists don't come out of the "mainstream" "Muslim Community". The terrorists such as al Qaeda, and its renegade unauthorized off shoot ISIS came from what was once a severe, but peripheral branch of Islam practiced by Bedouins in desert settlements pretty much cut off from the outside world and any legitimate scholarly source of Islamic education. Certain elite Saudis began to buy many seats in the schools that produce Islamic legal and theology scholars and insure that the believers in their severe, once obscure form, soon dominated the teacher corps. Now Shite or Sunni everyone has been getting generous doses of hate speech and the caliphate. For millions of Muslims around the world Political Islam is Islam. The most gentle and deeply religious of the Muslims, the Sufis, are pursued and hated by the blood thirsty adherents of political Islam.
But we have found some highly credible Muslim religious authorities who reject all calls to violence and maintain that Mosque and State are separable. Such Muslims may live in good conscience within the confines of a secular state and under no misconceived moral compunction to kill "infidels". We have found the
Ahmadiyya Muslim Community to be one source of authentic and recognizable Muslim scholarship that vigorously asserts that mosque and state are separable, that violence is not condoned in Islam, and that no Muslim is under any religious compulsion to harm any human being. This Muslim community exists in approximately 200 countries worldwide and is especially prominent among British Muslims.
Like it or not, Western Police and military authorities are going to have to develop a sophisticated understanding of religious vice political Islam. Because when the stops are pulled out by the ISIS there will have to be a rather painful separation of the sheep from the goats. While we are sure there are thousands of political Muslims that will have to be expelled or incarcerated in that event, there are also large numbers who will need to be protected from public wrath, and the murderous intentions of the political Muslims.
The numbers are daunting. The United Kingdom has over 2,869,000 Muslims of various sects accounting for 4.6% of the entire population. Fortunately for the UK they have the largest concentration of Ahmadiyya community members on the European continent. Still, Great Britain has seen sizable political Islamic demonstrations and in the event of "war" there will have to be a winnowing, and a protection of the loyal Muslim citizens. Germany has about 4,119, 100 Muslims in residence making up a full 5% of the population. Germany has seen numerous grotesque political Islamic demonstrations where "death to Jews" has been chanted, Jews have been blocked from exiting Synagogues, and the police have generally not handled the situation in such a way that it is clear to German Muslims that speech that incites violence is a crime. Germany is going to have a very big problem and needs to clarify things for their Muslim community without delay. Germany clearly has a large group of trouble makers who they should be rounding up now and prosecuting under existing "hate speech" law . The U.S. has about 2,595 000 Muslims but that number, so close to the Muslim population in the UK is only 0.83% of the U.S. population. The U.S. Muslim population in America is more integrated into the larger society, but very diverse not all coming from a predominant origin or sect. But it is clear that terrorist recruitment occurs and there are significant numbers who would like to see the black flag of the ISIS/ Islamic state flying over New York as promised by the ISIS leader.
The ISIS morph into the "Islamic State" changes everything. We can go to actual "War" now with an actual identifiable enemy with whom we can engage under the law of armed conflict where we have the clear advantage legally, morally, technologically, militarily. The West will win and put an end for a long while to the aspirations of political Islam to rule the world by force of arms. But in so doing
the West needs to prepare now for dealing with the enemy within, without repeating the terrible injustices of WWII toward the Japanese Americans. It is time for Western authorities to actually get to know the Islamic communities among us and to learn enough about Islam to distinguish those adhering to the religion known as Islam and those enamored with a blood thirsty "Islamic" political movement, even if they are self delusional enough to think they are authentically religiously motivated. No where in the five pillars of Islam is there a direct clearly articulated requirement to place all governments under the Mosque, or to kill "infidels". Muslims who are loyal Western citizens are real, but so is the enemy among us.
Let's not let ourselves be caught up in a situation where we have to resort to the tragic methods of WWII. The enemy among us needs to be removed now and continuously so that there is never a day when he must be removed so fast that the innocent are swept up. Every Western Muslim parent needs to maintain a watch on their teenagers and young adults so that they don't fall under the sway of the hate mongers, or become clearly associated with them. Every Western Muslim family needs to carefully examine their charitable and political gifting to insure they don't inadvertently become tied by a money trail to terrorists.
There is a line between protected Islamic religious practice and impermissible speech and activities. We need to draw that line clearly now. There is a line between a terrorist campaign and aggressive war. The ISIS has crossed that line, things change.
Anyone caught marching that black flag through the streets of a Western nation should expect to be arrested. The legal context of this long struggle could change dramatically overnight. The true religious among Western Muslims need to check their affairs and affiliations now to insure that they fall under the protective mantle of government and not get caught up in a hasty dragnet. The objections of the true religious against murder and mayhem, and conversion by force needs to become more vocal and organized because its right, but also because its protective of those who are not a threat to the larger society. Religious Muslims need to stand up, stand out, and protest political Islam now before the politicos hijack your family's future.
Good luck to all bipeds at attempting to live together on this shrinking planet,
Namazu
Photo by: Alexandre Duret-Lutz
HUMAN RIGHTS BOOK SHELF
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