The Crisis of Islam

Review by Bill Doughty

Osama bin Laden is violently against the separation of church and state, which he sees as America’s greatest sin.

Author Bernard Lewis

That’s one revelation from Bernard Lewis in his eye-opening The Crisis of Islam - Holy War and Unholy Terror.  Lewis gets to the core of understanding fundamentalist extremism.

For bin Laden and his followers, Islam is not just a private religious belief but also a cultural identity.  

Not just another way of life, fundamentalist Islam is the only allowable way of life, say the extremists.

“The literal divinity and inerrancy of the Qur’an (Koran) is a basic dogma of Islam, and although some may doubt it, none challenge it,” writes Lewis, Princeton University Professor of Near Eastern Studies Emeritus.

Explaining fundamentalism in the Muslim world, Lewis says, “Most Muslims are not fundamentalists, and most fundamentalists are not terrorists, but most present-day terrorists are Muslims and proudly identify themselves as such.”

He recommends, “In devising means to fight the terrorists, it would surely be useful to understand the forces that drive them.”

At the Heart of Intolerance

Lewis’s book, on the Navy’s Professional Reading Program list, is a springboard to learn more about the history of the Middle East and what caused the intense feelings of persecution, anger, hate and violence.

What was the impact of Western sea-based discovery and commerce five centuries ago?  How did the loss of the Ottoman empire affect the psyche of believers?  Why did most followers of Muhammad turn their backs on the enlightenment and all it represents in freedom, tolerance, scientific logic, and human rights for both men and women?

The terror-inflaming strain of Islam behind bin Laden, Wahhabism, encourages secular book burning, says Lewis.  “The burning of books was often accompanied by the summary execution of those who wrote, copied or taught them.”

Author Ayaan Hirsi Ali

One author whom Islamist fundamentalists abhor is Somali expatriate Ayaan Hirsi Ali.  Ali’s Infidel, her personal story of confrontation with fundamentalism and journey to freedom, is a good companion piece to Crisis of Islam.  For Ali, the crisis of Islam is tyranny over freedom.

She writes, “By declaring our prophet infallible and not permitting ourselves to question him, we Muslims had set up a static tyranny.  The Prophet Muhammad attempted to legislate every aspect of life.  By adhering to his rules of what is permitted and what is forbidden, we Muslims suppressed the freedom to think for ourselves and to act as we chose.  We froze the moral outlook of billions of people into the mindset of the Arab desert in the seventh century.  We were not just servants of Allah, we were slaves.”

In the desert in 632 CE, Muhammad supposedly told followers in his farewell address, “I was ordered to fight all men until they say, ‘There is no god by Allah.’”  It’s a quote restated by bin Laden to justify his vision and actions in attacks against embassies, the USS Cole, and the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9/11.

‘On Vacation from History’

Lewis shows that it’s no coincidence that the most tolerant, least fundamentalist cultures are those with the highest education levels.

As Lewis points out, Muslim countries rank low in national performance indicators, including GDP, industrial output, life expectancy, number of phones and computers per 100 people, and -- especially -- the number of books sold.  Lewis says of the top 27 countries in the human development index, from the U.S. (#1) to Vietnam (#27) not a single nation is a Muslim country.

Can Islam as a religion be embraced by followers as a matter of faith and practice rather than an identity and loyalty transcending all others?  That, according to Lewis, is the “crisis of Islam.”  

Last Sunday on Meet the Press, another expert on the Middle East, author Thomas Friedman said he hopes for a peaceful transition in Egypt, but noted, “Egypt, and really most of the Arab world has been on a vacation from history for the last 50 years.”

Friedman, Ali and Lewis frame the issue in similar ways:  Can Islamic groups move beyond medieval authoritarianism and cultural stagnation and embrace freedom and democracy?

According to Lewis, “If the fundamentalists are correct in their calculation and succeed in their war, then a darker future awaits the world, especially the part of it that embraces Islam.”

On the other hand, it’s clear that a new generation of young people is emerging in a globalized world connected by social media, peacefully demanding freedom and democracy in previously autocratic societies.  Can they see past the past and find common human values as inalienable rights?

