Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq (No Series)

by Scheuer, Michael

  And, Brother Osama, by occupying Iraq, U.S. leaders, through their disregard or ignorance of your words, have made your predictions come true in the eyes of the Muslim ummah. You said: America will destroy strong Muslim states, and it did. You said: America will destroy Muslim regimes that threaten Israel, and it did. You said: America will seize Muslim oil, and it did. You said: America will try to destroy our religion and occupy our holy places, and it did. You said: America will replace God’s law with blasphemous, man-made laws and secular governments, and it did. Praise to the Almighty God for showing you the truth, Brother Osama.

  And, Brothers, God has now properly validated your call for a defensive jihad in accordance with the terms of His blessed religion. In their intensely legalistic way, the Americans always took delusional solace from the fact that neither of you is a trained Islamic scholar. They convinced themselves that, because you lacked diplomas, no Muslim could legitimately answer your call to jihad; apparently they have never heard of another non-scholar mujahid named Saladin. But now the U.S. invasion of Iraq has called forth fatwas from many well-credentialed Islamic scholars. These decrees declare a defensive jihad in exactly the terms you used.58 Praise to God, the Sustainer of both worlds.

  Most important for our movement, U.S. leaders do not appear to see that in Iraq they have opened a door for us to infiltrate our message and mujahedin into Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Jordan and through the latter two to Lebanon and Israel. The late mujahid Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, may God reward him, attacked Jordan and Israel from Iraq, and the leaders of al-Qaeda in Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria have broadcast their readiness to attack Israel. Indeed, in the summer of 2007 our brothers in Lebanon stubbornly fought the Christian Lebanese army for more than a month.59 Brothers, the Americans see Iraq as honey to attract the mujahedin so they can be killed there; and President Bush and his administration teach the American people that if the U.S. military fights our brothers in Iraq, they will not have to be fought in the United States. Do they not know there are 1.4 billion Muslims? The Americans will understand this is nonsense when they find themselves fighting, if God wills it, the mujahedin in both places, and many others as well. Washington, thanks to God, fails to see that the U.S. military presence in Iraq not only gives the mujahedin U.S. targets there but also helps satisfy al-Qaeda’s goal of securing contiguous safe haven from which to infiltrate fighters into the Levant, Turkey, and the birthplace of our Prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him. Even at this late date, Brothers, American leaders have still failed to recognize—and all thanks be to the Lord of both worlds for their blindness—that they have built a west-bound highway for the mujahedin that leads from Afghanistan through Iraq to the Levant and beyond. It will be too late, God willing, when Washington discovers that the flow of non-Iraqi mujahedin through Iraq into the Levant, Turkey, and the Arabian Peninsula is far more dangerous to their interests than the mujahedin entering Iraq from Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

  What Next?: With God’s Grace, Press On

  18. For now, Brothers, and all thanks to God for this, the good news for the mujahedin outweighs the bad by a large measure. But we must remember that the United States is a powerful enemy, and historically one terrible in war when it is ably led and its people are roused to united and focused anger. Based on my own decade of experience living and working here, Brothers, I believe the American people are much tougher and more willing to kill than are their leaders. We must always keep this reality in mind to prevent us becoming arrogant and overconfident, characteristics which recent U.S. administrations have shown through their constantly expressed contempt for the mujahedin as mere criminals: this, praise to God, is a devastating vulnerability for them. Our main advantage now lies in the failure of U.S. leaders to understand their Islamist enemy. Part of this failure is due to their woeful lack of historical knowledge, both ours and, most surprisingly, their own. The rest is due to the moral cowardice that prevents U.S. leaders from enforcing immigration laws and frankly debating their foreign policies because of the potential for negative domestic political consequences.

  19. We also greatly benefit from the paralyzing and contemptible fear U.S. leaders have of fully employing America’s overwhelming military power, a fear shown by President Bush, his top political and military officials, and Democratic Party leaders when they repeatedly say the U.S. government intends to wage what they call a “Long War” against the mujahedin.60 By God, Brothers, this seems to mean that the mujahedin, with God’s permission, have driven the Americans crazy. They appear ready to sacrifice all of the advantages that a focused, unlimited application of military power would afford, and instead fight us in insurgency situations all around the world, a scenario where the patient and dedicated mujahedin will surely bleed America to death in terms of money, lives, and political unity. Truly, Brothers, these Americans are astounding; history suggests that only fools would reinforce failure by sending five more brigades to engage the mujahedin in house-to-house fighting in Baghdad. If God permits, Vice President Cheney will soon find it is the mujahedin, not the Americans, who have the “stomach” for such a fight.61

