Strategic failures of the Soviet war in Afghanistan: Soviet perspective and the political option

By: M. E. Leclerc

As the first Soviet units deployed into Afghanistan on December 27 1979 the world waited to see how once more the emerging superpower conduct another operation, further cementing its grip in the region, including and continuing on the path to expansion of its republics. The belief that Soviet military superiority would prevail in this theatre of operations was shared by the Soviets themselves, and for good reason. After conducting effective campaigns in the Ukraine (1945-1951), East Germany (1953), Hungary (1958), Czechoslovakia (1968) and occasionally exercising military pressure in Poland the Soviet Union felt confident that their methodology would be equally successful. Their rapid, brutal incursions, the elimination and replacement of local governments with a pre-assembled facsimile had been tested and considered the standard.

This standard had been so successful that to the elite members of the Politburo – perhaps under pressure to squelch the fast advancing revolt against Communist rule in Afghanistan – the decision to send troops into the region was justified and the end game a self-fulfilling prophecy. The motivation to regain control over the country and keep it from developing an alliance with the US and Iran was primarily the driving force however, many other conditions factored into the decision. In spite of an aggressive effort by the Central Committee’s insistence that the Soviet Union not be linked in any way with military action and that the thrust be directly attributed to the Afghans. Clearly, the controversial Taraki/Amin government was not only split by its own power struggles and breaking from Soviet control (not refusing Soviet economic aid) but those players exiled from Afghanistan, upon their return, had quickly begun to work against them and adding a complex set of dynamics to the problem.

The offer to send military helicopter maintenance personnel, advisors, propaganda experts, train 50,000 Afghan officers in the Soviet Union and have their training expedited and delivery of wheat at no cost were measures designed to avoid military intervention but at the same time left the door open for that option. The negotiations between Taraki and the Politburo had taken off on an increasingly tense situation for Taraki in that he had lost positive control of his armed forces since defections to the rebel side were numerous and he had few people he could trust. Taraki made a strategic mistake in ridding his cabinet of advisors which was a dual-edged sword.

On the one hand by sending away Soviet personnel on the ground who could report to the Politburo accurate information of what he was up to and second the Soviets should have questioned and possibly stopped this action. The Soviets though knowledgeable that the political situation in Afghanistan was not advancing as desired, allowed Taraki to continue his anti-Soviet campaign. He also failed to illustrate to the Politburo that many an Afghan Army officer had deserted and joined the resistance movement, which meant that Taraki had few supporters in the military.

This would indeed be the catalyst for his frequent requests for Soviet military assistance and though there was some opposition to a military approach, the decision to send troops and to prepare for the operation was approved. Factors involving the potential conflicts Soviet forces could encounter in dealing with the Afghan people, their rejection of foreign customs and governance were known but not taken into account. After a very short delay, the elite issued the order to prepare a contingent of 50,000 troops two weeks before the actual invasion.

After the Taraki removal, Amin had become an even worst liability as the rebellion continued to escalate, making his removal just as imminent with the better-aligned Karmal who waited in the sidelines. Karmal had already begun to show signs of forming the opposition’s movement against the Amin government and Amin’s demise had been made even more on a quest to undermine Soviet influence, he orchestrated rumor campaigns to reach tribal elders assuring them of a hasty Soviet departure, purging government members and placing family and close friends in cabinet positions. The Soviets flooded the country with brigade-strength units in Kabul, the Bagram air base and the airbase at Shendan followed by the delivery of armored vehicles and artillery and a an additional troop surge of 5,000 within 48 hours.

To the outside world the calling of Soviet Army regulars from Hungary and East Germany was originally thought of as a concerted effort to help the Amin government deal with the Mujahideen fighters. However, once Amin and his family were executed and Karmal installed, the tone of the military incursion had changed completely. The impact of deficient political intelligence did not play a larger role in predicting and preventing the situation in Afghanistan from evolving into a full-blown war and would carry through the next ten years.

Soviet Intelligence in the battlefield

The first waves of the invasion were successful in shocking the Afghans back into the Soviet agenda but this success was quickly reversed. The Soviets had conducted the invasion in the same fashion as they had in previous operations in Eastern Europe. Their initial strategic and tactical mistakes during the Hungary campaign opened the door to improved fighting approaches, thus significantly reducing their casualty rates during the Czech offensive. The Soviets had first knowledge of the Afghan road structure since they had built most roads as well as airfields and were well aware of the scope of local politics. Even with the disparities in military capability between Soviet forces and Afghan fighters, they entered into the conflict with a clear objective, but did not realize the depth of their commitment.

The invasion was carried out first by sending Spestnaz elements to storm the presidential palace while regular forces blocked any possible coordinated Afghan counteroffensive (units on the ground moved across the country seizing major cities), and borders shut down. This was accomplished even more readily since Amin’s oppressive rule had forced many defections from the Afghan forces which Taraki had begged the Soviets to augment with Soviet forces earlier in the year. This meant that there would be a reduction of native forces that could assist in the operation. Massive air support, artillery and mechanized units ensured that any advancing forces would do so unopposed by clearing all possible rebel attacks. The fight was followed by mopping up as they advanced on Mujahideen fighters.

With all this firepower the Soviets believed the Afghans would be obliterated and pose no further threat. An operation designed to go for months ended up in a ten-year war. Simply, the enemy was much more qualified to fight in their own environment and in their traditional fashion. This fighting style afforded the Afghans time to regroup, study Soviet tactics in relative safety and made themselves a harder target to hit by retreating and ceding those areas to the Soviets then returning later on to conduct further attacks. This is a tactic that has transcended time and technological advancements and it is still practiced today. Conventional wisdom existed within Soviet military units at even the lowest level in the ranks and problems with decreasing morale and discipline spread out fast. Soviet forces trained for combat in a battle space defined by high-technology including nuclear weapons and in a European theatre of operations, not a guerilla war against a technologically undeveloped enemy.

