Thinking in Principles--and Not

Two recent articles illustrate the meaning of thinking in principles versus whatever is the alternative. The difference is life versus death.

The first article is by Diana West, who has become one of the best anti-Islamic thinkers in contemporary journalism. The other is by a duo, Peter Bergen and Swati Pandey, disguised as meaningful because it was published as an op-ed in the New York Times.

Writing about the Army's self-abasing policy about handling the Koran at GITMO, she writes in Diana West: What's being desecrated here?, June 13, 2005 :

According to United States Army policy, the standard operating procedure is: "Handle the Quran as if it were a fragile piece of delicate art."

If the guard is to move the Koran, after all other groveling procedures by others have been exhausted, the

...guard is directed to don "clean gloves ... in full view of the detainees prior to handling." He must use "two hands ... at all times when handling the Quran in manner signaling respect and reverence." While signaling two-handed respect and reverence, however, the guard must be mindful that "care should be used so that the right hand is the primary one used to manipulate any part of the Quran due to the cultural association with the left hand."

Why is this, she asks?

According to the Islamic law, we are unclean. The term is "najis." On the "najis" list with urine, feces, etc., are the pig, the dog and the "kafir." That means the Christian, the Jew, the unbeliever in Islam -- and, chances are, the Gitmo guard.

Then she moves in for the kill by identifying the principles involved:

In effect, then, with its official policy of clean cloves and detainee towels, the United States military is promoting, enabling and accepting the Islamic concept of najis -- the unclean infidel -- a barbarous notion that has helped fuel the bloodlust of jihad and the non-Muslim subjugation of dhimmitude. The Gitmo rules are more blatantly about surrender, a voluntary self-extinguishment, a spreading condition of denial of what is right and worth standing for.

Try to get that kind of identification from the Army or our governmental appeasers. Mr. and Mrs. America, your sons and daughters must grovel in original sin of the Islamic type before 7th century mentalities. Can you stand the fact that the army's policy corroborates the Islamic notion that your sons and daughters are najis? Do you get what the army's policy really means? Would we have done the same for Japan or Nazi Germany, or Communist Russia?

However blinded by political correctness, pragmatism, and moral uncertainty our military and non-military government are, there are others unable to think in principles in circumscribed areas. These are the conservatives who just cannot open their minds to look beyond their conclusion that Islam is a religion, thus it is to be accorded total respect and complete lack of criticial examination.

Yesterday, in the Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web" (in Opinion Journal) published this remark about Diana West's editorial conclusion:

This seems like an overreaction. To our mind, the military's deference to Muslim law is an act of magnanimity, not surrender. Lots of religions believe things that seem silly to nonbelievers, and if a Muslim fundamentalist believes we're "unclean," there's no reason that should bother us any more than if a Christian fundamentalist believes we're going to hell. Muslim terrorists are our enemies because they're trying to kill us, not because they think we're unclean.

The inability of conservatives to think fully in principles produces statements like the foregoing. That statement says that Muslim terrorists are enemies, but the ideology that drives each and every Muslim either to engage in jihad or support it by whatever means does not matter. This is the primary lesion in conservative thinking, and it is inviting jihad to America. BELIEFS DO MATTER. Humankind runs on its ideas because humans must use their conceptual consciousness as their sole means of survival. Shades of National Review's dhimmitude!

Ideas matter severely. It becomes a matter of life and death. If you can't identify what motivates your enemy, he will use it to kill you. Works every time.

Worse yet, the New York Times published an op-ed, The Madrassa Myth - New York Times , June 14, 2005. Much of this op-ed has been properly worked over in Jihad Watch directly and through the comments section, and there is no reason to repeat any of that. Some of this atrocious op-ed must be dealt with, however. Here are the key errors telescoped.

Indeed, there is little or no evidence that madrassas produce terrorists capable of attacking the West. And as a matter of national security, the United States doesn't need to worry about Muslim fundamentalists with whom we may disagree, but about terrorists who want to attack us. Like the view that poverty drives terrorism - a notion that countless studies have debunked - the idea that madrassas are incubating the next generation of terrorists offers the soothing illusion that desperate, ignorant automatons are attacking us rather than college graduates, as is often the case. While madrassas are an important issue in education and development in the Muslim world, they are not and should not be considered a threat to the United States.

This condensed paragraph contains such fundamental errors that I wonder if its motivation is solely one of propaganda for Muslims.

Through these statements runs the notion that ideas are of no importance and play no role in this war with Islam. No one to my knowledge has drawn a straight line from madrassa to jihadic attacks. That never has been in question.

As they point out, a madrassa takes in impoverished boys for intensive thought conditioning. The boys may memorize a koran in Arabic and understand absolutely none of it. It was not meant to be understood.

The purpose of the madrassa is to create Islamic androids--human bodies with mechanical minds. Madrassas teach blind obedience and the overwhelming importance of Islam and follow its dictates. That means following the dictates of whoever speaks for Islam. The madrassas turn out compliant human ballast, and that is all they ever intended.

Along with the mind-numbing, then mind-destroying memorization of the world's most boring and useless book, the koran, the "I" of every boy in the madrassa comes to be suppressed to the point of losing human independence of mind. The real didactic lessons come from the hatred-spewing teachers of the madrassas, the imams. They take away the boys' independent thinking and replace it with their goal--spread Islam, violently, and OBEY YOUR LEADERS. "Follow the Prophet" really means Do As You Are Told by Your Islamic Superiors. And they do.

The college kids do the jihadic thinking, to the extent that can be called thinking. They do not need or want the ballast to think or question or hestitate. They want obedient droids, the ballast of every army.

Do all of these droids join the jihad? No, of course not. They keep the faith. That means they support in body, with tithes, and in spirit all of Islam and its jihad. If called upon, they obey. They spread the word and enforce the same mindset in their wives, sons, and daughters. Impoverishment and profound ignorance make their obedience much easier. They will come when called, and that is the object of the madrassa training.

Madrassas serve to build a Hadrian's Wall of sorts around Islam, to protect it from its NUMBER ONE ENEMY: REASON. The madrassa grads strive to squeeze out any vestige of independent thinking in anyone, even by killing them as the koran dictates. Their minds have been prepared, and on Fridays they get refreshed in the mosque so that their stagnant minds remain stagnant. Five times a day, they do the Islamic prayer dance, which reinforces obedience and closed-mindedness. Nazism could never achieve this, nor could Communism.

So, these authors assert that madrassas should not be considered a threat to the USA, and they add that we have nothing to worry about from fundamentalist Muslims. If any two minds needed enemas until clear, these two are in most urgent need.

Diana West accurately and clearly identified the awful principles our own army conditions our troops with at GITMO about "koranic etiquette." The evil got nailed by Ms West totally. Berger and Pandey tried to deny evil by putting a spin on it, one that could be believed only by the totally gullible and the profoundly ignorant.

What a study in contrasts.