  20. Also, Brothers, the futility of the “Long War” approach by America was underscored by Bush’s Iraq Study Group, which said, “U.S. ground forces have been stretched to the breaking point,” and that Washington has “little reserve force to call on if it needs ground forces elsewhere in the world,” which presumably also dooms to failure their intervention in Somalia.62 The Group’s report also said that the God-loving mujahedin had so worn out the U.S. military that it will take at least five years and massive but undetermined funding to restore it to pre–Iraq-war readiness.63 Praise to God, Brothers, al-Qaeda’s aim to spread American forces as thinly as possible to dilute their ability to focus their unprecedented military power appears to be succeeding. While it is hard to believe, God has validated Brother Osama’s prediction that al-Qaeda needs only to send two men carrying an al-Qaeda banner to any spot on earth, and the U.S. military will rush there.64

  21. Overall, Brothers, it is my assessment, and God knows best, that the U.S. leaders’ combination of historical ignorance and moral cowardice is, with God’s support, a potential war-winner for the mujahedin. No U.S. administration can develop a strategy for victory over al-Qaeda and its allies as long as they refuse to listen to and understand what we tell them about our motivation. However, Brothers, it is necessary to continue waging war against them aggressively, ruthlessly, and globally; we must resist the arrogance which would cause us to rely on the Americans remaining ignorant forever. U.S. leaders may someday, and may God make it far in the future, recognize that their country’s destiny is in their hands; they alone can change the foreign policies that are helping the mujahedin’s drive toward God’s victory. Indeed, last year a Republican presidential candidate truthfully said that al-Qaeda attacked Washington and New York because of U.S. intervention in the Muslim world. But, and all thanks to God for this, his fellow candidates and most of the media ridiculed him and demanded he retract his words. This episode, however, points out that only the Americans can change the policies that are powering our campaign for God’s glory, and that fact, for al-Qaeda, is a constant threat to the effectiveness and durability of our effort to keep Muslims focused on the far American enemy, and not those so much closer to home.65

  As you know, Brothers, God told our beloved Prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, that He will only help those who do everything possible to help themselves, and so we must continue to carry this war to the Americans while they remain asleep. Our strategy must continue to be, as the Prophet, God’s peace and blessings be upon him, said to Satan, “I will give thee no respite.”66

  22. And my final prayer is that all praise is due Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may His peace and blessings be on our master Muhammad and upon his family and companions. And, Brothers, may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon you.

  PART IV

  WHE
RE TO FROM HERE?

  It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth—and listen to the song of the syren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it.

  Patrick Henry, 1775

  Americans should take Patrick Henry’s advice and accept the anguish of seeing that the United States stands at a uniquely dire moment in its history; indeed, America stands at a moment that may be unique in terms of the history of any Great Power that has ever existed. If tomorrow the fighters of al-Qaeda or another Islamist insurgent group detonate a nuclear device in an American city—or cities, given al-Qaeda’s predilection for multiple, simultaneous attacks—the U.S. government would find itself with an unprecedented national emergency, stunning numbers of dead, besieged by a population rabid for revenge, and having no meaningful military or political target against which to unleash the earth’s most powerful military. Washington might temporarily dodge this reality by pulverizing Iran, which would have had nothing to do with the attack, or by destroying a Muslim holy site, such as Mecca or Medina. The sole U.S. option of irrational military retaliation, in itself, speaks eloquently about the effective strategy of our Islamist foes and the degree to which American leaders have played into their hands. But when the smoke from those retaliatory attacks cleared, the American governing elite would have rallied even more of the Muslim world to the support of the nuclear attackers and would find itself detested and untrusted by American citizens. On that day U.S. political leaders would be as bankrupt in terms of domestic support and empathy as they are today in terms of intellectual capacity and common sense.

  While there has been an abundance of recommendations about how to service this uniquely dangerous moment in U.S. history, most have been predictable—and useless—manifestations of a continuing Cold War–era worldview. Politicians, pundits, and generals of all persuasions, as discussed throughout this book, stick to the good-vs.-evil scenario: “The Islamists hate us for our liberties and freedoms, not for what we do, and we will bring them to justice one man at a time.” From academics and think-tank denizens come such gems as: we “must work with moderate and liberal Muslims to prevent extremists from taking over mosques”1; “it is necessary to establish an anti-defamation league to monitor such [Islamist] hate speech…Anti-American or anti-Western hate speech is unacceptable”2 and “we must divorce the Islamist mujahedin from their faith by calling them proponents of ‘Arab Fascism.’”3 From the same sources come such enemy-intimidating ideas as “stigmatize the extremists and their war” by changing the war on terror to “‘the war on jihadis’ and ‘the war on jihadism’” 4 “demonstrate our commitment to the rule of law” 5 and, “replace the language of warfare…with the language of development and construction and the patience that goes along with it.”6

  Having prepared America to triumph semantically, most policy recommendations then default to the Cold War gold standard: American intervention everywhere. The U.S. government “will resist any and all efforts to establish governments on these [Islamist] principles anywhere in the world,” and while doing this, Washington and its allies must “find ways to promote orderly and peaceful development.”7 How do we do the latter? With money from U.S. taxpayers of course! Washington’s contributions after an Arab-Israeli settlement must be a “substantial, conspicuous, and inspiring sum,”8 and U.S. government funds should be used “to support the development [in the Muslim world] of a resilient civil society and moderate opposition political parties.”9 Also needed, naturally, are more U.S. funds for participation in “global governance,” new multilateral institutions, the “restructuring and reform of the UN,” and America’s role as the “guarantor” of “human dignity.”10

