Reverse Jihad
“Matches and Haystacks”
(An Arabian Allegory)
Let’s consider two combatants contemplating war against one another and make a wager on which will be victorious before their war begins (“victorious” meaning : “to get the outcome the combatant wants in the war”).
On one side are the “haystacks.” They are the common-variety haystacks, made of golden harvested grass, pitched high in a pile , shining in the sun. These haystacks want to endure , intact, until their destinies are fulfilled by deployment into the service of their makers. On the other side are the “matches” – all of them the self-igniting stick variety, having the general size , shape and aspect of large needles without eyes.
The ultimate purpose of all the matches is to set fire to all the haystacks. The easiest way to accomplish this is for the matches to imbed themselves deep inside the haystacks , where, because of their small size and the haystacks’ greater mass , it is easy for them to remain hidden until the call for ignition. When the call to ignite is given by the leaders of the matches, all the matches in all the haystacks will strike themselves and go up in flames along with their individual haystack hosts. Being thusly consumed , however, is no defeat or problem for the matches, who are all trained by masterful match mentors to believe that when they are immolated in a haystack fire they themselves start, they will be instantly transported – intact and unscathed into an after life where they’ll be safe and happy forever - that being , cushioned amidst the churlish labia and securely-clenched teeth of an aspiring cinema cowboy , sitting on a subservient bale of hay in the non-smoking section of a sushi bar in lower L.A. watching CNN and waiting for a Hollywood talent agent to phone.
Now for the wager: When all the matches in the world are safely and securely ensconced in all the haystacks in the world, and the haystacks declare war on the matches and threaten to seek them out and set them on fire, tell me , where are you going to place your bets?
REVOLUTIONARY WAR ON TERRORISM :
“REVERSE JIHAD”
When you’re marching to war in the dark , in the enemy’s own territory, and you have no idea of his whereabouts – not to mention his identity - do you turn to the strategies of Generals Patton and Rommel, or Ceaser’s Gallic Wars? Although the principles of conventional warfare helped expedite the outcome of Desert Storm, they were little help with the Viet Cong and they’ll be of even lesser utility in ferreting out those ghosts of Jihad hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan and in as remote hideouts in possibly twenty other countries. This time, rather than Schwartzkoff and the Manual of Arms, I think we’re going to need something akin to Aikido, Islamic style, al la Allah. We’re going to need “Reverse Jihad”.
The Problem:The Enemy
Our terrorist enemies are stateless. Their principal bond is their only identifying feature - the mask of holy Muslim Warrior waging a self-proclaimed revolutionary Jihad, pursuant to an auto-generated edict , or Fatwa, calling for the death of all Americans and other “ infidels”. These terrorist fanatics are willing (and in many cases wanting) to die for their cause. We are not contending with the typical motives of a territorially-acquisitive invader like Saddam Hussein; we are being attacked by a perverted belief system and the zealous followers of a brilliant and psychotic charismatic leadership. The most effective force to overcome such a belief system is the force which created it, according to one Aikido principle of martial art. We can kill any number of terrorists, provided we find them, but the only power that can disarm the entire disparate band of holy warriors is the power that created and sustains them. Like it or no, these terrorists are on a holy mission. It is rationally and theologically a twisted and perverted mission, but a mission perceived by its zealous executors as by and for Allah nonetheless . Only Islam can intervene to “end” (as opposed to “win”) this newly-declared war on Islamic Terrorism. Fortunately there may be a way this can be accomplished.
The Solution(s)
Discovering a solution to the problem doesn’t end the problem – only implementing it does. The terrorist threat presents a compound problem that must be solved on three levels: the immediate, the core and the ultimate .
The ultimate problem will be dealing with the terrorists when and if we identify and locate them. The core problem is discovering a means of identifying and locating the enemy. The immediate problem is discovering the means of communicating the solutions to the core problem to our administration and military leadership.
What follows is a proposal for solving the core problem – identifying and locating the enemy. A secondary purpose of the present writing is to enlist the reader in the task of solving the immediate problem - getting the core solution to the leadership whose task is to execute the ultimate solution, and getting it to them in time … before we run amuck and enable the Bin Laden’s out there to realize their ultimate goal of global Armageddon.
The Terrorist’s Prophesy and Plan
Bin Laden wants and needs this “war between Islam and the rest of the world”, in the aftermath of which, he plans to become Iyatolla Mondo. If Americans follow through with their covert , obtuse and inchoate plans to invade Afghanistan – or any Muslim state, on the ground or in the air , innocent people will die. Muslim innocents. This will fulfill bin Laden’s prophesy, confirm his status as a prophet of Islam and quite possibly mark the beginning of the true mother of all wars – Islam vs. the rest of the world. The least we stand to lose in such a war are our oil supplies and economic viability; the most , along with others, our peaceful existence (pardon the arguable redundancy) . Fortunately there may be a way to avoid all this and still accomplish the ultimate goal of defeating the terrorists in their quest for Armageddon and world domination by default.
In Pursuit of the Core : Premises
1
With the possible exception of Israel, every Middle Eastern country directly or indirectly depends on oil, U.S. distribution of petro products and U.S. (world) economic stablity to survive. Automobiles and computers today are material and corporate composits of multi-national industry. The stock markets and monetary systems of the East , West and Europe , while posing as disparate and autonomous performers on the shimmering surface of commerce, are symbiotic and even incestuous beneath the currents of international competition. Presently the world is watching while its capital resources are beginning to trickle down a deep and dark hole an alarmingly few Persian pirates dug in the soil and soul of New York’s treasured island. Bin Laden’s terrorist team , if successful, could ultimately destroy Western , OPEC and conceivably the entire world’s economies . The keystone of economic stability is confidence. The sheiks and clerics who control Islam have been to school or else have a dozen or more sons who have. The concept that bin Laden’s agenda, unimpeded , could render the Twin Towers but the first to fall in a global house of cards is not beyond their ken.