President Barack Obama spoke to the young people in the Middle East on June 4, 2009 at Cairo University in Egypt:

“I know there are many -- Muslim and non-Muslim -- who question whether we can forge this new beginning.  Some are eager to stoke the flames of division, and to stand in the way of progress.  Some suggest that it isn't worth the effort -- that we are fated to disagree, and civilizations are doomed to clash. Many more are simply skeptical that real change can occur.  There's so much fear, so much mistrust that has built up over the years.  But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward.  And I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith, in every country -- you, more than anyone, have the ability to reimagine the world, to remake this world.

“All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort -- a sustained effort -- to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.

“It's easier to start wars than to end them.  It's easier to blame others than to look inward.  It's easier to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share.  But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path.  There's one rule that lies at the heart of every religion -- that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.  This truth transcends nations and peoples -- a belief that isn't new; that isn't black or white or brown; that isn't Christian or Muslim or Jew.  It's a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the hearts of billions around the world.  It's a faith in other people, and it's what brought me here today.”

What about bin Laden’s faith in people and respect for law and government?  

With contempt for the human, secular values of independence and free-thinking, bin Laden said in his Letter to America from 2002 that the worst of all of our sins is the separation of church and state:  “You are the nation who, rather than ruling with the Shariah of Allah in its constitution and laws, choose(s) to invest your own laws as you will and devise your separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms absolute authority to the Lord and your Creator.”

Lewis argues that the solution to defeating Islamic terrorism starts with understanding its historical roots and the narrow view of its purveyors.  The next step is for good people with moderate, tolerant views -- people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali -- to step into the spotlight and condemn extremism. 

As always, education is key to achieving progress and helping people discover they have freedom of choice.

A Common Thread

On the centennial of President Ronald Reagan’s birth tomorrow and in light of the continuing turmoil in the Middle East, it’s timely to remember Reagan’s tribute to late President of Egypt Anwar Sadat, assassinated by Islamist fundamentalists on Oct. 6, 1981.  (Nobel Peace Prize recipient Sadat tried to make peace with Israel, brought together by President Jimmy Carter at Camp David in 1976.)

Presidents Sadat and Reagan in 1981

“President Sadat was a courageous man whose vision and wisdom brought nations and people together. In a world filled with hatred, he was a man of hope. In a world trapped in the animosities of the past, he was a man of foresight, a man who sought to improve a world tormented by malice and pettiness,” Reagan said in his tribute address.

Sadat was murdered by Islamic Jihad, a group associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Gamaa al-Islamiyya, who accused Sadat of apostasy and condemned him for the peace treaty he’d signed with Israel. 

That group was tied to al-Qaeda in the 1990s.

Among the Al Gamaa al-Islamiyya’s leaders: Ayman al-Zawahiri, founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, proponent of Wahhabism, and, as al-Qaeda’s Number 2, deputy to bin Laden. 

Mattis on Preventing Leadership Failure

Review by Bill Doughty

General Jim Mattis, former Secretary of Defense, says a commander who hasn't read hundreds of books is functionally illiterate and will be a failure in a position of leadership.

In his new memoir, "Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead" (Penguin Random House, 2019), he writes, “If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you,” Jim Mattis writes in his memoir. 

“Any commander who claims he is ‘too busy to read’ is going to fill body bags with his troops as he learns the hard way,” Mattis says.

On Sunday's Global Public Square with Fareed Zakaria, Mattis explains: "Life is too short and leadership roles are too short ... to learn everything you need to know based on your own experience."

As a leader of Marines and Sailors, Mattis says many of his best "new" ideas came from old books. Reading not only quenched his thirst for knowledge but also sharpened his critical thinking skills and strategic competency.

"Everyone has got to lead in their own way," Mattis told Zakaria. "But I would say you have to have a curiosity about life, you have to have a thirst for learning. You have to be committed to your own development if you're going to be a leader."

Written with Bing West, "Call Sign Chaos" is a fast-paced, no-nonsense jog through Mattis's career, with a long focus on his role as a warrior and leader of warriors in what he calls the War of Terrorism (not Terror).

“Reading sheds light on the dark path ahead,” Mattis says. “By traveling into the past, I enhance my grasp of the present.” The book is meant for leaders in the military as well as in business, sports, politics or other endeavors.

