Osama bin Laden is dead, but his battle plan is on its course to victory -- thanks to the misguided war strategy undertaken by the non-Muslim world...
The death of Usama Bin Laden (UBL) at the hands of U.S. Navy Seals has caused jubilation to many people. Although UBL could not be brought to justice, justice was appropriately brought to him. A man, who lived by violence and encouraged others to do so, should not complain that he himself suffered a violent death.
 As the state of the battle against Islamic resurgence stands, this is where we are heading. |
However, I fear that UBL’s death may have given us, non-Muslims, a false sense of victory in the war on Islamic terror, when we are actually losing the war. Such a statement will no doubt come as a surprise to many, and I suspect, they will read this and go through a recitation in their mind of the many victories against the terrorists on the battlefield and in the form of numerous foiled terrorist plots as an internal argument against my opinion.
However, this war is unlike most wars. It has already raged far longer than either WWI or WWII with no end in sight; if at all, the end is favorable to none other than devout Muslims with a solid understanding of and belief in the actual tenets of Islam.
The reason the non-Muslim world, led by the United States, is losing this war, is the characterization that we are not at war with Islam, the ideology that is actually driving the conflict. And that ideology, the religion of Islam, is expanding even in the West in an increasingly radicalized form.
Equally important: this is a long-term war of attrition, and Islamists are fighting an asymmetrical war, which they can not only maintain, but also, in all probability, will be able to expand. Conversely, the United States and its allies are fighting, even living, on borrowed money that will eventually bring these nations, particularly the U.S. to a state, where it will no longer be able to sustain the battle. This is especially true when one considers -- as one rightfully must -- that the United State’s ability to successfully fight the war long-term is contingent upon its financial well-being. Western Civilization may well be brought to its knees as spending on the war on terror and social programs deplete financial capability of the U.S. and its allies, when that the global economy is tied to the U.S. economy in myriad ways.
The reason non-Muslims are losing the war is that, despite the massive expenditures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and in homeland security programs, all that the U.S. is accomplishing is curbing the Islamists’ success in the short term, but Islam, the driving force behind this battle, itself continues to expand and spread its influence. More important, still, is the fact that the entire Islamic World and Muslim populations everywhere are going through an Islamization process, wherein Muslims are becoming increasingly fundamentalist in nature. Islam continues its ominous advance in Europe and the United States, seemingly unfazed by the war on terror, made possible not only because it has been left alone to advance, but also with the persistent connivance and support of both conservative and liberal governments. Governments in the West, particularly in Europe, and to somewhat lesser extent in North America and Australia, have brought in Muslim immigrants into their societies without pragmatic considerations. On one hand, it has enabled Muslims, most of whom come with a islamization agenda, to literally colonize parts of Western nations; on the other, this adds economic burden, already overburdened by extravagant social programs, and increases unemployment and drives down working wages as labor supply expands at a faster pace than the economy.
To understand why the war is being lost, it is also crucially important to understand the difference between what fundamentalist Muslims are seeking to achieve and what non-Muslims seek to achieve in this conflict. Fundamentalist Muslims seek absolute victory such that Islamic rule and law will reign everywhere. They realize that once Sharia law is imposed, all other religions and ideologies will fade over time. Conversely, non-Muslims, at best, seek only to stop the acts of Islamic violence, leaving Islamization free to advance. This means that Islam will gradually win the struggle eventually -- even if the violent approach fails -- by stealth Islamization, and non-Muslims won’t be able to do anything since they do not seek actual victory. This war is going on as if a sporting event, which will be played until one of the teams win. This, in all likelihood, would go on for a very long time; indeed, the battle between Muslims and non-Muslims has raged for centuries, from the very inception of Islam to be precise. And the eventual end-result is quite predictable. Non-Muslims are having and will have some short-term advantages, but those advantages will be squandered on an unsustainable war strategy as has been undertaken.
Non-Muslim countries are much more technologically advanced, have far better military capabilities, and have much stronger, more diverse economies even in the worst of times than Islamic nations. There is no question that the U.S. and its allies have seize certain territories deemed important to secure, and that many terrorists and terror supporters have been killed. Numerous Muslim terror-plots have also been disrupted. But measures put in place to achieve these successes cannot be sustained in the long-term, and these measures itself helps little to resolve the conflict in the long-term. The manner in which the war has been characterized, and the resulting method by which it is being fought, is so expensive that such a financial draining defence strategy is unsustainable in the long-term.