2
Bin Laden’s counterfeit fatwa against the U.S. and others is, according to true Islamic law, criminally false and heretic. There is no room for debate on this point - unless one is debating an Islamic terrorist.
3
Islamic leaders and clerics in conjunction with secular heads of Arab state dominate the governments in all Islamic countries, including Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Pakistan , Afghanistan and the rest.
4
Seeking out , locating and eliminating Bin Laden and his twenty-thousand-strong, stateless, multi-nationally-based net strewn out in all these disparate territories is MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, at least for the U.S, with use of conventional machinations and tactics. It’s Viet Nam times ten … maybe twenty.
5
Bin Laden’s strength and the sine qua non of his terrorist revolution is his ability to convince uneducated, impoverished, desperate , marginal Islamic people that the U.S. and other “infidel” capitalistic people are the cause of their miseries, and that a holy war (Jihad) waged against them will improve their miserable plight.
6
Bin Laden’s phony fatwa and his united Jihad war are , according to Islamic law, not only criminally wrong, but religiously hypocritical and heretic, such as would justify a fatwa and Jihad being declared and waged against him and his terrorist network. Why isn’t it already? Indeed. The point.
7
Presently , Bush, C. Powell, the U.S. Congress , State Department and Armed Forces are all frenetically deliberating on a means of coaxing unfriendly or luke-warm (to America) Arab nations to assist us in the war we’ve declared against bin Laden and the pseudo-Islamic terrorists. To this end, Bush is contemplating a bootleg turn in dipolmacy (from Clinton’s plan) to unilaterally propound statehood for Palestine. He’s obviously contemplating the concession of this precious Arabic quid without realizing the potential of the Western quo he could lever in exchange. All he stands to gain is Arab approval and good will, and maybe some passively-aggressive tokens in the way of fly-over nods and possible air base concessions.
8
When we were listening to the speech given by Iran’s deputy foreign minister to the U.N. on Oct. 2nd, we heard him state that the highest Islamic leader of Iran had recently declared that “the war against the terrorists itself amounts to Jihad.” Was anyone listening? Islamic leaders from virtually all Middle Eastern kingdoms and countries have , since September 11, met and unanimously condemned all past and recent acts of terrorism as criminal and “non-Islamic” , and where self-denominated as such, “heretic”. Was anyone listening? More recently, and since it has come to light that not only bin Laden, but perhaps as many as 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were native Saudi Arabian, America’s most strategically and economically important Middle Eastern ally acknowledged through its interior minister (Prince Nayif bin Abd al-Aziz al-Saud) that Kingdom’s vulnerability to (and by implication , responsibility for) home-grown terrorism:
“We will not forget that those who now are in their caves and burrows, they are the ones who do harm to the Kingdom” . . . “and unfortunately Muslims are being held accountable for them although Islam is innocent . . .” Declaring that no one, not even their relatives, should show terrorists sympathy, the Prince added: “The body has diseases and some organ could be diseased. So the diseased organ must be removed.” *
Was anyone listening?
9
Two things should have crystalized in our thinking upon the occasions of these epiphanic utterances: First , that Bin Laden, his Taliban and the whole terrorist cult are essentially problems of Arab generation and etiology, and accordingly, exist and persist as essentially Islamic problems . We in the West are simply the most recent secondary victims of the Islamic body’s terrorist disease and its sequelae . Second , that we were being handed – by the ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia – both the ideologic means, and the theological/political precedent to solve the core problem of current terrorism.
We should be sympathetic with the deplorable living conditions of the war-weary and leary Afghani’s. But the Taliban is over there - in control of them , over there. We are over here. Yes, we may have played our part in the Cold War which created the governmental void which the Taliban filled upon Russia’s retreat. But , though we are all reaping the harvests sewn in that war, no one is really to blame for terrorism but the terrorists , Bin Laden and the Taliban.
“Islamic terrorism” may be oxymoronic , but it is also a reality – as much a reality one could argue as were the savage wars of religious conversion waged centuries ago by Christians and Muslims both denominated
“crusades” . But, again, let us insist that, although it has killed some of us Westerners and horrified us all, Islamic terrorism is fundamentally an Arab problem, and more accurately, an intramural problem within the world’s Islamic community which should be dealt with as such.
* Sciolina, Elaine , “Naming of Hijackers as Saudis May Further Erode Ties to U.S.”, N.Y.Times, Oct. 25, 2001.
The Solution : “REVERSE JIHAD” *
The solution ? Get the word to Bush to muster instantly all American allies in NATO and elsewhere and , in a coalition with them, call for an Arab/Islamic Summit – a joint summit to which essentially two internally-aligned coalitions are party – with one (The coalition of Islamic Arab nations) hosting, and the other (“Western Coalition”) being invitees. Accordingly, the Arabs would invite the U.S. and its current corps of allies to attend the Summit as such – friends and allies in the as-yet undeclared war (Jihad) for Islamic unity , purification and security. The Summit should be called “Arab/Islamic” in lieu of “Arab/Western” or “Arab/Allied” or “Arab/(Any)other” to emphasize and memorialize the fact that the Summit’s purpose is to address and solve what is essentially an Arab/Islamic problem, i.e., the problem of ending pseudo-Islamic-Jihad terrorism.
The diplomatic agenda proposed for the Summit by the Western to the Arab Coalition would be to give the Arab coalition its choice, viz. (1) the alternative of having the U.S. and allied nations carry forward, as outsiders the ongoing “war on terrorism” as forecast by Bush, in the course of which those armed forces would enter Afghanistan and other Arab nations where terrorists reside in order to eliminate them with military force and other means, or (2) to have the U.S. and its allies hold invasive plans indefinitely in abeyance while the united coalition of Arab nations declares and wages (with the assistance of the U.S. and its allies) Holy War (Jihad) against the heretic terrorists who have falsely and criminally declared a Jihad against innocent peoples who are friends and allies of those united nations of Islam.
