Choosing arms in war on hate
ON January 2, 1492 the last Muslim stronghold at Granada, Spain surrendered, ending seven centuries of that country’s Moorish rule.
That occupation started in 711AD when an army of Muslim Berbers crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, conquering the Iberian Peninsula after a seven- year war.
Also in 1492 Christopher Columbus, with the patronage of a resurgent Catholic Spain traversed the Atlantic and proclaimed the Americas for the Spanish crown.
Six centuries later the nonMuslim world is facing a resurgent Islam determined to reclaim what some adherents believe is rightfully theirs.
Re- establishing an international caliphate is their ultimate goal but it is not a new phenomenon.
What is new is the technology they can employ, their ability to communicate within the international Muslim community and to publicise their activities to the world.
In an age of asymmetric warfare they are also able to achieve significant results with minimal resources.
Winston Churchill fought in two wars in which the enemy were what he described then as “Mohammedans”, one in Afghanistan and the other in Sudan.
“Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith,” Churchill wrote in his book The River War in 1899.
“It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step.”
Ironically, the ADF has personnel currently deployed to both countries, emphasising Churchill’s view that conflict is a central theme in Islam.
The apparent fanaticism of some Muslims to sacrifice themselves to the cause is also not new, but as Churchill understood, fanaticism is not the cause of war.
“It is the means which helps savage peoples to fight,” he wrote.
“It is the spirit which enables them to combine the great common object before which all personal or tribal disputes become insignificant.”
What Churchill had not foreseen was that contemporary Islam is also at war within itself, with perhaps the SunniShia divide the most obvious to modern observers.
While Churchill acknowledged Christianity had been degraded and distorted by cruelty and intolerance, he saved his most scathing criticism for Islam.
“The Mahommedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance,” he wrote.
“It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since, its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness.”
It is a madness which is not going to dissipate any time soon, with former generals Peter Leahy and Jim Molan both predicting a war lasting generations.
Both have called for preemptive measures to deal with the increasing internal threat in Australia, with Molan suggesting this week a halt to immigration from some countries.
More provocatively he suggested introducing detention to protect Australians from known or suspected potential terrorists.
Churchill saw conflict with Islam as a war between progress and reaction, between the religion of blood and war and that of peace.
“Luckily the peace is usually armed,” he said.
Choosing what arms are needed and how to employ them are the crucial decisions if we are to triumph. religion of the better