No Word of a Lie

 

Vincent J. Curtis


20 Nov 14
 

 

http://www.islam-watch.org/home/139-louis-palme/1095-knowing-four-arabic-words-may-save-our-civilization-from-islamic-takeover.html.

 

The above link discusses four terms of art in the Islamic world that name means of deceiving non-Muslims for the purpose of self-protection or for the advancement of Islam in some way.

 

These terms are:  takiyya, tawriya, kitman, and muruna.

 

Briefly, Takiyya refers to the dissimulation of one’s Muslim identity.  Tawriya means creative lying.  Kitman means the telling of a partial truth.  Muruna means the flexibly blending in with the enemy.  It is justification of departure from proper Islamic practice for purposes of deception.  The 9/11 hijackers employed Muruna.

 

These are terms of art which name practices permitted under Islam for purposes of deceiving the infidel or apostate.  These ordinarily would not be permitted to be used by one Muslim against another.

 

Together, these terms mean that it is impossible for a westerner to believe or trust a Muslim if the Muslim thinks it in his or Islam’s interest to be deceptive.

 

Often, commentary and editorials offered by offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood use the term ‘innocent,’ as in a condemnation of the killing of innocents.  It may be useful to understand that in a Muslim’s eyes an apostate is never innocent.  An infidel is not an innocent.  As between a Muslim and an infidel or a westerner, the Muslim is always the innocent party.  Thus when a Muslim employs the term ‘innocent’ to a western audience, the audience should be aware of the private meaning for innocent held by the Muslim.  In effect, when a Muslim uses the term innocent before a western audience, one of the forms of deception named above are being employed.

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A One-Way Dialog

 

 
Vincent J. Curtis


17 Nov 14

  

On July 13, 2011, columnist Mark Steyn wrote a piece entitled “How Unclean Was My Valley", which concerned the use of a high school gymnasium for Friday worship services by the school’s Muslim students.  Steyn observed, among other things, that such services were contrary to School Board policy which forbade religion services being conducted on school property and on school time.

 

In passing, Steyn remarked upon a difference between famous Canadian author Pierre Berton, and his less famous son, Paul.  At the time, Berton fils was publisher of the London Free Press and was noted by Steyn for his Islamophilia.

 

Since then, the younger Berton has moved on to bigger and better things and became the publisher of the Hamilton Spectator.  His noted Islamophilic ways must continue, as it was disclosed in a guest opinion column that a public forum and discussion would be held in the Spectator’s auditorium by none other than the Muslim Association of Hamilton.

 

I regarded this as a somewhat alarming development.  I served on the Hamilton Public Library Board from 1996-1999.  In that period, the Muslims Student’s Association of McMaster University applied to make use of the main library’s auditorium, ostensibly for an exposition of Islamic culture.  The recommendation was to turn down the request, as the previous year an exposition similarly described turned into a rather obnoxious effort at proselytizing Islam.  The actual event was dishonestly not as described in the application for use by the MSA.

 

On the Board at the time was a rather elderly member of Pakistani origin and a Muslim himself.  When he heard of the application he immediately became fearful.  He asked that it be recorded in the minutes that was not present for the vote on that agenda item.  Afterwards I asked him what the problem was.  He informed me of the then just developing Islamic supremacist movement in Canada and he said the MSA was a manifestation of that movement.  As a Muslim, he would have been a particular target of their wrath if they became aware that he was complicit in the thwarting of their aims.  He would not support them, and he would not be known to have opposed them either.  He regarded them as dangerous to him.

 

Upon reading the fact that the Spectator would host a Muslim-oriented event, I sent the editor something like the following:

The Spectator is going to have its hands full when it hosts the open discussion and forum planned early next year by the Muslim Association of Hamilton.  Mentioned at the end of the article written by Dr. Raza Khan, the forum will be an up close and personal encounter with Islamic supremacism, and with Islamic proselytization.

There is no difference in aim between Islamic supremacism and Islamic extremism or radicalism. What is notable about Islamic extremism or radicalism is the use of violence to achieve the end of Islamic supremacism.  Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood are supremacists that are not violent, while al Qaeda and ISIS are supremacists that employ violence.  Each of those groups aim at the imposition of Sharia law; they simply use different means.

Since Dr. Khan was born and raised in Hamilton, there is no justification on the basis of culture for the jarring turns of reason he employed in his article.  These turns of reason bear the hallmarks of a Muslim Brotherhood spin piece that are used to beguile westerners who don’t want to be troubled with harsh truths.  He will not advocate violence, but he will justify anything that advances the cause of Islam.

You can see that in his article.  He seems to condemn the violence of ISIS, Boko Haram, and al Qaeda but then excuses their violence as a natural response to the violence suffered by Muslims at the hands of westerners and the Israelis.  The people who have called the Muslim Association of Hamilton concerning the murder of Cpl Nathan Cirillo have done so not to condemn or threaten as one would expect but, apparently, to seek understanding and to pay homage to Muslims and Islam.

His condemnation of ISIS, Boko Haram, and al Qaeda seems significant, but only to the uninitiated. Unless the condemnation of ISIS, Boko Haram, and al Qaeda was for heresy and for fraudulently misrepresenting Islam, the ‘condemnation’ is empty of meaning to Muslims.  This ‘condemnation’ was a turn for westerners, and is a well-understood tactic in the world of Islam for which there are specific terms of art.  He could be condemning them for bad table manners.

One also needs to understand who is ‘innocent’ in the eyes of a Muslim fundamentalist.  To every Muslim, and apostate is not innocent, despite the injunction against no compulsion in religion.  To Muslims in general, infidels are not innocent.  To all Muslims, between an infidel and a Muslim, the Muslim is the innocent party.  When you see a Muslim fundamentalist employing the term ‘innocent’, bear in mind what that term means to a Muslim not to a westerner.

The conversation Dr. Khan says he wishes to have will consist of a one-way talk of proselytization, for the meaning of Islam is “to submit” and a Muslim is one “submitting.”  Since he is a Muslim and the western interlocutor is not, it is the interlocutor who has to submit.

