Barking up the Wrong Tree

The recent legal action undertaken by a Saudi law firm against the publishers of the Turban Bomb cartoon prompted a lot of discussion about the audacity of Islamic demands on the infidel West and what might be an appropriate response.

Rather than simply react to the ostensible issue itself — in this case, the demand that newspapers apologize for their actions and promise never to publish a Motoon again — it’s important to look beneath the surface and examine what’s really going on here.

As I have said previously, this legal action is a probe. It serves several functions:

1.		It tests Western cultural defenses,
2.		It games our legal system in order to strain and weaken it, and
3.		It preoccupies public attention and ties up resources while other probes and more serious offensives are mounted on different fronts.

Every moment we spend being outraged or pointing out the vileness of Muslim behavior or demanding that our governments do something is wasted. All of these outcomes contribute to the success of the probe from the point of view of the prober. Anything that sucks up our time, energy, and financial resources is a winner from the point of view of Islam. Whether the incident is a bomb on a bus, a public conflict over the construction of a mosque, or a lawsuit against the publishers of a cartoon, our various responses have up until now served the interests of the expansion of radical Islam.

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Let’s take a step back and look at the big picture.

I’ve been paying close attention to Islamic strategies and tactics for the past eight years, and blogging about them for the last five. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I can draw only one conclusion: Islam is winning.

Yes, we threw out Saddam and the Taliban, interrupted a lot of bomb plots, and killed a lot of high-ranking terrorists. Those are significant accomplishments, and not to be minimized.

But consider the enormous costs involved. For each major terrorist asset destroyed, how many millions of dollars did we spend? How many lives were lost, and how many of our people were maimed or wounded?

Our successes have been very expensive. They drained a lot of our blood and treasure, helped bring on the current recession, and drove up the price of oil so as to enrich the Islamic despotisms of the Middle East even further.

So how are we doing? What does the scorecard look like? Have we set the cause of radical Islam back significantly?

Let’s just look at a few of the major Islamic indicators:
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For the first seven years after 9-11, an American president sucked up to “moderate” Muslims at every possible opportunity. Since he left the stage, his successor has sucked up to all the Muslims all of the time.

Score: Muslims 1, Kuffar 0.

In the years since Saudi and Egyptian radicals destroyed the World Trade Center, Egypt has received upwards of $20 billion in American aid, and the Saudis have strengthened their position as “friends of the United States” and recipients of our military hardware, all the while vacuuming up the wealth of the West in return for the oil they happen to be sitting on top of.

Score: Muslims 1, Kuffar 0.

Since the Twin Towers fell, untold numbers of new mosques — most financed by the Saudis and provisioned with the latest radical Wahhabist theological propaganda — have been built throughout the West. Innumerable prayer rooms, footbaths, halal markets, and Muslim community centers have been built in Western communities. Sharia-compliant finance — all but unheard of previously — has spread widely, and is generally trumpeted as a worthwhile alternative to the greedy usury of traditional capitalism. Public funding for “outreach” to Muslims has increased dramatically in many Western countries.

Score: Muslims 1, Kuffar 0.

On the legal front, during the years since September 11th, Muslims in a number of Western countries have gained the right wear the veil in public employment, schools, and other institutions. Courts have forced employers to grant Muslims special dispensation for their daily prayers. Municipalities have mandated separate recreational activities for men and women in their facilities at specific times. Entire school systems have gone over to a halal menu to forestall Muslim complaints. Parallel sharia legal systems, some of them having an official governmental stamp of approval, are adjudicating civil cases for Muslims. Muslims have earned special legal rights not to be offended, and non-Muslims have been obliged not to blaspheme the vile idols of Islam, at the risk of fines and imprisonment.

Score: Muslims 1, Kuffar 0.

While major Islamic violence has been forestalled by Western counterterrorism over the last eight years, low-grade Muslim violence has increased. The no-go zones in major cities have grown larger, and new ones have appeared. Attacks on persons and property have increased. More rapes of non-Muslim women by Muslims are committed. Muslims have learned that they can react violently to the smallest slight with virtual impunity.

Score: Muslims 1, Kuffar 0.