Among the best parts of the Mattis memoir are the appendices, including his resignation letter to President Trump, a memo justifying awards for his troops, and an insightful article in Business Insider about Mattis's book and author suggestions.

Here are Mattis's recommended books when he served as Secretary of Defense:

"With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa" by E. B. Sledge (1981)
"One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer" by Nathaniel Fick (2005)
"Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam" by H.R. McMaster (1997)
"Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace, and Strategy" by Colin Gray (2007)
"The Future of Strategy" by Colin Gray (2015)
"Military Innovation in the Interwar Period" by Williamson Murray (1996)
"Before the First Shot Is Fired: How America Can Win Or Lose Off The Battlefield" by Tony Zinni (2014) 
"Scipio Africanus: Greater Than Napoleon" by Basil H. Liddell Hart (1926)
"My American Journey" by Colin Powell (1995)
"The Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sajer (1971)
"Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela (1994) Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield (1998)
"Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War" by Robert Gates (2014)
"The Lessons of History" by Will and Ariel Durant (1968)
"The Greatest Raid of All" by Lucas Phillips (1958)
"The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant" by Ulysses S. Grant (1885) March of Folly: "From Troy to Vietnam" by Barbara Tuchman (1984) The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman (1962)
"Alexander Hamilton" by Ron Chernow (2004)
"Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" by Paul Kennedy (1987)
"Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius (161-180 AD)
"Diplomacy" by Henry Kissinger (1994)
"World Order" by Henry Kissinger (2014)
"Defeat into Victory" by Viscount Slim (1956)
"Just and Unjust Wars" by Michael Walzer (1977)
"War, Morality, and the Military Profession" by Malham Wakin (1979)
"For Country and Corps: The Life of General Oliver P. Smith" by Gail Shisler (2009) "Sherman: Soldier, Realist, American" by Basil H. Liddell Hart (1929)
"The Rules of the Game" by Andrew Gordon (1996)
"The Far Pavilions" by M. M. Kaye (1978)

Earlier in his career, as a leader of Marines, Mattis recommended or required a variety of books for his warriors. Among the recommendations are these titles:

"Gates of Fire: Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae" – Stephen Pressfield
"A Bell for Adano" – John Hersey
"One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer" – Nathaniel Fick
"Achilles in Vietnam" – Jonathan Shay
"The Crusades Through Arab Eyes" – Amin Maalouf 
"The Village" – Bing West
"The Utility of Force" – General Rupert Smith
"The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror" – Bernard Lewis
"Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia" – Ahmed Rashid
"Taliban" – Ahmed Rashid
"Imperial Grunts" – Robert Kaplan
"What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East" – Bernard Lewis
"From Beirut to Jerusalem" – Thomas Friedman
"Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan" – Lester Grau
"The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War" – Ali Ahmad Jalali and Lester Grau
"The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power" – Max Boot
"Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan" – Robert Kaplan
"Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia" – Ahmed Rashid
"The Punishment of Virtue" – Sarah Chayes
"Afghan Guerrilla Warfare" – Ali Ahmad Jalali
"What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam" – John Esposito
"The Battle for God" – Karen Armstrong
"Islamism and its Enemies in the Horn of Africa" – Alex De Waal
"No God but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam" – Reza Aslan
"The Idea of Pakistan" – Stephen Cohen

This Marines' Marine also reads poetry. “Other Men’s Flowers,” an anthology by Lord Wavell, is one of his personal favorites.



Mattis on 9/11

At last year's 9/11 commemoration ceremony at the Pentagon, then-SecDef Mattis said, "We commit ourselves to remembering and honoring the lives that might have been. They endowed us forever with an enduring sense of purpose," he said, and "in their passing they empowered us."

On Sunday's Face the Nation, Margaret Brennan asked Mattis whether the Taliban can be trusted "to make a clean break with terrorists and honor a diplomatic deal."

Mattis responded, "Well, you're going to the heart of the issue right there: can they be trusted? You remember when we reduced nuclear weapons with Russia we talked about 'trust, but verify.' In this case with this group, I think you want to verify then trust. We've asked them – demanded – that they break with Al-Qaeda since the Bush administration; they've refused to do so," Mattis said. 