Islamic supremacism is all about the imposition of Sharia law, even in Canada.  So long as the Muslim community remains weak in Canadian society, we have no fear of violence from them here. We should however be under no illusions.  The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is quintessentially a statement of western values, and Sharia law is utterly in conflict with those values. Islamic supremacism, which seeks to impose Sharia law, should not be tolerated by those who value the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Charter.
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Meanwhile, an old passage written by Winston S. Churchill in The River War has been making the rounds:

 

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!
Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia
in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many
countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods
of commerce and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the
Prophet rule or live.  A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and
refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity.  The fact that in Mohammedan
law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as
a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the
faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion
paralyzes the social development of those who follow it.  No stronger retrograde
force exists in the world.  Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant
and proselytizing faith.  It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising
fearless warriors at every step, and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the
strong arms of science, the science against which it (Islam) has vainly struggled,
the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”  

Churchill’s quotes were taken from the volume: Sir Winston Churchill; “The River War”, first edition, Volume II, pages 248-250, published by Longmans, Green & Company, 1899.

 

This passage occurs in the first edition, which consisted of a two volume set of nearly 1000 pages.  The book was revised, edited and shortened for a one volume version that was originally published in 1902, and the above passage did not make it into the revised version.  The book was revised to make the book more of a history and so as not to bore the reader with Churchillian philosophizing.

Muslim Community’s Call to Action

 

Vincent J. Curtis

 

27 Sept 2014

 

Mohamud Mohamed Mohamud was a Muslim of Somali extraction who happened to be born in Hamilton, Ontario.  This twenty-year old was in the news on account of his having been killed the previous week in northern Syria, of all places, fighting on the side of ISIS against Kurdish forces.

 

At the news of the circumstances of his death, the Muslim community in Hamilton sprang into action.  They called upon the Federal government of Canada to “proactively provide Canadian mosques with resources and tools” to support and expand programs aimed at offering youth chances for “peaceful dialog and civic engagement,” as reported by the Hamilton Spectator’s Bill Dunphy.

 

Surprisingly, the Federal government had not replied within two days of the call.  In fact, no politician at the civic or Federal level was available to explain to the Spectator why they were so tardy in their response to the call to action by the Muslim Community of Hamilton.  The guts of the Spectator story was a catalog of non-responses by politicians of all stripes at all levels of government.

 

The Muslim community seems to have contacted the Spectator in order to use the newspaper as a prod.  Worryingly, their phone calls weren’t being returned as they used to be, and (western) politicians were no longer so quick to make soothing noises protective of the Muslim community in the face of signs of Islamic radicalism.  Muslim communities throughout the western world used to be able to rely on western politicians to deny any connection between Islamic radicalism and the small Islamic community in the midst of the western community.  Those protective denials were not automatically made in the face of a Canadian-born and –raised Muslim of Somali extraction being killed in Syria while fighting for the Islamic Caliphate.  One wonders where the young man could have picked up such ideas.

 

Analysis of the ‘call to action’ by the Muslim community reveals some disturbing details.  The ‘call to action’ amounted to a demand for more money from the Federal government.  It would be unkind to call this a jizya or a tax Muslims took from Christians for the privilege of being Christian, but there is a vague similarity.  Withal, the basis of the ‘call to action’ was for somebody else to act, not the Muslim Community itself, and the act demanded was the giving of money.

 

What did not appear was what the Muslim community planned to do with the money they wanted.  Extra pay for their Imams is likely, but what are those Imams going to do for that extra pay?

 

Are they going to condemn ISIS in no uncertain terms in the mosque?  I’d like to hear the speech.  I'd like to see it on Youtube.

The Spec story contained nothing about what the Muslim community itself had done to justify additional support from the government to ward off Islamic extremism developing in Canada.

 

Because of the concepts of Taqiyya, Tawriya, Kitman, and Muruna, I don’t take as worth anything the word of a spokesman that Imam So-and-so believes such-and-such, or than he uttered a general banality like “peaceful dialog and civic engagement” as if it meant something.

 

I’d like to see the video on Youtube in which the local Imam in English and Arabic denounces the self-appointed Caliph of the Islamic State as a fraud and a heretic.

 

You won’t find such a thing because they don’t do it;  they rely on western politicians to do that.  But it is the Imam who does condemn Islamic radicals as heretics who deserves the bigger megaphone that Federal money can buy.

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama cannot hold a candle to a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman when it comes to double-talk and lawyerly pettifogging.

For years it was politicians of a western persuasion that declared that successive acts of Islamic radicalism were aberrations and that Islam was a religion of peace.  Well, it is high time that western politicians shut up about it because it seems they were drowning out the voices of moderation and the real experts in the Islamic community.

It is time for western politicians shut up about Islam and the religion of peace business as these are matters they know nothing about.  They are not Islamic scholars, and so have no standing to say what Islam really means or does not mean, especially in and to the Islamic community.  Western politicians should get off the stage and allow leaders in the Muslim community, the Islamic scholars and Imams, to do the talking.

For some reason, having the western politians standing aside and giving them the public stage has the Imams feeling naked and afraid.  Anyhow, we're listening.

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Aboriginals should burn less and think more

Vincent J. Curtis

11 Oct 2014

Today, aboriginal protesters closed downtown Hamilton to traffic in a protest against the federal government's failure to bend to their latest demand.  Over a thousand aboriginal women are missing and feared killed over the last decade or so, and no one in power seemed to care.  It became the the cause du jour to demand that Prime Minister Stephen Harper order an inquiry into the matter.  The press picked up on it, being a handy tong with which to beat a man they don't like and would replace with Justin Trudeau.

Harper, however, stood his ground, saying the matter was already studied, and another one would not solve the problem.  Aboriginal women, leaving the reserve without an education or marketable skills, become addicted to drugs or alcohol and end up as sex workers for money.  Sex work is a very dangerous job, and some of the aboriginal women who engage in it end up killed.  What another study into causes would do to alleviate the problem is open to question.

The protests themselves abounded with unintended irony.  The pagan ritual of burning a 'sacred fire' in front of Hamilton's court house, to avoid melting the pavement, was performed by burning the wood in a cast iron bowl.  Metallurgy and the casting of iron are the white man's inventions.  A large teepee was erected on the grounds opposite the court house to keep the participants dry during the frequent rain showers.  A teepee is an invention of the plains Indians.  The natives of the Hamilton area lived in longhouses, not teepees.  Faux and erstaz nativism reigned; and most were obvious to it.