In the course of waging this United Reverse Jihad, the Islamic authorities would be nominally leaders, and the secular (armed) forces of both the Arab nations and Western Coalition would act as deputized Jihad warriors, such that any and all military operations would be in the nature of assisted internal affairs
or police actions (as opposed to invasive acts of limited warfare). More importantly, all military operations would be cloaked in the legitimacy of an official Arab/Islamic campaign. Since , under Islamic law, no terrorists (except those condemned by fatwa) could be attacked (at least by any foreign power) until tried, they would be subjected to military force only to the extent required to obtain their arrest and confinement pending their Islamic trials. It is to be doubted that many terrorists would willingly surrender to be tried in a tribunal which would certainly be concluded by a guilty verdict and execution. The processes of their apprehension and arrest alone would reveal their identities, actions and whereabouts to their “infidel” Western predators.
For those terrorists who are captured or who surrender themselves , it is suggested that no better outcome could be possible than having a so-called Islamic “Jihad warrior” arrested , tried and imprisoned by an Arab/Islamic tribunal, as perhaps the worst outcome would have been his martyrdom (viz., his being killed in the conduct of Jihad by “Western Infidels”). It is most likely that any terrorists identified and sought under such a system of justice would flee, resist arrest and die at the hands of deputies in the course of search and arrest. In cases where the terrorist is well known or the evidence brought against him clear, a fatwa would be issued which amounts to a non-adjudicative condemnation in absentia which would leave fright and flight the terrorist’s only options.
* “Reverse Jihad” is at once a noun phrase and a (strategically) imperative sentence.
The immediate effect of the summit proposal (alternative #2) would be to force each individual Arab state off the Middle-Eastern fence and require it to declare to the world its position on the purportedly autonomous terrorism being launched from inside its borders. In a perhaps less Machiavellian , but similar fashion, the U.S. recently – and effectively – forced the Taliban to confirm its identity with Bin Laden by ordering it in essence to arrest and hurl him before the Western juggernaut.
It is likely that the other Arab states are somewhat less dysfunctionally co-dependent on their respective resident terrorists and will recognize early-on that prolonging alliances with them will be their ultimate undoing . As the U.S. and Israel adjust their historic embrace , with Palestine and Arab terrorism and détente at stake, so will the Arab Sheiks and Clerics reassess their covert affairs with the terrorist elements in their Bedouin bailiwicks, considering the same stakes from opposite sides of the table.
The seeds and sentiment for this assault on Saudi somnolence are in the hawkish winds of Washington politics already as evidenced by recent declarations of Senator Joesph R. Biden (Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) in which he said not only that Saudi Arabia was “funding hatred”, but that the United States has “gone overboard in its love affair with Saudi Arabia” , and more pointedly: “I know they’ve got a lot of oil, but they need us more than we need them.” *
The Arabs’ “2nd alternative” will require all Arab states willing to participate actively to identify, condemn and turn over Islamic terrorists within their borders and thus demonstrate , rather than merely declare , their allegiances.
If the Arab Coalition elects to exercise the Jihad alternative (as is anticipated), the summit would go forward to deliberate on and design the various tasks to be assigned to and performed , respectively , by the Arab Coalition and their western-deputy-Jihad warriors. For obvious reasons, the Western Coalition should bargain for deputy power separate but equal to police authority delegated to their Arab military counterparts. The policing powers delegated to officers of the Western Coalition would be “cooperatively – but where necessary – collaterally exercisable” , again for obvious reasons.
If Bush and Congress truly want to follow the English precedent and parlay traditional ties with Israel in our anxious quest for more strategically-serviceable national alliances , then let’s get some mileage out of the inconstancy with and for which Israel will certainly charge us , and win the war against pseudo-Islamic terrorism at the same time.
The first thing to do is to educate and re-direct Bush in his current mission. The name of the strategy is Fifth-Column Warfare – inserting (or fostering ) a warrior-contingent within the camp of the enemy . The end purpose of the strategy is to instigate a reverse jihad by which Islam purges itself of its currently pervasive brand of pseudo-Islamic jihad terrorism .
The inducement is easy. First, bartering for an independent Palestine, however efficacious and long- overdue, is probably not necessary. But if it’s bound under Bush’s plan to be done, then “ ‘t wer well it were done quickly” – and as bargained-for consideration for the alliances we are seeking and desperately need. The pact to be negotiated in such alliances would be one of contingent obligation on part of the
* Sciolina, Elaine , “Naming of Hijackers as Saudis May Further Erode Ties to U.S.”, N.Y.Times, Oct. 25, 2001
United States – U.S.-sponsored/U.N. enacted and enforced statehood for Palestine – in exchange for and only following a successful condemnation and purging by the Islamic Coalition states (with Western assistance) of its pseudo-Islamic terrorists through a united execution of the Coalition’s Reverse Jihad (Holy War).
Moreover, the timing for such an alliance and pact could hardly be more propitious from the American standpoint, as our position as instigator in the Palestinian concession would be diplomatically diluted in the mainstream and momentum of the Allied Coalition actions.
Bush’s advance diplomats could make it clear that one bargaining chip on the summit table would be American endorsement of an independent Palestine. The other chips would be , purely and simply the pieces of silver (oil currency and continuity) that sell out all covert terrorist allies and purchase their own (Arab) survival.
In the course of launching its call for a United Arab Reverse Jihad, the Western Coalition could make it clear that unless we get what we need and want from the Arab Countries convened at the summit, the terrorists could potentially have their way, in which case OPEC, the U.S. and the world economy at large are going en masse to hell in a hand basket. No more oil money. No more arab crown princes educated in Ivy league schools abroad. No more Mercedes. No more harems with infinite supplies of unveiled virgins. No more whathaveyou – and, of course, no independent Palestine. With what’s left of the American economy during its second depression, we’ll be able to fuel our mopeds and space heaters on home-grown oil. Exit OPEC opulence. When oil sheiks are asked to dip into personal tills to make their countries’ cash flow, that thought for them will prove unthinkable.