  And finally the crowning touch, one that surely demonstrates the homogeneity of the U.S. governing elite from far right to far left. For all the hatred that most academic and think tankers direct at the neoconservatives, their post-9/11 policy recommendations reflect just as great a willingness to intervene and go democracy-crusading, albeit with dollars and do-gooders rather than guns. “Only democratization,” wrote one academic who would surely be appalled to be put in the neoconservative camp, “will directly attack the jihadist ideology while creating governments that are more responsive to their citizens.”11 Another writes that the “U.S. government must show strong support for such a [anti–hate speech] program to support universal tolerance and peace.”12 And yet another, a just-war scholar apparently intent on involving her countrymen in just about every war possible, writes, “As the world’s superpower, America bears the responsibility to help guarantee that international stability, whether much of the world wants it or not.”13

  Generally absent from most of these recommendations is any notion that there should be substantive changes in U.S. foreign policy; that America should start looking out for itself first and foremost; or that, heaven forbid, the level of U.S. military power applied against our Islamist enemies must be massively increased. To be sure, very few of America’s elite have signed on to the timeless wisdom of the motto of the National Review’s John Derbyshire: “Rubble Doesn’t Cause Trouble.”14 Indeed, the whole elite seems to hold a sneaking suspicion that it really does not have a clue about how to defeat bin Laden et al. “We are going to have to learn to live with it [terrorism],” concludes one academic musing from Radcliffe and Harvard, “as the price of living in a complex world.”15 Which only goes to show that, sadly, the Cold War’s devotees of nuance, as well as its masters of the international political ballet, are still with us and are prepared to see untold numbers of Americans die rather than consider anything so gauche as using Reagan’s we win–they lose formula to bring victory over the Islamists.

  Given the quality of the foregoing advice—it is what Patrick Henry called “the song of the syren”—there clearly is no certainty that a nuclear calamity can be prevented. Americans must begin to do the thinking that their elites have proved themselves incapable of doing. Foreign policy must be changed to focus only on genuine national-security interests; nonessential political, diplomatic, and military intervention abroad must be stopped; and when the use of military force is mandatory, it must be applied with more ferocity and less discrimination. Domestically, homeland security must become a reality and not just a catchphrase used to justify enormous, nonproductive federal expenditures. And finally, a beginning must be made to return the American political system to the framework of responsible republican government crafted by the Founders. The people themselves must become the engines of their own and their country’s survival. And time is running short for them to do so. They must examine their history afresh; relearn its lessons to know where they came from, where they are, and where they are going; and prepare to confront and defeat some of the most dangerous foes their republic has faced. “To see what others have done in important junctures, and to have both their merits and mistakes analyzed by a competent critic,” wrote a talented citizen-soldier in Mr. Lincoln’s armies in words pertinent to the need of today’s Americans to act in their country’s defense,

  rouses one’s mind to grapple with the problem before it, and begets a generous determination to rival in one own’s sphere of action the brilliant deeds of soldiers who have made a name in other times. Then, the example of the vigorous way in which history will at last deal with those who fail when the pinch comes, tends to keep a man up to his work and make him avoid the rock on which so many have split, the disposition to take refuge in doing nothing when he finds it difficult to decide what should be done.16

  CHAPTER 8

  A Humble Suggestion—America First

  The advice nearest to my heart and de
epest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated. Let the open enemy to it be regarded as Pandora with her box open; and the disguised one as the serpent creeping with his deadly wiles into paradise.

  James Madison, 1834

  We have not journeyed all the way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy…If anybody likes to play rough, we can play rough too.

  Winston Churchill, 1941

  Writing in the 1780s, Great Britain’s King George III squarely faced up to the fact that the British military had been defeated by George Washington’s army and that Britain’s thirteen English-speaking North American colonies were irretrievably lost to his realm. “America is lost,” George III wrote, then went on to survey what was to come next. “Must we fall beneath the blow? Or have we resources that may repair the mischief? What are those resources? Should they be sought in distant Regiouns [sic] held by precarious tenure, or should we seek them at home in exertions of a new policy?” 1 Ironically, the leaders of the nation established by General Washington’s victory today find themselves in much the same position as George III. They have lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and must now disengage from them with as much decorum as possible. The longer they wait, the more difficult it will be to prevent a Saigon-like exit. For Americans generally, the unavoidable conclusion is that their political leaders have bitten off overseas far more than the country can ever reasonably hope to chew. Americans and their leaders will henceforth have to decide, as did George III and his ministers, whether to continue adventuring about “in distant Regiouns,” or seek to find national security “at home in exertions of a new policy.”