Ground commanders failed to utilize their forces in their best capacity. Reconnaissance troops were used in regular combat, thus wasting intelligence gathering capability and many an insurgent attack on Soviet forces would be the direct result of poor or non-existent OPSEC. Units were frequently attacked my Afghan fighters after their routines being profiled while the Soviet intelligence did not enjoy the same scope of observation. The Soviets, though well-trained, had By contrast, the Mujahideen’s intelligence was frequently in revision and rebel fighters conducted successful sabotage missions as they possessed knowledge of the terrain, exploited local population for information and shelter and maintained Soviet artillery officers became frustrated that their enemy would not remain in strike zones, Once the shock wore off the intensity and determination of the Afghan fighters increased much to the surprise of Soviet forces. For many a Soviet soldier, the reality of combat was one of quick adaptation and hope of survival. Unfortunately Soviet tactics changed very slowly with many units developing a moving bunker mentality where tactical initiative was badly needed, though many of the elite forces fought bravely and were able to adapt to new fighting conditions but this happened in the last three years of the war.

Winning Hearts and Minds

The Afghanistan conflict was possibly one of the most politically and socially traumatic events as the citizens of the Soviet Union quickly discovered that the troops returning from their tours were undisciplined, demoralized and scores more also afflicted with disease. The tone of the war did not match Soviet idealism of previous conflicts in that soldiers were trained to fight anti-Marxist foes and were viewed by the public as heroes. Support of Soviet troops was scarce within Afghanistan and back in the Soviet Union. Soviet forces were drafted then rotated back home, carrying with them the struggles of an increasingly unpopular war. In addition to all of their troubles adapting to normal life in the Soviet Union upon their return from the war ensured that many generations developed psychological, social and economic ruin.

Casualty rates may have been muddled by the Soviets only 6 deaths and wounded resulted from the operation when in reality casualties amounted to close to 7,000 and over 9,000 wounded by 1983. The control of the media reports created a hostile environment for the troops upon their return home and in Afghanistan and further encouraged by an indecisive central government and shifting policies. Winning the trust and cooperation of the Afghan people was even more difficult. Troop levels were insufficient to cover increasing combat roles and field commanders were not keen on extending their security beyond their area of operations which protected 29 provincial centers, industrial and economic installations. The problem with the lack of troops was that it also affected their ability to protect the local population, creating the eventual death, abuse and displacement of scores of Afghan civilians.

Ultimately, the failure rested on a central governing power that restricted not only the oversight of the decision-making process but also the flow of intelligence, the suppression of the indications and warnings that a military option was ill-fated and that the Soviet people would be against it once media coverage was restored. This took place over a decade and several changes in leadership, further compounding the problem. In the meantime, the embattled Soviet forces faced such hardships. This kind of secrecy, rather than secure a victorious outcome, gave way to economic, social and military downfall of the Soviet state, as its citizenry caught on to the failures and difficulties Soviet troops had to endure. To give them some credit, the Soviets made many attempts to control the situation by encouraging political reforms from within Afghanistan long before the military option was put on the table. Their knowledge of a crucial state client, the constraints of religion, political landscape and geography were not sufficient to measure potential problems in securing stability. However that was the end of their insight.

The Soviets had either no idea or chose to deny how the influence of Islam would have on their military and political involvement. Their confidence that Communist principles would work in Afghan society were partly true, had there been a more decisive and consistent policy but even so in the end Afghans would have rejected the attack on their traditions and way of life. The split along ethnic and tribal lines caused little or no local support of Soviet troops even if there were some supporters of a communist regime. That and racial and ethnic rivalries posed an even more serious impediment in the reconciliation of all factions within Afghanistan, a detail completely lost to the Soviets in spite of having first-hand intelligence of the culture.

Sources

Grau, Lester and Nawroz, Mohammed, The Soviet War in Afghanistan: History and Harbinger or War? http://www.ciaonet.org/cbr/cbr00/video/cbr_ctd/cbr_ctd_52.html

Grau, Lester, The Bear went over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan, http://www.ndu.edu/inss/books/Books%20-%201996/Bear%20Went%20Over%20Mountain%20-%20Aug%2096/BrOrMn.pdf

Predicting the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Central Intelligence Agency, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/predicting-the-soviet-invasion-of-afghanistan-the-intelligence-communitys-record/predicting-the-soviet-invasion-of-afghanistan-the-intelligence-communitys-record.html

American universities a breeding ground for socialists, communists, and terrorists

By Frank Schein, Anchorage Conservative Examiner

The ascension for higher education is a fundamental characteristic in our society. To provide a better education for our children so that they may prosper within our society, becoming the leaders for future generations-represents the central role of a parent. However; while attending these very expensive centers of higher learning, our children are being indoctrinated with leftists, socials, communist, Marxists, and terrorist ideologies.

Der Stürmer as Instructional Material in School Lessons (c. 1935) Courtesy of © Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz

For example, a group calling itself “The Socialism Conference” that described themselves as “A new left for a new era” recently held a conference in Chicago and San Francisco.  [HERE The New Statesman was created in 1913 with the aim of permeating the educated and influential classes with socialist ideas” ] Some of the key speakers that were featured include one particular anti-american radical John Pilger, whose clearly hostile idioms have been floating around the septic tank of cyberspace through various articles posted at The New Statesmen, a socialist newspaper that describes itself as”

Join these speakers at Socialism 2009:

John Pilger

John Pilger is a world-renowned journalist, author and documentary filmmaker, who began his career in 1958 in his homeland, Australia, before moving to London in the 1960s. His first film, The Quiet Mutiny, is credited with disclosing to a worldwide audience the internal disintegration of the US army in Vietnam.
Thirty-six years and some 60 documentaries later, he is still making challenging films for ITV. His films have won Academy Awards in Britain and the United States. He has been a freelance writer since 1986, with his work appearing in newspapers such as the Guardian, the Independent, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The South China Morning Post, the Mail & Guardian (South Africa), the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (Australia), Aftonbladet (Sweden), Morgenbladet (Norway) and Il Manifesto (Italy) and Socialist Worker (US)

“Iran’s crime is its independence. Having thrown out America’s favorite tyrant, Shah Reza Pahlavi, Iran remains the only resource-rich Muslim state beyond US control. As only Israel has a “right to exist” in the Middle East, the US goal is to cripple the Islamic Republic. This will allow Israel to divide and dominate the Middle East on Washington’s behalf, undeterred by a confident neighbor. If any country in the world has been handed urgent cause to develop a nuclear “deterrence”, it is Iran.”

