The Unrepentant American

“TO OUR GREAT DETRIMENT”:

IGNORING WHAT EXTREMISTS SAY ABOUT JIHAD (with appendices) by Stephen Collins Coughlin Major, Military Intelligence, USAR NDIC Class 2007

http://www.strategycenter.net/docLib/20080107_Coughlin_ExtremistJihad.pdf

Unfortunately the American govt is damn near as ignorant about the doctrinal foundation of the jihadis as the American public is. You can't really blame the public because even though they think every word out of GWB's mouth is a lie they somehow can't help (wishful thinking or secularist blinders) believing him when he says Islam is "the religion of peace." It isn't. Islam is a political movement that wants to create a global apartheid state just like Saudi Arabia where non-muslims are prohibited from entering entire cities:

A state where women are worth half a man, christians and jews are worth half a muslim and everyone else is an animal to be enslaved, robbed or slaughtered at will. The jihadis are simply following the laws outlined in the Koran more closely than the rest of the world's muslims.

The pentagon has a muslim brotherhood-connected advisor to Secretary England who I believe engineered Major Coughlin's ouster, temporarily, he was just reinstated this week.

Cut and Paste from LGF:

Pentagon Aide Urged Meetings with Muslim Brotherhood

Wed, Feb 6, 2008 at
11:53:55 am PST
According to Steven Emerson, Pentagon aide Hesham Islam scheduled meetings for Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England with the Muslim Brotherhood: Pentagon Aide’s Invitations Contradicted U.S. Policy.
At the urging of a subordinate, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England scheduled at least two meetings with foreign emissaries in direct contradiction of U.S. policy at the time. The meetings date back to 2005. They involved a Lebanese ambassador considered a proxy for the Syrian government and a leading member of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood. U.S. policy at the time was not to engage in talks with either man, because they represent groups with whom the United States was not to communicate. The meetings were organized by England’s special assistant for international affairs, Hesham Islam. An invitation to Muslim Brotherhood official Husam al-Dairi was canceled in late 2005 after a senior State Department official heard about it and insisted it not take place. That official, J. Scott Carpenter, told IPT News he was shocked that such an invitation was issued, let alone that it was done without anyone consulting the State Department.

Cut and paste from LFG:

The Pentagon's Muslim Outreach Expert

Mon, Jan 7, 2008 at 8:59:27 am PST
Here’s a profile of the Muslim
aide to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, Hesham Islam, who reportedly
was behind the firing of a Pentagon specialist on Islamic extremism: Senior Advisor to Deputy Secretary Focuses on Relationship Building.
As he represents the Defense Department around the country and around the world, England said, he counts on Islam’s insights and advice. “Hesham helps me understand people’s different perspectives and how they see things,” England said. “He has a cultural background that’s very helpful, but he also works at it very hard to get a better understanding of people and how they think.” Islam works tirelessly to befriend diplomats from around the world, learning from each about their country, its sensitivities, and its requirements. “I help them understand us, as Americans, and help my boss understand them,” he said. “My goal is to bridge the gap and help people understand each other, even if we are different.” Not all Islam’s efforts are directed toward other countries. A Muslim, Islam works closely with the Muslim-American community, encouraging its members to integrate into American society and take an active stand with the United States in the war on violent extremism. “This war can’t be won by just Americans,” he said. “It’s a war that has to be fought by Muslims. Islam has been hijacked, and it is time to take it back.” Islam said he’s proud of the 5,000 Muslims actively supporting that effort in the U.S. military. Among them is his own son, Navy Lt. j.g. Rami Islam, who serves aboard the carrier USS Carl Vinson. “As a parent, I’m very proud that my son is serving this country,” he said. After growing up in wartime, first in Egypt, then in Iraq, Islam hopes this dialogue can help eliminate differences that can lead to misunderstanding and conflict. “If people talk, people don’t fight. If they talk, they don’t argue,” he said. “I try to bring talking and understanding into the dialogue.” “Hesham has wonderful friendships and relationships, and therefore he can give me extraordinarily good advice in dealing with countries and people,” England said. “I take his advice, and I listen to him all the time.” England said he rarely disagrees with Islam’s guidance. “After all,” he said, “if you have a good doctor, you listen to your doctor, right?”

[Excerpt From Coughlin's Report]

Constrained by Policy

Following the catastrophic events of 9-11 when 19 Muslim men attacked U.S. targets for reasons associated with jihad in furtherance of Islamic goals, President George Bush made broad statements that held Islam harmless:

The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them.4

While there is little doubt the President made these comments to allay fears in the Muslim community while staring-down thoughts of vigilante justice in some circles, his statements exerted a chilling effect on those tasked to define the enemy’s doctrine by effectively placing a policy bar on the unconstrained analysis of Islamic doctrine as a basis for this threat.

The "Underlying Causes" Model.

