U.S. Commander: Ramadan Fasting Made Them Do It!
Marine General John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, says one possible explanation for a spike in killings of American troops by their Afghan partners is the strain of fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ended on August 18. He said that while the reasons for the killings are not fully understood, the effect of Ramadan fasting is “likely among the causes.” There have been at least 32 attacks so far this year, killing 40 coalition members—mostly Americans—ten of them in August.
“The idea that they will fast during the day places great strain on them,” Allen said, adding that the stress may have been compounded by Ramadan falling during the heat of summer and the height of the fighting season. He acknowledged that hunger and heat may not be the primary causes for the killings, but it is among many “different and complex reasons for why we think this may have increased” lately.
Welcome to the Ramadan-Induced Sudden Jihad Syndrome. Presumably next year, the U.S. Army is going to set up counseling centers and group therapy sessions for the Afghan soldiers and policemen who cease to be responsible for their actions due to the “great strain.”
As for the “different and complex reasons,” in Allen’s account the words “Islam” and “jihad” did not make an appearance. In addition to the mental “strain” of fasting, he also cited Taliban infiltration of Afghan security forces and unnamed “personal Afghan grievances” against U.S. troops. Back in Washington, Colonel Lapan, spokesman for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff commented, “we don’t know what’s causing [the attacks], and we’re looking at everything.” As for the experts, Mark Jacobsen, a defense specialist at the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. and a former senior NATO civilian representative in Afghanistan, said Allen’s theory about the role of Ramadan in the attacks is “very reasonable.” John Agoglia, an executive at IDS International, which provides cultural awareness training for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, said in an interview that the insider attacks were partly linked to a Taliban effort to “psychologically dislocate” Afghans from their American trainers and advisers.
While the Fasting Factor is a demented fantasy, the insistence on the “infiltration” by the Taliban and its “psychological dislocation” campaign is factually incorrect. As The New York Times reported on August 18, the military has analyzed the attacks and the results have been worrisome: “Only a handful of the 31 attacks this year have clearly been a result of Taliban activity like infiltration. That suggests a level of malaise or anger within the Afghan forces that could complicate NATO’s training program, which relies on trust and cooperation.”
“Could complicate” implies that this has not happened yet, which is ridiculous. In May 2011, a U.S. Army study established that killings of Americans and other NATO troops by Afghan soldiers and policemen were not “rare and isolated events.” In ten months (July 2010-May 2011) over thirty were murdered by Afghan national security forces. The problem escalated following the alleged burning of Qurans at an American military base last February, when two American officers were killed by their Afghan “colleagues” inside the Interior Ministry in Kabul. After that incident Gen. Allen withdrew his men from Afghan government facilities, while NATO personnel in the capital had to limit their contact with Afghan government institutions to cell phones and e-mail. Another crisis started on March 11, when an American sergeant killed 16 unarmed Afghan civilians in a village near Kandahar. The “insider killings” reached a new high after that incident, steadily escalating to two deaths a week in August.
The primary reason for the killings is the religiously inspired animosity most Afghans feel for the infidel in general, and Americans in particular. It is driven by the eminently orthodox dogma of jihad—supported by countless examples through history—that if a Muslim land is occupied by infidels, it is obligatory for the Muslims to resist the kufr—soldiers and civilians alike—and kill them, while pretending to be their friends if this facilitates the desired outcome.
A war waged by non-Muslims in a predominantly Muslim land is inevitably a religious war. This explanation—which is at least worthy of serious consideration by the military authorities, for the sake of the dead and others who are in harm’s way—is not allowed into the discourse of top field commanders, their professional advisors and political masters. They act like oncologists who willfully won’t, or else are not allowed to, diagnose metastatic cancer. Their political masters prefer to stick to their politically correct dogmas than to accept an explanation that is at odds with their world view. As a result, American and allied soldiers die.
In Afghanistan, the hatred of the infidel occupier is combined with studied contempt of Afghans of all political hues for the rhetoric of “partnership,” with which the American political and military establishment remains infatuated. No partnership is possible. History tells us that Muslim soldiers can respect and obey non-Muslim masters, but not in this case. They will do so only when the “infidel” officer commands Muslims from a clear-cut position of indisputable authority.