So, what do we ask in exchange for an independent Palestine and keeping OPEC’s and the world economies alive? Nothing but what the Islamic nations should already have done and be doing now - drafting a joint/collective fatwa against bin Laden and all pseudo-Islamic terrorists . They are infidels under Islamic law, and since they are murdering innocent civilians, they are , according to their Quer’an subject to having holy war (Jihad) declared against them. And the Arab sheiks and their clerical colleagues in Islam will never be tendered a more attractive opportunity to get rid of the perilous parasites inside their tents – and oil fields. While appearing in command of the infidels temporarily in their midst upon holy turf, the authorities of Islam can use Western war machines and technicians superior to those of the terrorists to physically exterminate at once the pests of Allah , Ellohim, and Jehova .
The minute the legitimate clerical authorities of all major nations of Islam issue a fatwa (and only the highest authorities in Islamic countries can issue a legitimate fatwa) and declare truly-Islamic Jihad against Bin Laden and his terrorist entourage as infidels, the tale of his terrorist reign is in denouement . He and his “Al Qaeda” (base) and the entire terrorist net will have forfeited altogether their feigned authenticity. Every mosque will now be chanting out the truth of bin Laden’s treachery and he will become pariah. He will become prey.
Looking Forward to Ultimate Solutions
The Islamic denizens of Arab countries will know where to look for Bin Laden and his lot – they (or their cousins and friends) are currently harboring and shielding him – in the name and cause of Allah. But when the “true” leaders and clerics of Islam , who control Islamic mosques and media, unite in condemning Bin Laden as a phony and Infidel, and issue an official Fatwa against him, suicide will become his most expedient option. He will have no place to hide. We wouldn’t have to bomb villages or Bedouin camps in hopes of a serendipitous kill. We would assist the Arab authorities as we assisted Afghanistan in its successful war with Russia; except this time we will openly participate – as deputies. Whenever the “human intelligence” provided by the Arabs uncovers a terrorist target against which the Arabs are reluctant to move, we “Western Deputies of Jihad” would be there prepared to obtain closure.
But our conduct of the war would be diplomatically characterized “allied advisement and assistance” only, and not labeled “alien intrusion.” This way, if innocent Islamics become victim to friendly fire, whoever fires the shot or missile – whether it be Islamic Jihad warrior or American deputy - is forgiven when the projectile inevitably goes astray. The unintended killing of innocents is exempt from sanction under Islamic rules of waging Jihad.
Procedure and Precedent
Getting the Arabs to meet in summit and commit to launching their own strategic and holy war against their own worst enemy is as logical as it is expedient – for all concerned . If holy and supreme Islamic clerics can issue a kill-on-sight edict to all faithful Muslims for the elimination of one innocuous writer for misconstruing a few chapters of Islamic history, there is ample precedent for drawing a fatwa for a band of infidels who are not only perverting Islamic law and history but flagrantly counterfeiting official fatwas and declarations of false holy wars and murdering innocents, including Muslims, in the process. The publishing of false “Satanic Verses” is nothing compared to the killing of innocents falsely in the name of Allah, but the condemnation of its author by official Fatwa of Islam affords us recent, relevant and persuasive precedent.
As for the theological basis for the proposed summit declaration of Jihad by a coalition of Islamic countries , we have for further precedent and authority the recent pronouncement of Iran’s highest Islamic Leader, who was quoted by his Country’s Deputy Foreign Minister in a recent (October 2) speech before the United Nations as having said in regard to middle-eastern – based terrorism : “The war against terrorism is tantamount to …Jihad”. On the authority of that pronouncement, one could argue Deputy Bush is already waging jihad in Afghanistan.
Once Jihad is declared by a coalition of Islamic nations, our war to eradicate terrorism could easily be over for the most part at that very moment – and without the spilling of a drop of American or Muslim blood. By virtue of official Jihad being declared against him, Bin Laden and the rest are instantly and mortally excommunicated from the religious body which is the source of their power. Bin Laden and his lieutenants personally are simply demagogic power mongers of the fascistic order (nothing new) . But the foot soldiers (such as our recent twin tower bombers) are truly zealous believers. What will happen to their Islamic fervor when they themselves become objects of a true Islamic fatwa and Jihad, and realize that a billion Muslims in a million mosques world-wide have sworn to seek them out and kill them on sight – unless perhaps they repent, go out, and sin no more. (Maybe the clerics of the Muslim summit will anneal their fatwa with an element of Christian temperance.)
As for our increasingly present danger of domestic terrorism, what could be more effective than Reverse Jihad to spiritually disarm the zealous enemies in our midst? The principal strategies we are presently deploying are defensive, and as Senator Bob Graham most recently admonished – America must transform its paradigm from defensive to pro-active in regard to domestic terrorism..*
* Sen. Bob Graham (Chairman , Select Intelligence Committee), in Oct 25, 01 address to U.S. Press Club, “Future of Intelligence”
What we do abroad in the mountains and caves of Afghanistan will scarcely defend our populace from biological and other terrorist attacks within our borders. What , besides the proposed universal Reverse Jihad, could we do to defuse more effectively these mad Muslim matches still secretly secluded like suicidally-incendiary needles in the hapless haystacks of America?
But, as for those terrorists who continue their war to win Armageddon, some form of active war would need be waged. And while it’s being waged, deploying our troops and implements of war as “advisors” and lend-lease “back-up forces”, we can retain some of our remaining troops to defend our own country against further terrorist attacks over here. The Western Coalition can also pledge to assist the already war-ravaged countries with financial and other aid when reconstruction time comes, unlike the Americans in their exodus from Afghanistan that afforded a rallying post for the Taliban and refuge for Bin Laden.