"They murdered three thousand innocent people. Citizens of 91 countries on 9/11. We should never forget that."

C2 It: Mattis's Recommendation – Grant

Review by Bill Doughty

Mattis addresses the Naval War College

Secretary of Defense James Mattis, a former U.S. Marine Corps General, is known as a reader, leader and critical thinker – the so-called warrior monk.

Among the dozens of books he recommends as an avid reader, as reported in the Washington Post, is "Grant Takes Command: 1863-1865" (Little Brown and Company, 1968, 1969, and Castle Books, 2000).

Mattis says the book shows the importance of commanders' relationships, even more important than command relationships.

General Ulysses S. Grant, who would go on to become the 18th president, achieved command and control in a fractious environment in what, to date, has been the most fractious time in our nation's history: the Civil War fought to maintain the Union and end slavery in the United States.

General Ulysses S. Grant

On one hand, Grant was challenged with difficult generals such as Banks, Butler, Rosecrans and Thomas. Some of his subordinates were outrageously insubordinate or incompetent. Some went behind his back to members of Congress to complain or spread rumors about their adjutant general.

At the War Department, precursor of the Department of Defense, Grant found "... a crippling knot of jealousy, suspicion and self-seeking ... and furious back biting."

On the other hand, Grand had strong bonds with capable Generals like Sherman, Sheridan and Schofield (among many others) and with Navy Admiral David Dixon Porter, "whom Grant held in high regard." Most of all he had a good relationship with President Lincoln.

Lincoln depicted listening to Generals Sherman and Grant and Adm. Porter.

Catton, a Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian, shows that "Grant placed a high value on harmony ... and Lincoln placed a high value on Grant."

U.S. Grant, no grandstander or faker, was focused on substance over celebrity or appearance. He personified toughness. In the field, "The man seemed wholly unmilitary, not to say slouchy, and he went stumping about headquarters in an unbuttoned coat an a battered hat, head down, hands in pockets ... worn down by hard service," Catton writes. "Grant was not interested in parades."

Yet, his mind was sharp and focused, as evidenced by his writing and decisions in support of President Lincoln, including his commitment to bring harmony not only in the field but also to the nation. And "Grant was inclined to be optimistic" as he fought for a lasting peace.

Federal volunteers from Ohio form an honor guard.

Grant wrote, "The North and South could never live at peace with each other except as one nation, and that without slavery." He came to support African American Soldiers and integration of his Army, and he demanded equal treatment for prisoners of war, black or white.

Interestingly, "Grant had never been an antislavery man," Catton writes, "but he had said long ago the war for reunion must destroy slavery." The two simple but sublime points demanded by Grant and Lincoln to the South: "that the Union should be preserved" and "that slavery should be abolished."

Grant at City Point, Virginia in 1864.

To his boyhood friend and naval officer Dan Ammen, Grant wrote that any peace with the South must be unconditional: "A 'peace at any price' would be fearful to contemplate. It would be the beginning of the war. The demands of the South would know no limits. They would demand indemnity for expenses incurred in carrying on the war. They would demand the turn of all their slaves set free in consequence of war. They would demand a treaty looking to the rendition of all fugitive slaves escaping into the Northern states, and they would keep on demanding until it would be better dead than to submit longer."

Catton shows how Grant and his generals fought at places like Chattanooga, Spottsylvania/Cold Harbor and Fort Fisher, where the Navy and Army coordinated in amphibious warfare. His writing occasionally becomes almost McCullough-esque when describing Civil War battlefields. For example, at Cold Harbor, which, in the summer of 1864, was neither cold nor a harbor for warfighters:

"The Cold Harbor plain looked empty, and the fact that everybody knew that it ws not empty made it sinister, like the blank face of a dreadful haunted house. The ground was broken here and there by swamps and little ravines, in front of the Federal lines it rose after a few hundred yards to a low chain of flat hills, and all along this higher ground there was a scar on the earth – a trench of freshly turned dirt, zig-zagging in and out, disappearing in thin mist to right and left. It was marked by regimental flags, limp in the windless wet morning, and there did not seem to be anybody in it. Nobody was in the least deceived; and yet, except for the Rebel skirmishers, who were posted far out in front, the advancing Federals could see hardly any of their enemies. They could not see many friends, either, because there were gaps between the army corps, so that each division would have to fight its own battle. No Federal soldier could see more than a fragment of the field."