Shifting focus from the "extremists" stated cause, the Underlying Causes model is the prevailing threat analysis paradigm in the WOT. But should it be? As recently as 15 May 2007, from the same utterance in which he acknowledged that "it is true that terrorist leaders seem more often than not to come from middle-class backgrounds," U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson counterfactually asserted that "most people would find it hard to argue against the idea that [the underlying cause of] terrorist violence arises, sociologically speaking, out of poverty, despair, hopelessness and resentment."5 In a single statement, the Ambassador stated both the policy view driving the WOT and its greatest weakness. The general perception is expressed by Thomas Mockaitis when he said that a "hearts and mind" campaign should be directed against Underlying Causes he describes as "discontent stemming from bread and butter issues, lack of jobs, decent housing, electricity, running water, health care and education."6 The Underlying Causes model reflects a choice to examine terrorism strictly in terms of economic depravation, an approach our national defense apparatus can measure without having to change how it does business. The weakness of this approach is more broadly understood than many inside the U.S. Government realize, with people as diverse as David Brooks of the Atlantic Monthly,7 Cardinal George Pell,8 and Indian terrorism analyst N. S. Rajaram9 all identifying the U.S. Government’s uni-dimensional materialist approach to understanding the WOT as a serious strategic shortcoming. Disqualifying an enemy’s stated reason d’etre from inclusion in the threat development process is actually an extreme decision that not only runs counter to the Chairman’s charge to "get out and read what our enemies have said," but also to principles of war that reach back to Sun Tzu.

...

Uninformed Decisionmaking - Who Cares?

A Current Approach that avoids discussions of Islam and jihad by seeking terrorism’s Underlying Causes in strictly materialist terms is in line with the Chairman’s finding that we do not understand the enemy’s threat doctrine. In two articles spanning the Fall 2006 elections, Jeff Stein, national security editor for Congressional Quarterly, exposed the depth of the deficit among senior Washington decisionmakers, including those with direct responsibility for WOT related issues. Leading into the elections, in a New York Times article titled "Can you tell a Sunni from a Shi’ite?," Stein caused a stir by demonstrating that most American officials interviewed "did not have a clue" about the most basic issues concerning Islam. His sample "included not just intelligence and law enforcement officials but also members of Congress who have important roles overseeing our spy agencies."17 With Republicans still in control of Congress, the October 2006 article named two prominent Republican members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) and found that neither could answer basic questions on the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims.18 Given the notoriety of the article, Stein’s follow-up interview in December 2006 with the incoming Democratic Chairman of the House Permanent Subcommittee on Intelligence (and senior member of the Armed Services Committee), Congressman Silvestre Reyes, proved equally distressing when it turned out that the Democrats’ chosen leader believed al-Qaeda to be a predominantly Shia organization.19 Five years into the intelligence intensive WOT, the HPSCI’s poor bipartisan showing regarding relevant Islamic identity issues caused Stein to ask the obvious question: "How can the Intelligence Committee do effective oversight of U.S. spy agencies when its leaders don't know the basics about the battlefield?"20 For Stein, the more pressing problem is that "too many officials in charge of the war on terrorism just don’t care to learn much, if anything, about the enemy we’re fighting."21 This conclusion may have been driven as much by the troubling responses of prominent Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) leaders as by the ignorance of key Congressional leaders. What prompted Stein’s investigation was FBI Counterterrorism Chief Gary Bald’s insistence that knowing the distinctions between Sunni and Shia as it relates to differences between al-Qaeda and Hizballah was not as important as being a good manager.22 When Stein spoke to FBI Public Affairs Director John Miller regarding Bald’s assertion, Miller’s response was that "a leader needs to drive the organization forward" and such questions were nothing more than "lawyers and journalists" using "Islamic Trivial Pursuit" questions as "cheap shots."23 Given the inadequacy of Miller’s explanation, when Stein interviewed Willie Hulon, Director of the FBI’s National Security Branch, a year later, he knew enough to answer Stein’s questions on the difference between Sunnis and Shias by saying "yes, sure, it’s right to know the difference, it’s important to know who your targets are."24 Yet, when Stein presented the same Sunni-Shia question to Mr. Hulon, even after prompts like "Iran and Hezbollah," he still associated Hizballah with Sunni Islam.25 This knowledge deficit has become a strategic deficit. More than five years into the WOT against a threat that defines itself in Islamic terms, the national security community does not understand the most basic Islamic doctrines that the enemy selfidentifies as being its primary motivating factor. This is the legacy of the Underlying Causes model and the Current Approach. A growing awareness of this knowledge deficit is taking hold among the broader public who is beginning to raise basic questions of competency. Diana West, editorial writer for the Washington Times tapped into this rising frustration: It’s hard to say what’s worse: ignorance of jihad, for which there’s no excuse at this advanced stage of war, or indifference to it, for which there’s never an excuse. Both attitudes deeply imbue U.S. war policy.26