From the moment the Islamic Coalition’s Fatwa against Bin Laden is published, he is not just a man without a country – he’s a Muslim without a mosque. The youthful and ignorant terrorists under his command will have their first occasion ever to question whether in fact their martyrdom will be rewarded in the next life with dark unclad virgins on red velvet sofas. So much , one could venture, for flight school enrollment in Bagdad.
The Arab nations will have absolutely no excuse for rejecting the Western call for Jihad against Bin Laden and all Islamic terrorists. The moment they declare it, they will have cleansed and clarified their own positions in the world and in the eyes of Islam, which up until this point has been, according to Bin Laden - “You are either with Islam, or with the Western Infidels”. The strongest weapon Bin Laden has is mythology – the same weapon that buttressed Hitler’s Third Reich – the “Big Lie”- in the case of Hitler, his so-called “Herrenvolk” . Bin Laden’s Big Lie is that his terrorist mission is Islamic jihad- that is, a matter of Islam versus the infidels. Only Islam itself can give the lie to and abort this incubating Muslim mythology, and the way Islam can accomplish this is by doing the opposite – by declaring Jihad against the ones falsely declaring Jihad against others – by the process of Reverse Jihad.
The declaration of a fatwa and Reverse Jihad against Bin Laden and other self-proclaimed Muslim terrorists would instantly and cataclysmically polarize and re-define the “we’s “ and “they’s” of Islamic politics. In tendering this proposal to the countries of the Middle East, all we need to do is get them assembled and spell it out. It will be an offer they can’t refuse.
Practical Matters and Obstacles
Iran, Iraq (and yes -even Arafat’s PLO) should be asked to join the Coalition’s collective Jihad – or else go on record explaining their refusal. At present a probable majority of Arab leaders are taking delight (to varying degrees) in the misfortunes recently befalling America. This attitude was evident in the grotesque celebrations (perhaps falsely reported but certainly occurring) on the streets of Palestine on 9/11, and more recent pro-Bin Laden demonstrations in Pakistan. Of course these expressions of anti-Western sentiment speak as much about petro/Israeli/Palestine politics as they do about terrorism, but regardless of the animus’ etiology , its expression and contagion would be suppressed (or extinguished) at the core upon the promulgation of a United and Universal Arab fatwa and Jihad against all Islamic terrorists.
Moreover, any Arab state unwilling to urge its clerics to launch the Fatwa and Jihad would run the risk of being ipso facto identified with the terrorists. It would be safe to predict that , when Saudi Arabia votes affirmatively (which is likely) on the united Jihad , there would be an increased likelihood that Kuwait and the balance of OPEC countries will follow in domino fashion, given the force of the first concession and the
abiding concern over Bush’s seminal caveat: (that) “Those who do not side with us against the terrorists”…
Middle Eastern experts and Islamic scholars will of course be quick and united in pointing out fallacies they think are readily apparent in Reverse Jihad, but under scrutiny, such fallacies will prove more apparent than actual. Experts in Middle Eastern politics will argue that no terrorist policy could be uniformly imposed among the several Arab states because of myriad variances in each Kingdom or Emirate of power distributions between the clerical and secular leaderships. Islamic scholars will contend that in most Islamic States, Iran perhaps most in particular, secular leadership is primarily nominal, the real power over Islamic masses residing in the Clerical powers that be. Accordingly, Islamic pundits will contend that the age-old and perennially-bellicose diversity among the many clans and tribes within Islam , each with their own version of Islam, will render a united declaration of Jihad an extreme unlikelihood .
To these caveats there must be ready concessions. Of course any clash between the clerical and secular leaders of an Islamic state will be destabilizing , as will any collaborative probing or policing of internal terrorism. But is anyone still seriously contending that a culmination of Desert Storm by an invasion of Bagdad would have created a dangerous void of leadership in Iraq? It is obvious that President Bush is resolved to carry through with the declared war on terrorism to any extent necessary to seek out and eliminate both terrorists and any Islamic regime aiding and abetting them. Afghanistan is the closest case in point.
In the process of seeking out and eliminating terrorists residing in Afghanistan, where there was no assistance offered by that country’s secular or Islamic leaderships , a chaotic destabilization was the natural result. The Western emissaries in their process of “selling” Reverse Jihad to Arab heads of (secular) state can point out that the chaos presently pervading Afghanistan could have been averted by the Reverse Jihad remedy. Had there in fact been any separation, either by identity or authority among secular and clerical powers in Afghanistan, then bin Laden’s Al Qaeda might have been made subject to arrest and prosecution by Afghan authorities , with the help of Western Jihad Deputies, acting in the same capacity they have in support of the Islamic faction known as The Northern Alliance.
When an Islamic state is de-stabilized , the resulting chaos reveals how tenuously ruling power is maintained by the typical secular governing entity. For example, even when the kings were strongest, contends one Islamic commentator, “Afghan loyalties were never with a country called ‘Afghanistan’ but with their own ethnic group, their own version of Islam, and the traditional leaders of their own local clans and tribes, in that order.” * It is suggested that other Islamic states differ from Afghanistan only in the rankings of those elements within their own chaotic ruling polyarchies.
In the faces of all forecasters of chaos, however, propounders of Reverse Jihad need utter only one arguably unimpeachable arabian aphorism – “Never underestimate the power of petroleum hegemony.” It’s not merely the military might of the Western world that will ultimately unite Arabian kings and clerics, it’s the oil dollars that perpetually sustain them both. In the final contesting of the Sheiks and their clerical co-rulers of Islam, modern-day Pharisees will subject them to inquisitions demanding to be told which of them should be looked upon as supreme, to which both will respond- -“render unto Allah the things that are Allah’s, and to the King the things that are his.” In the cases of both Kings and clerics the rendering referred to will be the same–Islamic kings and clerics will ultimately find their survival in common–absolutely and irretrievably linked to the renderings of the Western Oil Market and U.S. Dollars. Terrorism is now standing in the way of that dollar and oil flow. Reverse Jihad will provide the means of getting terrorism out of the way ; it will provide the means for survival.