Below are some thoughts which occured on the day of the protests.

The Aboriginal protests this weekend, which are meant to call for a study into violence against Aboriginal women, is a testament to willful ignorance.  The subject has been studied to death.

The website of the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada shows 39,600 documents responding to the search term “aboriginal women.”  These documents include numerous police reports and studies by the RCMP, statistical results from Statistics Canada, and reports from the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Status of Women Forum, which last issued its report on the subject on February 25, 2013.

The statistical results comprise the data upon which all the speculation as to causes is based.  Anybody can see from the statistics that there is a problem of violence against aboriginal women; the cause of this problem is sheer speculation.  Given the extreme political correctness that surrounds aboriginal issues, one can hardly trust any analysis.  An analysis which placed the blame for violence against aboriginal women squarely at the door of aboriginal society and culture would be denounced as racism and, if it were even published, would not be accepted by the people it most concerns.  An analysis which placed the blame at the door of white society would be regarded as old news.  Of course whites are responsible for everything bad that has happened to aboriginals in the last 400 years.  What else is new?

More thinking and less burning is required on the part of the aboriginal community if they are serious about addressing this problem of violence against their women.  Burning wood in the middle of Main Street and blockading traffic throughout the region amounts to a demand that the white man solve an aboriginal problem.  And, of course, such problems are solved by throwing money at them.

The problem of violence against aboriginal women has been studied to death.  The data is available for those who really care about such things.  One can speculate all one wishes as to why the figures are as they are.  Disrupting traffic as a means to call for another study is unserious.  Start by doing your homework, and then offer a serious proposal.
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LRT: The Big Issue in this Fall’s Election in Hamilton

 

 

Vincent J. Curtis


18 August 2014
 

A billion dollar boondoggle is going to be the major issue in this fall’s municipal election.  In a worshipful gesture to the green movement, the Ontario government dangled a Light Rapid Transit line before Hamilton’s city council – for free!  And all the city has to do is implement the proposal.  Oh, and pay for its operation.  City Councillors are swimming around the bait like hungry trout.

 

Support for the proposal is a mile wide and an inch deep.  It is a mile wide because it is bad political optics to turn down a freebie like this.  It is an inch deep because everybody knows nothing is free and there has to be a catch somewhere.  Hamilton does not have the financial resources to carry a massive white elephant.

 

And white elephant is what it will prove to be, based on this short financial analysis.

 

The capital cost of the line is projected to be north of $800 million, but I’m going to assume that the final cost of installing the line is $1 Billion.  Depreciated over forty years, at a meagre 3 % bond interest rate, the line will have to bring in roughly $120,000 a day, every day for forty years, just to cover the mortgage.  Presently, about 13,000 people a day use public transit along the route of the LRT.  Those people would have to pay $9.23 in fares per day, every day, for forty years just to cover the cost of paying the bond.

 

But the line will have operating costs as well.  There will be labour and overhead, maintenance, and the cost of electricity to power the line.  Since the LRT is a gesture to the green movement, it would incongruous to power the line with electricity other than that from wind and solar, the most expensive electricity in Ontario.  Added to the cost of paying for the bond, income from fares, I’m guessing, will have to top $200,000 a day every day for forty years in order that the LRT be a paying proposition.

 

That works out to $15.38 per ride from 13,000 people.  Right now, $5.00 will get you a good parking spot in downtown Hamilton for a day.  So, why would a good environmentalist pay $15.38 in fares when he can park for a third of that?

 

In order for the fare to be comparable to parking, the number of riders of the LRT will have rise to 40,000 a day, more than triple the current ridership along the route.  That would bring the fare down the $5.00.  But notice what happens as a consequence.

 

The line will run roughly from Stoney Creek to Westdale.  For ridership to more than triple, the population of Stoney Creek is going to have to increase comparably, while the jobs and entertainment of these new masses in Stoney Creek will have to be in Westdale!   To carry that passenger load, there will have to be parking along the route.  The cost of parking will be a further charge to the passengers over and above their fares.  Economically, it could still make more sense to drive.

 

Nobody in city government is making plans for the population of Stoney Creek to triple by the time the LRT is ready to go, or for that necessary massive expansion of commercial activity in Westdale for all those people to need to use the LRT.

 

Folks in Flamborough, the Mountain, Ancaster, and Dundas (FMAD) will get no service whatsoever from the LRT.  But like all other Hamilton taxpayers, they will be on the hook to cover the financial losses.  For FMAD, the LRT is all risk and no reward.  That much is guaranteed.

 

The boosters of the LRT say that the line will bring additional commerce along the line.  What these boosters fail to answer is where will this additional commerce will be coming from?  More commerce will have to come from either more wealth or more population, and none of the boosters are offering hard numbers on either score.  “If you build it, they will come,” seems to be their mantra.

 

It’s not their money the boosters of the LRT are placing at risk.  It is taxpayer’s money.  I have no faith in the wisdom of risking a billion or two upon an altar of environmentalism.

 

I am going to support candidates that are adamantly opposed to the LRT and aren’t foolish enough to be tempted by freebies.

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Taking Out ISIS is Simple, and Complicated.

Vincent J. Curtis

4 September 2014

When even Libertarian-ish Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) is changing his mind about intervention in Iraq against ISIS, you know something is up.  Emotions are running high, and President Obama’s apparent indifference and lackadaisical attitude is not calming the waters.  After the beheading by an ISIS thug of a second American journalist and fear mongering about ISIS attacks in homeland America, there is a powerful emotional wave demanding something be done about ISIS.

President Obama has been widely criticized by both Republicans and leading Democrats over his remark that he has no strategy as yet for dealing with ISIS.  President Obama in the same press conference in Estonia said that ISIS would be destroyed and reduced to manageable proportions.  Well, critics say, which is it?

As a technical matter, the elimination of ISIS is a simple thing to formulate.  But, as military philosopher Carl von Clausewitz wrote, in war the simple things are always hard.  The elimination of ISIS involves questions that none of President Obama’s critics have thought much about.

