January 30, 2007

Robert Spencer on a Lesson from the Film “Patton,” that Applies to the Actions of Radical Jihadists

Robert Spencer addressing the Wednesday Morning Club. 

[Many today on both the Left and the Right] share one thing in common: and that is that they do not consider that there could possibly be any imperatives arising from the people involved here [the terrorists], to which their actions could be attributed. They are not responsible for their actions. Their actions are all the fault of somebody else. Neither the left nor the right in general, is considering at all, what it is within the Islamic world today, that is giving rise to this global violence that we see on a daily basis.

And as a matter of fact, most commentators and analysts, on both the Left and the Right, seem to spend most of their time trying to exonerate the Islamic world from any responsibility for this, and to deny what they themselves say are the reasons why they are doing what they are doing. Which denial they then use so that they can make more convincing their own case, that it is all really the fault, somehow or other, of the West - whether because of the "evils" of our foreign policy, or because of the "evils" of our domestic culture, or both, or something else.

For example, [.....] George W. Bush himself, right after 9-11, said, as we all know, that Islam is a religion of peace. He doesn't say that anymore, but he has repeated it many times, and he has repeated the idea that what he and Prime Minister Tony Blair both and other spokesmen in the west, as a matter of fact unanimously, all the leaders of the Western countries, have said, this is a religion that is peaceful, at it's core it is fundamentally benign. And those who are perpetrating violence in its name, have twisted and hijacked its genuinely peaceful teachings.

[.....] However, the words of the people who are perpetrating the actions themselves, are very clear. They say, that they are doing this because of the teachings of Islam. They say this repeatedly, they say it in great detail, and they say it in a unified manner. That is, there's a unified ideology behind all these movements - from Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Kashmir, all across through to Israel and north to Western Europe, and west into Africa. The same ideology. The people who are perpetrating the violence in the name of Islam, all explain that they are doing so, on the basis of various teachings of Islam. That's the one unifying factor of all these disparate movements - all across the globe.

And yet that's the one thing that Western analysts are most likely to discount, and say, it's either false, or unimportant.

Now, I think that's suicidal and stupid. To discount the one reason that the people themselves have given for what they are doing, is like tying your hands behind your back in a fight - quite literally. It's like you are refusing to accept - you are refusing to consider - the policy directions that would be dictated by taking them at their word. And also refusing to accept the things that you will discover about their own motives and goals, by taking them at their word, and reading what they're doing.

For example, you've all seen the movie "Patton", many years ago? Patton defeated Rommel in the desert. Before Patton defeated Rommel in the desert in the movie, you saw Patton's nightstand, and on the nightstand was a German book of military strategy, written by Rommel. So, when Patton's army is routing Rommel's army in North Africa, we hear Patton in voice-over say, "I read your book!" As in, I knew exactly what you were going to do. You told me what you were going to do, and then you did it, and so I was ready for you.

But today we can't do that. Because they tell us what they're going to do, and why they're doing it, and we say, "Oh you don't really mean that. Islam's a religion of peace. "

But I submit to you, that we could achieve the same strategic advantage, by reading their books, as Patton gained over Rommel.