How to End Radical Islam

[Also published in http://www.newsmax.com/ScotFaulkner/islam-radical/2016/07/29/id/741177/]

 It is time for moderate forward looking Muslims to regain control of their religion.  They need to take historic steps to bring Islam into the 20^th Century, returning it to an honored place among the world’s great religions.

Slaughter in an Orlando Nightclub, slaughter on the streets of Nice, slaughter in Paris and in a Normandy church, slaughter at airports in Brussels and Istanbul, slaughter at a San Bernardino picnic, slaughter at Fort Hood, slaughter at the Boston Marathon, attacks on trains in France and Germany, the list is endless.  The weapons used were diverse – guns, trucks, pressure cookers, axes, knives, and bombs.  Only the motivation remained constant – jihad for Allah.

The threat and the fight are global.  Terror can now arrive anywhere, anytime, in any form. Some already label this World War III.  The problem is that increased drone strikes, bombing ISIS’ capital in Raqqa, Syria, or expanding intelligence gathering will not end the threat.  This is because every day millions of young boys attend radical Madrassas and learn how to hate, kill, and die.

In the mid-1970s Saudi Arabia used the flood of oil revenue to become the “McDonalds of Madrassas”.  Religious schools and new Mosques popped up throughout Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.  This building boom had nothing to do with education and everything to do with spreading the cult of Wahhabism.

The Saudi Royal Family owes its rise to power to Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792).  He envisioned a “pure” form of Islam that purged most worldly practices (heresies), oppressed women, and endorsed violence against nonbelievers (infidels), including Muslims who differed with his sect.  This extremely conservative and violent form of Islam might have died out in the sands of central Arabia were in not for a timely alliance with a local tribal leader, Muhammad bin Saud.

The House of Saud was just another minor tribe, until the two Muhammads realized the power of merging Sunni fanaticism with armed warriors.  Wahhab’s daughter married Saud’s son, merging their two blood lines to this day.  The House of Saud and its warriors rapidly expanded throughout the Arabia Peninsula and collided with Shi’ite and more secular Sunni powers. 

Saudi forces were defeated but rose again, fueled by Wahhabi fanaticism.  These various conflicts always included destruction of holy sites of rival sects and tribes.  While done in the name of “purification”, the result was erasing the physical touchstones of rival cultures and governments.

In the early 20^th Century, Saudi leader, ibn Saud, expertly exploited the decline of the Ottoman Empire, and alliances with European Powers, to consolidate his permanent hold over the Arabian Peninsula.  Control of Mecca and Medina, Islam’s two holiest sites, gave the House of Saud the power to promote Wahhabism as the dominant interpretation of Sunni Islam.  This included internally contradictory components of calling for eradicating infidels while growing rich from Christian consumption of oil, and pursuing lavish hedonism when not in public view.

Unless Wahhabism is eliminated or moderated, the West is fighting a losing battle. 

The decline in oil revenue gives the West rare economic leverage.  It is time to convince the Saud family to convene an Islamic version of the Council of Nicaea.

In 325 Roman Emperor Constantine the Great convened a religious council in Nicaea (near modern Istanbul) to resolve various differences within Christianity.  This included consolidating and codifying beliefs, rituals, and the calendar of holy days and rites.  Over three hundred church officials and theologians attended.

While the Council of Nicaea did not resolve everything, it established a culture of dialogue and collaboration within Catholicism.  Christianity had its own wars and schisms, notably the Reformation, which was more about geopolitics than faith.  Isolated fanaticism and superstition led to the abuses from the persecution of Galileo to the Salem witch trails.  However, the framework and mindset was permanently in place for Western religions to move with the times and adapt as knowledge and culture advanced.  These forces of moderation and reason assure the continuous rise of civilization to this day and the marginalization and isolation of extremists.

Philosopher Eric Hoffer, in his famous work “The True Believer”, asserted, “the character and destiny of a group are often determined by its inferior elements.”  Reasonable people, spanning religion and ideology, are hoping Islam finds a way to isolate and diminish their forces of darkness.  It can only be done from within.

[Scot Faulkner served as the first Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives and on Ronald Reagan’s White House Staff.  As Deputy Associate Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), he coordinated the Administration’s response to the Pan Am Flight 103 Bombing.  Mr. Faulkner has advised corporations and governments throughout the Middle East since 2002.]

Why Iraq Matters

Also published in https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-iraq-matters-scot-faulkner?trk=prof-post




Why is Iraq relevant? Specifically, why is the decision to fight the second Iraq War relevant to the 2016 Presidential election?


It is about more than just having another Bush running for President.  Ramadi falls, Iraqi military units flee before ISIS, and Iran extends its reach in the region. What a Republican President did back in 2003 has become a crucible on which the next generation of Republican leaders and their advisors must be tested.


The Second Iraq War is relevant because the senior policy advisors who embraced pre-emptive war and led America and the Middle East over a cliff are still around and serving in the inner circles of Jeb Bush and most other Republican Presidential candidates.