First, the elimination of ISIS.  The ISIS force in Iraq consists of somewhere between six and ten thousand men who are loosely strung along the network of roads leading from the Syrian border down to Fallujah and north of Baghdad.  The network is only strong if pushed northward from Baghdad back to Syria.  It would be easier to cut the network in half by a seizure of land north of Mosul from Iraqi Kurdistan to the Jordanian border, severing ISIS communications south of that seizure.  Either during or immediately after communications were cut, ISIS would be brought to a major battle.  Between competent land forces defending the seized land and U.S. air power, the ISIS forces attempting to break out of southern Iraq would be annihilated.  The loss of a large proportion of their force and the humiliating loss of territory would be morale shaking, and a lot of the foreign fighters would head for home, further accelerating the decline of ISIS.

So far, so good.  But here is where it gets complicated.

To completely eliminate ISIS, the land force which destroyed ISIS in battle would have to invade Syrian territory to clean out the remainder.  In clearing out the rest of ISIS, the force would solve a major problem for embattled Syrian President Bashir al-Assad. ISIS is one of the major forces seeking to overthrow the Assad regime. Assad is the fellow that last year President Obama said had to go; and now the United States would be saving his hide.  Putin would surely enjoy the irony of it all.  The Mullahs of Iran would be astonished at the strange but satisfying workings of Allah.

The position of leader gives a perspective on things which few except other leaders can appreciate.  It is easy for critics to say what ought to be done, when they are not the ones who have to do it.  There are further complicating things besides saving Assad which critics of inaction have not addressed.

The first thing President Obama’s critics have not answered is, why should the President of the United States save the people of Iraq from themselves?

The elimination of ISIS is going to involve a lot of bloodshed.  Are the critics prepared for the kind of brutality and bloodshed which annihilating ISIS will involve, or will they blanch at the horror?  I use the term “annihilate” in its technical sense to name the fate of ISIS forces.  That term means that practically every last one of the ISIS fighters is killed.  Prisoners will not be taken; or if taken, they will be killed in the same manner as ISIS killed their prisoners.  That brutality is all ISIS understands. But are Obama’s critics prepared to order that this be done?  There is going to be someone who observes that there seems to be little difference in method between ISIS and American backed forces.  How are Obama’s critics going to answer that charge?

Otherwise, do critics think that some prison system somewhere is going to hold, protect, and look after the majority of the ISIS thugs, those who surrendered?

There is simple talk that striking at the head of the snake in Syria would be sufficient to deal a death blow to ISIS.  Even if that did work, nothing is proposed to be done with the body of the snake, which comprises all those individuals who committed the blackest of human crimes.  What is supposed to be done with them?

If lawmakers want a blow to be struck at ISIS, they could start by passing a law declaring ISIS to be an outlaw organization, and that membership in ISIS or aiding and abetting ISIS is a criminal offense punishable a minimum of twenty years in prison.  It was made a criminal offense to have belonged to the German SS, and lawmakers can do a similar thing now.  Thus all those foreigners who served ISIS and escaped death on the battlefield could be imprisoned under domestic law.

ISIS is a threat to countries in the Middle East.  They are a threat to the existing Islamic order, and particularly the Arabic Islamic order.  Their empty threats against homeland America are meant for Middle Eastern consumption.  There is no particular urgency for the United States to save Iraqi Arabs from their own kind.  America has something of an obligation to protect the Kurds, who, while Islamic, are not Arabs, and are immune from pan-Arabic Islamic radicalism.

The beheading of two Americans by ISIS thugs has raised demands that ISIS be destroyed.  Rather than take measures within their own competence to do, lawmakers are busy saying what the President should do without addressing all the complicating issues.  The president’s go-slow policy is sensible in view of all the complicating factors.

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ISIS: Still a JV Team

Vincent J. Curtis 

11 August 2014

When he was first asked about the danger posed by ISIS, President Obama described them as a Junior Varsity team, and said that a JV team putting on the sweaters of the Los Angeles Lakers did not turn them into Kobe Bryant, the Lakers’s star player.  With the success of ISIS since those comments were made, the JV remarks are being thrown back at President Obama by his panicking critics.  Nevertheless, those remarks remain true.

What a real Lakers team has done lately is use air strikes to selectively suppress ISIS forces – individual artillery pieces- and then precision air-drop food and water that is enabling 40,000 Yazidis to escape from ISIS encirclement on Mount Sinjar.  All from half way around the world.

Before yielding to panic, a more balanced assessment of the threat ISIS represents is needed.  One ought do what General Ulysses S. Grant used to do: look at the weaknesses of the enemy and seek ways to exploit them.

What are the weaknesses of ISIS?  They can be reduced to three: (1) that ISIS is militarily overextended; (2) they have now come out of the shadows and, having done so, created hostages to fortune; (3) they have created new enemies in the Islamic world on account of having proclaimed a Caliphate.

ISIS is said to comprise some 10,000 fighters, of which 6,000 are in Iraq.  Of these 6,000, half are said to be “foreign” fighters, that is, Muslims whose primary residence is in Europe, Australia, or North America.  These foreign fighters fight for ISIS for the personal satisfaction of engaging in jihad and for the chance to indulge in the blackest of human desires.  ISIS has posted on the social websites the gruesome atrocities its members have committed against innocent victims.  Members of ISIS have also demolished ancient structures of veneration of both Muslim and Christian faiths.

ISIS boosts the strength of its numbers by the terror they inspire.  Like a stock market gripped with irrational exuberance, the prospects of ISIS get better and better.

The tough Kurdish Pershmurga once showed reluctance to engage ISIS out of fear of a terrible death should they be captured.  Now that they believe America will stand by them, they have recaptured lost territory and are helping rescue the Yazidis.

The fact remains that there are only a limited number of ISIS fighters, who cannot be everywhere at once.  Half of these are foreigners for whom home will eventually beckon.  Each new recruit represents an untrained, undisciplined mouth to feed.  With one serious morale-breaking defeat, these foreigners will find home beckoning strongly, and will desert the cause.  One serious morale-breaking defeat and the myth of ISIS invincibility will be shattered, and with it the effectiveness of their use of terror.  After a defeat, the employment of gruesome murder would be seen as a sign of desperation, not as a sign of holy rage.  The fortunes of ISIS would collapse as rapidly as it grew.

