Beware Hudaybiya
According to Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press Writer, our military is becoming more aggressive in working out a possible cease-fire with Iraqi militants in order to reduce or eliminate the violence in and around Baghdad.
On the surface, cease-fires are good things. They settle people down, allow citizens to go about their daily routines with interruptions of bombs, mortars, RPGs, and other instruments of war. They also give people the time and the quiet to think things out and answer the question, “Is this what we really want to do? Is it worth it?”
Beyond cease-fires are always the hope that the time lines will be expanded, the will to resume hostilities will become less fervent, and that peaceful negotiation will appear more attractive to both sides.
According to Aaron Klein, WND’s Jerusalem Bureau, the announcement of U.S. talks with the Iraqi militants about a possible cease-fire is in fact a “big victory” for the radicals, demonstrating that the insurgency is thereby validated and that Usama bin Laden was indeed correct in saying that America has no stomach for the fight.
One can hardly be blamed for wondering what has one thing got to do with the other. A cease-fire is not a declaration of victory or defeat, it is only a pause to pull back a little to look at everything with a new set of eyes and weigh goals against the consequences one must expect en route to attaining those goals. Unfortunately, that thought is a Western thought and does not apply in the East. The West looks at such cease-fire treaties as a means to relax a little, do a little thinking, and to try the negotiating table again. The East, on the other hand, looks at it as a breathing space to recruit and train more troops, get into better positions, rearm, and then when their strength exceeds that of the enemy, strike a great surprise blow.
We in the West say that such an idea is preposterous and unfair; it is abuse of the cease-fire rules. The people in the East say yes to all of that and then smile and add, “but we won.”
Israel knows about these one-way rules of the Arabs’; they have been stung by them often enough. But they are usually stung because Washington does not know those rules and continually forces the agreements on the Israelis despite the fact that the Israelis know better. Israel knows that things that happen 13 centuries ago still control what happens today in the Middle East. Washington, on the other hand, has a hard time remembering what happened last year. Even such a hack as Yassir Arafat pulled the wool over western eyes more than once about “giving in” in one aspect and all the time intending to apply even more pressure on Israel with not one second’s thought to his agreement. Of course CAIR, among others, has not been reticent about running interference for Arafat, attacking in the press any thought that Arafat was not acting in good faith. According to Daniel Pipes in the September 1999 Middle East Quarterly, Arafat said about an important agreement: “I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca.”
The West, of course, except for a few, had no idea what he was talking about—and unfortunately, not really interested in Muhammad, the Quraish, or Mecca. And that, friends, is why the West loses the wars while winning the battles. The people of the Middle East knew quite well what Arafat was talking about and laughed at the West’s ignorance. Arafat was like the village idiot, dancing around the square, making the VIP visitors think he was entertaining them, but all the while reviling them to the delight of the other villagers. They all laughed at the idiot, but for different reasons. And after the VIPs were gone, the laughter, and Arafat remained. CAIR knew what Arafat was talking about, so did the Wahhabis, all part of the group that Washington used for brains. There is nothing look using the bad guys to help design police strategy.
In the year 628 AD, 6 years following his escape to Medina, Muhammad had been building an army, establishing alliances with other tribes, harassing and robbing Meccan caravans, and in general was one huge thorn in the side of the Meccans. Although the Meccans were far more numerous than the Muslims, the followers of Muhammad, they were untrained in the type of warfare inflicted on them by fierce Muslim warriors who were not only unafraid of death, but actually longed for it. Death in battle to the Muslim warrior meant his family would still be given his share of the spoils, a considerable asset, and he in turn would go directly to Paradise to have everything he ever wanted and 72 hours to cater to his every whim. Right. He believed that.
So, in 628 AD, with only a small force to guard him, he decided to go to Mecca as a pilgrim. The Meccans did not know what to do about that at first. What would the people think if they allowed him to make his pilgrimage in the city with whom he was at war? While the Meccans went about their version of mobilization, they sent a delegation to Muhammad at a small town of Hudaybiya to find out what he wanted. They would not allow him to enter Mecca for his pilgrimage at that time, but they held out the possibility of the following year. Since he was face-to-face with a Meccan delegation, Muhammad explored the possibility of a cease-fire. The Meccans were all for that, since the Muslims were having a deleterious effect on their trade and constantly seeking conflicts. Besides, the Meccan army was exhausted from all the fighting. They settled on a peace treaty for a ten year period. The provisions of the treaty were not favorable to the Muslims—for example, they had to give back anyone leaving Mecca to follow Muhammad—but Muhammad considered the treaty more important than the provisions. Something like President Bush and the Congress today, considering the president’s legacy of getting an Immigration Agreement signed more important than the horrible provisions of the agreement.
