Needing clarity

There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over what to do with the “terrorism done in the name of Islam” problem in the wake of the recent events in France, just as there is after each such event. Many talking heads say many things, but mostly their words shed darkness rather than light. The first step in finding a solution is properly defining the problem. Without clarity, there can be no visibility.

I have a simple proposal:

The next time there is such an event in a western nation and we can positively identify and surround the perpetrators before they are dead, we offer them this deal: Drop their guns/bombs and hold up their hands and surrender with the remaining hostages unharmed, and they can be tried in the Sharia court of their choice, with the following caveats: the trial must be started within one year, the verdict delivered within two years, and the court must be formally recognized and approved of by at least two leading national Islamic leaders in the Islamic world (such as the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia and the Ayatollah of Iran, or similar) who acknowledge in public, in the nation’s native language, to the people of their respective nations, the court’s legitimacy.

Either they find the perps not guilty and we can have an official Islamic court ruling that Sharia is utterly incompatible with western culture, laws, and values; or they are found guilty and executed, and we have an official Islamic finding that terrorism and murder is forbidden under Islam. If no leading scholars will recognize the court publicly it will be a tacit admission they want it both ways – be legal in Islam, but not have the west see that.

Either way, the clarity such a decision would provide would allow the appropriate battle-lines to  be drawn, so the proper war could commence with sides more clearly delineated.

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27 thoughts on “Needing clarity

  1. It would also draw the lines clearly in the west, particularly the “thoughts” of the Leftist fellow-travellers of the Islamists (or whatever the appropriate term would be. Dupes? Patsies? Allies?).

    • Exactly. No longer can they project their hopes/fears on what islam is, they’ll have a legal decision by a legitimate court.
      If they convict and execute, then the Islamic civil war between the “moderates” that don’t support terrorism and might possibly be “western compatible,” and the hard-liners that DO think terrorism is OK. That will have fewer bodies, and they’ll have a higher percent of the “right” ones. Christianity had its reformation, maybe it’s time for Islam.
      Or, they can let them walk, and it will be the starting gun on a a “islam versus everyone else” cage match. More bodies, including more moderates, but relatively simple to fight, because we no longer have to recognize Islam as a religion in need of legal recognition and protection, but a political ideology antithetical to everything western… no, antithetical to everything else, even the commie Chinese and Russians, who are not quite as squeamish as we are in war.

      • Do you think we have anyone in Guantanamo now whose deeds qualify for Joe’s proposal or do we have to wait until we catch people doing something like the Charlie Hebdo murders in order for this proposal to work?

        • It would need to be very high-profile crime in a clearly civilian area, where there is absolutely no doubt that the people caught for committing the crime actually did it – lots of eye witnesses (and because it’s an Islamic court, there would need to be male witnesses for certain) and camera footage. A lot of the Git-mo people were captured “in the field” by soldiers with no cameras where doubts of guilt are already high in the minds of their sympathizers.

          (minor quibble – my idea, not Joe’s. Well, technically it’s a refinement of a general idea I read in a comment thread somewhere else.)

    • The left will never accept the lines being drawn against anything that is against our interests. All they’re interested in is tearing down our republic and destroying our rights and nothing will change that no matter the consequences.
      Look at the 262 million murdered by their own governments in the 20th century … EVERY ONE of those governments was a leftist government.
      I rest my case.

      • I largely agree. But what it MAY do is expose them for the naked would-be emperors they are to the masses in the mushy middle who just want to be left alone and not be called “islamophobe! and “racist!” when they (rightly) point some of these bastards ARE trying to kill and subjugate all non-muslims.
        The blind who refuse to see cannot be fixed.
        Those who want to see but are being shielded from the truth need a really clear-cut case that can be easily understood.

  2. Better than anything the talking heads or political caste have proposed.

    • That’s because it would actually settle the matter, rather than let it fester for useful political rhetorical purposes. Pols don’t WANT solutions, they want talking points.

      (what, me, cynical? Nah… 🙂 )

      • You’re not cynical enough. Evidence doesn’t settle matters. Just consider the mountain ranges of evidence on the benefits of gun ownership, and still the bloombergian fascists are working hard to take away the guns from everyone other than the criminals. Evidence? We don’t need no stinkin’ evidence!

        • True. But a lot of that evidence is statistical in nature that they cannot really understand, and our anecdote can be countered with their (bloody) anecdote.
          But this is REALLY clear:
          Thugs murder people, tried, and THEIR recognized court says it’s all fine by the Koran.
          Not a whole lot to misunderstand or spin. Committed ideologues will still avert their eyes and mumble, but the masses in the middle will see it for what it is.
          If the court says NOT cool, guys!, then the Muslim world can get their civil war on, and we can supply the appropriate side(s) with arms and keep it at longer range.

          The only alternative I see is enacting the Universal Reprisal Act. A Reprisal is an act that would be a war crime under normal circumstances, but may be legally done in retaliation for a war crime committed by the “other side.” I.e., Islam is at war with the non-islamic world. If a murder is done in the name of Islam, then five (or however many) muslims are going to be killed in retaliation from the perp’s community – family, mosque leaders, military-age males, whatever. Formalize it. Make it clear that if they want a war, they are outnumbered and they WILL lose.

          The “Universal Reprisal Act” is not a simple continuation of a 1-for-1 cycle of violence where their losses can be easily replaced, it’s a rapidly escalating war of annihilation only they can halt, by ending their war on non-muslims. If they cannot control their own, then we will.

