Fuzzy Thinking on the Warfront

Before wishing Obama “Good Luck” extricating yourself from the twin tar babies, Afghanistan and Iraq, I want to caution against some of the same kind of sloppy thinking that got us into this mess in the first place. Obama, Bush, and several other highly placed personages have been making a point of late that we all—Christians and Muslims—“worship the same God”.
No. The Muslims don’t think that and neither does anyone who knows an ounce of theology. It’s not necessary to think that to negotiate with them, cut a deal, fight with them or make peace. You certainly don’t earn any respect from them if you do.
They will think they are dealing with fools and negotiate—or fight—accordingly. The Crusaders, for all their faults, understood this completely. Hugely outnumbered by their Muslim foes, they hung on to forts and land in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine for two centuries.
We could learn something from how they did it. Very, very quickly, they grasped the differences between Shiites, Sunnis and the more radical sects of Islam. Crusaders were constantly shifting allegiances between these groups—understanding that often Shiites hated Sunnis even more than they hated Christians. Or vice versa.
General Petraeus has finally begun to figure this out. His Crusader predecessors even allied themselves, from time to time, with the Eleventh Century equivalent of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Yes, they allied with people who had done them horrible—and sometimes humiliating—damage, keeping the higher goal in mind: survival.
Islam is a vast sea. It will drown you if you do not differentiate one droplet from another and conduct your negotiations accordingly. (Unless you really enjoy facing car bombs and suicide bombers forever.}
Further, we must understand, that while one sect of assassins (Eleventh Century) or Al-Qaeda today may momentarily ally with Christians to fight another group of Muslims, that alliance will not ever last. Eventually they will come together. After two centuries the last Christian knights were finally driven out.
Because ultimately Islam is an offshoot of a sect of Christianity deemed heretical since two centuries before Mohammad was born. It was a huge sect, probably over half the Christian world in the fourth century—the half that is now and has been for 1400 years, Muslim.
North Africa, the Near and Middle East (all Christian back then) fell on one side of a theological divide; most of Europe fell on the other. They were splitting the Roman Empire in pieces at precisely the point when Constantine was hoping to use Christianity to unite the empire.
The issue that divided them—and eventually has caused such bloodshed—was the question of the divinity of Christ. Most of Europe held that he was God, that the Godhead was triune—a trinity made up of Father, Son and Holy Ghost (think of a Notre Dame place kicker crossing himself before he kicks.)
The other half of Christianity held that he was something just less than God—the neo-Platonic Nous, for example. He was the creative urge, the creator of the universe—but he was not co-eternal with God, and not God himself: the highest of creation but not God. These were called Arians.
The partisans of these opposing views got very exercised over this. It was shattering the peace. Constantine called a huge Church Council in what is today Turkey. The Council voted that Christ was God—and you’d better believe it. The “or else” could get very unpleasant.
So for a couple of centuries the half that secretly thought Christ wasn’t God kept quiet and seethed.
Several years ago I asked a Muslim professor from Cairo why North Africa had fallen so quickly to the Muslim faith. He looked surprised. “They were Arians”, he said. “They believed in one, single God. When the Muslims invaded they said, `You believe what we believe; join us.’ And they did.”
The Muslims are not at all confused about the issue of a triune God as opposed to their belief in a single deity, who has neither “son” nor “father”. We should not act like fools and try to tell them we think it’s all the same.
That’s like saying whether you vote Republican or Democratic, it’s all the same. McCain and Obama are really the same person supporting the same positions. Both candidates would regard you as nuts. But that’s what we’re trying to say to Islam.
Why should they negotiate with complete fools? Fuzzy thinking didn’t keep the Crusaders in their fortresses for two centuries. It won’t help us either.