“The suppression of the suffering of Britain’s and America’s colonial victims is an article of media faith, a tradition so ingrained that it requires no instructions.”

“The most obvious example is the bombing atrocities in London on 7 July 2005; no one in the British intelligence mandarinate doubts these were a gift from Blair. And yet “terrorism” describes only the few acts of individuals and groups, not the constant, industrial violence of great powers.”

Source: http://www.newstatesman.com/writers/john_pilger/page/3

“no one in the British intelligence mandarinate doubts these were a gift from Blair.” What Mr. Pilger is trying to convince everyone is that the people of London that were slaughtered in a terrorist act by radical islamists-were killed because they asked for it by simply being British.

In another quote from one of his articles: “As only Israel has a “right to exist” in the Middle East, the US goal is to cripple the Islamic Republic.” Pilger once again shows his contempt for Israel, and fails to mention the ever increasing terrorist attacks at the hands of Palestinian terrorist, and makes ideological assumptions that Iran’s Islamic Regime has the right to acquire nuclear weapons.

I applaud the fact that Mr. Pilger has the strength and impudence to stand up for what he believes in, but the fact that he is a socialist that espouses a totalitarian communist manifesto, and a person that denounced every action, every administration, and every foreign policy in America-while condemning Israel and their right to self defense, puts him in the same category as Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and other criminal against humanity.

Source: http://www.newstatesman.com/writers/john_pilger/page/3

Dr. Jess Ghannam

Dr. Jess Ghannam, the son of Palestinians forced to flee their homes when Israel was established in 1948, is a member of the international executive committee of Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition and the Free Palestine Alliance. A clinical professor of Psychiatry and Global Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, and adjunct professor of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University, he has also helped establish medical clinics across the Gaza Strip.

The list of Anti-American speakers goes on and on. All of these socialist speakers share the same sentiment-they hate Israelis, and denounce Americanism-calling for the elimination of American democracy over the communist manifesto, which they so reverently worship. The dictatorial leader of China Hu Jintao would be proud of these people.

Bill Fletcher:

Bill Fletcher is a Republican politician from the U.S. state of North Carolina. Fletcher was the Republican nominee for North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction in the North Carolina Council of State election, 2004.” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Fletcher
Bill Fletcher’s Iran Commentary [ Pay close attention to the very last statement where this Israeli hating American sums up his racist opinion : "And this administration is not gonna let the Israelis do their dirty work for them..”

When one looks closer at this “alleged educator”; the blatant racism and hate mongering is most evident with artwork being displayed on their website: [ HERE ] and again [ HERE ]
Source: http://www.resistanceart.com/2010_USA_Canada_BC.htm

The In many of Fletcher’s article he speaks out against racism and intolerance; yet when viewed from the abstract-his blatant hostilities against Israelis and Judaism are most evident. Perhaps his form of tolerance for other religions and races doesn’t include Israel. This is a signatory of American educational system?

American educators are indoctrinating our children with their racists attitudes at an alarming rate. College professors that should be teaching our kids educational courses, are intermixing their own twisted socialist ideologies into the lesson plan.  The answer is to monitor every teacher in American Universities. Identifying those that stray from the lesson plan and include their Anti-American and anti-Israel sentiments in front of our children. Radical Islamist that set up shop in our schools need to be booted onto the street with utter disgust. Their Jihadist propaganda and empathy for Palestinian terrorist groups is a slap into the face of every freedom that real Americans enjoy.

The American educational system is under attack from within. At stake are the fresh and impressionable minds of our children. The consequence of inaction might well results in another Nazi party emerging to slaughter yet another 8-Million people, and the radicalization of American Muslims that want to destroy the US Constitution and replace it with Islamic Sharia law.

God, Murder, and Ft. Hood
by Leonard Magruder

The landlady came up the stairs all upset. “There has been a mass killing at Fort Hood. Who would do such a thing ?”. “A Muslim terrorist”, I told her.

Not having heard about this I turned on Fox News, and sure enough, Smith and O’Reilly were already using the terms “Muslim” and “terrorist.” Turning then to CNN, for two hours nothing along these lines was mentioned. Turning back to Fox I saw the killer dressed in Muslim garb, found out that he had shouted out the pre-massacre shout “Allahu Akbar”, had handed out copies of the Koran shortly before the killings and that medical colleagues had reported that he had given shocking lectures at Walter Reed on how the American war on terror was actually a war on Islam. Back to CNN. For a long time nothing about all this, but then there were interviews with generals Clark and McCafferty which gave Campbell Brown, Larry King, and Anderson Cooper plenty of openings to ask probing questions leading to the possibility of terrorism – but they never did. Meanwhile, back at Fox former agent Michael Scheurer and military expert Ralph Peters were speculating freely that this had been a terrorist attack. “The worst terrorist attack since 9/11.” said Peters.

Back again to CNN. By now so much had poured in that they were beginning to consider the word “terrorist”, but it was clear throughout the whole day that they preferred to believe that it was a case of harassment of Hassad because he was a Muslim. On the question of “why”, “American bigotry, harassment,” was what they clearly hoped would come out of this. Checking CNN the next day they were still pursuing the idea that it was an emotional problem, probably connected with his work. At no time would they consider that it may have been based on the command of Allah in the Koran to, “Kill the unbeliever wherever you find them.” (Sura 9:5)

At the end CNN was still wailing, “What could the motive for this possibly be ?”, while all the rest of America had a pretty good idea what this was.