  3. Or, you could simply follow my choice, and have an American court system hear argument that Islam is NOT a religion, but simply a theocratic political system. If the Court so ruled, and SCOTUS agreed, then the protections of Freedom of Religion could be immediately removed from the adjudged political group, and further determinations could then be made relating to treasonous advocacy of violence, hate crimes, etc.

    If the rest of Western Civ followed this course, the only recourse said Ayatollahs, Muftis and sheiks would have would be to convene a council and remove the offending parts of their theocratic code, then take steps to excommunicate those who failed a fealty test.

    • There are possible downsides to that method, as appealing as it is.
      One, it only applies to the US, and other nations are unlikely to follow suit.
      Two, it would be seen as nakedly political.
      Three, it may actually act as a unifying force for islam around the world, driving large numbers of non-fundamentalists into the radical’s arms.
      Four, it has no chance of inciting a civil war within the faith strong enough to foment a genuine reformation.

  4. I would just point out that, after Pearl Harbor, Americans didn’t worry about unifying the Nazis or creating two Japanese imperialists for every one we killed. The Allies just went and defeated them. This concept of being careful not to “anger” or “rally” our already sworn enemies, or to “serve as recruitment” for them, is an entirely new one in America outside the Progressive culture, so far as I know.

    Imagine the protests;
    “We’re building two German ammunition plants for every one we bomb!”
    “We’re building two Japanese cities for every city we nuke!”
    It’s bloody insane, it is.

    • But there is a critical difference between then and the current war. National identity. Japan and Germany were nations with recognized capitals and leaders and armies that wore uniforms. Islam has some Islamic-majority nations, and hundreds of millions living as minorities within christian, atheist, Hindu, and poly-faith nations. If you don’t care about the body-count, then your position will settle it once and for all, likely with more than two billion dead. But most Muslims are mostly go-along-to-get-along sorts, just like most Christians. Co-opting them rather than killing them is simply a lower-cost solution as near as I can tell. Believers won’t change their minds until an authority THEY believe in tells them there is a problem; that’s something an unbeliever simply can’t do. That is why a recognized legitimate court decision, where it’s not so much the criminal person as the crime committed is on trial, is so important. It will make the battle-lines starkly clear to all the fence-sitters.

  5. Sorry. This proposal is too generous (maybe lenient is a better word) for my taste.
    The battle lines are already drawn. It’s islam(ic) conquest against the rest of the world (civilization).
    The euro zone is already effectively lost. the Islamic “no go zones” are an admission of their surrender.
    Since the Muslims want to “meet Mohamed in paradise,” (they value death/”martyrdom” more than life), we should do everything we can to give them their wish. Start with Bracken’s suggestion and nuke Mecca, destroying that black rock they believe is all powerful, removing their delusional symbol of invincibility, then kill every last one of the motherfuckers who objects by any means possible. The only way to rid the earth of this scourge is to rid the earth of it decisively. Any failure to do that is a weak-hearted fool’s errand and is doomed to failure from the start.

    • Perhaps. But perhaps making them have a proper civil war first will simplify things.

      Alternatively, having an unambiguous case as I describe will give even the most dense of the mushy middle something to hang their hats on to support the war if it has to come.

  6. I think I know what bothers me about this. You refer to “leading national leaders”. Are there any such people? We’re often told that the majority of muslims oppose terrorism, but it seems that, with VERY rare exceptions, no such people speak up. And in particular, very few who pretend to be “leaders” speak up. Which means either they are in favor of this barbarism (the most likely answer) or they are in fact fake leaders — people who enjoy the perks that come with the title but don’t care for the responsibility of actually speaking up for moral behavior.
    So given that the leaders you refer to are either frauds or supporters, the scheme doesn’t feel right.

    • They do not have a single leader, such as the Pope in the Catholic church, but they do have a sort of hirarchy with some recognized “leading figures” that have a significant claim to legitimacy, such as the Grand Mufti I mentioned. If nothing else, it’s a great difference to hang a proper civil war on. “He said X, but MY imam said Y, you apostate! DIE!!!!”

      • Sure, but essentially all of these “leaders” support these barbaric acts.

        • I agree that is most likely the case. But the idiot left doesn’t want to see it, or admit it, or acknowledge it, and are happy to put on “moderate” Muslims that lie to them saying that is NOT what islam is.. We show them an official court decision in a high-profile case as I describe, then the “official” position is a lot harder to deny with a straight face, and their hypocrisy is more obvious to the apolitical middle.

  7. Rolf: I like the way you think. But I fear it wouldn’t be anything like as clear-cut as you suggest.

    For one, even under ideal conditions, a Sharia court that failed to convict would not be seen as an admission that “Sharia courts are not compatible with Western civilization”. Western courts have miscarriages of justice, after all, and this would simply be explained away as such.

    Frankly, I don’t think we really need this to show that Sharia law and a Western legal code are incompatible. A legal system that does not permit women out in public alone, and does not permit women to NOT be covered head to toe? A legal system that positively delights in both corporal and capital punishment? A return to Prohibition? A system whereby a man’s testimony is worth far more than that of a woman, and a Muslim’s is worth more than that of a non-Muslim? How can any of that be reconciled with Western legal traditions?

    Me, I’d much prefer a policy that says something like: “You have your treasured religious traditions, and we will not interfere with them, so long as they do not interfere with ours. But if you break our laws, you will be punished under our laws. If you commit acts of terrorism, we will convict you and execute you, after force-feeding you pork and forcing you to profane a Koran. We will do everything in our power to make sure that terrorists have no chance, no chance at all, of going to Heaven. If going to Heaven has meaning for you, keep that in mind.”

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