During World War II, close to 400,000 Punjabi Muslims volunteered for the British Indian Army. From 1936 until the partition in 1947, Muslims from different parts of the Subcontinent accounted for about a third of the Indian Army personnel. Coming mainly from the traditionally martial communities in today’s Pakistan, they were hugely over-represented in the all-volunteer force. They were commanded mostly by British officers, invariably so above the rank of major. Before 1939, they were on station duty in Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Aden, the Gulf, Burma, Malaya and Hong Kong—some of the hottest places on Earth. During the war they fought mostly in East Africa, North Africa, Syria, Tunisia, Malaya, Burma, and Italy—except for the last, lands and regions no less hot and often even less hospitable than Afghanistan itself. There is no record, however, of “insider attacks” presenting a problem—Ramadan or no Ramadan.
In the Russian Empire, following the conquest of the Caucasus and Central Asia, Muslim territorial regiments—commanded by Russian officers—were established in those territories that were granted autonomous status, such as the Emirate of Bukhara or the Khanate of Khiva. Elsewhere, regiments of Muslims were incorporated into the regular army—e.g. the Muslim cavalry of Dagestan, the Crimean Tatar squadron—but they were also officered by Russians. They were reliable, loyal, fought well, and endured the Ramadan, it seems, with no great stress—or at least we have no such record.
In our own time, Muslims are significantly over-represented in the French Army—accounting for a fifth of the rank-and-file—but most of their officers are French. While the loyalty of these soldiers is considered uncertain if they were asked to restore law and order in the restive Muslim banlieus, insider attacks are not a problem and an assiduous Internet search has failed to find any link between their disciplinary or behavioral problems and Ramadan fasting.
Last but not least, their German officers were full of praise for some hundreds of thousands of Muslims who served as volunteers, mostly in the Waffen SS, between 1941 and 1945. They came from the Crimea, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chechnya, Dagestan, Kosovo, Central Asia—an ethnically and racially diverse group—and yet there is no record of insider killings or the Ramadan Syndrome.
Poor General Allen. He is facing a new, altogether unprecedented phenomenon. And poor Afghan soldiers. They are under such strain…
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Well said, Sir. Alas, this is just one more legacy of "The Sixties"---a subset of the taboo against saying anything negative about a minority, truth be damned. It is very sad, though not surprising, to see a Marine general a bootlicking bureaucrat rather than a soldier.
Just like in the Soviet bloc of yore, ideological reliability is the primary criterion of promotion from field-grade officer to general officer. This applies to all four branches of service equally, hence no surprise that a Marine general acts on cue. It started with women in the military -- cf. Brian Mitchell's seminal http://www.amazon.com/Women-Military-Flirting-With-Disaster/dp/0895263769 -- and matured with the "gay" issue. The process is now complete.
Check out http://www.juliagorin.com/wordpress/?p=2897 then watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gmq0tW0iWY and weep.
“Cadets from West Point…hit the ground in Jersey City to learn about Islamic culture and different religions,” narrates AP reporter Warren Levinson, with a shot of four female cadets in a mosque wearing Islamic headdresses and giggling. “The field trip was part of a class called Winning the Peace. The idea came after the attacks of September 11th 2001. The mission: to expose the cadets to as much diversity as possible before they encounter it in the theater of war.”
“Over the three-day trip, the cadets spent the night at the Islamic Center, witnessed Islamic prayer, and went to several churches in the area,” continues the narration.
“This trip is really all about accepting diversity and being willing to learn about different groups of people,” begins West Point Cadet Megan Kelty. “Seeing how everyone interacts with one another is very interesting to me and I’m particularly interested in some of the religious diversity too.”
Julia Gorin notes that this was the eighth time that Jersey City has hosted West Point cadets, indicating this may have started about 2004, which would be around the time that the post-9/11 boomerang effect started taking shape. “There were communities that questioned whether or not a program like this could succeed in a post-9/11 world,” Major Andrew A. Gallo tells the reporter. “The community here has proven that it definitely can.”
