Islam And The Right

Note to family and friends: Updates on Mr. AOW are now being added to this post.

I direct you to this post over at THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS. Excerpt below the fold:

Frank Rich writes today about the logical inconsistency between the position that the Army and intelligence agencies were in the wrong for not having rooted out Hasan and the position that McChrystal's strategy will work in Afghanistan. He's wrong in thinking that most of us who live in reality and are therefore appalled by the failures of the Army and the intelligence community support McChrystal's strategy - myself, Robert Spencer, and Andrew McCarthy being a few who do not - but he is absolutely correct in stating that McChrystal's strategy will fail, just as attempts to reform Hasan failed.

McChrystal's strategy hinges upon the idea that we can community organize the Afghans into regarding the Taliban as heretics and rejecting them on that basis. McChrystal thinks that he can employ takfiri logic to discredit takfiris, which is destined to fail because it relies upon a contrived interpretation of Islamic doctrine. McChrystal believes that presenting the Taliban as a heretical group which kills other, more moderate Muslims will lead the Afghans to choose his kafir interpretation of Islam over their fundamentalist one. He fails to take into account not only Islamic dogma and its history of exclusively regressive reforms, but Afghan culture and sociology. Afghans don't "choose." Afghans are tribal Muslims who think and act as groups, who follow traditional Islamic dogma and the traditions of their elders, and who believe that their fates are predestined by Allah, so any and all individual initiative taken on behalf of anyone but Allah is a non-starter. They do not see things from their own individual points of view, let alone those of blue-eyed kafirs from the Great Satan. We may be able to win their hearts, but forget about their minds.

We would have better success getting Afghans to reject the Taliban on democratic grounds as shoddy political leaders under whom the trains run habitually late. We won hearts in Iraq when Iraqis rejected Al-Qaeda's interpretation of Sharia...Muslims rejected al-Qaeda as municipal leaders, not as Muslims. We also won hearts in Iraq by annihilating al-Qaeda with the Surge. Muslims like a winning horse. They don't root for the underdog, nor do they understand those who do. They run with the strongest tribe, which we have to be anyway if we are to win in Afghanistan. We have to either annihilate the Taliban or forget about getting Afghans on our side and just let them sort out their problems.

I don't think Afghanistan is worth saving, nor do I think any nation-building efforts will be worthwhile in the end....

Read the entire post HERE. Jdamn posted the piece, and Reliapundit, the site owner, added counterpoint, answered again by Jdamn.

My view in a nutshell....In 2000, I voted for GWB precisely because he opposed nation building. In 2004, I voted for GWB, in part because I wanted him to be correct about reforming the Moslem world. Is it possible to reform the Moslem world? It seems to me that such is the question at the heart of America's policy with regard to "The War on Terror" (a term I loathe). Frankly, I have my doubts about that kind of reform. As for reform by osmosis, it surely didn't work with Hasan, the Fort Hood jihadist, who had all the privileges and rights of growing up in a free society and still turned against the ideals of freedom.

Your opinion?