Right before our eyes we watched CNN betray the dead of Fort Hood to further the multiculturalist and “politically correct” interpretations preferred by both the media elite and our academics, making huge contributions to American vulnerability to terrorist attack. We saw the same thing last 9/11. Multiple times we sat through the horror of that day, yet no one in the media was allowed to mention the enemy. A few people in Times Square were shown raging against somebody, but the media made sure we never heard the world “Islam.”

In the following article we delve into this phenomenon.The question of what is the “root cause” of terrorism has created a divide that runs right straight through America. We once more lay out the case for Islam as the cause. We lay the groundwork with a review of the issue by Shmuel Bar as found in his article,”The Religious Sources of Islamic Terrorism.”

“It cannot be ignored that the lion’s share of terrorist acts and the most devastating of them in recent years have been perpetrated in the name of Islam. This fact has sparked a fundamental debate both in the West and within the Muslim world regarding the link between these acts and the teachings of Islam. Most Western analysts are hesitant to identify such acts with the bona fide teachings of one of the world’s great religions and prefer to view them as a perversion of a religion that is essentially peace-loving and tolerant. Their “root-cause” explanations include political causes (the Israeli-Arab conflict); cultural causes (rebellion against Western cultural colonialism or decadence); and social causes (alienation, poverty). While no public figure in the West would deny the imperative of fighting the war against terrorism, it is equally politically correct to add the codicil that, for the war to be won, these grievances pertaining to the root causes of terrorism are justified and should be addressed. An interpretation which places the blame for terrorism on religious and cultural traits, they claim, runs the risk of being branded as bigoted and Islamophobic.”

To treat Islamic terrorism as the consequence of political and socioeconomic factors would not do justice to the significance of the religious culture in which this phenomenon is rooted and nurtured. In order to comprehend the motivation for these acts and to draw up an effective strategy for a war against terrorism, it is necessary to understand the religious-ideological factors – which are deeply embedded in Islam. Insofar as religious establishments in most of the Arabian peninsula, in Iran, and in much of Egypt and North Africa are concerned, the radical ideology does not represent a marginal and extremist perversion of Islam but rather a genuine and increasingly mainstream interpretation. Even after 9-11, the sermons broadcast from Mecca cannot be easily distinguished from those of al Qaeda.

(An article on this on the Internet today begins, “This week in Mecca we can watch on Memri video at the height of the Muslim spiritual Hajj, the holiest time and holiest site of all Islam, Muslims screaming for the death and mutilation of all infidels, but specifically Americans and Jews. They cry to their god for our hands to be chopped off and to be murdered, while thanking Allah for his greatness.” These are not terrorists visiting from the caves of Pakistan. These are ordinary Muslims from all over the world, drunk with hatred from the Koran.)

Andrew C. McCarthy of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, who prosecuted the mastermind of the first Towers attack, explains how jihad radiates throughout the Muslim world.

“The principal challenge of al-Qaeda is that it spearheads the spread of a strong, though noxious, ideology. The group does not purport to give directions only to its own members, it presumes to be guiding all Muslims toward that which Islam compels. This is abundantly clear from bin Laden’s infamous 1998 fatwa. “The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies – civilian and military – is an individual’s duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God.”

The direction is to everyone. In bin Laden’s mind he is merely the medium, the direction comes from Allah. He cites verses from the Koran to show Muslims that it is the ideology itself which announces these commands, compelling every Muslim, not just al-Qaeda operatives, to perform. But the ideology indisputably springs from Islam.”

Analysts David R. Frum and Richard Perle sum up the issue in their new book, “An End to Evil:”

“The terrorists kill and will accept death for a cause with which no accommodation is possible. That cause is militant Islam. Moreover, these beliefs are not really confined to a radical fringe, but infect even ordinary Muslims. Even though it is comforting to deny it, all the available evidence indicates that militant Islam commands wide support , and even wider sympathy, among Muslims worldwide, including Muslim minorities in the West. The roots of Muslim rage are to be found in Islam itself. While there are multiple terrorist groups, the common element of Islam makes the threat monolithic. The ideology that justifies the terrible crimes of Hamas and Hezbollah is the same ideology that justifies the crimes of al-Qaeda. The result is the unlimited threat to dominate the world through Jihad.The aim is to overthrow our civilization and remake the nations of the world into Islamic societies , imposing on the whole world its religion and law.The result is an unlimited threat to dominate the world through Jihad.”

But Sam Harris in, “The End of Faith,” probably put it best:

“There is no question that, at this point in history, Islam represents a unique danger to all of us. Many Muslims are basically rational and tolerant of others. But these virtues are not likely to be the products of their faith. Insofar as a person is observant of the doctrines of Islam- that is, insofar as he really believes it – he will pose a problem for us. Men like bin Laden actually believe what they say they believe.They believe in the literal truth of the Koran, and that is the default position in Islam. Most people of leadership in this country will say there is no direct link between the Muslim faith and terrorism. It is clear, however, that Muslims hate the West because of their faith and that the Koran mandates such hatred. It is widely claimed by the “moderates” that the Koran mandates nothing of the kind and that Islam is a “religion of peace.” You need only read the Koran to see that this is untrue. The basic thrust of Islam is undeniable; convert, subjugate or kill unbelievers, kill apostates, and conquor the world.Frum and Perle pinpointed the heart of the problem. “The roots of Muslim rage are to be found in Islam itself. While there are multiple terrorist groups ,the common element of Islam makes the threat monolithic.”

