Katrina Strauss D2P1
November 12, 2008
Ron Paul v. Caliphate
There are two main theories pertaining to the attacks on 9/11 and the Muslim world. The first is called the Ron Paul theory. Ron Paul says that the reason for the 9/11 attack was that the Islamic world felt threatened that we were in their lands. The second theory is called the Caliphate theory. This states that the Islamic world intends to expand either by violence of persuasion. The Ron Paul theory and the Caliphate theory are supported by historical examples. I believe that the Ron Paul theory is more correct.
In the 2007 primaries, Ron Paul was asked “What's your strategy to protect our American way of life from the designs of radical Islam?” He answered:
We have to understand the motives of those who come here & kill us. If we don't understand that, we are not going to win this fight. They come here & kill us because we occupy their lands, and they rationally reason [that] we have to do something about it.
Source: 2007 GOP Values Voter Presidential Debate Sep 17, 2007
Available online at http://www.ontheissues.org/Archive/2007_GOP_Value_Voters_Ron_Paul.htm
According to the Ron Paul theory, even if the Islamic world is seeking to expand by re-establishing the Caliphate they do not pose an immediate threat to the U.S. They attack us only because they feel threatened that we are in their lands. If we leave them and their lands alone, they will leave us alone. The role of western ideas has had and still has a moderating effect on Islam. In the Umayyad period of Islam, the capital moved from Mecca to Damascus. As it did so, Islam in that region became less strict because of influence from the western world. Today, many Muslims support western ideas of democracy and peace. The United States is allies with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, both of which are Islamic countries. As the world becomes more interconnected, different people learn of each other and begin to rely on one another. Globalism contributes to peace.
The Caliphate theory has two versions: caliphate by persuasion and caliphate by force. Supporters of both theories agree that the Islamic world has a history of uniting under a religious and political leader, also known as a Caliph, seeking to expand its influence. One group would say that the Islamic world seeks to expand using dialogue and persuasion. It would not be attempting to start a war, but would seek diplomatic solutions. This is one definition of the word Jihad. Proponents of the caliphate by force theory would say that historically, Islamic leaders used violence to conquer other groups. This Jihad is a Jihad of war and of force. Supporters of this theory would say that the Islamic world is coming to get us, so we need to unite with our European allies and attack the Islamic world first. This group sees the inevitable clash between the Islamic world and the west because of the rise of more extreme forms of Islam.
Historically, Islam was characterized by expansion. Muhammad was the messenger of Allah, and he was told to spread the word of Allah and spread the religion of Islam. The first caliph after Muhammad was Abu Bakr. During Abu Bakr’s reign in the Arabian dynasty, the Muslim empire expanded north to Persia and Iraq and west to Cairo and along the northern coast of Africa. In 661 Mu’awiyah became caliph and established the Umayyad dynasty. He moved the capital of the Arab dynasty from Madinah to Damascus, in Syria. Between 661 and 750, Mu’awiyah and his successors expanded the Muslim Empire further inland from the coast of Africa, and to Spain, Morocco, Tunisia, and to the outskirts of India. When the Abbasid dynasty began in 750, the capital was moved to Baghdad, which helped control the Tigris River and was located on the caravan route from the Mediterranean to central Asia.
Conflict between Islam and the West really began when Islam expanded toward Constantinople (now known as Istanbul) around the second half of the eleventh century. In this time period, the Seljuk Turks put military pressure on the Byzantine Empire. In 1071, the Byzantines challenged the Turks to war, but lost. The Turks took over most of present-day Turkey. The Byzantine emperor asked the Christian European countries for help against the Turks. From the point of view of the Muslims, the Christians opposed every effort to spread the word of Allah. They began the crusades against the Muslims. Between 1095 and 1291 there were eight crusades by the west in an attempt to control the Muslim world. The crusaders committed many atrocities including mass murders and cannibalism. In the end, the crusades left a lasting impression on the Islamic world as an example of western hostility.
In August 1990, Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait in order to control its oil fields and to gain a major sea port on the Persian Gulf. Kuwait asked for help from a number of countries, including the U.S., and thirty-four countries agreed to help the nation of Kuwait. In January 1991 the United States and other countries landed in Kuwait and drove the Iraqi army back to Iraq. During the Gulf War, Saudi Arabia allowed United States forces into Saudi Arabian territory but not Osama Bin Laden’s troops. This angered Bin Laden because he did not think it was right to allow foreign troops into the “land of the two mosques,” which were Mecca and Medina. Bin Laden was also upset because Israel has control of Jerusalem and other holy Muslim cities.
In 1996, al-Qaeda announced its order to expel foreign troops from what they felt were lands belonging to the Islamic world. Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa (binding religious edict), which said that war was being declared against the United States and any of its allies, and began to focus al-Qaeda's resources towards attacking the United States and its interests. On February 23, 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, a leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, along with three other Islamist leaders, co-signed and issued a fatwa, which declared:
[T]he ruling to kill the Americans and their allies - civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, 'and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah'.
Wikipedia, Al-Qaeda available online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda
Bin Laden and his followers represent the most extreme part of Islam today. Extreme Islam is wanting to exterminate all “infidels,” meaning non-Muslims. It is forcing your ideas on others. Hitler used the Jihad of force. He began by discriminating, then enslaving, then torturing, and finally exterminating those he did not like. Extreme Muslims are not tolerant of diverse ideas. The reason for the Sunni-Shiite split was because the group that became the Shiites was only willing to accept the descendants of Muhammad as their rulers. The group that became the Sunnis was tolerant of diversity and accepted other people as their rulers. The Shiites tend to be more extreme and the Sunnis tend to be more moderate. The U.S. is not in conflict with all parts of the Muslim world.
I agree with the Ron Paul theory, that the Muslim world is not an immediate threat to us but they attacked because they feel threatened that they are in their lands. There are a very large number of Muslim countries in the world, including Indonesia, and many African countries. We are not in conflict with the majority of these countries. Osama bin Laden attacked the U.S. because he felt threatened that we were in Islamic lands. However, if we leave those lands and stop interfering with the Muslim world, they will leave us alone as well. I don’t think that we should attack them because they are inevitably coming to get us. I think we should try to make peace with them and leave them and their lands alone and see what happens. If they decide to advance and attack anyway, we can always defend ourselves and fight back.
Part of the reason I agree with this theory is that I do not believe that war gets us anywhere. It may lead to conquest, but the glory does not always last long. I think the war in Iraq has collapsed the U.S. economy. We have spent billions of dollars a year on the war. We could have used this money in the U.S. instead. Many of our soldiers have suffered terrible injuries or died. I believe in the Ron Paul theory because this is what I think happened on 9/11: The Islamic world felt threatened that the U.S. was in their lands. Terrorists of al-Qaeda believed something needed to be done about it. They forged a plan and crashed planes into the Pentagon, the Twin Towers, and a field in rural Pennsylvania. The U.S. retaliated by invading Afghanistan and Iraq instead of al-Qaeda. The result was the Iraq war. Another reason why I think the Ron Paul theory is correct is because the western world has a history of conflict with the Islamic World. When the Seljuk Turks were taking over most of Islam, the Byzantines asked for help from the European west, which began the crusades and the conflict between the western world and the Muslim world.
There are many examples in everyday life proving the Ron Paul theory to be correct. One of these is a football analogy. On the football field, if you back off from the opposite team and give them a little room, they may back off as well. Another example is Switzerland. Switzerland has been a neutral country since about 1674. By not taking sides in any wars, they have prevented themselves from being attacked or conquered. I believe that the U.S. can reduce the likelihood of being attacked if it focuses its efforts at home instead of interfering abroad.