Battle of Spottsylvania

We see and feel the tension of media coverage during war in how General Meade punished a reporter (with the unfortunate name Crapsey) who misreported with what today are called "fake facts" about leadership in the Cold Harbor battle. Meade had him tied up, set backward on a mule and paraded around the camp wearing a big placard proclaiming him a libeler. In another case, Grant himself had to intercede when General Burnside wanted to shoot another reporter, named Swinton. Grant saved him, and Swinton got a one-way ticket back to Washington. "But (thereafter) neither Meade nor Burnside ever got any favors from the press."

Catton reveals how Grant and Lincoln kept an unswerving focus not on petty concerns but on the bigger picture: unconditional peace and a united nation with no slavery.

When the Confederacy's Gen. Robert E. Lee reached out to discuss ending the fighting, but with conditions, Grant and Lincoln remained resolute and tough. And when peace did come, Grant ensured there was no "poison" of reprisal against Lee and the South.

General Douglas MacArthur and President Harry Truman would take a similar approach with Imperial Japan 80 years, retaining the emperor as figurehead while helping Japan establish a constitutional democracy that embraced human rights and shifting power to the people.

General Mattis visited both Korea and Japan earlier this month to reaffirm U.S. support to both countries.

This book ends with the end of the Civil War and tragic assassination of President Lincoln, setting the stage for General Grant as a "stranger in a strange land," poised to find the next stage in duty to country.

Earlier this month the Associated Press reported that historian Ron Chernow is writing a "painstakingly researched" biography on Grant, due for publication in October 2017. Chernow is the author of "Hamilton," the book that inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda's historical and now historic broadway smash of the same name. Chernow's "Grant" is expected to reevaluate the life of the general and president who has been largely misunderstood and under-appreciated.

T.E. Lawrence of Arabia

Other recommended books by Mattis include T. E. Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom," Stephen Pressfield's "Gates of Fire: Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae," John Hersey's "A Bell for Adano," Bing West's "The Village," Karen Armstrong's "The Battle for God," Reza Aslan's "No God but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam," Bernard Lewis's "The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror," and Tom Clancy's "Battle Ready."

Mattis's reading lists include several titles by authors familiar to readers of the Navy Reads blog: Robert Kaplan, Thomas Friedman, Bernard Lewis and Peter Bergen.

Boston Bombing Roots

by Bill Doughty

In thinking about the “why” behind the terrorist attacks by radical Islamic fundamentalists, can at least part of the answer be explained in books?  While the world was focused on the Middle East, the atrocity at the Boston Maraton last April 15 -- Patriots Day -- shifted some of the attention a bit north of Syria, Iraq and Iran to almost forgotten Chechnya and the fringes of the former Soviet Union.

To understand “why Chechnya?” several books provide helpful insight.  All of these were written before Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, ethnic Chechens with ties to radical Islam, conducted their vicious attack against innocent Americans.

“Chechen Jihad: Al Qaeda’s Training Ground and the Next Wave of Terror” by Yossef Bodansky introduces readers immediately to terrorists like Shamil Basayev, AKA Amir Abdallah Shamil Abu-Idris, once tied to bin-Laden and al-Zawahiri.

Like author and historian Bernard Lewis, Bodansky attempts to explain the violent reactions of some fundamentalists against western modernization and what their jihad hopes to accomplish.

“The story of the Islamist-Jihadists’ quest to seize the strategic ground of Chechnya and the Caucasus is a unique and critical case study for anyone seeking to understand the means and goals of the worldwide Islamist jihad.  And its failure -- if failure it can be -- contains lessons that may be infrastructure as the secular world confronts continued Islamist-Jihadist surges in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan.”

War in Chechnya in 1994 is thought to have claimed 100,000 lives.

Bodansky shows how sharia law, which called for public violence against its citizens, restricted women’s rights, transformed society, destroyed the socioeconomic infrastructure and fomented violence.  He calls it Chechenization.