Media and academia are keeping America from understanding this, and that is what will lead to catastrophe. The message that now needs to be heard everywhere is, “There is something wrong with Islam.” And the Muslim world must do somethng before there is a world-wide cataclysm.  There is no need for the words “radical” or “militant” before “Islam”. For centuries the violence at the heart of Islam has lain dormant. It has resurfaced in our time making many think this is something new, something “radical’ and “militant “.  It is not. It is the true Islam resurging at this time because of the new hope of world domination contained in new technology, such as nuclear weapons. Repeatedly in our articles on this subject since our first on July 31, 2003 we have listed the verses inciting murder in the Koran. In this article just out from “The American Thinker,” by Amil Imani, a Muslim convert and expert on the Koran, you see some of them again:

November 12, 2009
Does Islam Breed Violence?
By Amil Imani

There is a division of the house. On one side are the politically correct in government, the leftist mainstream media, and a raft of Islamist apologists. One and all are tripping over each other in reassuring us the mass murderers such as Maj. Nidal Hasan and suicide-bombers who detonate their explosive vests in crowded marketplaces and even mosques are individual anomalies and Islam is not responsible for what they do. On the other side are those fed up with the innumerable daily horrific acts throughout the world that are clearly committed under the banner of Islam…Here is the truth, as bitter as it may be: Islam is the culprit. Islam is anything but a religion of peace. Violence is at the very core of Islam. Violence is institutionalized in the Muslims’ holy book, the Koran, in many suras (verses)

9:5 “Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.”

9:112 “The Believers fight in Allah’s cause; they slay and are slain, kill and are killed.”

8:39 “So fight them until there is no more disbelief and all submit to the religion of Allah alone in the whole world.”

8:65 “O Prophet, urge the faithful to fight. If there are twenty among you with determination they will vanquish two hundred; if there are a hundred then they will slaughter a thousand unbelievers, for the infidels are a people devoid of understanding.”

47:4 “When you clash with the unbelieving Infidels in battle smite their necks until you overpower them, killing and wounding many of them. At length, when you have thoroughly subdued them, bind them firmly, making (them) captives. Thus are you commanded by Allah to continue carrying out Jihad against the unbelieving infidels until they submit to Islam.”

And the Koran is considered by Muslims to be the word-for-word literal edicts of their god, Allah.

Islam, by the very nature of its doctrine, appeals to man’s base nature. It promotes intolerance, hatred, discrimination, and much more. In reality, Islam is like a deadly, contagious disease. Once it invades the mind of its victim, it is capable of transforming him to a helpless pawn that has no choice but to execute what he is directed to do.

Of the reported 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, millions are already trapped in the terminal stages of this affliction, while millions of others are rapidly joining them. The people enslaved with the extreme cases of Islamic mental disease are highly infectious. They actively work to transmit the disease to others, while they themselves engage in horrific acts of mayhem and violence to demonstrate their unconditional obedience to the dictates of the Islamic cult…The savagery and variety of the actions of these Islamic captives are seen daily around the globe. Many of these acts, committed under the banner of Islam, have become so commonplace that the world has come to view them as part and parcel of a troubled humanity. And, from time to time, the world is shocked into a passing and momentary realization of the evil deeds these Islamist robots commit. However, people quickly get over it, and they do nothing to seriously address this affliction.
.
Humanity is facing a deeply troubling dilemma. On the one hand is the desire of enlightened people to forge a diverse world into one society ruled by peace and justice, while on the other hand, Islamists are hell-bent on imposing their stone-age system on everyone.  Truth be told, violence is the animating force of Islam. Islam is a religion born through violence, raised by violence, thrives on violence, and would die without violence.
But the recent and dastardly mass murder at Fort Hood, committed by Maj. Nidal Hasan, will be forgotten by the public before long.”

This incident has unleashed a tsunami of exposes’ of the horror at the heart of Islam.  Fox News had a special on the hatred being taught in American mosques. And  Switzerland voted to prohibit the building of any more mosques.

We have waited 8 years. We have 22 articles on the “horror at the heart of Islam”, at v-v-a-r.org, with 24 more up to today on wmdterror.com. For eight years these usually six page documented articles were distributed in each case throughout the nation, through Media Guide at Congress.org throughout the newswires, and here in Lawrence, Kansas, to the university, the local papers, the pastors, and city hall, prompting no dialogue with anyone. Total denial.

In one article we told how in the course of raising this subject, people, friends, simply disasppeared, how those who are supposed to know the most about this issue, Emergency Management and the Chief of Police, show no interest in pooling our knowledge. How, when as a chapter at the University of Kansas we commented on the silence, the faculty advisor to “The Daily Kansan” yelled “Shove it up your butt”, how, when we wanted to show Steve Emerson’s “Terrorists Among Us: Jihad in America,” showing a terrorist recruiting right here in Lawrence, no student showed up because faculty told them to stay away. That terrorist is seen later in the film in Atlanta, screaming “Blood must flow, there must be widows, there must be orphans, hands and limbs must be cut and blood spread everywhere in order that Allah’s religion stands on its own feet.” Islam at work. But faculty didn’t want students to see this, so they had K.U. Security send me a message prohibiting me, under penalty of law, from sending any further articles to students. Repression here is so bad that Professor of Anthropology Felix Moos said on the front page of the local newspaper recently, “I find that people at K.U. are oblivious to the fact we are at war.” Lawrence, Kansas, the national epicenter of repression. But conditions are very much the same at all American universities, dominated as they are by left-leaning faculty and thereby by definition repressive.

As recently appointed Academic Advisor to Veterans for Academic Freedom I will then start a chapter of this new organization at the University. That will void the ban and I will again send articles to students, beginning with the five documenting Islam as the root cause of terrorism that they missed because of the ban. I’ll also give lectures on the subject at the Student Union, and show films such Geert Wilder’s “Fitna”, also “Obsession” and “What the West Needs to Know.” An examination of the books available to students and those that are required reading in classes at the University of Kansas show clearly that the subject of Islam and its pathologies has been completely erased from campus awareness.