In 2001, Pakistan was the only Islamic country that possessed nuclear weapons. In 2009, Iran is on the threshold of becoming a nuclear power, and several other Muslim countries are actively seeking to catch up with it. Before 9-11, Pakistan had nukes but they were under the tight control of a military dictatorship. Pakistan still has nukes, but its political system verges on anarchy, and the Taliban control a large swath of Pakistani territory. In 2001 Afghanis lived under sharia law administered by the Taliban. In 2009 Afghanis live under a slightly less stringent version of sharia administered by a corrupt government controlled by heroin warlords.

Score: Muslims 1, Kuffar 0.

Most importantly, elected and appointed officials throughout the Western world live in fear of adverse Muslim reactions. Many of them — especially the members of the Socialist parties — depend on an electoral margin provided by the Muslim sliver of the population, and will go to great lengths to attract and keep the Muslim vote. They are quite willing to accede to all the Muslim demands outlined above — and more — to keep their corrupt and privileged positions. They do their best to suppress any honest discussion of these issues by demonizing their opponents as “racists” and “Islamophobes”.

Score: Muslims 1, Kuffar 0.

Finally, in the years since September 11, 2001, the floodgates that allow in more and more of the immigrants who cause all of these problems remain open, and in some cases are open even wider. The European Union is actively planning to import fifty million more Africans in the next several decades, and European politicians are promoting an open-borders Mediterranean Union. In the last eight years both presidents of the United States have refused to enforce the country’s immigration laws or control the southern border, and both have supported amnesty for illegal immigrants. The current president stands poised to accomplish this aim.

Score: Muslims 1, Kuffar 0.

And what did we get during that time? Did we score at all?

We rolled into Baghdad and Kabul. We nailed Mohammed Atef and Abu Musab al Zarqawi. We nabbed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. We captured several hundred terrorist prisoners, questioned them for a few years while they played racquetball and got fat on USDA Grade A halal food, and then let most of them go.

And we spent a bazillion dollars accomplishing all this, while the price of gasoline went up to $4 a gallon.

So who’s winning?

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Islam’s continuing success can be attributed to a shrewd use of resources and personnel on a variety of fronts. Killing the kuffar is only one tactic among many, and today other methods are generally more effective. Except for terrorist acts and outright warfare, all of the radical Islamic offensives may be classified as probes.

They are not designed to attain outright victory. The goal is not to achieve their purported aims. If they manage to confuse the infidel, or demoralize him, or cause him great expense, or disrupt his normal life, or make him live in fear, then they have succeeded. If non-believers happen to be killed or wounded as well, that’s just an added bonus.

A probe tests the limits of what can be done to non-Muslims without provoking a violent or damaging response. Constant probing occurs at a relatively low level, and wears out the resistance of non-Muslims. The civil authorities in Western countries repeatedly give in to probes and allow incremental degrees of Islamization in the vain hope of stopping the steady drip-drip-drip of Islamic agitation. But the probes don’t stop; if Islam achieves marginal success in a probing action, then the pressure is increased at that point and new probes are launched. A successful push to permit the hijab in a courtroom is followed by a demand for the burqa. If an employer gives in and sets aside a prayer room, then foot baths are demanded.

Each probe pushes the boundaries of the Ummah a tiny bit further outwards. These are not physical boundaries, but legal, social, and cultural boundaries. Every small success makes the host country resemble Islam just a little bit more, and helps prepare the colonized victims by making them accustomed to the nature of the Islamic state.

Here’s a partial list of common probing activities. Readers will be able to add many more examples of their own:

Legal and Judicial

• Demands to allow sharia law in civil cases
  
• Insistence that police must follow Islamic practices (veils for the female cops, booties for the dogs) when carrying out their duties on Muslim turf
  
• Outcries against “profiling” when Muslims are arrested
  
• Charges of “discrimination” when offenders are convicted or sentenced
  
• Insistence that all public institutions, including prisons, must meet Muslim standards for diet, religious observance, and other specific Islamic characteristics in their environment

Territorial

• The establishment of Muslim-only neighborhoods, from which non-Muslims may be excluded and in which they must obey Islamic rules
  
• The insistence that any area in which Muslims have prayed becomes sacred Muslim territory and may not revert to a previous use
  
• The establishment of buildings specifically designed as mosques
  
• The demand that minarets be allowed on mosques to mark the surrounding area as Muslim
  
• An insistence that the call to prayer from loudspeakers be allowed at mosques

Educational

• Demands that an Islamic curriculum be used for Muslim students
  
• An attempt to veto any elements of teaching (the actual history of Islam, accounts of the Holocaust) that are problematic for Muslims
  
• Moves to allow veils in the classroom
  
• A push to segregate the sexes in certain activities
  
• A demand that school schedules be adjusted to allow Muslim students to pray, and to accommodate Islamic holidays
  
• Insistence that all food served in the school dining facilities be halal

Social

• A requirement that public activities in which more than a certain percentage of Muslims participate be in accord with Islamic practices — veiling, prayers, segregation of the sexes, halal food, etc.
  
