Get this man a blog!

I hope that Pakistani Major Mehar Omar Khan doesn't stop composing intriguing articles when he finishes his stint at the US Army's Command and General Staff College (CGSC). Last week, we were treated to his essay "Is There an Islamic Way of War?", apparently written in response to a CGSC class entitled "An Islamic Way of War?" (note the question mark). Major Khan posits the thesis that Islam is, in most cases, not the root cause of terrorism and insurgency throughout the Muslim world. In Major Khan's view, most insurgency is localized and fought for more pragmatic reasons. For example, while the insurgency in Iraq often used Islamic imagery and rhetoric, much of the violence was actually waged over cultural, economic, and political differences.

What is often referred to as an "Islamic" way of war is more correctly a rise of non-state movements, such as insurgencies and terrorist organizations, which are coincidentally located within the Islamic world. Indeed, these methods are little more than time-tested techniques which smaller organizations use to defeat larger organizations. The insurgency we see in the Muslim world doesn't differ too much from insurgencies in Asia and Latin America, nor does terrorism seem to be too far removed from the IRA in Northern Ireland. Major Khan notes:

The world may have changed its attitudes towards [liberation] movements, but people’s yearning for their right to freedom and self-determination in regions like Kashmir, Chechnya and Occupied Palestine has been documented in the annals of organizations like UNO and others as a legitimate aspiration. Their efforts have been both peaceful as well as violent. But that trend is no different from legendary American militias fighting for their independence against the colonial British or, more recently, people of Northern Ireland fighting against the English. Coincidentally, since in all these places, Muslim subjects are up against Hindu (Kashmir/India), Orthodox Christian (Chechnya/Russia) and Jewish (Palestine/Israel) occupiers, a tinge of religion is bound to appear in the politics surrounding these issues. Is it then fair to call subjects’ struggle as a religious war but stop short of attaching religion to the guilt of occupation? It hurts to even imagine that Jesus Christ inspired Sinn Fein to bomb Belfast and London or Lord Krishna taught Hindu Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka to commit hundreds of suicide bombings or some God in the shining sky inspired Japanese Kamikazes to hurl themselves into allied ships sailing into their coasts to seal their independence. Why apply different terms of debate to different places and people?

Certainly, any religion can be warped into an instrument of hate, repression and ignorance; just witness the dark side of Christianity, which includes the Inquisition, slavery and geocentrism. As Major Khan summarizes:

For the sake of God, let’s keep God out of our games. No religion condones, let alone approves, bloodshed. Despite all the sublime words written in scriptures and said by Prophets, the so-called adherents of all ‘faiths’ have consistently done and said things that deserve the wrath of our Lord. Let’s admit that war is a necessary evil and there are weak sides just as there are strong ones. The tactics adopted is a function of relative power. Each side does a sprinkling of God to lift the spirits of stupid men and women about to die.

Well put. The 4GW world is far more complex than simple religious caricatures. Seriously, I hope Major Khan starts up a blog or gets a regular weekly roundup in SWJ. I'm really enjoying his work.