Anti-Ideology Ideology ... again

Tibor Machan, of the Hoover Institute, exposes the nonsense that Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with ideology:

Instead, it is vital that we know which religions and ideologies encourage (and indeed, even insist upon) conformity with a program of indiscriminate global violence. That shouldn’t be a novel project since, throughout human history, several different religions and ideologies—the Holy Inquisition, Fascism, Nazism, and Communism come to mind—have spawned exactly that kind of program. It’s shameful to deny this just as the same kind of thing is engulfing us today.

He links to and recommends an excellent article, London Lessons Lost, by Alex Alexiev of the Center for Security Policy (see Links at the right).

Alexiev discusses England’s failure to face the Islamic threat in its mist. Blaming the attacks of 7/7 and 7/21 on a “few misguided individuals,” the official governmental and media spokesmen see only the tip of the iceberg. “Islamic extremism has a large and growing following in Great Britain and Europe beyond. Indeed, Islamism, the fascist-like ideology that motivates it, is rapidly becoming the dominant idiom in Muslim communities throughout Western Europe.” But such a consideration is suppressed “by stifling political correctness and multicultural nostrums.”

Al Qaeda is only one small operator in a vast ideological movement. Alexiev reviews the Deobandi movement in Pakistan and their role behind the Taliban, Jihadi madrassas, etc. “In the United Kingdom, the Deobandis have pretty much taken over the South Asian Muslim establishment.” “A Deobandi-influenced movement, the Tablighis, who number in the millions, have become a premier recruiting agency for jihad worldwide while pretending to be pietistic and apolitical.” Another Islamist movement active in England is Ahle Hadith, followers of Mawdudi, a Pakistani movement funded by Saudi Arabia.

Alexiev continues, “however successful we are in destroying specific terrorist groups and individuals, the job will never be finished as long as the infrastructures of Islamism continue to churn out fanatics much faster than they could be neutralized.” He says, “It is the simple fact that today’s radical Islam is not about religion but about political sedition, subversion and incitement to violence and terror.” Actually, he doesn’t understand that Islam was founded as a political ideology as well as a religion. Part of this reflects his Western view of religion. Still, he understands that we face a political movement. And he’s right that, “Islamism is essentially a totalitarian political ideology much like its 20th century predecessors Nazism and communism. 'Infidels' thus become just another category of subhumans to be exterminated, just like Jews and Slavic untermenshen were for the Nazis and the 'class enemy' was for the communists.”

We fail to face the extent of the problem. “Pakistan has been transformed into an international haven of extremism and terrorism with thousands of jihadist madrassas, dozens of terrorist training camps and assorted centers of Islamist indoctrination.” It has gotten worse under Musharaf and “the worldwide growth of violent Islamism would simply not have occurred without the extraordinary involvement of Saudi Arabia in cultivating it at each and every stage. … This rather than Al Qaeda represents an existential threat to our civilization. … Worse still, the West still operates under the delusion that the likes of Saud’s kingdom and Musharaf’s duplicitous regime are somehow our strategic allies.”