*Michael Radu, “Taliban Defeat Sets Up Struggle for Power”, Global Beat Syndicate 11/23/01
In the process of negotiating for the acceptance of Reverse Jihad, there will be inevitable clashes between the kings and clerics in each Arab state. The kings have allied themselves with the terrorists through covert support and laissez-faire internal policies in order to pacify their economically suppressed and malcontent Islamic masses. The clerics have allowed themselves to become allied with the terrorists based upon the enmity they share in common regarding the Israeli-Allied Western Infidels in their Middle-Eastern Midsts. The natural enmity between the Arabian Kings and Clerics is of course stabilized and perpetuated primarily by the presence of America and its ubiquitous availability as scapegoat and common-enemy. A definitive clashing between the Kings and Clerics of Islam is both long overdue, and , quite apart from either the advent or imposition of Reverse Jihad , inevitable. In that clashing, some destabilization will occur; some Kings may be dethroned. So what? How many Islamic rulers today are truly friends of the West? No Soviet (or Sino-) Buzzard is presently circling in a position to swoop down and snatch any MidEast minion from the oily talons of the western Eagle.
One thing remains axiomatic – without the intervention and interdiction of Islam, pseudo-Islamic terroisim of the bin Laden , Al Qaeda order , will continue to flourish and be mythologized and marshalled from mosque to mosque, crusaded and carted from cave to B52-bombarded cave.
If the secular leadership approached by the Western Coalition fails to enlist their resident Clerics in a Reverse Jihad effort to combat terrorism, then clerics and kings alike will have to face the possibility that the war on terrorism in their states will run the course it has in Afghanistan, where all resident rulers, secular and clerical are cast into the flux and chaos of a major campaign of invasive war, waged by the infidel West. When the clerics and kings come to view this as inevitable, there is a distinct likelihood that their common enmity of the West will convert to a common alliance against the terrorists, that being the obvious least among an array of optional evils. Once this choice is made, the U.S. and its allies can proceed to play Machiavellian mentors and allied enablers in the process of imposing Reverse Jihad.
The strategy proposed is simple, obvious and compelling: Advance emissaries of the Western Coalition would show the kings and sheiks how it is absolutely essential (in order to survive) that they persuade their clerics to endorse Reverse Jihad (in order to survive) and in so doing to persuade the latters’ Islamic followers to help (in order to survive) execute Reverse Jihad or else face the fate of the Taliban fundamentalists in Afghanistan. If the point is made clear , i.e. that their assent to and participation in the Reverse Jihad are essential to their collective survival, the sheiks and clerics and their faithful followers will come to perceive the pseudo-Islamic terrorist as their common enemy – at least the fly in their common (and vital) petroleum-based ointment.
Skeptics will say that nothing practical might come from such a summit – even if we get the Arabs to issue the fatwa and declare the Jihad. It’s true - A Jihad declared is not a Jihad waged, and the Arabs might just wind up doing another Bagdad two-step around the consequences of their covenants.
Arabs are known for their diplomatic obtuseness and stealth, but on that petard , any state pledging Jihad disingenuously may well find itself hoisted, as the declaration of Jihad in itself may prove to be all America and its allies need to fortify and achieve existing arsenals and aims.
In a worst-case scenario, the Arabs would declare but fail absolutely to wage any active Jihad against the terrorists within their borders. In that case, pursuant to proviso’s bargained-for in the summit pact, Americans and allied forces would resume their multi-lateral war against the terrorists, but this time , hopefully from the inside - with the deputized authority and prior endorsement of declared Islamic allies.
Can we really expect Arabs to enter the caves and either convert or kill Bin Laden? Maybe not, but again, we shouldn’t underestimate the effect of a Jihad declaration in Islam – a religious culture whose patriarchs and peons kneel hip to hip in ubiquitous mosques , where they chant, pray and process the edicts of Islam not once upon a weekend, but five times a day, 365 days a year. In every “coalition” Arab country, an officially-published and regularly-preached Fatwa against their resident Islamic terrorists will instantly make a fifth-column C.I.A. field office out of every mosque in the country. All our military leaders agree that the most crippling deficiency in our readiness to wage war against the terrorists is human intelligence- i.e. “insider intel” on the activities and whereabouts of the individual cells in bin Laden’s notorious “base”, and the elusive net of unnumbered and unknown terrorists acting in concert, to varying degrees, in other countries.
The power and long-range effect of an Islamic Cleric’s edict ordering a billion Muslims in a million mosques throughout the Muslim world to do their duty as Muslims and report the doings and whereabouts of all terrorists, including Bin Laden is incalculable . With this information, the U.S. , leading NATO and U.N.-backed multinational forces, all acting as “deputy Jihad warriors” will be able – and licensed – to do all that is necessary to execute the “ultimate solutions” to the terrorist problem. If 5th-Column Iranian, Pakistani or Afghan informers have no stomach for entering the caves themselves, the training camps and hideouts of the terrorists will nonetheless be identified and targeted for missile-wielding Western Deputies, and the Muslim masks of the terrorists will have been removed by clerical edict in the name and for the cause of Allah – rather than for the mercenary interests of Infidel Western invaders. Onward Muslim Soldiers.
Few Options
There’s no way the U.S. , as outsiders can come in and cure the terrorist problem with carriers and smart bombs. And we don’t have enough ground troops – or enough time – to clean the terrorists out of their mountain and desert caves and tents one at a time, in ten countries simultaneously. Again, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE. All we can do with the presently-proposed (Bush/Powell) mode of attack is to pursue terrorists permanently and at such a pace that we can hope they won’t find time to christen our replacement twin towers with eau d’Anthrax , or visit Disneyworld at Christmas with a suitcase of PLUTOnium.
