We have watched some of the speeches made in the House of Commons calling for British air strikes against ISIL in Syria and Iraq. A sample--a speech by Labour MP, Hilary Benn--can be found here.
At one point in his speech, Benn reviewed some of the horrors and murderous villainy committed by the Caliphate.
Now Mr Speaker, no-one in this debate doubts the deadly serious threat we face from Daesh and what they do, although sometimes we find it hard to live with the reality. We know that in June four gay men were thrown off the fifth storey of a building in the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor. We know that in August the 82-year-old guardian of the antiquities of Palmyra, Professor Khaled al-Assad, was beheaded, and his headless body was hung from a traffic light. And we know that in recent weeks there has been the discovery of mass graves in Sinjar, one said to contain the bodies of older Yazidi women murdered by Daesh because they were judged too old to be sold for sex.He also referred to the threat of terrorist attacks, inspired and aided by the Caliphate, in the UK. There is a clear and present danger in that country--and indeed throughout the West, including New Zealand.
It is a fundamental duty, if not the most fundamental duty, of civil government to protect its citizens from armed attack. This is a duty given by Almighty God, and to which every government will be held to account before Him on the day of judgment. The fact that the Caliphate sends, inspires, provokes, trains, and equips guerilla soldiers to infiltrate Western countries to murder non-combatant civilians is an act of war. It is the fundamental duty of respective Western states to detect, hunt down, and kill these enemy soldiers--who can be accurately referred to as irregulars, guerrillas, commandos, special forces, whatever--but clearly enemy soldiers and combatants. Many of these soldiers are also traitors to the countries in which they now live and whose citizens they have become.
While striking at the Caliphate's home base may be of some use--particularly to the Peshmerga--and also to the defence of Western nations, it is of limited value in combating the immediate threat to our own citizens and in conducting the war within our own borders. But it is easy for Western nations to take such decisions as the one taken by the House of Commons: the war being conducted in the air by Western air forces is hardly likely to produce many costs in blood to Western electorates. It is an abstract, comfortable, war.
But it overlooks the clear and present danger facing all Western citizens. Upon this Western governments must be focused like a laser. But they have not been, are not now, and are unlikely to be in the future. They want to fight last-century type wars. Not only that--they want to fight them from the comfort of their armchairs.
A fundamental maxim of all successful military defence is to "know your enemy". Western governments are caught in a vicious trap of believing that (so-called) Islamic extremism has been caused by Western imperialism and the ravages of capitalist exploitation. Therefore, it believes its most fundamental duty is to make amends by accepting the Islamic religion and make appropriate acts of atonement. This had led Western government to a persistent failure to understand ISIS, the Caliphate, and suicide bombers. It has led them to conduct a faux campaign of tolerance, welcome, and acceptance of Islamic devotees--thinking, thereby, that the West will diffuse the threat. The West believes it will kill the enemy by kindness.
An historical parallel would be the Western allies attempting to defend against the Nazis, the Fascist powers, and Japan all the while believing that Fascism was an unintended and unfortunate result of the Treaty of Versailles; and that the Western nations, victorious in World War I, had effectively facilitated Fascism's popularity, and were ultimately responsible for it. Nations cannot fight a war when they are racked with guilt and pity towards those attacking them.
Regardless of causes, the fact remains that ISIS and "extremist" (we would say, seriously devout) Muslims believe fervently that it is a fundamental duty of all Islamic believers to conduct holy war, or jihad, against all non-Islamic peoples and nations. Islamic holy war is not merely metaphorical: it is literal, physical conflict--thereby following in the footsteps and example of Muhammad, Allah's prophet. Those Islamic adherents who refuse the duties of jihad are judged to be apostates, and under sentence of death as apostates. Once a people is conquered they are to be given Allah's terms: convert, or willingly subject one's family to slavery via the imposition of Sharia law upon the unbeliever, or die.
In combating the irregular guerillas active within our borders, it is essential that the hiding places of the Islamic commandos be removed. This requires a full throated, systematic instruction of resident Islamic believers in the actual doctrines and teachings of ISIS, arguing and proving these doctrines from the Koran, the Hadith, and Sharia law. The problem is that the vast majority of Islamic believers today are ignorant of their own religion. Here is the place to start. Likely? No. To embrace such a strategy means Western governments must become far more knowledgeable and honest about historical Islam--and that would contradict a far more important and fundamental Western narrative--of the West being responsible for the emergence of Islam in the first place.
It's hard to wage war when you are racked with guilt and pity with respect to the enemy.
No comments:
Post a Comment