We hope the many veterans of the Iraq, Afghanistan and other recent wars attending the university will join us, and we may need them to provide security at lectures as here is what happens on campuses these days.  When Brigette Gabriel, a Muslim convert well acquainted with the horrors of Islam spoke on the Muslim jihad threat at the University of Memphis recently it took ten policemen to get her safely off stage when Muslim students charged her.

On May 6, 2006, Dutch parliamentarian Pim Fortuyn was murdered for speaking out against Islam. His life and death testified to a grim reality: speak the truth about Islam in the Western world today and you’re a marked man. And those who paint the target on your back will be the cultural elite – the professors and the media. This murder can be recognized, in retrospect, as marking the resumption of the jihadist campaign to silence the criticism of Islam that began with the infamous Rushdie fatwa, the world-wide call by Muslim clerics to murder him for criticising Islam. The lesson is this. We are not up against a “tiny’ number of “extremists” who have “hijacked” a “great and peaceful religion” and who are committed to “militant” acts motivated by legitimate economic and/or geopolitical grievances, but are rather, facing a considerable percentage of the world’s Muslims, many of them born and raised and resident in the West, who do indeed despise our freedoms, and who in trying to destroy those freedoms are being entirely consistent with the tenets of their faith. -and who have countless non-Muslim allies steeped in PC and multicultural dogma and prepared, in the name of tolerance, to serve the jihadist effort to stifle Islam’s critics.

There is no phenomenon in history more lethal to mankind than when a religion mixes God and murder.

The last great example of this is the Aztec religion, where, because of religious reasons they thought it necessary to tear the hearts out of fully conscious human beings on the towers of Tenochtitlan, up to 20,000 in one week. Islam is the Aztec religion of our times. Their specialty – cutting peoples heads off. It’s right there in the Koran, Sura 47:4

At an April 2005 meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission, its Islamic members refused to condemn those who kill in the name of religion, and in fact said that criticism of Muslim terrorists amounted to “defamation of religion.”
There it is, for the whole world to see. Insisting on the right to murder in the name of God. God and murder. “We are Muslims and this is what it means.”

As part of their efforts to to control speech about Islam, governments as well as various non-governmental authorities have sought to restrict or forbid the use of certain words and expressions. At one point in 2007 , President George W. Bush dared to use the expression “war on Islamofascism” , but after Muslims and dhimmis protested he quickly reverted to the meaningless term “war on terror.” This marks the intensification of an already colossal act of irresponsibility (that has become even worse under Obama) the refusal to make clear to Americans the nature of the enemy’s beliefs and motives. The very least that a president owes people whom he is asking to fight a war, after all, is a clear, honest, and complete explanation of whom and what they are up against, and why.

So here you see the bind the world is in. There is a large percentage of Muslims that just go by the five pillars of faith and know little about what is in the Koran, or chose to ignore it. But there is also a significant percentage that does know, and takes it seriously believing the Koran to be the literally true words of God.The world’s problem is how to separate the two and stop the violent ones. One answer is that it can’t be done, the only solution then being to eliminate Islam from the face of the earth, as happened to the Aztec religion. This should not be a shocking idea. Hundreds of religions have come and gone. There is no reason to attach any importance to the claim by someone that God gave them a “final revelation” through an angel. The other solution is to keep the violent ones at bay, threatening catastrophic retaliation, but that would involve huge collateral damage. The remaining solution is to change what the Koran says, everyone accept a more benign interpretation. That is the pipe dream of “moderates.”
Meantime, the problem for America is the need to bring the issue out in the open. As it is, media and academia , and even our new government, are disarming America in the face of the greatest threat it has ever faced.

Chapters 7, 8, and 9 of Diana West’s, “The Death of the Grown-Up.” “a compelling case against the childishness that is subverting the struggle aganst jihadist Islam”, contain the most penetrating analyisis of the world crisis with Islam that we have. Here is a sample:

“It may be that the only faith on earth more messianic than Islam is multiculturalism. Maybe that is because its irrational faith in the chimera of universalism relies on a perpetual suspension of disbelief that contradicts
inescapable Western traditions of logic and analysis. If distinctions between the West and Islam were articulated, if the “meeting of cultures” were recast as a conflict of cultures , if the incompatibility of Western secular logic and Islamic divine revelation were evaluated, if Islamization were perceived as a threat to the West, if clash were to allowed to ring out – Islam itself would remain unchanged , but the whole multicultural project would come tumbling down. And to the multiculti priesthood, that would be apostasy,Western style.

The penalty of such apostoasy is not death, as in Islam, but the resulting abysss is an existential crisis that the multiculturalists will avoid at any cost. Better to put faith in “fruitful exchanges.” Better to preach “universal values”. Better to tolerate the intolerant .Better to pretend. Better to lie. Better to barricade the public square , and station guards at synagogues and churches. Better to dispense bulletproof vests to civil servants. Better to guard public buildings with gauntlets of metal detectors and Jersey walls. Better to search granny’s purse. Better to search granny.”

In other words, the real reason our secular elities in media and academia won’t tell America why nuclear attack is coming, can’t face the fact of the bankruptcy of multiculturalism, is ultimately metaphysical in nature. One needs to go back to Tillich, and bone up on “ontological anxiety” to understand a betrayal as complete as this one.

They would rather die and take all of us with them, than turn to God ?

As Gregory Davis says this in ending his book, “Religion of Peace ?’”

“It seems that the secular West is determined not to hear the bad news. It is hoping against hope that things are not as bad as they seem. It is hoping that the myriad acts of violence around the world done in the name of Allah are somehow not indicative of “real” Islam. It is hoping that Muslims throughout the world calling for the destruction of America and Europe are just blowing hot air. Hoping that Islam – a religion founded by one of history’s great warlords; a religion that waged wars of aggression and conquest for over a thousand years, that slaughtered and enslaved untold millions and invented modern genocide, and that today is the only force in the world that produces terrorism, suicide bombings, hostage-taking, organized rape, and massacres on a massive scale, that this strange, seething, violent mass, is somehow a “religion of peace .” Rejecting this fiction and standing up to be counted will determine whether or not we survive the twenty-first century.”