No , the way to win the war against terrorism, is to first view it for what it is - an insane religious aberration within the institutional walls and nations of Islam. It poses a manifold-greater threat to the Middle East than it does any outside nation on earth. Witness what they’ve already done in Afghanistan. To Islamic terrorism America has lost its thousands - Islam its tens of thousands.
America can’t simply send the Marines over and clean this one up. This trash is in the back yards of Islam , and Islam will have to help clean up its own back yards or pay the ultimate price. We should, and under the proposed plan, will help. We will furnish the brooms and the dust pans and even give lessons on their deployment and wielding. But the Arabs have got to locate and help carry out their own trash this time or else say goodbye to everything they’ve built in the past hundred years. They’ve all been over there chanting that Bin Laden and all Muslim terrorists are criminal and in effect heretics within Islam. They’ve all , save Saudi Arabia cautioned that they will neither ask for nor condone the basing of essentially unilateral American forces in their midst for the purpose of locating and eradicating the Muslim terrorists. They have as much as said that Muslim terrorism is a matter for internal Muslim resolution. Why not – actively – take the Muslim world at its word?
Finally: As for the Solution of “Immediate” Problem . . .
How do we get this message to Bush and Powell?
B.E.A. /rrs 11/25/01
ADDENDUM
(In View of Complexity and Developments)
There was an adjective phrase used by a writer pen-named “Trevanian” in a book titled “Shibumi” . The writer was stretching for a way to express the complexity that arose from some spy/assassin’s covert behavior which challenged his comprehension to the extent he coined it a “(matter of) involute obliquity”. When we consider America’s situation and predicament–having six to eight million Muslims inside its boundaries, all bundled up in our Bill of Rights; all the extremist Muslims within our borders trying to lead the other several millions to either convert or kill us; our stubborn dependency on Middle Eastern oil; our alliance with Israel; the covert alliances of the sheiks and clerics of Islam with the terrorists; the vying for control on part of these same clerics, sheiks, kings and criminals; the perils inherent in attacking (martyrizing) the Jihad terrorists, and not attacking them (and being ourselves slaughtered), we’ve certainly centered on a problem of involute obliquity.
The present essay on Reverse Jihad does not attempt to treat , or even outline, all the problems which would become integral to any plan to execute Reverse Jihad. Of course there are Middle Eastern Countries which might not be willing to participate. Their willingness to participate would of course be directly determined by and proportioned to the diplomatic prowess we manage to muster in the process of their induction.
There are probably countries whose Islamic leaders may refuse to become involved in the machinations of a combined Islamic/secular coalition. There are some nations in the free world which might refuse to participate for reasons which at this point are unforseeable.
Three things, notwithstanding, should be kept in mind when reading and evaluating this essay . First , Reverse Jihad is a policy proposal which is propounded as a dynamic and evolving work in progress . Second , as an evolving and circumstantially adaptable policy, Reverse Jihad doesn’t have to supplant any on-going foreign or domestic offensive or defensive policy at any time – unless or until , according to the progression of events, it (Reverse Jihad) becomes an effective policy in practice. Third, unlike attempting military solutions of any kind, attempting Reverse Jihad should cause no harm. If it fails totally to achieve the elimination of Islamic terrorism globally, it would be a failure in diplomacy alone and still serve to varying degrees (of success ) militarily to identify our enemies and unify our allies, (secular, clerical, national , individual and corporate) , and that problem (identification) is at the heart of international terrorism. Reverse Jihad could in fact turn the war of Islamic Terrorism in upon itself – into the involutely oblique heart and land of Islam.
B.E.A. / rrs 11/25/01
Reverse Jihad—2004 Addendum:
QUESTION: You’ve just replaced George W. Bush as president. (Don’t ask how.) What do you do about Iraq, and why? Don’t look back; look forward. Be specific….
ANSWER: I would declare and host an international summit to “Reverse Jihad”.
To the summit I would invite the head clerics and secular leaders of every Islamic country on the planet. When the meeting was called to order I would get down upon my knees before the entire assembly and say: “In the name of Allah, God, Jehova, Elohim, Jesus and Mohammed and the unmentioned gods and prophets of all here assembled, I apologize on behalf of myself and my country and its allies for having wrongfully and mistakenly invaded Iraq. I beg your forgiveness for our errors and for the lives lost and suffering incurred by this ill-conceived campaign of war, and I enlist your assistance in helping me make amends, and helping restore peace and prosperity to the people of Iraq. To accomplish this, I propose as follows.”
A sketch of the plan I would propose and implement would include:
(1) I would let all of Islam know that if their clerical leaders will immediately begin to pronounce and preach in the mosques a jihad against all (false and by Islamic law illegal) anti-western anti-coalition jihads and prevail in an effort to mandate a cessation of all terrorist activities directed against Americans, Isreal and their allies (including the Sheiks of Saudi Arabia), that I would instruct Sharon that America’s alliance with the State of Israel would end unless there was an immediate and permanent withdrawl on Israel’s part of the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank and the establishment of a truly-multilateral commission for the establishment of an Independent Palestine devoid entirely of the influence of either Sharon or Arafat.
I would do all possible to expedite the establishment of an independent Palestinian state as a proactive show of American good faith, regardless of the instant success of the Reverse Jihad effort. The independence of Palestine—and the complicity of the U.S. in delaying it, are, respectively long overdue and obvious.
I would propose the adoption of a definition of “terrorism” and an enactment of an international law proscribing it and warranting international sanctions against it (and any nation’s aiding and abetting it), and I would (by fiat, because a consensus among the invitees would be impossible) define it as “any unprovoked attack resulting in murder, mahem, or abduction upon any non-millitary personnel except where the non-military personnel are clearly and voluntarily participating in military, paramilitary or otherwise criminal conduct directly against either the attacker or non-militant civilians under the protection of the attacker”.