Video clips of ISIS in battle have shown nothing except that they have mastered the art of driving pickup trucks in convoy.  They have not demonstrated the capacity to maneuver substantial bodies of troops in a real battle.  They lack the staff, the communications, the training and the discipline to do so.  And by a ‘real battle’ I mean a mere brigade-sized action, which would require the fielding of the majority of their fighting force in Iraq.

As between a pickup truck sporting a machine gun and an Abrams tank, there is no doubt about the outcome of a trial by battle.  One reason for the utter collapse in morale in the Iraqi government forces when faced with the ISIS incursion was the pilfering of soldier’s pay by the Iraqi officers.  Few men are willing to fight for a man who stole his wages.  At one time, the Iraqi army boasted of its fearsome Republican Guard divisions, which fought American troops tenaciously.  Now former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki allowed the Iraqi army to rot from within.

In a conventional army, seven or eight men are needed to support one man in combat.  Nearly all of the ISIS men are described as “fighters,” meaning few or none of them do what is done by the seven or eight men in a conventional army.  ISIS will find it difficult, then, to replenish itself with ammunition and other necessities in the event of a major battle.  It is also vulnerable to a battle of attrition.

Having proclaimed a Caliphate and called upon all Muslims to “obey” him, the boss of ISIS, Caliph Ibrahim, created more weaknesses.  With a Caliphate and the naming of Mosul as its temporary capital city, ISIS has come out of the shadows.  It has real property, and it pretends to govern.  Upon the first act of terrorism committed or attempted against the United States by the Caliphate, its cities are liable to a retaliatory strike.  The home town of Saddam Hussein, Tikrit, could easily be flattened by the United States Air Force in retaliation for another underwear bomber tied to the Caliphate.  If the Caliph wants a war of terrorism, America has the power to fill his boots with it.

Like other terrorists, the Caliph has made ferocious threats.  “We will see you in New York,” he said.  To get there under his own power, the Caliph and his emissaries have to board a commercial airliner and pass through U.S. Customs before they can strike the homeland.  Not exactly a Utah beach like threat of invasion.

By claiming to be the Caliph, Ibrahim has said indirectly that the Kings of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and the presidents of Egypt, Turkey, and Iran are his vassals and their countries are under his suzerainty.  I wonder how they feel about that?  Perhaps western diplomats should ask them about their diminished status in the world.

The Caliphate is a crisis in the Islamic world.  Only by having threatened to attack the United States has it deflected attention from the crisis it poses to the current Islamic order.  A Caliphate undermines the religious legitimacy of the governments of other Islamic countries.  ISIS is far more a threat to the Middle East than it is to the United States.

If a means can be found to inflict casualties on ISIS in a continual way, or if it can be brought to battle by a serious military, ISIS will deflate like a broken balloon.

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ISIS: A Lot Weaker Than It Appears

Vincent J. Curtis 

7 August 2014

Most of the commentary concerning the terrorist organization ISIS has been overhung with fear.  Fear of what terrorist plots can be hatched against the United States when ISIS consolidates its power in northern Iraq.  Fear of the collapse of the rest of Iraq.  Fear of what might happen in Jordan, already overburdened with Syrian refugees.

A more balanced assessment of the threat ISIS represents is needed.  We ought do what General Ulysses S. Grant used to do: look at the weaknesses of the enemy and seek ways to exploit them.

What are the weaknesses of ISIS?  They can be reduced to three: first, that ISIS is militarily overextended; second, that they have now come out of the shadows and, having done so, created hostages to fortune; third, observe the enemies they have created in the Islamic world on account of having proclaimed a Caliphate.

ISIS is said to comprise some 10,000 fighters, of which 6,000 are in Iraq.  Of these 6,000, half are said to be “foreign” fighters, that is, Muslims whose primary residence is in Europe, Australia, or North America.  These foreign fighters fight for ISIS for the personal satisfaction of engaging in jihad and for the chance to indulge in the darkest of human desires.  ISIS has posted on the social websites the gruesome atrocities its members have committed against innocent victims.  Members of ISIS have also demolished ancient structures of veneration of both Muslim and Christian faiths.

ISIS boosts the strength of its numbers by the terror they inspire.  Even the tough Kurdish Pershmurga has recently shown reluctance to engage ISIS out of fear of a terrible death should they be captured.

Like a stock market gripped with irrational exuberance, the prospects of ISIS get better and better.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that there are only a limited number of ISIS fighters, who cannot be everywhere at once.  Half of these are foreigners for whom home will eventually beckon.  With one serious morale-breaking defeat, these foreigners will find home beckoning strongly, and will desert the cause.  One serious morale-breaking defeat and the myth of ISIS invincibility will be shattered, and with it the effectiveness of their use of terror.  After a defeat, the employment of gruesome murder would be seen as a sign of desperation, not as a sign of holy rage.  The fortunes of ISIS would collapse as rapidly as it grew.

Video clips of ISIS in battle have shown nothing except that they have mastered the art of driving pickup trucks in convoy.  They have not demonstrated the capacity to maneuver substantial bodies of troops in a real battle.  They lack the staff, the communications, the training and the discipline to do so.  And by a ‘real battle’ I mean a mere brigade-sized action, which would require the fielding of the majority of their fighting force in Iraq.

As between a pickup truck sporting a machine gun and an Abrams tank, there is no doubt about the outcome of a trial by battle.  One reason for the utter collapse in morale in the Iraqi government forces when faced with the ISIS incursion was the pilfering of soldier’s pay by the Iraqi officers.  Few men are willing to fight for a man who stole his wages.

In a conventional army, seven or eight men are needed to support one man in combat.  Nearly all of the ISIS men are described as “fighters,” meaning few or none of them do what is done by the seven or eight men in a conventional army.  ISIS will find it difficult, then, to replenish itself with ammunition and other necessities in the event of a major battle.  It is also vulnerable to a battle of attrition.

