Having written countless columns and blog posts arguing that see-no-Islam counterinsurgency strategy (COIN) has led to failure in two wars in the umma and the dhimmification of the U.S. military, it’s almost funny to see the debate more or less officially joined over my recent column on what appears to be simply the gross-out, PG-13 movie topic of peeing toward Mecca. Or, rather, not peeing toward Mecca. The latter is the lesson, which an Afghan Muslim contractor hired by the Marine Corps has been teaching Marines before they deploy to Afghanistan, in accordance with an Islamic canonical hadith.
The Nov. 28 print edition of Marine Corps Times calls it “excretory etiquette,” and carries an article and a lead editorial on the subject. But this isn’t just about etiquette. Given its Islamic religious derivation, the Marines’ excretory instruction strikes me as a violation of religious freedom.
Who is the U.S. Marine Corps to instruct American citizens to bring their personal hygiene practices into accord with Islamic law? The Marine Corps, in this case, is acting as a vehicle of Islamic law, which comprehensively rules on all manner of personal habits as well as on civil and legal affairs.
Needless to say, the Marine Corps doesn’t see it that way. Its spokesmen have narrowly contended that this lesson taught by a contractor (hired by the Corps to teach Marines) isn’t “formal Marine Corps doctrine,” as the Marine Corps Times editorial puts it.
Formal or not, the editors also don’t think this Marine Shariah (Islamic law) is a bad idea. Headlined “Respect differences,” the editorial states: “Thing is, there’s value to this sort of insight.” Perhaps in the name of respecting “differences”?
Heavens no. This is all about respecting Islam, not “differences.” After all, if it were about “differences,” the respect in question would extend to the non-Islamic belief that not all bodily functions taking place on planet Earth must key off the location of a town in Saudi Arabia. To each his own.
That’s not the editorial’s subject. The value, it says, comes “in light of the tense conditions under which both groups must co-exist.”
Tense conditions — as in border firefights? IEDs on the road? No again. The editorial refers to tensions between Muslims and infidels inside the wire. “Consider that in the last four years,” the editorial continues, “nearly 60 coalition troops have been killed by their Afghan counterparts.”
So “respecting differences” here means pee straight or die. That’s the lesson the military wants to teach young Americans heading into the war zone — again, inside the wire. The only way it knows to increase their safety while on their own bases or when “partnering” with Afghans is to school them in the practice of Islamic law.
In effect, then, collaboration with the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan requires the United States of America to Islamify its infidel forces, just a little, just to keep those religious crazies in the Afghan ranks from popping off. Guess where such “safety” education — the dhimmi rules of Shariah — will be taught next?
I bet it would surprise Pentagon brass to learn that Islam means “submission,” and that the age-old choice Islam has offered infidels is to submit or die. Still, they seem to have learned, as the editorial puts it, that “certain behavior that wouldn’t get a second look stateside could lead to problems at a patrol base in Helmand province.”
“Problems.” What a way to invoke shootings of our people by Afghan forces — the spurting, flaring jihad none dare name. “Counseling Marines to aim east ultimately may head off trouble,” the editorial concludes. Submission always does.
Examiner Columnist Diana West is syndicated nationally by United Media and is the author of “The Death of the Grown-Up: How America’s Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization.”
