My colleague Diana West has another essential, trenchant analysis of the Islamic correctness—founded upon provably false, and ultimately delusional conceptions of Islamic doctrine—that underpins General Stanley McChrystal’s Afghanistan assessment. This very dangerous fool’s errand is epitomized by the General’s effort to expose what he calls the insurgents’ “flagrant contravention of the principles of the Koran.”
Diana humorously reprieves the clear-eyed 2003 statements of jihadist Abu Qatada—a putative “spiritual guide” to Bin Laden—to educate General McChrystal, but I fear those who support the General’s grossly errant views will simply spray her with the hideous and ignorant charge of “being like Al Qaeda,” and “accepting Al Qaeda’s view of Islam”
Arun Shourie’s brilliant analysis of the stultifying and dangerous living legacy of the Islamic doctrine being imparted by the orthodox Muslim religious establishment in his native India, and repeated throughout the Muslim world, “The World of Fatwas,” puts Abu Qatada’s assertions in their true global context. General McChrystal might also read my own compendium “The Legacy of Jihad” to begin to learn and understand the historical impact of the mainstream, classical Islamic teachings on jihad—a genocidal, yet orthodox Muslim institution. Here is the crux of what Shourie has left for General McChrystal to learn, and soon, so a rational policy can be formulated that actually protects US national interests, the fundamental Western freedoms we embrace, and the precious blood and treasure of our most valuable assets—our fighting men and women:
“It is of the very essence of a totalitarian ideology that it enforces its right to regulate the totality of life. The Koran, the Hadith, the fatwas represent one continuous endeavor in this respect: they aim at controlling every single aspect of life…The ideology [of Islam] is premised not just on the belief that believers are eternally separate from, and eternally superior to non-believers. It is premised on eternal hostility between the two. Fanaticism and terrorism, [and] aggression are the inevitable results of this worldview. Accordingly, the ideology makes it well-nigh impossible for Muslims to live peaceably in societies in which Muslims are just one of several communities. Indeed, it makes it impossible for an Islamic state to live peaceably in a world where there are non-Islamic states also…
… [W]e must expose, and work to thwart concessions by our opportunist politicians [and military leaders] which are meant to appease, and will in the end strengthen the grip of these reactionary elements…”
What follows (in Part 2 of this blog) are germane extracts from Shourie’s “The World of Fatwas,” including his clear citations of the Koran, hadith, and Hanafi manual of Sunni Islamic Law, The Hedaya, ALL of which are blithely ignored by General McChrystal and his ilk, from pp. 567 ff.