This generation of inept, incompetent, policy players did everything except slink away in shame.  They landed high paying and prestigious jobs in think tanks, lobby firms, and corporate boards.  They are the talking heads who kibitz on cable news and write columns second guessing everyone but themselves.  It is the old Washington game of unaccountable power – as long as you make the right friends and go to the right cocktail parties your actual track record is irrelevant.


For America to move forward in the Middle East it must demand that Republican candidates rid themselves of those who ignored intelligence, cherry-picked facts, were oblivious to a millennia of history & culture, bungled the war, bungled the occupation, were complicit in crony capitalist scams that steered nearly a trillion dollars through questionable sole source contracts, dismissed blatant corruption, embraced the wrong factions, and refused to make amends or apologize for what they did.


In early 2003, Bush advisors met with foreign policy experts who served Ronald Reagan.  The strategists who brought down the Soviet Empire unanimously opposed Bush’s plan to invade Iraq.  They listed dozens of reasons.  They correctly reminded the Bush team that Iraq had served as the counter-balance to Iranian aspirations since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.  Taking out Saddam Hussein, especially without a clear alternative, would leave chaos and a vacuum.  This would open the door for Iran to challenge Sunni hegemony in the region and lead to a sectarian conflict that would devastate the region.  The Bush team scoffed.


Why was the Bush team so fixated on going back into Iraq no matter the facts or the consequences? The story lies deep within a sequence of largely unreported events that put America and the region on a path to our current predicament.


At 4:00 a.m. “Saudi time” on Sunday, February 24, 1991 the U.S. launched a brilliantly designed and executed ground war into Iraq as part of “Desert Storm”. This end run around Iraqi forces in Kuwait (Operation Deep Strike) stands along side Austerlitz and Chancellorsville as one of the great battle maneuvers in history.


Only a handful of military and intelligence officials admit to what happened next. Several of them have confirmed these details to me and they are verified on a few websites.


Desert Storm’s original plan was to completely encircle and destroy the Iraqi Republican Guard units defending Basra [ http://www.hoskinson.net/gulfwar/dstorm13.html ].


On Tuesday, February 26, at 7:00 p.m. “Saudi time” the final armored units required for this encirclement entered Iraq and sped toward Basra. At that same time U.S. air strikes were obliterating retreating Iraqi forces along Route 80 near the town Al Jahra. These strikes destroyed 1,400 vehicles and killed thousands of Iraqi soldiers [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death ].


As Wednesday February 27 dawned, CNN and other news organizations ran extensive video of the Route 80 carnage, now christened the “Highway of Death”. Some reporters and commentators began to question whether the “Highway of Death” was a gratuitous killing spree. Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was disturbed by the “shooting gallery” scenes and by the negative turn of news coverage. He shared his concern with President Bush and key White House advisors.


Debates raged in the White House about finishing the job of encircling the Republican Guard at Basra or “cutting losses” regarding negative media coverage. One staffer suggested that a compromise might be to end the ground war the next day (Thursday, February 28) at noon “Saudi time” as that would be exactly the 100-hour mark. This was immediately embraced as a “great number for the history books”. At 9:00 EST that evening a cease fire was announced to take effect nine hours later (4:00 a.m. EST or noon “Saudi time”).


Ground commanders, including Desert Storm commander General Norman Schwarzkopf, were shocked at the news. Lead armor units were less than 20 miles from completing their encirclement of the Republic Guards near Basra. The cease fire halted their advance leaving a strategic gap through which the Guard units resupplied and reformed under the U.S guns. A provisional ceasefire was formally signed three days later on March 3, 1991.


Unfortunately, this provisional ceasefire allowed the Iraqi military immediate use of their airspace and required U.S. forces to begin their withdrawal from Iraqi territory. [http://iraqimojo.blogspot.com/2006/11/ghosts-of-1991.html ]


Then matters got worse. On February 15, 1991, President George H. W. Bush issued statements calling on the Iraqi people to overthrow President Saddam Hussein. It was hoped that Iraqi generals and key Sunni leaders would use the war as their opportunity for an uprising.


On March 3, 1991, the same day as a provisional ceasefire was signed, uprisings did occur, but among the Kurds in the north of Iraq, and the Shiites in the south. Bush officials were concerned that the Kurdish uprising might ignite Turkish fears of a greater Kurdistan and the Shiite uprising might trigger Iranian intervention. U.S. officials decided the best policy was to stand by and watch as Iraq brutally suppressed both revolts, killing over 100,000 civilians. Iraqi armored units and supply convoys moved with impunity while Iraqi helicopters flew by U.S. forces on their way to strafe rebelling Shiites.


Bush officials were concerned that the Kurdish uprising might ignite Turkish fears of a greater Kurdistan and the Shiite uprising might trigger Iranian intervention. U.S. officials decided the best policy was to stand by and watch as Iraq brutally suppressed both revolts, killing over 100,000 civilians. Iraqi armored units and supply convoys moved with impunity while Iraqi helicopters flew by U.S. forces on their way to strafe rebelling Shiites.