Cf: "U.S. Army uniforms to include Muslim headscarves, turbans?"
http://www.wnd.com/2011/12/380593/
Unfortunately, ignorance and political correctness seem to rule in the U. S. today. In our go-along-to-get-along world, it takes exceptional courage to speak out against what is going on. CAIR has a lot of heads hanging on its walls representing those it has had fired from their jobs for speaking the truth about Islam. The same is true for those speaking out about other issues. I know that Brian Mitchell and his family have suffered the consequences of his efforts. It is only because of his exceptional talents that he soldiers on. Subversive organizations like CAIR and the SPLC have entirely too much influence on the mainstream media. Those of us who have less talent, but are still able to recognize the truth when it is set before us, owe a deep debt of gratitude to Chronicles and its dedicated staff for keeping us informed.
I believe it can be seen that this started earlier than the women's question, with desegregation of the military in the post WW II period.
Point taken, but the military proved able to retain its ethos and coherence after complying with the 1948 Executive Order 9981. The disastrous insistence on androgyny has castrated the military, not to mention the "gay" sequel. The military services have been transformed into a corporation of employees pursuing "equality" to the detriment of combat readiness and morale. Indoctrinating West Point cadets into becoming Sharia-compliant political commissars is the logical next step.
Blacks in 2000 made up almost 24 percent of United States Military force but after 12 years of continuous war they are down to about 12% - 14% which is much closer to the percentage of their share of the US population. Also hispanics are probably on the rise in the armed forces and Roman Catholics always shared a disproportionate share of the Marine Corps Officers Corps until long afterVietnam. That is probably way down since Vietnam, Grenada, Desert Storm, Operation Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, For US or Against US, Libya, and soon to be Iran. ( It's hard to know if it was their loss of faith or other losses but it doesn't help when Bums like Frum are allowed to call men like of Things change, continue to change, for some it is for the worse and for others, it is for better. I am surprised both parties have managed to dupe their constituents for so long about the necessity of these wars and how much better off the world is after 12 years of American blood and treasure being spilled in the Middle East. A people no more serious than this, deserve as Clyde wilson suggests, Generals who do more bootlicking than spit-shining. So Srdja, sounds like we are right about where we ought to be. Our leaders probably," don’t know what’s causing [the attacks], (after) looking at everything.”
Here is Condoleezza Rice sounding like Obama and Romney : ''That's the great blessing of living in a free country," she said, adding that ''the people of Baghdad and people of Kabul are going to enjoy, finally, the same liberty to say what they think that the people of Boston do." You gotta love Boston !!!
"It's hard to know if it was their loss of faith or other losses but it doesn't help when Bums like Frum are allowed to call decent men like of Andrew J. Bacevich, traitors. "
( And still keep their talking points in this year's campagn for Heaven's Sake !!)
Bums like Frum are allowed to call decent men like of Andrew J. Bacevich, traitors.
That is more than a little ironic on at least two levels, if you get what I mean...
Nick,
Andrei Navrozov went to school with him and has written about the type, Tom Piatak took him to task here a few years ago, http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2010/03/26/frums-firing/ .... but being a rascal is one thing, continuing to appear as Republican talking head in spite of it, when better men like Pat Buchanan and/or Peter Stanlis are ignored or banished to the "fringe" is simply revealing.
The Romans fed Christians to the lions because they feared that Christianity was a menace to the perennity of the Empire, which in their mind had to be divine. In the Middle Ages we burned heretics at the stake (not of course systematically, as some would have it, but only when they got really publicly and scandalously out of hand) because they were a true menace to the ideological foundations society was built on.
These days, the state cult is the religion of materialism, hedonism and sadomasochism, so it is not surprising that bloodthirsty warmongers and traitors are run-of-the-mill spokesmen and Buchanan et. al., like everyone who prophecies against their folly, can only be grateful they have thus far escaped the lions.
As for Frum at Columbia, I seem to recall more than a few people here were really disappointed Navrozov didn't end up making good on his self-promise to swirly the kid the next time he saw him...
Would anyone recommend sources of information about the consequences of Executive Order 9981 of 1948? I’ve never seen anything about this.
Joe: Check out http://www.trumanlibrary.org/9981.htm and
http://www.amazon.com/Integration-1940-1965-Defense-Studies-Military/dp/B000V74C4C/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346325947&sr=1-2
Thank you, Dr. Trifkovic.