“Stand up and fight ! Stand up and fight ! ” -McCain

Magruder44 < at > aol  com

There is no need to recount the events at Ft. Hood, or 9/11, or the 1993 WTC bombing, Iran Hostage Crisis, etc. There is no need to recount the thousands of acts of terror for the last 1400 years since Mohammad created Islam. No need to mention the sixty-seven campaigns of Mohammad, the invasions of the Moors, the sacking of Constantinople, etc. Nor is it necessary to remind anyone of Islamic terror in the Philippines, or how Thomas Jefferson sent in the Marines to end Islamic piracy at Tripoli. Because the liberal media, Leftist professors, and Muslim apologists have all told us that the study of history is a useless endeavor, unless it is the history of the horrors of the Catholic Crusades over 800 years ago. Then history is all that matters.

When it comes to how and what people believe–their ideology, or theology–that too is unnecessary, since multiculturalism tells us to suspend all judgment against anyone’s belief system. If you see a faith or culture that teaches a barbaric system of justice, or advocates the beating of women, or killing of non-believers, or other acts of barbarism, it is intolerant to impose your values upon them. The major exception to that rule is Christianity, which is a judgmental ideology. It is therefore judged evil and should been banned. The Ten Commandments must never be displayed at a school, prayer should not be said, and a not a single head must bow, except on a prayer rug. That is why the U.S. Military burned bibles in Afghanistan, because someone in that country might read it and convert.

We can also thank the Left for giving us the freedom not to worry about passages in the Koran such as 9.5: So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush…, because no matter what those passages say we cannot understand them; but anyone who is a Muslim can somehow understand them perfectly, even without any formal training; whereas scholars in the U.S. are complete buffoons.

We are also free from 3000 years of western philosophy from Socrates to Edmund Burke. No longer do we need to study social contract theory, Aristotle’s pursuit of happiness, or Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. We can dispense with the Magna Carta, the Constitution, case law, and all of state law, as all we need is Sharia law to solve all of our problems.

Nor do we need to wonder why, if Islam is so great why it cannot police its own people? Why are there so many “rouge” mullahs, teachers that teach the “wrong path of Islam?” We are told that since there are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world and if they were all radical they could take over the world. This explains why those same 1.5 billion are never able to stop any of the terrorists, or wrong-headed teachers who “high-jack” Islam.

Yes, I’m getting to the Jihad at Fr. Hood, but please give me just a bit of your time.

Because of this new freedom we can now ignore people like Michael Savage, David Horowitz, Robert Spenser, or any of the others who warn us about Islam as Churchill warned us of a coming storm—the rising of Nazi Germany. We no longer have to listen to them, because World War II never happened either, Chamberlin was able to sit down and talk with Chancellor Hitler and reach a peace agreement thus saving us all from a horrible war.

No need to question the “Ft. Dix Six” and their plot to kill as many soldiers as possible, or Sgt. Asan Akbar, a member of the 101st Airborne Division who killed two U.S. soldiers in a grenade attack in 2003. We can ignore Thailand’s military warning of infiltrations. The French armed forces fears of the large numbers of Muslims within their ranks, currently at 15%. The Dutch and Austrians are now trying to investigate radical Muslims with their ranks. But, it is not necessary to worry that radical Muslims would ever do anything wrong, or infiltrate our ranks, so as to tap into our communications, learn our tactics, steal our secrets, because no enemy force has ever done this before.

Now when people are gunned down in cold-blood we can turn a blind eye, pretend to care and return to important matters like creating a socialist system of government, or worry about what Hollywood starlets are wearing. We can now cast-off all feelings of patriotism or sentiment toward our long history as a force for good, because Michael Moore told us, “There is no terrorist threat.” Thus, no one was killed at Ft. Hood. There was no shooter who is a devout, observant Muslim. Nothing bad is happening, there was no Jihad at Ft. Hood. There is no reason to stand up and say enough with political correctness, no reason to review history, no reason to learn western philosophy, no reason to examine the teachings of Islam—because nine people were not killed at Ft. Hood. Thirteen graves were not filled, thirteen flags were not folded, and thirteen families did not weep bitterly. There is no need for examination, go back to sleep, it was just a dream.

The violence at the heart of Islam

By Leonard Magruder

May 8, 2005

Throughout Al Qaeda’s training manual, passages from the Koran and incidents in the life of Mohammad are presented as evidence that the group’s violent acts are in accordance with the teachings of the Koran and the Prophet’s example. The killing of innocent civilians, they say, is a means of serving God just as surely as is their recitation of prescribed prayers. Hopefully, this interpretation is considered a heresy by most Muslim clerics, and, if so, it is urgent that these clerics speak out to clarify this to the entire world, that this violence does not represent Islam. If it does, then it means unending war between civilizations, primarily the Judeo-Christian West against Islam. Not only Muslim clergy, but clergy of all faiths should be speaking out loud and clear that it is certain that God has not told al Qaeda to kill anybody. The whole civilized world should be outraged.

But the truth of the matter is far too many voices of true authority in Islam were silent, if not approving, on September 11^th. And few are the clerics in the Muslim world willing to say outright that suicide bombers are banned by the Koran, and there are few, even among Arab intellectuals and clerics, who are willing to offer a sustained and comprehensive rebuttal of the theology of bin Laden and his followers. The West, in other words, has very good reason not to count on the Muslim world to restrain the monster that has arisen from its depths.