Having proclaimed a Caliphate and called upon all Muslims to “obey” him, the boss of ISIS, Caliph Ibrahim, created more weaknesses.  With a Caliphate and the naming of Mosul as its temporary capital city, ISIS has come out of the shadows.  It has real property, and it pretends to govern.  Upon the first act of terrorism committed or attempted against the United States by the Caliphate, its cities are liable to a retaliatory strike.  The home town of Saddam Hussein, Tikrit, could easily be flattened by the United States Air Force in retaliation for another underwear bomber tied to the Caliphate.

Their terrorists have to board a commercial airliner and pass through U.S. Customs before they can strike the homeland.  Not exactly a Utah beach like threat of invasion.

By claiming to be the Caliph, Ibrahim has said indirectly that the Kings of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and the presidents of Egypt, Turkey, and Iran are his vassals and their countries are under his suzerainty.  I wonder how they feel about that; perhaps western diplomats should ask them about their diminished status in the world.

ISIS is a crisis in the Islamic world.  Only by having threatened to attack the United States has it deflected attention from the crisis it poses to the Islamic world.  A Caliphate undermines the religious legitimacy of the governments of other Islamic countries.  ISIS is far more a threat to the Middle East than it is to the United States.

If a means can be found to inflict casualties on ISIS in a continual way, or if it can be brought to battle by a serious military, ISIS will deflate like a broken balloon.

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Serious Means for Serious Ends

 

 

Vincent J. Curtis 


23 July 2014

 

 

War is a serious means for attaining serious ends.  The waves of rocket attacks by Hamas against Israel are certainly serious means, but what serious end is in view for Hamas?

 

Territorial gain cannot be the goal, certainly not the immediate goal of the acts of war committed by Hamas against Israel.  For the foreseeable future, Hamas and the Palestinian people they govern will be confined to the Gaza strip, a well-defined piece of territory.  Israel would gain no respite should territory be ceded to Hamas as a gesture, and Hamas lacks the military power to seize and hold Israeli territory.  Gain of territory cannot be the serious end in view. 

 

The sheer inconveniencing of Israeli citizens and Israeli commerce, while it may be occurring, is not a serious goal because it cannot be maintained.  It is not a step towards something higher.  Israeli retaliation against Gaza makes that goal not a paying proposition in the interim.

 

The declared goal of Hamas is the complete destruction of the Israeli state, and these rocket attacks will not achieve that.  Israel is not going to surrender to Hamas because of these attacks.  Indeed, the success of the Iron Dome anti-missile system is making Hamas’s barrages look feeble.  On the other hand, serious destruction is being meted out by Israel against Gaza.  Air attacks, artillery, and now a ground invasion of Gaza by Israel provoked by the Hamas rocket offensive is proving what an illusion it was to believe that Israel would surrender to a rocket barrage.

 

What goals could possibly be aimed at by Hamas, since neither the surrender of Israel, the gain of territory, retaliation, nor the relief of other pressures by Israel is in the offing?

 

Several goals come to mind.  The first is that Hamas is proving its worth to its supporters and paymasters.  Israel is hated by many other countries in the Middle East; the destruction of Israel is the declared national goal of Iran, for example.  Hamas did not build the missiles it is firing into Israel.  The missiles Hamas is launching into Israel had to be supplied by someone, and manufactured somewhere other than Gaza.

 

A missile capable of reaching Tel Aviv from Gaza takes up a lot of space.  Thousands of rockets somehow had to be transported by sea and delivered to Gaza through an efficient Israeli naval blockade.  This fact suggests that the missiles were delivered through Egypt and moved past the border controls between Egypt and Gaza.  These missiles would not have been delivered to Gaza at such cost and risk unless it was understood that Hamas would launch them against Israel.  Thus Hamas is acting as an agent to the state which supplied them the missiles.  It is doing what is expected of it.

 

The benefit to the state which supplied Hamas the missiles is that it gets to see Israel harassed at no physical cost to itself.  It is the Gazans who suffer Israel’s wrath, not Iran for example.

 

Hamas also is enforcing its control over the Palestinians of Gaza.  The goal that Israel must be destroyed is resisted at the cost of one’s life in Gaza.  Hamas will tolerate no dissent, on this point above all.  The Palestinians of Gaza have been dragooned into a war with Israel.  They are obliged to use their women and children as human shields protecting Hamas’s missile storage sites, an act contrary to the Geneva Conventions.  Being able to show civilian casualties to the world and offering these as examples of Israeli brutality is another goal of Hamas in this campaign.

 

Who would be convinced by such a thing?  The scenes of destruction and the sight of wounded children have certainly raised emotions all around the world.  Emotions would most likely be raised favorably for Hamas among those who are already convinced of the evil of Israel.

 

Thus Hamas by this rocket offensive against Israel is proving its worth as an agent and client of its supporters.  It is demonstrating its power over the Palestinians of Gaza by dragooning them into the war with Israel.

 

But Gaza and its Palestinian population clearly are things to be used by Hamas.  The destruction of Gaza and the creation of misery for its population are useful to Hamas since it can justify repression of dissent as a necessary war emergency.

 

Hamas governs Gaza, but to the benefit of itself not to the benefit of the people of Gaza.

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Published in the Friday, August 1, 2014 edition of the Hamilton Spectator

IRAQ CIRCLES THE DRAIN

 

 

Vincent J. Curtis


 9 July 2014

  

Last month, amid a welter of slaughter and torture, a new Islamic Caliphate was proclaimed on the territories of Syria and Iraq.  This new political creation resembles a balloon: one pinprick and it will collapse.

 

The Islamic Caliphate was created by a homicidal egomaniac who now calls himself Caliph Ibrahim.  Previously he went under the alias of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.  He sees himself as the second coming of Mohammed, except with a better taste in wristwatches.  The new Caliphate rests on the bayonets of some six thousand men, half of whom are foreigners from Britain, France, Australia, Canada, and the United States.  The appeal of fighting for the Caliphate among these men is the feeling of fighting for Islamic righteousness, i.e. jihad; and the chance to gratify the darkest of human desires.  As proof, thousands of unarmed civilians and captured soldiers have been gruesomely executed by ISIS members, and few of these were by crucifixion.  These executions have been posted on social media for the entertainment of some and the terrorization of others.

