Redstate

The Bush Administration still has not fully addressed this need for an attack on the ideas and ideology of the irhabi death cultists.

Whether we agree or not (and in Redstate, it's going to be NOT), fact is that the Left in this country does have an answer of sorts to Radical Islamist ideology, and a way to "attack" it.

The ideology of Radical Islamists, according to the Left, is merely a variety of false consciousness. A strict adherence to a political system governed by a fundamentalist reading of religious edicts is simply irrational in the modern world. If only the people were better educated, given better opportunities, and enlightened as to their real interests, then they would reject the murderous ideology of jihad and subjugation and mystical mumbo-jumbo of the Caliph and 72 virgins and so on. It is, in effect, a variation on the theme struck in books like What's the Matter with Kansas?

To the Left, which thinks that religion is just a bunch of hocus pocus and mumbo jumbo, or an "opiate of the masses", or just a cultural tradition one does as part of a lifestyle, attacking a religion-based ideology is simple indeed. Just replace God (or Allah in this case) with Welfare!

Hence, the Left's response to irhabi terrorism is to say patronizingly, "Yes, we feel your pain." The Left will combat radical Islam with economic aid, job programs in the West Bank and Ramadi, and a strict multi-culturalism designed to boost the self-confidence of those poor downtrodden Arab masses. Once more Arabs have good union jobs, guaranteed healthcare, and public education, then the ideology of Radical Islam ceases to be appealing, and we will naturally have won.

"Lemme see here... you want me to go strap on this vest and go blow up some infidels so I can get 72 virgins in paradise... but I'm meeting Fatima at Starbucks, and going out with Ismat tomorrow, and we're gonna go catch the latest Sex and the City flick... I think I'll pass."

In order to get there, of course, it is necessary to remove all of the political causes. Like our support for Israel. And the presence of Americans in Saudi Arabia. And in Iraq. And in Afghanistan. Oh, and we probably should allow the proud Arab culture to flourish in the West. I mean, what's a little sharia law amongst friends? Once we've done all that they have asked for, and have built up their economy so that their young men have good jobs, then the jihad will simply stop.

This is the Left's response to the ideology of Radical Islamists.

Those of us on the Right understand the Leftist 'strategy' for ideological warfare to be... well, equal parts fantasy and stupidity. We recognize that religious belief is an enormously powerful motivator, and that it cannot be 'explained away' as something ignorant proletarians cling to out of economic frustration. We see that the perpetrators of 9/11 to use just one example were mostly well-educated, highly intelligent, and middle-class individuals who had very promising futures... somewhat like one Osama bin Laden, the scion of one of the wealthiest families in the entire world.

We recognize that we cannot fight the ideology of jihad with social programs or job banks.

So what do we fight it with?

The last two world wars, I believe, provide some possible suggestions.

In World War II, we defeated ideologies simply through force. Churchill did not spend hours decrying the Aryan Master Race theory. Roosevelt did not seek to debunk the idea that Emperor Hirohito was the Sun God. We simply killed a whole lot of Germans and Italians and Japanese and destroyed the industrial infrastructure of the Axis powers until they surrendered. We were aided in this in that the ideologies themselves -- National Socialism, Fascism, and Japanese Imperialism -- were all concerned with Power. By demonstrating that they were, in fact, not all that powerful, we made it abundantly clear even to the hardcore Nazi that his ideas about German superiority were dead wrong.

In World War III, against Communism, we defeated that pernicious ideology by example. It is illuminating to read the essay How Reagan Won the Cold War by Dinesh D'Souza in connection to this.

Reagan understood that Communism was simply an unworkable economic system. He understood that we could defeat Communism by showing the whole world the difference between American standard of living and the Soviet standard of living. Because Communist ideology was still premised on promising people some sort of a "good life", the wretched truth of long lines, rationing, inefficient use of resources, and general poverty eventually made everyone under Communist rule realize that they'd been had, that they'd been took, that they'd been bamboozled.

Another favorite anecdote concerns a man who goes to the Soviet bureau of transportation to order an automobile. He is informed that he will have to put down his money now, but there is a ten-year wait. So he fills out all the various forms, has them processed through the various agencies, and finally gets to the last agency. He pays them his money and they say, "Come back in ten years and get your car." He asks, "Morning or afternoon?" The man in the agency says, "We're talking about ten years from now. What difference does it make?" He replies, "The plumber is coming in the morning."

Reagan could go on in this vein for hours. What is striking, however, is that Reagan's jokes are not about the evil of Communism but about its incompetence. Reagan agreed with the hawks that the Soviet experiment which sought to create a "new man" was immoral. At the same time, he saw that it was also basically stupid. Reagan did not need a PhD in economics to recognize that any economy based upon centralized planners' dictating how much factories should produce, how much people should consume, and how social rewards should be distributed was doomed to disastrous failure. For Reagan the Soviet Union was a "sick bear," and the question was not whether it would collapse, but when.

