I wrote yesterday about how we should deal with the Islamic State. And just like charity, it all starts at home. We need to make sure that we are strong enough to protect ourselves internally before we embark on missions overseas, however warranted they may seem.
Given the recent decision to raise terrorism threat levels, it is resoundingly clear that the internal danger is growing inside Australia. Although Australians didn’t need ASIO to tell them that. The constant barrage of stories about terrorist families, children holding severed heads, and fundraisers that make money for mosques by selling the flag of the Islamic State have driven home the point that we are not the country we were a decade ago.
To deal with this situation effectively you cannot just tackle the symptoms, but you must also address the causes.
And the cause of Australia’s internal security worries is Islamic immigration. Make no bones about it.
But no one in power has the guts to say this. This means that we are not doing anything at all effective to protect ourselves internally. The consequence is that we are in no position to effectively deal with the Islamic State, half a world away.
Another mob not dealing with the Islamic State is the other Islamic states.
Except the big difference between them and Australia is that the Islamic State is operating in their backyard. This problem is not on the other side of the world to them. It is in their homeland.
And the key motivator of Islamic State brutality is that the jihadis executing their way across Iraq are driven by their pure and devout understanding of Islam.
So the Islamic State is an Islamic problem through and through, ranging from geography all the way through to ideology and theology. This means that dealing with the Islamic State is not primarily a responsibility for the West (although it does have a legitimate interest in protecting itself and a moral duty to protect those suffering the severest and most brutal persecution at the hand of Muslims). It belongs to the Islamic world.
Unfortunately, the Islamic world sees no reason to do anything at all about the Islamic State. Surprising, isn’t it?
In fact, a bunch of leaders from the Islamic world flew to France yesterday to formalise their decision to do nothing. This is how it has been reported on the front page of The Australian today:
“Although the US remains confident it will eventually form a viable broad coalition against Islamic State, a meeting of 26 countries in Paris saw Arab nations reluctant to commit military forces to the campaign or give details on how they would support the US-led coalition.”
The same report also went on to say:
“The meeting exposed reservations among Arab nations about how much support they should provide to the US-led campaign amid fears it would only increase the Sunni-Shia divide in the region.”
The first point to be made about this is that the US has been confident about Iraq since 1991 and every passing comment of confidence results in greater levels of embarrassment. There is nothing to be confident about at all.
The second, and more important point is that the Islamic states of the Middle East have made an absolute mockery of Western leaders who have been running around saying that the Islamic State is not Islamic.
It is absolutely Islamic. And the implications for Islamic nations taking part in a military campaign against the Islamic State mostly affect their citizens for Islamic reasons. This is why the other Arab nations would prefer to see their soldiers mooching instead of marching.
Western nations are on a hiding to nothing in this game. Any military efforts that do not aim to fundamentally remove the problem – Islam – will fail to achieve any lasting success, and may well worsen situation. And while changing culture can be done, it takes a lot of time and effort, which Western democracies are not prepared to give. It also means acknowledging that Islam is a problem, which Western leaders are not prepared to do.
In the meantime, the Sunni Arab states get to keep their hands ‘clean’ while American or Australian soldiers are put in harm’s way futilely dealing with an intra-Islamic problem. Iran even gets to claim that America is actually fighting with it against the apostate Sunnis.
Of course, Iran is basically the Shia version of the Islamic State, so helping Iran doesn’t really solve the problem either.
And every time a bomb goes astray or a soldier flips out in the middle of a brutal desert war, every handwringing, left-leaning, bleeding heart moron gets to frown and say, ‘See, this is why September 11 happened’. Actually, they’d say that anyway.
Dealing with the Islamic State effectively requires action from the other Islamic states. They’ve got the big boys toys to do it. It’s time they started using them.
And instead of sending our sons to war, the West should start asking serious questions why the Islamic states won’t send theirs.
September 30, 2014
Morrison is being built up as someone to head a Homeland security agency, based on stopping the boats.
Unfortunately as recently as September 18 on Alan Jones’ show in response to Jones’s question about perhaps there is a need for a discriminatory immigration policy Morrison explicitly denied that immigration was an issue on the grounds that (a) that most Muslims aren’t a problem and he evidenced this with the BBQ he had attended and (b) most of the jihadists were born here.
This isn’t surprising given his previous adamant comments that there would be no change to the non-discriminatory immigration policy.
In terms of (b) above it used to be the case before economic globalisation that if an Australian even applied for foreign nationality then that person had lost their citizenship becoming stateless if they were not dual citizens. So when Murdoch applied for US nationality he was stateless in the interval before he gained US nationality. The government got rid of that legislation when they realised they were losing people like Murdoch from the pool of taxpayers. But it could easily be re-enacted with the grounds changed to jihadist activity onshore or off yet for some reason the politicians will not even think of that possibilty.
September 26, 2014
‘Dealing with the Islamic State effectively requires action from the other Islamic states. They’ve got the big boys toys to do it. It’s time they started using them.’ Not quite, Arab conventional armies are quite incompetent. This is despite being well equipped with hi-tech weaponry. This is especially true against irregular forces which are highly mobile and quite agile on the battlefield. Look up the ‘Toyota Wars’ during the 1980s and you will see how the well equipped Libyan Army was routed with ease by Chadian rebels. I think Arab leaders know this well and they are cunningly sitting this one out. I’ am sure there are other reasons but this is also one of many.