 

ISIS, for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is the name of the terrorist entity.  Failing to make further headway against the forces loyal to Syrian president Bashir al Assad, ISIS turned east in June and advanced against an utterly demoralized and unprofessionally led Iraqi military.  The Iraqi forces either deserted or retired before the advance, and allowed ISIS to occupy Mosul, the second largest city of Iraq.  ISIS occupies a portion of the Sunni majority area of Iraq.  It has made no effort to advance into Iraqi Kurdistan, which is stoutly defended by the Peshmerga, the tough Kurdish militia; or into Jordan.  The rapid ISIS advance stalled north of Baghdad, where Sunni majority Iraq begins.

 

Some rather breathless western commentators have said that ISIS is transforming itself into a real army.  All that has been seen in film clips, however, are civilian pickup trucks sporting mounted machine guns, and disordered bodies of men firing automatic weapons aimlessly into the unseen distance for the benefit of the camera crew.  ISIS may have captured some Iraqi and Syrian military equipment and fighting vehicles and put them on display for the cameras.

 

There’s many a slip twixt lip and cup.  It is one thing to be able to drive a fighting vehicle and quite another to coordinate the tactical use of groupings of fighting machines in battle.  All the ISIS has demonstrated with their fighting vehicles is the capacity to drive in convoy.  ISIS has never demonstrated the capacity to maneuver in battalion and brigade sized formations in open battle.  They have no air power.  With only six thousand real fighting men, half of whom are foreign adventurers, oppressing millions, Caliph Ibrahim makes a lot of boasts.

 

In his first public pronouncements, Caliph Ibrahim promised to make terrorist attacks against the United States and called upon all Muslims to “obey” him.  A Caliphate is a special thing in Islamic history and teaching; it is the empire of the Ummah, the believers, and the Caliph is the head of state and theocratic absolute monarch.  A Caliphate would hold that the Kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and the Republics of Turkey, Egypt, and Iran would be vassal states under its suzerainty and the Kings and presidents of these countries are vassals.  Perhaps some confused western diplomats, seeking clarification, might ask the governments of these countries if they planned to “obey” the new Caliph; whether their countries should now be regarded as subordinate entities to the new Caliphate, and if not, why not.

 

The new Caliphate and self-proclaimed Caliph Ibrahim represent a political crisis in Islam, first and foremost.  His threat to western countries is a separate matter.

 

By proclaiming a new Caliphate and establishing Mosul as its capital, Caliph Ibrahim has created hostages to fortune.  He is no longer the head of an ethereal terrorist organization that exists nowhere in particular and is responsible for the governance of nothing.  An act of terrorism committed against a NATO country, or any other country, would constitute an act of war by the Caliphate.  Mosul may not be as pleasant a place to govern from after it was flattened from a visit from the United States Air Force in retaliation for a Caliphate sponsored act of terrorism.

 

Enjoy the Caliphate while it lasts.  Its strength is grossly overestimated; it has no political legitimacy, and has made too many enemies in the Muslim world.

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Published in the August, 2014 edition of Esprit de Corps magazine.

 

 

THE PROTESTATIONS OF MURDERERS

 

 

 

Vincent J. Curtis


25 June 2014

 

 

For all the talk and turmoil in Washington over who lost Iraq, a few rather important things are missing from the discussion.

 

ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, moved into and has occupied the north-central part of Iraq from Syria and presently lie within striking distance of Baghdad.  Unable to make headway in Syria against the government forces of President Bashir al-Assad, this force of ISIS, once estimated to be about 6,000 men in size, moved east and south into Iraqi territory against an utterly demoralized and unprofessionally led Iraqi military.  ISIS “conquered” and occupied the city Mosul, and many other minor towns and villages.  ISIS members savagely murdered thousands of innocents and those protected by the Laws of War in their area of control.

 

Curiously, everybody seems to take for granted the claim by ISIS that it intends to establish an Islamic Caliphate.  Official Washington and many on the political right believe that such a state would represent a threat to the strategic interests of the United States, and perhaps serve as a base for terrorist strikes within homeland America.  As such, military intervention by the United States, either in the form of air strikes or of military “boots on the ground,” is justified to turn the tide in Iraq.

 

Thinking people ought to be able to make their own assessment and reach their own conclusions.  It seems, as in the case of Boko Haram, that Washington takes the political protestations of a gang of murderers altogether too seriously.  From a close analysis of the facts on the ground one can reach the conclusion that the career of ISIS amounts to nothing more than the madcap adventures of a homicidal egomaniac.  That person is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an alias.

 

ISIS says it desires to create an Islamic Caliphate under strict Sharia law.  A Caliphate is a special thing in Islamic history and teaching; it amounts to the empire of the Ummah, the believers; and is led by a Caliph.  Nobody seems to ask ISIS who this Caliph is supposed to be.  More importantly, what will be the relationship between this Caliph and the King and state of Saudi Arabia, the King of Jordan, and the Presidents and states of Iran, Egypt, and Turkey?  By rights, these individuals and states should be vassals and vassal states of the Caliph, and historically this state of subordination was maintained by a combination of money, diplomacy, and military force.  A little reflection will lead one to conclude that this Islamic Caliphate of ISIS amounts to a good deal of pretense and not a little egomania.

 

As for strict Sharia law as the basis of ISIS’s caliphate, that legal regime exists in several other states and would not a novel or atavistic experiment.  Granted, Sharia law amounts to the dominance of the Muslim male in society, but ISIS, with the wholesale murders in the territory it has conquered, took this dominance to a whole new level.  Sharia law has certain injunctions against Muslims killing other Muslims, which to date have not been enforced by al-Baghdadi against his loyal followers.  These wanton murders and this lack of enforcement of Sharia law demonstrate that the appeal of ISIS to the individual member of that body is the opportunity to gratify fantasies of dominance and power over others, and of desires even darker; and that al Baghdadi understands this.

 

About half of these loyal followers of his are reported to have come from rather exotic places: Britain, France, Australia, Canada, and the United States.  Since Sharia law exists in many established countries, one is entitled to conclude that it is the adventure and the opportunity for easy gratification of one’s inner demons that draws these so-called self-radicalized Muslims from the western world to the war in Syria and now Iraq.