Many myths arose from the 1991 war including the “big lie” that we considered taking Baghdad. This masks the disastrous decision to arbitrarily end the war and allow the Republican Guard units to be resupplied and reform under U.S. guns. It masks the inane provisional ceasefire that prematurely reopened Iraqi airspace for military operations. And it masks the miscues of the Bush administration encouraging revolt only to watch thousands of civilians get slaughtered


When George W. Bush, entered the White House, many in his inner circle, including Vice President Cheney, wanted a “do over”. Their priority was to find an excuse, any excuse, to finish off Saddam. The attacks on 9-11 gave them the pretext for a return to Iraq.


Americans need to remember these events as Republican candidates grapple with questions about the second Iraq War.


We must remember history and vow to learn from

Stopping Radical Islam

Also published at:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stopping-radical-islam-scot-faulkner

Forty world leaders, from every political and religious affiliation, led over a million people, from every political, ethnic, and religious affiliation, through the streets of Paris.  It was a vivid and historic show of solidarity for Western civilization and its freedoms.

What next?  Cynics have already said this high spirited unanimity will pass as politicians and normal people return to their daily lives. 

It does not have to be that way. 

There are strategic actions that can be taken to stop radical Islam, and its terrorist legions, in their tracks.

Cyber Warfare

It is time to shut down the social networks and websites used by radical Islam to recruit, fund raise, and mobilize. All internet services should ban websites associated with radical Islam.  Youtube and other media share sites should ban all images and videos that promote ISIS, Al Queada, BokoHaram, al-Shabaab, and all other terrorists groups. Except on legitimate news sites, these images should be banned the same way NAZI images are banned – across the globe.

All nations should launch a coordinated assault to crash and keep off the air all websites, servers, and communication technologies of violent Islamic groups.   There should also be a decision by all news outlets to not show any videos or messages from these groups.

Dismantle Sharia Controlled Zones

Western governments must dismantle radical Islamic “no entry” zones.  This can be done by passing laws enforcing the host country’s laws within all jurisdictions, and providing funds for law enforcement to be active and visible in these enclaves of hate.  Alternatively, Congress and other parliaments should threaten to end funding support of municipal governments that refuse to move against radical Islamic zones.

Over the last decade, Islamic radicals have established these “no entry” zones in major Western cities.  Block after block of major cities, in Paris, London, Detroit, Minneapolis, and many others, are ruled by radical Islamic councils.  Sharia law is enforced and holds itself exempt from host country laws and jurisdiction.

Alhurra, and other courageous news outlets, have exposed these beacheads of radical Islam.  This includes recording “no entry” residents proudly declaring that they are not immigrants, but “colonists for the Caliphate”.  These enclaves are recruiting hubs and staging areas for terrorism.  They exist because the West values religious freedom.  They exploit the West’s tolerance and naiveté to promote intolerance and hate.

End Radical Islamic Madrassas

Wahhabi curriculum must be ended in all Islamic religious schools.  National and local governments must review and approve curriculum, educational materials, and faculty for these schools.  They are the primary incubators of treason against host governments, and for fermenting terrorism designed to destroy Western civilization and its values of freedom. 

This is a global war for hearts and minds. The West is fighting a losing battle unless these poisonous training sites are closed.

Wahhabism promotes the most radical interpretation of the Koran.  This includes complete oppression of women, hatred of the West, and approval of jihad against the West and even against more moderate Muslims. Wahhabi leaders have approved destruction and desecration of religious and historic sites across the world.

Promote Islamic Moderates

Western media needs to promote moderate Muslim leaders.  Western universities, think tanks, and other forums need to bring Muslim voices of reason into high profile public dialogues.

Recently, some Islamic leaders and commentators have promoted the need for the equivalent of a Council of Nicea or Vatican II to bring their religion into the modern world.  Some have referenced aggiornamento, a Catholic term meaning a sustained effort to embrace modernity in both doctrine and rite.

There are also substantial Muslim groups, such as the Indonesian- based Pengurus Besar Nahdlatul Ulama (“Awakening of Scholars”), the largest Muslim organization in the world, that promote a peaceful and forward looking interpretation of the Koran.  These groups need larger stages upon which to counter the radicals.

Use Oil as a weapon

America needs to use its growing energy independence as a strategic weapon.  American and Canadian oil needs to be pumped and subsidized until oil prices are driven below $30 barrel.  The West can then do to the oil producing Arab nations what they have done to the West since the mid-1970s.  The West can dictate ending funding of radical Islamic Madrassas, ending banking and funding of terrorist groups, and ending safe havens for terrorists. That would be exchanged for stabilizing and increasing oil prices.  If the Arab states refuse to work with the West, they will see their billions in revenue evaporate back in to the desert. 

This is war – civilization must win.

[Scot Faulkner has served in executive positions in the government and the private sector.  He has worked in the Middle East since 2002, including Bahrain, Egypt, Qatar, and the UAE. http://citizenoversight.blogspot.com/ ]