The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest Vol: 53 Issue: 11 - Saturday, February 11, 2006
The Quiet Threat  Early in the 20th century, an imprisoned Adolf Hitler wrote his political manifesto, "Mein Kampf" -- in which he outlined in detail his plan for world conquest and subjugation.  When he came to power, Hitler stuck to his plan to the letter. Despite the fact he had given the world written, advance notice as early as 1925, his 1939 lightning war took Europe completely by surprise. By the time they realized what was happening, most of Europe was under Nazi rule. And once under Nazi rule, Hitler did exactly what he had promised he would from his cell in Landesburg prison.  His basic premise for governing was an open, even cheerful embrace of deception as a legitimate political tool:  "All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously." (Mein Kampf, James Murphy translation, 1925)  Under the Nazis, lies repackaged as Nazi slogans were repeated even by non-Nazis in an effort to stay under the radar of Hitler's Gestapo.  Shopkeepers would put signs in the windows containing politically correct political slogans, knowing that they didn't believe them and neither did their friends and neighbors.  Slogans like, "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer" ("One people, one country, one leader") sounded much more dignified than, "I am afraid and will obey without question."But for those who embraced the Nazis instead of opposing them, that was the real message behind the slogans.  The people had their own, whispered slogans, but mostly they kept quiet about the little things.  Assessment:  In Denmark, one small newspaper in one small country pointed out some small truths in a series of cartoons. Those cartoons equated Islam and the prophet Mohammed with Islamofascist terror and violence.  It is a 'small truth' in the sense that it is true that not all Muslims are Islamofascists. It is equally true that not all Germans were Nazis.  But it ignores the larger truth that even non-Nazis fought for their national cause when it was threatened. The cartoons connecting Islam with Islamofacism are no more or less accurate than WWII cartoons connecting Germans with Nazi fascism.  But global attention is focused on the smaller truth at the expense of missing the larger. While the Muslim world is not composed exclusively of murderous fanatics, the larger truth is that they are the ones setting the agenda for a coming clash of civilizations. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims marched in demonstrations across the world to celebrate the terrorist attacks of September 11th.  There were no Islamic marches to protest the unprovoked slaughter of more than three thousand unarmed non-combatant civilians that were simply going about their daily lives when murdered. More hundreds of thousands of Muslims demonstrated against the invasion of Afghanistan to topple the Taliban and the invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein.  There were no organized Muslim demonstrations to protest the Islamofascist attack in Madrid that killed hundreds of innocent civilians. Muslims world-wide protested a discredited Newsweek report that American soldiers were desecrating the Koran at Guantanamo Bay.  There were no corresponding Islamic demonstrations when Adnan Zarqawi held down a terrified young American civilian aid worker named Nick Berg. Zarqawi slowly sawed off Berg's head with a butcher knife, recording his screams on video and sharing the grisly scene with the Islamic world via al Jazeera. Moderate Islam had no more to say about that than did non-Nazi Germans when the Jews were being loaded onto cattle cars.  It is the smaller truth -- that the majority of Muslims are not actively engaged in armed jihad against the West -- that gives credibility to the Big Lie that Islam is, at its heart, really a peaceful religion that was hijacked by a few fanatics. And as German theologian Dietrich Bonhoffer noted before being hanged by the Nazis, "The failure of the people to speak small truths leads to the victory of the big lie." The Mohammed Cartoon Intifada should, by all standards of social logic, have destroyed the myth of moderate Islam as effectively as a suicide belt destroys its innocent victims.  There have been condemnations by Islamic 'moderates' but even those condemnations are revealing.  Wrote self-proclaimed Islamic moderate Tabish Kahir, associate professor of English at Aarhus University, Denmark;  "Like many other moderate Muslims, I have been silent on the cartoons and protests. Not because I have nothing to say, but because there is no space left for me."  He goes on to complain that the Muslim rage has effectively 'silenced' moderate Muslims. Not that he is appalled by Islamic reaction that effectively confirmed the cartoonist's theme that Islam is the root cause of Islamic terror. Because his own voice of protest is lost in the cacophony.  'Moderate' Islam evidently demands that the Western world obey the tenets of Islam as a condition of 'peace', whereas fundamentalist Islam demands submission to Islam as a condition of survival.  Note that in both cases, western submission to Islamic law is axiomatic -- the difference between moderate Islam and radical Islam is largely that of methodology and timing -- the objective remains the same.  The operative word here is 'submission'. The alternative is a war between civilizations. The small truth is that not every Muslim is a murderous terrorist. But that small truth conceals the Big Lie that unspoken Islamic support for terror is somehow different than active participation in it. It is perhaps revealing that radical Islamic terror could never prevail against western military power. It isn't the radicals that the West needs fear.  It is the moderates. Archives of past issues of The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest plus many other Omega Letter member features can be found at: www.omegaletter.com