It's a Jihad, Stupid!

My friend Mark Durie, an Anglican pastor from Australia who has written several books about Islamic doctrine, teaches us an instructive lesson from the Dutch war against radical Islam in Indonesia at the turn of the 20th century.

The Dutch East Indies Company and its commanders were losing the war in Aceh to a Muslim uprising, which they treated as an insurgency, not a religious or ideological movement. Eventually they hired a consultant named Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, a Dutch expert on Islamic doctrine, who told them they were fighting against a jihad.

Hugronje counseled them to change tactics, Durie told me. Instead of going after the insurgents and the villages they controlled, he said they needed to chase the mullahs out into the jungle and kill them, so they could empower the traditional leadership and the local clans. And it worked.

One of the reasons cited for the Dutch success in putting down the rebellion was that they buried the rebel imams with the carcasses of pigs and made it known. That meant that instead of dying as martyrs for jihad, they died with the certainty they were unclean and were going to Hell. It was a message was not lost on the young men the imams had been so successful in recruiting up until then.

Remember President Obama explaining to an uncomprehending public that the U.S. military had given Osama Bin Laden a burial at sea to preserve his dignity and so not to offend Muslims? What dignity is due a wanton murderer of innocents?

Imagine if we had buried Osama Bin Laden with a pig carcass and broadcast the video? Or if each time we blast an al Qaeda or ISIS leader with a drone we send in special operations troops to gather up his remains to give them an appropriate burial and post the video on YouTube?

We will not win the war against the barbarians by playing nice. You want exceptional measures? Defeat the jihadis by robbing them of their ultimate victory: their dream of paradise.


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Excerpted: Front Page