Indeed, Muslim complaints escalated to the point in which Muhammad on the way back to Medina revealed that Allah had said this was a great victory, and as a reward for this victory Allah was going to provide another victory at Khaibar, a rich Jewish settlement. When Khaibar was taken and the people given the spoils of the victory, they finally believed that again Muhammad had spoken the truth.
During the peace treaty, the Meccans felt they could relax a little, increase their trade income and for once avoid worrying about Muhammad and where he was going to strike next. Muhammad, on the other hand, used the time to build up his power base, make alliances with other tribes or just conquered them, and within two years was actually stronger than the Meccans. He was spoiling for a fight and just looking for a way to break the treaty. Two tribes near Mecca had been feuding for decades, the Bani Bakr was allied with Mecca and Bani Khuza with Muhammad. The Bani Bakr caught a party of Bani Khuza out in the open and attacked them, killing several. Although this was truly not a breach of the peace between Mecca and the Muslims, Muhammad seized upon it to prepare to attack Mecca. Mecca sent Muhammad a delegation, even offering blood money to appease the Bani Khuza, but Muhammad would have none of that. He moved on Mecca.
The Meccans took one look at his new army and decided there was no way they could resist; Muhammed had indeed made good use of his two years. The Meccans surrendered their city without a fight.
Will there be a cease-fire in 2007? Maybe, maybe not. But before anyone agrees to anything, Washington better take a long look at the Treaty of Hudaibiya which in the Arab mind happened just last year in 680. We have already proven that we can win with American armies, American technology, and military ingenuity. However, it is all for nothing and we can lose everything through Washington arrogance and ignorance.
HJS
According to Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press Writer, our military is becoming more aggressive in working out a possible cease-fire with Iraqi militants in order to reduce or eliminate the violence in and around Baghdad.
On the surface, cease-fires are good things. They settle people down, allow citizens to go about their daily routines with interruptions of bombs, mortars, RPGs, and other instruments of war. They also give people the time and the quiet to think things out and answer the question, “Is this what we really want to do? Is it worth it?”
Beyond cease-fires are always the hope that the time lines will be expanded, the will to resume hostilities will become less fervent, and that peaceful negotiation will appear more attractive to both sides.
According to Aaron Klein, WND’s Jerusalem Bureau, the announcement of U.S. talks with the Iraqi militants about a possible cease-fire is in fact a “big victory” for the radicals, demonstrating that the insurgency is thereby validated and that Usama bin Laden was indeed correct in saying that America has no stomach for the fight.
One can hardly be blamed for wondering what has one thing got to do with the other. A cease-fire is not a declaration of victory or defeat, it is only a pause to pull back a little to look at everything with a new set of eyes and weigh goals against the consequences one must expect en route to attaining those goals. Unfortunately, that thought is a Western thought and does not apply in the East. The West looks at such cease-fire treaties as a means to relax a little, do a little thinking, and to try the negotiating table again. The East, on the other hand, looks at it as a breathing space to recruit and train more troops, get into better positions, rearm, and then when their strength exceeds that of the enemy, strike a great surprise blow.
We in the West say that such an idea is preposterous and unfair; it is abuse of the cease-fire rules. The people in the East say yes to all of that and then smile and add, “but we won.”
Israel knows about these one-way rules of the Arabs’; they have been stung by them often enough. But they are usually stung because Washington does not know those rules and continually forces the agreements on the Israelis despite the fact that the Israelis know better. Israel knows that things that happen 13 centuries ago still control what happens today in the Middle East. Washington, on the other hand, has a hard time remembering what happened last year. Even such a hack as Yassir Arafat pulled the wool over western eyes more than once about “giving in” in one aspect and all the time intending to apply even more pressure on Israel with not one second’s thought to his agreement. Of course CAIR, among others, has not been reticent about running interference for Arafat, attacking in the press any thought that Arafat was not acting in good faith. According to Daniel Pipes in the September 1999 Middle East Quarterly, Arafat said about an important agreement: “I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca.”
The West, of course, except for a few, had no idea what he was talking about—and unfortunately, not really interested in Muhammad, the Quraish, or Mecca. And that, friends, is why the West loses the wars while winning the battles. The people of the Middle East knew quite well what Arafat was talking about and laughed at the West’s ignorance. Arafat was like the village idiot, dancing around the square, making the VIP visitors think he was entertaining them, but all the while reviling them to the delight of the other villagers. They all laughed at the idiot, but for different reasons. And after the VIPs were gone, the laughter, and Arafat remained. CAIR knew what Arafat was talking about, so did the Wahhabis, all part of the group that Washington used for brains. There is nothing look using the bad guys to help design police strategy.
