Vincent J. Curtis
25
May 2015
“In battle, the moral is to the physical as three is to
one,” said Napoleon Bonaparte. France’s
Great Captain referred to the importance of the willingness and of the motivation
to fight, as compared to the theoretical military strength of a fighting force.
Evidence of a collapse in morale by Iraqi forces in the war
against ISIS was evident when American-trained and –equipped Iraqi forces ran
without a fight when ISIS invaded Iraq in June, 2014. The Iraqis abandoned loads of equipment, to
the chagrin of the United States.
More recently, the city of Ramadi fell to ISIS forces. The Iraqi military forces facing ISIS in
Ramadi refused to fight them, according to reports, despite outnumbering the
ISIS force and being better equipped. If
they had at least held out until a sandstorm had subsided, U.S. air power would
have been brought to bear against the exposed ISIS attacking force.
The moral depravity of ISIS is well-known. ISIS has savagely beheaded helpless captives
and posted the gruesome acts on social media.
They have sold captured Christian women into sex-slavery. They have taken to demolishing mankind’s
priceless cultural treasures that were civilization’s earliest
development. It is one thing for ISIS to
require Muslims to live in darkness; it is quite another for them to require
Christians and others to live in darkness also.
More than half of ISIS’s fighting strength comes from
out-of-region volunteers. There is an
energy and ferment within the Muslim community around the world, and it is
looking for an outlet to express itself.
ISIS appeals to the young in the grip of that ferment, despite, or
perhaps because of, its savagery.
Countries that allow its citizens to rush overseas and join
ISIS in its madcap drive to create an Islamic Caliphate, are indirectly
complicit in making matters worse in Iraq.
They are indirectly complicit in the destruction of mankind’s cultural
treasures. And they may create their own
internal security problems when their citizens return home.
President Barack Obama is not a man to cross a vigorous
Islam. His rhetorical game is to
demoralize the United States against another potential war in Iraq. Instead of attacking ISIS depravity, he
brings up the alleged wrongdoings of Christians during the period of the
Crusades. Under President Barack Obama,
the United States is not going to put down ISIS.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is, in contrast, building a
moral case for a defensive battle against ISIS and jihadist extremism. In a speech at Pierre Elliot Trudeau airport
in Montreal, shortly after ten Muslim youths were arrested before they could
depart the country allegedly to join ISIS, Harper laid down a moral case
against Canadians joining ISIS.
“We have a great country that is unparalleled in terms of
its freedom, its democracy, its openness, and its tolerance, and there is no
legitimate reason of any kind in this country for someone to become a violent
jihadist or a terrorist or to join any kind of group that is involved or
advocates that kind of activity….It is totally unacceptable to Canada and
Canadians and unacceptable to this government.”
While not exactly ringing rhetoric, Harper calls attention
to the superior moral values of the west, Canada in particular, as the
justification for cracking down on jihadist terrorism. He states clearly that jihadism is “totally
unacceptable,” an expression without much wiggle room. The aim of jihadism, the imposition of sharia
law and the dominance of correct Islam over all others, is totally contrary to
Canadian values. To say nothing of the
means by which jihad typically brings about these conditions.
Harper’s moral case was aimed as much at the (western)
public at large, as it was at the Muslim minority in the midst of the Canadian
public. An important question, which may
be answered at the next election, is whether the Canadian public is morally
exhausted, and has no stomach to fight for the decidedly western values
enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The real crisis, however, lies in Canada’s Muslim
community. A pious Muslim is not
supposed to sojourn in the land of the infidel.
A pious Muslim is supposed to leave the land of the infidel or create where
he lives Dar-al-Islam, the land of Islam, in which sharia law operates and
Islam is dominant. We see the effect of
this in European cities where banlieues
exist, places in which Muslims congregate, form a majority population, and
quietly push out western law and values.
This has not yet happened in Canada, but the number of Muslim youth of
Canadian origin who seek jihad in other countries speaks to a growing crisis of
values in Canada’s growing Muslim community.
Harper laid down the moral case for defending Canada’s
western values both at home and abroad.
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