 

This also gives indication as to the true purpose of ISIS, and it has nothing to do with the long term resolution of a political crisis.  There is no reason, therefore, to place any weight on the alleged political program of ISIS.  ISIS exists because it can, and survives for the gratification of the personal demons of its members.

 

Militarily, ISIS is extremely weak.  For any attack by ISIS within homeland America to occur, the attackers would have board a commercial airliner and pass through U.S. Customs.  The Administration could protect the American homeland by control at the borders.

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On Monday, June 30th, the AP reported that ISIS has declared the creation of an Islamic state and their leader, al-Baghdadi, the Caliph.  Previously he was just an Emir.  With his proclamation, he has demanded the submission of all Muslims and declared illegal any previously created Muslim state, such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, and so on.

 

I guess al-Baghdadi answered the questions in the piece above.  These answers prove my contention that al-Baghdadi is an unserious enthusiast; and rather than concede the political legitimacy of his gang of murderers, we should instead look at what he does rather than what he says.

 

The ISIS movement cannot last much longer.  Al-Baghdadi is no longer fighting the United States, or Christian Crusaders, or any other western phantasm.  Now he is declaring war upon solid, well-established Islamic entities.  His supply of western bayonets is going to dry up and he will suddenly find himself without money, except for the cash he stole from Iraqi banks.

 

Focussing on the criminal acts rather than taking seriously the political proclamations of these groups is the more informative activity.  The alleged political program of the gang is taken altogether too seriously.  A gang of homicidal maniacs drags a red herring of politics before itself, and the hounds of Washington chase after the fish

 

Boko Haram and The Magnificent Seven

 

 

Vincent J. Curtis

29 May 2014

 

In the movie The Magnificent Seven, a collection of hired American gunslingers defend a poor Mexican village from the predation of a gang of Banditos, led by Calvera, who was portrayed by actor Eli Wallach.

 

The Mexican bandits had no interest in governing the village.  They were not interested in providing peace, order, and justice to the village.  They only wanted to take: food and money, primarily.  In other words, they taxed but provided nothing in return.

 

If he had to justify what he did to the villagers, Calvera vaguely referred to an ongoing Mexican revolution and of the need for his gang to survive for the revolution to continue.  Clavera thinks of himself as the father to the gang, who has to provide food and other things for his men.  To him, the products of the village are his own crop to reap.

 

The Nigerian group Boko Haram operates a lot like Calvera’s gang of bandits.  They take from the peaceable people around them for the benefit of the gang, and the taking is done in the name of some higher purpose.  In no instance is Boko Haram offering a government to the people it terrorizes, nor would it be competent to run a civil government with law, order, and justice should it attempt to do so.  Its leadership is competent to run a gang but not a government.

 

Boko Haram is in the news of late because it abducted 276 Nigerian school girls and is in the process of selling them off as wives to Muslim tribesmen, or holding them for ransom.  Perhaps some of the girls were married off to gang members.  The strategic end served by the abduction of these girls was the prosperity of the gang.

 

A lot has been made recently of the connection between Boko Haram and other al Qaeda-linked terrorist groups.  The ostensible political aim of Boko Haram is the imposition of an Islamic Caliphate in Nigeria, the imposition of Sharia law, and the elimination of western education from that country.  They seem to share a common ideology with al Qaeda, which is linked further to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in the United States.

 

But the other thing Boko Haram has in common with al Qaeda is the need to survive.  Both groups need money, and in addition to money Boko Haram needs food, weapons, and ammunition.  Its men, who live in the African bush, need women.  Consequently, a lot of criminal activity takes place in the name of religion by al Qaeda and Boko Haram.  Without this criminal activity, Boko Haram could not survive.  Its men would have to find sustenance elsewhere should gang activity not provide it for them.

 

The imposition of the kind of rule advocated by the Boko Haram is opposed even by other Muslims in Nigeria.  And given that Nigeria is fairly evenly divided between Christian and Muslim, the likelihood of a happy and successful political regime in Nigeria of a kind advocated by Boko Haram is remote.  The political program advocated by Boko Harem is not serious.  The alleged political aims of Boko Haram have no place in a serious discussion of what to do about the gang.

 

The purpose of Boko Haram is to fulfill the psychopathic needs of its leadership.  The men of the gang find gratification of their own personal wants and needs in the gang’s activities.  Opportunities for killing, raping, adventure, a sense of belonging and purpose, as well as food and pay are positive motivators for gang membership and retention.  What political program is advocated serves to quell any pangs of conscience that might arise in the course of violence.

 

Because of its strength and organization, the methods of normal law enforcement will not prevail against the gang.  Stronger measures, the methods of war, are called for.  This situation creates a problem for those addicted to positive law because positive law was developed in and for the framework of civil peace, and positive law devotees are constitutionally unable to admit the boundaries of their doctrine.  They reject the old Roman legal maxim, Silent enim leges inter arma (The laws are silent in time of war).

 

Like what happened to Calvera and his men, Boko Haram needs to be hunted down and slain in a military operation.  Its members are not protected by the laws of war.  They are, and ought to be declared, outlaws in the purest sense of that term: the protection of the civil law does not apply to them.

 

The moral analogy between the movie and the actual situation in Nigeria can be extended further.  At the end of the movie, a dying Calvera asks Chris, the leader of the Magnificent Seven, “Why?”

 

Indeed, a kind of equilibrium had been established between Calvera and the villages he raided for supplies, and the Magnificent Seven broke that up, at great cost to themselves.

 

Ugly as it is, Boko Haram’s preying upon the people around them represents ongoing life in the African bush.  If something is going to be done about the predations of Boko Haram, if somebody is going to play the part of the Magnificent Seven, then the question “why” might need to be answered.  If it can be answered satisfactorily, then the military solution is also the only one that is permanently availing.   Those who seek something other than the military solution, such as a paying ransom or applying political pressure in order to get the girls back, are deluding themselves about the longer term.

 

But, if we cannot give a good answer to the question “Why?” then we are quite justified in holding that ‘such is life, luckily not my life’ and move on.

 

Will a Magnificent Seven undertake the operation?

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