And the reason is the terrorists are reviving a basic Islamic doctrine, jihad, to murderously attack the West and the rest of the civilized world. The terrorists are not “extremists.” The are the true Muslims they claim to be because they adhere strictly to the letter of the Koran, and the moderates of the Muslim world increasingly admire them for this. Most of the following verses are found in the second half, or Median period, of the Koran. In a strange practice of Koranic interpretation, they “abrogate,” or nullify, more gentle verses found in the first, or Meccan, half of the Koran.

Collected in “Leaving Islam”, by Ibn Warraq, page 405.

A)  Verses that show intolerance of and incite violence against non-Muslims and other religions:

SURA

2.221 You shall not wed pagan women, unless they embrace the Faith.

3.28 Let believers not make friends with infidels in preference to the faithful. He that does this has nothing to hope for from God.

3.85 He that chooses a religion other than Islam… in the world to come he will be one of the lost.

3.118 Believers, do not make friends with anyone but your own people.

4.101 The unbelievers are your inveterate enemies.

4.156 They denied the truth and uttered a monstrous falsehood against Mary. They declared, “We have put to death the Messiah Jesus, the son of Mary, the apostle of Allah.” They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but they thought they did.

5.14 With those who said they were Christians…we stirred among them enmity and hatred which shall endure until the day of Resurrection.

5.51 O you who believe! Take not the Jews and Christians for friends, they are friends one to another. He among you who takes them for friends is one of them.

5.72 Unbelievers are those who say “God is the Messiah, the son of Mary”..Unbelievers are those who say:  “God is one of three.”

8.14 The scourge of the Fire awaits the unbelievers.

8.39 Make war on them until idolatry shall cease and God’s religion shall reign supreme.

8.67 It is not for any Prophet to have captives until he has made slaughter in the land.

9.39 If you do not fight he will punish you severely, and replace you with other men.

9.5 Slay the idolators wherever you find them…lie in ambush everywhere for them.

9.73 Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them . Hell shall be their home, an evil fate.

22.9 Garments of fire have been prepared for the unbelievers. Scalding water shall be poured upon their heads, melting their skins and that which is in their bellies. They shall be lashed with rods of iron.

47.4 When you meet the unbelievers in battle strike off their heads.

98.6 The unbelievers among the People of the Book, Christian and Jews, and the pagans shall burn forever in the fire of Hell. They are the vilest of creatures.

B)  Anti-Jewish sentiment in the Koran:

2.61 Wretchedness and baseness were stamped on the Jews and they were visited with wrath from Allah.

4.16 And for the evildoing of the Jews, we have forbidden them from some good things that were previously permitted them.

5.82 Indeed you will surely find that the most vehement of men in enmity to those who believe are the Jews and the polytheists.

5.60 God has cursed the Jews, transforming them into apes and swine and those who serve the devil.

9.29 Fight against such of those have been given the Scriptures, Jews and Christians, as believe not in Allah nor the last Day.

9.30 The Jews say that Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say the Messiah is the son of Allah. Allah attack them! How perverse they are!

9.34 Many of the rabbis and the monks devour the wealth of mankind and wantonly debar men from the way of Allah.

C)   Cruelty, sadism, and unusual punishments in the Koran.

5.33 Those who make war against Allah and his Apostle shall be put to death or have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides.

5.38 As for the thief, both male and female, cut off their hands as a punishment for what they have earned, an exemplary punishment from Allah.

24.2 The adulterer and adulteress shall each be given a hundred lashes. Let no pity for them cause you to disobey God.

40.70 Those who have denied the Book and the message…with chains and shackles round their necks they shall be dragged through scalding water and burnt in the fires of Hell.

D)  Hostility to women in the Koran

2:223 Women are your fields, go, then into your fields from whichever side you please.

2.228 Women shall have rights similar to those exercised against them, although men have a status above women.

4:11 A male shall inherit twice as much as a female.

4:24 Forbidden to you are married women, except those whom you own as slaves.

4:34 Men are in charge of women, because Allah has made one of them to excel the other. As for those from whom you fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and beat them.

33:59 Prophet, enjoin your wives, your daughters and the wives of true believers to draw their veils close around them.

E)   Jihad in the Koran

2:216 Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you may dislike it.

4:74 Whoever fights on God’s path, whether he is killed or triumphs, we will give him a handsome reward.

8:12 I will instill terror into the hearts of the Infidels, strike off the heads then, and strike off from them every fingertip.

9:39 If you do not fight, He will punish you severely, and put others in your place.

9:5 Kill those who join other gods with God (the Trinity, polytheism) wherever you may find them.

9:111 Allah has purchased of their faithful lives and worldly goods and in return has promised them the Garden. They will fight for his cause, kill and be killed.

9:123 Believers! Make war on the infidels who dwell around you, let them find harshness in you.

For a clear evidence of what these verses mean for the Sharia, or Islamic law, we have but to look at its practice at any number of places in our present-day world. Wherever Muslims live under Sharia law adulterers are publicly flogged or stoned to death, sometimes before thousands of spectators in public stadiums. There are no rights for women or children, with women genitally mutilated, and beaten in the streets for the slightest infraction. They care nothing for other beliefs, about being fair, have no juries, no free speech. Television and radio are forbidden, music and dance prohibited. It is their way or execution, the death penalty, with no appeal, no delay. You are simply shot in the head where you stand, and your children shot before you. And these practices of the Sharia, once largely confined to the Middle East, even though mostly finished in Afghanistan, are now spreading to other parts of the world.

This is what caused Muslim children to dance in the streets when they heard of the murder of 3000 innocent Americans, caused Muslim clerics to nod their heads in approval. The dream of Muslims that this stupefying tyranny will triumph over the world is utterly unbelievable. We doubt that any religion in history has ever held to such a barbaric code of morality.

***

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Leonard Magruder

Academic Advisor VAF

Phone: 785-312-9303

Magruder44@aol.com

Published November 16, 2009

Michaela Kron is university editor.

Tunku Varadarajan’s article http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/08/fort-hood-nidal-malik-hasan-muslims-opinions-columnists-tunku-varadarajan.html