Even as socialism, the pernicious first cousin of communism, continues to rear its ugly head in the United States in the 21st century, the ineffectiveness of the Communist ideology is clear to all but the lunatic fringe.

But in this endeavor, we were helped by the fact that Communism was an ideology based on economic theory: it promised its people the good life here and now, but delivered only ashes and dust.

With Islamofascism, we face a threat of a different order. It does not promise the good life here and now; it promises a paradise in the hereafter firmly coupled to divine commandments for submission in the here and now.

This is an ideology that cannot be smashed by force, as we did Nazism, because it is not premised on worldly power. It cannot be ridiculed by economic success, as we did Communism, because it rejects the good life most emphatically. We know this because some of the worst terrorists have come out of environments of relative wealth and comfort. How else to explain the home-grown terrorists of the London attacks?

Simply attacking the entire religion of Islam will not and cannot work. A Christian is impervious to criticism of his faith from Buddhists or Muslims. As many of us on the Right are believers, we know the power of faith; we cannot presume that their faith is any less strong than ours and therefore more susceptible to external condemnation of their ideas. Indeed, there is very good evidence to suggest that their faith is stronger than ours.

From my limited perspective, we must somehow bring about (or endure until) an internal Reformation of Islam. We must wait for the Islamic Martin Luther to arise to cast doubt on the medieval ideologies from within.

What can the West do to help?

First, economic success certainly helps. Even though religion is not an ideology of the here and now, it is still premised in some part on the notion that God rewards the faithful in some way. It is not enough that we are rich, while they are poor, but it certainly helps to get people wondering why Americans live so well while they have to live in squalor.

Second, we must ensure that personal freedom is preeminent. The one feature of Radical Islam is its enslavement of the people. We saw this recently in Iraq, when the Sunni tribes turned against the Al Qaeda groups that had taken over towns like Ramadi. One of the reasons was the oppressive rule and the unrestrained violence of the radical irhabis. From the article above:

Two weeks later, Juma'a was kidnapped again. This time there was no release. Other headmasters were kidnapped at the same time and their bodies found soon after. His family wanted to look in the Baghdad morgue, the Bab al-Modam, but faced a problem. The morgue is deemed by Sunni to be under the control of Shia militiaman who may kill or arrest Sunni looking for murdered relatives.

Finally, Juma'a's sister-in-law, Wafa, and niece went to the morgue on the grounds that women are less likely to be attacked. They passed through a room filled with headless bodies and severed limbs and looked at photographs of the faces of the dead. In 15 minutes, they identified Juma'a, but they were not strong enough to transport his body home in a cheap wooden coffin.

We must continually preach against such violence, preach against enslavement of the people, and at home, ensure that our personal freedoms and our civil liberties survive. This is a major challenge for us in the Age of Obama and the Supernanny State.

Third, and most importantly, we must show that we are virtuous while the radical irhabis are corrupt evil men using religion as an excuse for oppression. Michael Yon provided excellent insight in one of his dispatches, when he spoke with the leader of a Sunni militia that had been fighting us as part of the insurgency, but turned against Al Qaeda and started to help us: Abu Ali.

Before the tape was running, I asked Abu Ali why he and the 1920s turned against al Qaeda in Buhriz. Speaking through LT David Wallach, a native Arabic speaker, Abu Ali said that “al Qaeda is an abomination of Islam: cutting off heads, stealing people’s money, kidnapping . . . every type of torture they have done.”

The recent stories of baked children came to mind. I asked if Abu Ali had heard about children being baked. Ali said no, he had not heard such a story, but he would not be surprised if it were true because al Qaeda had done so many crimes, such as cutting off a man’s head, putting it up on a stick and parading it around town.

As a society, as a civilization, we have grown very uncomfortable with that word: virtue. It speaks to the kind of moral judgment that is taboo in a multi-culti society. And yet, that is precisely what we need to combat radical Islamists: a definition and an adherence to virtue.

I believe that we can come to a meeting of the minds with the vast Muslim community over the ideal of virtue, even as we acknowledge differences in our cultures and religions. Their religion may command them to wash their feet, and pray seven times a day; ours may command us to believe that bread and wine becomes flesh and blood of Christ. But we can agree that cutting heads off and raping women is not virtuous, and against the commands of both Jesus and Mohammed.

If we can get there, then we have won the ideological war.

As the Left has simply abandoned the whole idea of virtue, it is not for them to prepare the weapons in the ideological conflict. That task is for those of us in the Center-Right.

I hope to address that in the next installation.

-TS