A DOCTRINAL BASIS EXISTS FOR THE JIHADI THREAT

What We Choose Not to Know Confirming the Chairman’s frustration that we do not understand the enemy, the following example illustrates just what we have ignored to our great detriment. Remembering that U.S. forces are non-Muslim forces operating in Muslim lands, the following citations from standard Islamic texts will be followed by a series of quotes from a known "extremist" that demonstrates conformity between Islamic law and "extremist" claims. The point is to demonstrate both how the duties of jihad as stated in Islamic law are applicable to non-Muslim forces in Muslim lands and that those duties are actually being applied to American forces. From the English language translation of the Saudi-published Interpretation of the Meanings of the Noble Qur’an in the English Language, one can read "Appendix III -- The Call to Jihad -- (Holy Fighting for Allah in the Qur’an Statement)," written by Saudi Arabia’s Chief Justice, and learn that jihad -- holy fighting in Allah’s Cause -- is a requirement of Islam:

The Verses of the Qur'an and the Sunnah (the Prophet's legal ways, orders) exhort Muslims greatly to take part in Jihad and have made quite clear its rewards, and praised greatly those who perform Jihad (the holy fighting in Allah's Cause) and explained to them various kinds of honours which they will receive from their Lord (Allah). This is because they - Mujahidin are Allah's troops. Allah will establish His religion (Islam), through them (Mujahidin). He will repel the might of His enemies, and through them He will protect Islam and guard the religion safely. And it is they (Mujahidin) who fight against the enemies of Allah in order that the worship should be all for Allah (Alone and not for any other deity) and that the Word of Allah (i.e. none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and His religion Islam) should be superior.27

Then, from a translated 2005-2006 school-year edition of the 12th grade Saudi school textbook (already sanitized due to U.S. State Department pressure [EDIT: THIS CONTENTION IS DISPUTED]), one finds the requirements of jihad:

• Scholars have noted that jihad is obligatory for the individual in three
cases:
o (2) If the infidels attack a specific country, it is obligatory for its
people to fight them and repel them. Self-defense is a duty. Allah said, "Fight
in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for
Allah loveth not transgressors."

• When is battle jihad in the path of
Allah?
o To fulfill an order from God, sacrifice in His path, spread the creed of
monotheism, defend the realms of Islam and Muslims, and raise up the Word of
Allah. This is jihad in the path of God.

• Jihad continues until the Day
of Resurrection
o It is part of God's wisdom that he made the clash
between truth and falsehood continue until the Day of Resurrection. As long as
this clash endures, jihad continues. It is not limited to a specific time. As
long as there is falsehood, error, and unbelief, the jihad continues.28

The three items enumerated above lay the foundation for "extremist" claims. Because the last examples are Saudi, it is appropriate to corroborate those statements with an accepted mainstream text of Islamic law that is neither Saudi nor Wahhabi.29 Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Text of Islamic Law, translated by Nu Hah Mim Keller, confirms the personal obligation to fight jihad when non-Muslim forces enter Muslim lands:

Jihad is also personally obligatory for everyone able to perform it, male or female, old or young when the enemy has surrounded the Muslims on every side, having entered our territory, even if the land consists of ruins, wilderness, or mountains, for non-Muslim forces entering Muslim lands is a weighty matter that cannot be ignored, but must be met with effort and struggle to repel them by every possible means.30

The requirement to fight jihad when non-Muslim forces enter Muslim lands is understood as a requirement of Islamic law. So how does one explain the prevailing assumption that Islam does not stand for such violence undertaken in its name with the fact that its laws and education materials validate the very acts undertaken by "extremists" in Iraq? In fact, the first "radicalizing" lesson that Saudi youth receive that motivates them to travel to Iraq and fight Coalition forces does not come from "extremists" groups like al-Qaeda, but rather is taught as part of Saudi Arabia’s standard secondary school curriculum. This raises the prospect that Osama bin Laden’s original 1996 call for jihad had merit. As bin Laden stated in 1996:

While some of the well-known individuals had hesitated in their duty of defending Islam and saving themselves and their wealth from the injustice, aggression and terror -- exercised by the government -- the youths (may Allah protect them) were forthcoming and raised the banner of Jihad against the American-Zionist alliance occupying the sanctities of Islam. ... It is now clear that those who claim that the blood of the American solders (the enemy occupying the land of the Muslims) should be protected are merely repeating what is imposed on them by the regime; fearing the aggression and interested in saving themselves. It is a duty now on every tribe in the Arab Peninsula to fight, Jihad, in the cause of Allah and to cleanse the land from those occupiers. Allah knows that there (sic) blood is permitted (to be spilled) and their wealth is a booty; their wealth is a booty to those who kill them.

From the 1996 fatwa, it is important to note that bin Laden never called for jihad on his own authority but rather based his claim on a Muslim’s personal responsibility to do so when non-Muslim forces enter Muslim lands, as is stated in the law. Because this makes his statement less extreme than is generally characterized, it should have always been taken seriously. The problem from an Islamic legal perspective is that "extremist" statements appear to conform to the statement of law. Hence, groups like al-Qaeda can reasonably claim that they are simply executing the same Islamic legal requirements that Muslim governments require their students be taught.

[End Excerpt].

READ THE ENTIRE COUGHLIN ANALYSIS, WE ARE IN DEEP TROUBLE WITH OUR SO-CALLED LEADERSHIP: Read the rest...

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