Update Iraq: Grim as Ever ... only Kidding!

Even before 'the surge' took hold, things were looking up. Not that you'd figure that from the reporting in what is collectively termed, 'the West'. Just how misleading the reporting by the politically biased mainstream press is, has already been published in a number of blogs, and by some critical journalists with a beating heart for the investigative side of the profession - those that haven't become part of the global conspiracy for the cultivation of the anti American consensus.

Michael Yon - an independent reporter [1] who's been blogging from Iraq (at his own expense) since December 2004 - describes in "Resistance is Futile: You will be (Mis)informed" in no uncertain terms how the public is hoodwinked into believing that the war is long hopelessly lost. The Democrats have a vested interest that this perception takes hold if they want to win the next presidential elections, which they do, desperately.

Yon sums up the situation in a set of illustrative pictures, and in a few pointed words: "A gulf", "a gap", "a chasm", "a parallel universe". "All describe the bizarro-world contrast between what most Americans seem to think is happening in Iraq versus what is really happening in Iraq ... I was at home in the United States just one day before the magnitude hit me like vertigo: America seems to be under a glass dome which allows few hard facts from the field to filter in unless they are attached to a string of false assumptions."

"The situation in Iraq has drastically changed, but the inertia of bad news leaves many convinced that the mission has failed beyond recovery, that all Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, or are waiting for us to leave so they can crush their neighbors. This view allows our soldiers two possible roles: either “victim caught in the crossfire” or “referee between warring parties.” Neither, rightly, is tolerable to the American or British public."

This is how bad the situation is! Osama bin Laden just released the fourth video this year, bitterly scolding "the laxness" of his Iraqi cronies (clients, appears to be the new neutrality term). Newsday reports that "in the brief tape played on Al-Jazeera television, the terrorist leader urged militants to "beware of division", lamenting the "fanatical" tribal loyalties. This is perhaps no wonder, as the news that even Sunni tribesmen have had their fill of being slaughtered by the death cult, may not yet have filtered through to the profound Waziri layer of rocks, under which these hirabahists [2] live.

In an 'in their face' provocation "the U.S. military plans a "unification parade" today in Ramadi, the Anbar provincial capital, to showcase the success of a tribal alliance with some Sunnis. Maj. Lee Peters, a military spokesman, said increased security will protect the celebration, which will include at least 200 Sunni sheiks and hundreds of other dignitaries in commemoration of Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, founder of the anti-al-Qaeda Anbar Salvation Council, assassinated by a bomb Sept. 13."

Even the shushing tones of "the enslavers of women, the killers of homosexuals, the beheaders of reporters, and the incinerators of men and women" - tut-tutting from a place beyond history so much raw, unsophisticated, direct cowboy brawn - cannot stop the advancement of the loathsome neocon dream of democracy for all.

Once it lets its civilizational influence felt, not only will Islam cease to be a hotbed and a justification for Hirabah [2], it will also help foster a culture in which gruesome anti human practices as shown today by our friends at Muslims Against Sharia, will become a thing of the past (caution: the images are very graphic!).

- Photo courtesy of Michael Yon

[1] Others are Matt Sanchez and Michael J. Totten

[2] Hirabahists are evildoers, committing Hirabah - unholy war - that will incur Allah's condemnation on Judgment Day

Effectively Communicating Jihad: a spade is a spade

Politeia is honoured indeed to have gained permission by the author to publish this highly important essay on how strategic communications on the War on Terror against militant Islamism can be improved. These pages have adopted, effective immediately, his recommendations with regard to idiom related to terrorism and Jihad. We heartily encourage the readership to follow suit.

Sam C. Holliday is a graduate of the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, a former director of Stability Studies at the Army War College, and a retired Army Colonel. He earned a Master's in Public Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh and a doctorate in International Relations from the University of South Carolina. Currently he is Director of The Armiger Cromwell Center, a small nonprofit Internet clearinghouse for thinking "outside of the box of conventional wisdom." By means of its online essays, the ACC seeks more effective foreign policies to achieve stability through equilibrium.


EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION AGAINST THE THIRD JIHAD

The apparent renunciation of terrorism by the person who provided the rationale for the global Muslim revivalist movement presents an opportunity for the United States to improve its performance in strategic communication.

In Foundations of Preparation for Jihad, Sayid Imam al-Sharif prescribed a Third Jihad for the Islamization of the world. Al-Sharif founded the Egyptian Islamic Jihad; his supporters assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and he was with Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan fighting against the Soviet Union. He is a medical doctor and was an associate of Ayman al-Zawahiri, another Egyptian doctor, who is now Osama Bin Laden's deputy. Al-Sharif was captured after 9/11 and has been in an Egyptian jail since 2004.

There have been several reports that Al-Sharif will soon publish a book in which he states that the use of terror, and the killing of innocent nonbelievers, in the name of Jihad, violate the Qur’an. On July 27, 2007, the Guardian (London) reported him as citing the injunction: “Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress the limits; for God loveth not transgressors. Qur'an 2:190” In other words, he now condemns the violence that has been an integral part of all three Jihads. This would mean a modification in how to achieve the Great Caliphate.

A caliphate, which combines religious and political authority, is the only form of governance approved by traditional Islamic theology. There have been caliphates in the Middle East since the seventh century. The Great Caliphate is a goal; it would replace all secular governments from Morocco to Indonesia with a single caliphate that would then be able to convert the rest of the world to Islam. This was Al-Sharif's original vision that has had a major influence on the global Muslim revivalist movement—an effort to achieve Islamic conquest through violence known to its partisans as the Third Jihad.

It has been reported that Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden's deputy in Al Qaeda, is very unhappy with Al-Sharif's recantation since it might cause many others to question their basic ideas about the Third Jihad. Also it has been reported that hundreds of other former Islamic militants now imprisoned are prepared to join Al-Sharif in renouncing the use of violence to spread their beliefs and are ready to accept the free flow of religious ideas.

~ The entire essay is published on the Articles Database here ~

... Our enemies have called their cause Jihad (holy war), and their assassins "mujahiddin" (holy warriors), or Servants of Allah, or “martyrs.” All of these have positive emotional and religious connotations ...This usage is both inaccurate and dangerous. The leaders of the Third Jihad have exploited this weakness. ... By accurately stating that we are fighting against evildoers—not holy warriors, we can remove some of the communication advantage that the leaders of the Third Jihad have enjoyed. We must reach out and hold our people, our enemies, and people around the world ...

Copyright © 2007 Armiger Cromwell Center


Update: "Al Qaeda Associate Renounces Third Jihad", 17th December 2007

In his posting here on 21st October Dr Sam Holliday, director of the Armiger Cromwell Center in "Effectively Communicating Jihad: a spade is a spade" reported that Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, one of the least public yet most important figures in the Third global Jihad, would shortly be making a public renunciation. This has now been the case. This morning Dr Holliday drew our attention to the article on the Middle East Media Research Institute MEMRI's Special Dispatch No. 1785 >>>