Every War Is Civil / Jehovallah Versus The Lord

I

There are many ways to classify the over-arching continuum of history: the story of the migration of tribes, the story of the spread of technology, the story of organized religion, the story of economic forces, and so forth. The best choice among the various over-simplifications, however, is this: history is the story of civil war.

We know by virute of science and intuition that humans are far more similar to each other than we can even quantify and even the most insular among us recognize that humanity is one family. This family fights, as do all families. But there is a indissoluble bond nonetheless. With this is mind, we are led to the truism that all war is civil war.

Civil war works on many levels, and they are by no means restricted by artificial and myopic national borders. Today, we see a civil war within the arbitrary borders of a political fiction called "Iraq". When we take a broader view, as we must, we see that most conflicts can be seen as manifestations of larger civil wars.

The 20th century lasted from 1914 to 1989. It was the last century to be dominated by Europe and, fitingly, it can best be described as a 75-civil war. Democratic capitalism, communism, fascism, and national socialism fought over the breadth of the continent over these decades, vacilating between military and political tactics.

When we ascend further, and see the Earth as a whole, I see an Eastern camp and a Middle Eastern camp. The eastern camp consists of everything between the Pakistan/India border and the coast of California. This camp accounts for probably 2/3 of humanity. I don't pretend to be qualified to synthesize the eastern mind but, suffice it to say, they're not monotheists.

The Middle Eastern camp, or the ME camp, is no longer restricted to the Middle East; it has long since taken over Europe and the entire western hemsiphere. The ME camp is the monotheism camp. Jews, Christians, and Muslims fall into this group; we need to take a deep breath and understand that monotheism is the exception throughout human history and even today. China and India see to that.

But we must understand that we, from Los Angeles to Baghdad, are defined by what, from the proper vantage point, is a very distinguishable camp in humanity's endless civil war: the Monotheists. Ah, the monotheists, who have been so busy killing each other these last 2,000 years that they have managed to convince themselves that they don't all sprout from the same seed.

The desert does something to people. It makes them more fatalistic, more absolutist, more judgemental. It is no accident that the three monotheisms were born in the desert. These men, from Abraham on, came up with the idea that religion should not seek to explain the wonders of the natural world, but rather should seek to dictate individual morality, more often than not at the point of a sword.

The Middle East birthed Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the blink of an historical eye. There is a reason they all come from the same patch of place, and there is a reason that they have spent so much of their history fighting each other. When one has a holy book on his side, he can find a way to justify crucifying his cousin. Only a holy book could do that. The Communist Manifesto was another such holy book, with splintered camps of devotees murdering each other for the sin of misinterpreting its pages.

Monotheisms are, by definition, expansionist; they are the capitalism of religious models. Their only logic is expansion, driven by the Promethean certitude that they are doing what's best for people, whether they know it or not. They usually don't know it, by the way.

The "clash between civilizations" label for the current conflict is only slightly more substantial a subtitle than "First Blood: Part II"; as much commie ass as John J. Rambo kicked, the label was a contradiction. This is not a clash between civilizations. It is a clash within the civilization of monotheism.

II

America is not primarily American, nor is it primarily European; it is primarily a Middle Eastern society. What then accounts for the apparent chasms between the beliefs and conduct of these monotheist tribes? We must consider two factors: the nature of Jehovah versus God versus Allah, and the material condition of each of these tribes today.

Jehovah and Allah would get along well. They are.....assholes. Domineering, jealous, vindictive, pathologically violent figures. The kind of people that would destroy a city to avenge a perceived slight by the residents of said city. The God of the New Testament is qualitatively different from Jehovah and Allah, but this is not simply the function of a temporal shift in human mentality, because this peaceful and loving and forgiving Lord was born in between the sociopaths Jehovah and Allah.

So we can say this, we who do not fear truth: the Jewish and Muslim Gods are agressive, judgmental, and violent, while the Christian God is pacifistic, loving, and forgiving. This surely accounts for at least some of the difference between what Muslims and Christians perceive as acceptable conduct in the name or defense of their faith.