• Demands that public space accommodate Muslim religious prohibitions, such as those against dogs or pigs — or even the depiction of dogs or pigs — or alcohol, or certain kinds of images and symbols such as crosses, etc.
  
• The insistence that public or private employees be allowed to refuse to engage in certain activities, such as handling alcohol or pork or (for women) shaking hands with men
  
• A policy that any public space used for Islamic activities — such as a non-denominational chapel at a university — must not display the symbols or offer the literature of any other religion at any time

Cultural

• An insistence that non-Muslims display the same respect and reverence for Mohammed, the Koran, and Islamic symbols as do Muslims themselves
  
• An assertion that “insults” to the Islamic religion are not protected by free speech laws, and in fact violate Muslims’ freedom of religion
  
• Demands for legal redress when public entertainment or the private behavior of individuals offends Muslim religious sensibilities
  
• A push to modify the legal code so that respect for Islam is mandated by law
  
• Pressure on television and radio stations, newspapers, book publishers, art galleries, and so on to show “balance” by presenting more Muslim content and prohibiting content that violates Islamic standards

When one of the above probes finds a soft point where resistance is weak, then pressure is stepped up, and the “spontaneous” violence of the Muslim street may appear to help the infidels make the right decisions. If the probe continues to bear fruit, the situation may escalate to carefully modulated riots, arson, vandalism, and assaults. When the kuffar authorities finally yield — and allow the construction of a mosque, or fund a Muslim community center, or permit the burqa on public transport — then the entire playbook that generated the successful probe is replicated and used on another front.

This process is repeated over and over again, day after day, in thousands of cities and towns across the West. Resistance is eventually worn down, and demands acceded to. Not many of them, and not often, but once a demand has been granted, there is no return to the status quo ante.

The Islamic ratchet works in one direction only. Whether it is a military operation, a legal initiative, or a cultural program, once the probe succeeds, there is no reversing it.

This is how the Dar al-Islam expands, and Dar al-Harb dwindles.

When Islam could not hope to match the infidels militarily, it focused on terrorism. When that proved counterproductive, it tried different tactics. Probes are a continuation of terrorism by other means.

The military might of the United States and the other Western powers is of no use in the face of these tactics. All of the immense gains enjoyed by Islam during the last eight years continued unabated while coalition forces chased “terrorists” in Tora Bora or defused IEDs in Anbar Province. For all our successes on these fronts, we ceded massive amounts of territory to the enemy on all the other fronts, without even realizing that there was a battle or that we were losing it.

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Denmark, of course, is an exception to much of what I described above. Denmark has chosen to resist Islamization to a far greater degree than any other Western country.

So let’s return to the starting point of this post.

A Saudi law firm has demanded apologies, abasement, and reparations from Danish publishers because of the infamous Turban Bomb cartoon. What should the Danish response be?

Obviously, there should be no new “outreach” efforts aimed at the Danish Muslim community. No politician or public figure should announce an initiative to promote “respect for Islam”. These are the usual responses of cowardly Western leaders. Such behavior would immediately signal a notably successful probe.

And sending the Saudi lawyers packing after a stern judicial admonishment is not good enough. The Danish newspapers will by then have incurred substantial legal costs, and the time of judges, clerks, bailiffs, and innumerable government lawyers will have been consumed in pointless wrangling.

The only way to repel this probe successfully is to make it very, very expensive for the people who launched it. Only a painful result will discourage more of the same behavior later on, in other contexts.

Double indemnity is the only way to go. A finding against the plaintiffs with a levy of twice the court costs would send an unambiguous message and discourage further probing.

If you are Danish, please write your newspaper and your member of parliament and insist on this kind of response.

The Danes should hold fast, even if the Muslims burn cars in Nørrebro and embassies in Amman.

Fortunately for all of us, this latest probe was launched in the land of Holger Danske, and thus stands very little chance of succeeding.