Is it possible to stop an ant-infestation by going after individual ants as they come of the ant-hill, while leaving the nest intact? Metaphorically, that is exactly how the war against Islamic terror is being fought. Islamic doctrine is the nest that breeds Islamic terror. Other factors play a role, but make no mistake about it that Islamic doctrine is the central motivating factor. However, Western nations ignorantly perceive Islam as a welcome addition to the multicultural mix, and see danger only in violent actions of Muslims, wilfully disregarding the fact that those violent actions are simply an effort to implement the Islamic doctrine of Jihad. Could you imagine allowing Nazis to immigrate during the WWII and only perceiving them as a threat when they acted upon their ideology?
When one comprehends the error in tactics, one quickly realizes that the massive expenditures abroad -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere -- are destabilizing the United States and its allies financially with little or no long-term benefit. For example, the United States provides major bulk of the forces and money to fight the Taliban, but how much longer it can afford to do so remains to be seen. Simple mathematics suggests that a nation of 310 million people, already burdened with a debt of over $14 trillions, cannot afford to police the world indefinitely. If the United States cannot maintain its financial integrity, it cannot maintain its security. It follows that spending vast sums of borrowed money to fight a war of indefinite attrition, which is unwinnable thanks to the strategy undertaken -- it not only wastes American lives, but also hurts its long-term national security, because as America’s debt level rises, her ability to resist Islam and other threats declines. Viewed in the proper light, whatever successes achieved in the war on terror so far will be nothing but a Pyrrhic victory.
Therefore, the manner in which Western nations are resisting Islam’s modern resurgence is playing into UBL’s strategy. UBL is dead, but he died knowing that his strategy has been successful and that the U.S. is well on its way to defeat. On November 01, 2004, the Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera released a transcript of a videotape from UBL, wherein he acknowledged that his goal is to force America into bankruptcy as he stated: "we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah."
Given UBL’s background and experience in business, undertaking an approach to economically drain America was the only prudent strategy he possible could successfully pursue. Given the current state of the American economy, the rate at which it is accruing more debt, as well as the myriad of other economic woes such as federal and state liability for various unfunded social programs and pension obligations, you can be sure that UBL died with the knowledge that Islam is well on its way to victory. Even as the “war” raged, Muslims continue to settle in the West in large numbers. The influence of Islam continues to grow in the U.S. and Europe. Muslims are winning elections to high offices and are being appointed judges. Islam’s coming victory is being facilitated by Constitutions of the Western nations. The First Amendment Freedom of Speech and Religion rights of the U.S. Constitution, for example, allows unperturbed spread of a violent, supremacist, misogynist, alien ideology, which will extinguish the very First Amendment Freedoms itself.
It is high time that the U.S. withdraws from intervention in the Islamic World. However, I am not a strict isolationist. The U.S. should carefully choose interventions that have high probably of advancing peace in the world. For example, American and allied intervention against Nazi Germany made sense. And we must not forget that in that conflict, Americans sought to, and did, destroy the Nazi ideology as a significant influence and power. Islamic ideology is more malevolent than the Nazi ideology. Islam, like Nazism, is a militaristic and supremacist ideology, which is just as full of hatred and violence toward Jews and also of Christians, and furthermore seeks annihilation of the polytheists. If America and its allies were fighting to discredit and contain Islam, the true enemy, any financial sacrifice would have been worth it, because one could be assured that the West were fighting to build a better future for humanity.
Unfortunately, the West is not only failing to fight the ideology of Islam, but the issue of Islam has, much to my surprise, become a conservatives versus liberal-leftists political agenda, even though the tenets of Islam are at odds with the values held by most Western political ideologies.
Given the hopeless state in which the West find itself in the battle against Islamic challenge, the best strategy for them now may well be to withdraw from the Islamic world, and try to contain Islam outside its boundaries. While this is the best strategy to undertake at this time, but I am also aware that it may be impossible to implement when large number of Muslims are already within the West’s borders. And Muslim growth rate much higher than that amongst non-Muslims, thanks primarily to unrestrained breeding amongst Muslims -- Islam’s encroachment and expanding influence on the Western culture and polity is all set to become unbeatable. And as Western nations become more and more financially insolvent -- due, at least in part, to the misguided wars of attrition in Afghanistan as well as to Muslim immigration, and unsustainable social programs -- their ability to resist Islam will decrease and Islam will advance at an even greater pace. Increase in Muslim population in the West will certainly lead to further assorted internal problems within non-Muslim nations, like those we witness happening in the Islamic world.
In conclusion, in the battle against Islamic resurgence, the non-Muslim world stands in a losing state, with little hope of a reversal.