In the year 628 AD, 6 years following his escape to Medina, Muhammad had been building an army, establishing alliances with other tribes, harassing and robbing Meccan caravans, and in general was one huge thorn in the side of the Meccans. Although the Meccans were far more numerous than the Muslims, the followers of Muhammad, they were untrained in the type of warfare inflicted on them by fierce Muslim warriors who were not only unafraid of death, but actually longed for it. Death in battle to the Muslim warrior meant his family would still be given his share of the spoils, a considerable asset, and he in turn would go directly to Paradise to have everything he ever wanted and 72 hours to cater to his every whim. Right. He believed that.
So, in 628 AD, with only a small force to guard him, he decided to go to Mecca as a pilgrim. The Meccans did not know what to do about that at first. What would the people think if they allowed him to make his pilgrimage in the city with whom he was at war? While the Meccans went about their version of mobilization, they sent a delegation to Muhammad at a small town of Hudaybiya to find out what he wanted. They would not allow him to enter Mecca for his pilgrimage at that time, but they held out the possibility of the following year. Since he was face-to-face with a Meccan delegation, Muhammad explored the possibility of a cease-fire. The Meccans were all for that, since the Muslims were having a deleterious effect on their trade and constantly seeking conflicts. Besides, the Meccan army was exhausted from all the fighting. They settled on a peace treaty for a ten year period. The provisions of the treaty were not favorable to the Muslims—for example, they had to give back anyone leaving Mecca to follow Muhammad—but Muhammad considered the treaty more important than the provisions. Something like President Bush and the Congress today, considering the president’s legacy of getting an Immigration Agreement signed more important than the horrible provisions of the agreement.
Indeed, Muslim complaints escalated to the point in which Muhammad on the way back to Medina revealed that Allah had said this was a great victory, and as a reward for this victory Allah was going to provide another victory at Khaibar, a rich Jewish settlement. When Khaibar was taken and the people given the spoils of the victory, they finally believed that again Muhammad had spoken the truth.
During the peace treaty, the Meccans felt they could relax a little, increase their trade income and for once avoid worrying about Muhammad and where he was going to strike next. Muhammad, on the other hand, used the time to build up his power base, make alliances with other tribes or just conquered them, and within two years was actually stronger than the Meccans. He was spoiling for a fight and just looking for a way to break the treaty. Two tribes near Mecca had been feuding for decades, the Bani Bakr was allied with Mecca and Bani Khuza with Muhammad. The Bani Bakr caught a party of Bani Khuza out in the open and attacked them, killing several. Although this was truly not a breach of the peace between Mecca and the Muslims, Muhammad seized upon it to prepare to attack Mecca. Mecca sent Muhammad a delegation, even offering blood money to appease the Bani Khuza, but Muhammad would have none of that. He moved on Mecca.
The Meccans took one look at his new army and decided there was no way they could resist; Muhammed had indeed made good use of his two years. The Meccans surrendered their city without a fight.
Will there be a cease-fire in 2007? Maybe, maybe not. But before anyone agrees to anything, Washington better take a long look at the Treaty of Hudaibiya which in the Arab mind happened just last year in 680. We have already proven that we can win with American armies, American technology, and military ingenuity. However, it is all for nothing and we can lose everything through Washington arrogance and ignorance.
HJS
3 comments:
"On the surface, cease-fires are good things."
Ask the Israelis how Hamas does with their cease fire agreements.
Thanks for the comment. Perhaps I should have added "to the West" to clarify the thought a little more. You are right; and that went right to the subject matter. I see no firm basis in the Middle East for any Arab group to adhere to or trust someone else to adhere to a cease-fire. Other Arabs would criticize them if they did.
If the Israelis signed onto one, against their better judgment, the world would erupt into vicious condemnation if they broke the cease fire; while Arabs breaking it only results in a shrug of the shoulders, a smile, and the explanation: "Hudaybiya."
Thanks for the comment. Perhaps I should have added "to the West" to clarify the thought a little more. You are right; and that went right to the subject matter. I see no firm basis in the Middle East for any Arab group to adhere to or trust someone else to adhere to a cease-fire. Other Arabs would criticize them if they did.
If the Israelis signed onto one, against their better judgment, the world would erupt into vicious condemnation if they broke the cease fire; while Arabs breaking it only results in a shrug of the shoulders, a smile, and the explanation: "Hudaybiya."
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