I would require that all Islamic clerical authorities arrange it so that
U.N. or agents of other internationally independent observers are allowed to attend services in all Islamic mosques and madrasses to determine whether the correct “jihad” sermons and cirriculum are being preached and taught , and to see to it that the mosques and maddrasses are no longer preaching and instructing anti-western Jihad messages or honoring anti-Western suicide jihaddists as Islamic martyrs.
I would demand Dick Cheney’s resignation for his conflict of interest (and/or treasonous misprison of office) in being VP and a paid profiteer (by way of “extended salary” and stock options ) of Halliburton; Next I would nationalize Halliburton and all its subsidiaries, declare by executive order a stock split vesting one-half the ownership of Halliburton in an Iraqi holding company which would issue a share of preferred stock (with compulsory distribution of one-half the annual corporate profits) to each Iraqi when and as they register to vote in the election to popularly elect a new democratic regime in Iraq. All the oil fields, refineries, pipelines and reserves—the entire oil infrastructure—would be managed and held in trust by Haliburton, audited by a team of Swiss bankers, over-seen by U.N. CPA’s, with one-half the net profits being allocated to defray the costs of re-construction of Iraqi civil and governmental infrastructure, and one-half being paid to Iraqi voters to render Iraq the first Arab state in which the Islamic citizenry at large is allowed to benefit directly from the country’s only valuable natural resource.
I would muster the Republican Guard back into active duty as “Reverse Jihad Deputies” and station them in a single, strategically-located town of predominantly Sunni population; the town should not be near any oil or pipeline infrastructure. The Guard should be mustered at double their previous pay,and assigned primarily to
anti-insurgency (and anti-terrorist) duty, because that is what they
have been trained to do for the past 20 years. They should be hired only on the condition they muster back into service carrying their previous arms, including culvert explosives and rocket launchers. No weapon(s), no job. No job, no salary. Bonuses for coming to work with explosives of massive destruction, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft munitions.
The weapons we would thereby enlist into the Reverse Jihad militia would be the same weapons currently blowing our un-armored Hummers to bits.
I would insist that the oil trust continue for a period of up to ten years, during which time I would publicly announce the Federal funding and implementing of a Detroit/Manhattan project, where the American auto and HVAC industries were incentived (through tax benefits to manufacturers and consumers) to design, develop and purchase energy-efficient vehicles and residential and commercial heating and air conditioning technologies to totally terminate U.S. reliance on Middle Easter Oil by the end of the ten-year period of Reverse Jihad Détente. It could be accomplished in half that time with already-extant technologies.
The attack of 9/11 on the Twin Towers of New York was not about Saddam Hussein or the Baath Party’s oppression of Iraq’s Shiite majority. The attack of 9/11 had to do with America’s alliance with Israel in its Zionist war with the Arabian Pennisula and American’s alliance with the Shieks of Saudi Arabia and other OPEC states. The attack on Iraq had nothing to do with the attack of 9/11, and served only to fulfill the prophesies of bin Laden and the other fundamentalist Islamics who look about themselves in the land others refer to as the latters’ “promised land” and see only the automobiles, condos, harems and castles of rich sheiks and their western partners who together mine and market their sacred holy land’s only supply of virtual milk and honey…Arabian crude. To the average Saudi, Israel is an American military ally, and the House of Saud, an American puppet regime. They believe this is so because it’s so. Until the wealth of the Middle East is shared with its largely destitude and desperate Islamic inhabitants, those who are allowed inside to reap that wealth will be viewed as “infidel” and pariah from the windows of the ubiquitous mosques.
No nation will ever successfully colonize an Islamic state. Not even Israel herself. We need to retreat from the Middle East as if our very lives depended on on, because they do. The only way to retreat from the Middle East and survive is for America to liberate itself from its dependance on Arabian oil. This task is emminently dooable. But it will take imagination, leadership, courage and initiative we can presently only dream of, because at the helm of our present ship of state, there is a cretinous oil pirate cum neo-Con Christian zealot who truly thinks he’s waging—and winning (!) an illusory war with terrorism against some imagined axis of Revealationesque evil. In fact, before Bush, terrorism posed only an ever-present danger of isolated and uncoordinated disaster. After Bush’s declaration of war, and the preemptive conquest and colonization of two Islamic nations in the illusory “war” on terrorism, he has activated/consummated the perenially-inchoate conflict between the West and Islam and managed to merge the interests of previously-isolated malcontents into the heart, soul and spleen of Islam. Bush’s brash and unilateral war policies have served to ordain the wildest of pan-arabian terrorist prophesies and characteriazations of America as “infidel” and “warring crusader”.
I would turn the Summit ultimately into a Constitutional Congress and permit the secular authorities and clerics of each sect to appoint delegates in numbers proportioned to the best available census calculations of Sunni/Shiite/etc. populations in Iraq. After the adoption of a Constitution, the mechanics of an election process would be determined.
As “power pointed” dipolmacy, any resistence to any proposals I’d (as president) make as hereinabove outlined would be met with the pat PAX-American PNAC pronouncement that is today’s state of affairs… “Well, all I can say to you Shieks, and you Clerics, and all your dissatisfied constituencies, whether civil or terroristic is…Unless you reverse this Jihad against America, Israel and your Saudi citizenry and the oil pipelines we cherish and depend upon in common, we highly-militarized Coaliationists are here to stay….It’s your call.”
Respectfully submitted by Robert R. (Dusty) Schoch, B.E.A. June 19, 2004.
The B.E.A. (“Barristers et al”) is a N.C.-based foreign policy think tank. We are a voluntary and charitably-constituted and oriented assembly of a-political attorneys, physicians, teachers, writers, military personnel and lay members who collaborate to develop and disseminate (for the most part on the internet) peace-oriented foreign policy alternatives. I serve as the group’s “scribe” and work as liaison where the B.E.A. elects to communicate with other think tanks and policy institutes.