What then, accounts for the fact that the Jews, who have quite a violent God themselves, are not driven to the extreme and nihilistic violence of radical Muslims? Despite its conduct in the occupied Palestinian territories, which borders at times on brutal and criminal, Israelis don't kill as Jews, they kill as citizens of a temporal political state that they rightly perceive to be facing relentless attack.

The reason that the Jews have largely ignored their psychotic God recently is that their material success has rendered unappetizing the prospect of blowing themselves up for Jehovah, or beheading those who would denigrate Jewish law as revealed to Moses. Put simply, it's easy to cling to ideas of a vengeful and absolutist God when your life is nasty, brutish, and short. Unfortunately, Muslims are far more likely to have nasty, brutish, and short lives than are Jews and (especially white) Christians.

While we recognize that many pathologies can be assuaged by indoor plumbing and clean drinking water, others are less vulnerable to these inducements. Radical Islam is one such threat; it will never be totally co-opted by material progress, social dignity, or physical security. How many of the 9/11 hijackers grew up in the fetid alleys of Palestinian refugee camps, vainly clutching the worthless deeds to their homes in Israel? None. How many lived and thrived in the west, enjoying freedoms and opportunities only dreamed of in their homes countires? Most of them.

We do ourselves no good by claiming that Islamist terrorists are not "real Muslims". It's a tendency that many in the west share, up to and including Tony Blair and George Bush. As soon as a Muslim kills a few dozen people along with himself, the leaders of the west assure us that they had simply "hijacked" an otherwise peaceful religion.

To say that terrorists are not real Muslims is to entirely surrender to wishes rather than reality. The terrorists are real Muslims; that's the whole point. These men have read the Koran, and most of them have memorized it. They have read the passage instructing the reader to go out and kill the infidel, and they believe, from the bottoms of their filthy hearts, that this is truly the revealed will of God.

To say that these people are not Muslims is wishful thinking bordering on the suicidal. If a man walks onto a bus and blows himself up, do we need to guess his religion? No; 10 times out of 9, he (or she) is a Muslim. A real Muslim. One who grew up steeped in the Koran and genuinely beholden to its teachings. Here is the truth that the west refuses to acknowledge: the root of Islamist terrorism is.....Islam.

III

So, we must come to a synthesis. When we look at the three major tribes of the monotheist camp, we see that one of them, the Muslims, are far more willing to use agressive violence as a specific manifestation of their faith; they are far more willing than memebers of either of the other tribes to openly engage in holy war.

Two of the tribes have a violent God and one of them has a peaceful God. The two violent Gods, Jehovah and Allah, differ in one important respect, however. Both use massive violence to articulate their displeasure with followers on occasion. But only one God, Allah, specifically tells his followers to use violence themselves against members of the other tribes for the simple crime of not belonging to the right tribe.

We can be sure that an improvement in the temporal physical life of Muslims will put a damper on the allure of Islamist terrorism. We can be just as sure, however, that as long as their are Muslims, their will be Islamist terrorism. Go kill the infidel means go kill the infidel. Period. No amount of political compromise or socio-economic justice can erase those words or obscure a final fact that makes us uncomfortable, but which must be acknowledged.

Here is this uncomfortable truth: when a Christian man intentionally murders people in the name of his faith, he can point to no passage in his holy book that commands him to do so. Considerable, and futile, mental gymnastics are needed to find a license to kill in the name of the Christian God. A man who truly believes in the Bible can not kill in his Lord's name and remain true to the text.

When a Muslim man intentionally murders people in the name of his faith, he can point to a very concise and un-ambiguous passage in his holy text that does not obliquely justify killing, but specifically mandates and orders it. Considerable mental gymnastics must be taken by a devout Muslim to not find justification for murder in his holy book. A man who truly believes in the Koran can kill in his Allah's name and remain true to the text.