In the chapter “Why Should We Care?” he writes:

“Chechenization refers to the profound transformation of a predominantly Muslim society from its traditional, largely pre-Islamic structure to one dominated by Islamist-Jihadist elements that historically have been alien to that society.  Chechenization involving not only the Arabization of that society’s value system, social structure, and way of life, but a near-complete abandonment of a society’s own cultural heritage in favor of subservience to pan-Islamic Jihadist causes, even if those causes are detrimental to the self-interest of that society.”

Under sharia law there is no separation of church and state.  In a radical Islamic state there is no tolerance for "disbelievers," nonbelievers or so-called apostates (former Muslims).

Lawrence Scott Sheets describes in “8 Pieces of Empire” how clerics in Chechnya ordered public televised lashings and public executions.  A highlight of his personal reporter’s narrative is the chapter “Three Libertine Women” in which we meet three freedom fighters, “Sabotage Women,” who fought the Russians nearly twenty years ago.

Harassed by morality police and threatened because of their secular attitudes and behavior, the women -- strong and fierce and free -- “fled Chechnya for Europe, where they are today.”

Andrew Meier, in “Chechnya: To the Heart of a Conflict,” describes a land of suicide bombings, assassinations and ongoing act of terrorism, where assassinations in the years since the first Russian onslaught in 1994, the kidnapping industry replaced petroleum crude as the primary contribution to Chechnya’s gross domestic product.”

Meier says he wrote the book as a report to “trace the convulsions” in the region.

A highlight of Meier’s small book is a timeline from the 17th through 19th centuries when “Chechens adopt Sunni Islam, but retain many ancestral customs,” through the impact of Russia, ending with the Sept. 1, 2004 terrorist attack and hostage taking in Beslan, North Ossetia and killing and wounding of hundreds of children.

In Moshe Gammer’s “The Lone Wolf and the Bear: Three Centuries of Chechen Defiance of Russian Rule,” we learn of the history of the turmoil in the Caucasus going back to Catherine the Great in 1771, in the same decade as the birth of the United States, 1776.

The embers of violence continued to glow, flaring around the time of the American Civil War.

“In 1866 ... economic, religious, political and other tensions had gradually been building up, making Chechnya (and Daghestan) a powder keg waiting to explode.  The Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-8 was the match that ignited it.”

Gammer describes another milestone around the time of World War I.

“The Islamic leaders were interested in securing the monopoly of the sharia over life in the mountains.  In the Chechen congress in Groznyi they had already raised the questions of enforcing the sharia and establishing a Terek Muftiate.”

Gammer calls it an “alliance” between religion and nationalism.

In the ashes of the Ottoman experience and in the face of the Stalinist persecution by the Soviet Union, fundamentalist Islam attracted a greater following among the people.

A purge or “deportation” in WWII caused deep-seated resentment that took root for generations despite a “rehabilitation” during the Cold War.

Terrorism and war continued as the people adopted “Wahhabism,” the religious philosophy adopted by al-Zawahiri.

According to Gammer, “The war of 1994-6 strengthened the Islamic dimension of Chechen identity and brought to the fore memories of the Islamic resistance to Russia in the eighteenth and nineteeth centuries ... Furthermore, Islam poured he strongest rallying call inside Chechnya and more effective than secular ideologies in calling for unity and mobilising support among other North Caucasian nationalities...”

So, the history books help us understand the unholy war that has existed in the region.  Other books can also help explain the brainwashing, “divine purpose” and self-righteous attitude that causes such explosive violence.

Still, the more we understand, the more questions we encounter.  Especially as we consider the “why” behind the Tsarnaev attacks in Boston on Patriots Day, a Massachusetts holiday celebrating freedom and independence.  What caused the two jihadists to lash out and cause so much destruction?  Why would they reject the freedom and democracy they had adopted.  Perhaps their uncle Ruslan Tsarni has the reason that goes beyond the history books: “being losers.”

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is being arraigned this week after the formal indictment was issued last month.

'The Plague' & Listening to John Prine

by Bill Doughty–

The COVID-19 virus killed John Prine April 7, 2020.

Prine, one of the best American songwriters, was a military Veteran. He served in the Army in West Germany in the 60s during the Vietnam War and became a voice for justice, writing songs such as "Paradise," "Some Humans Ain't Human," "Unwed Fathers," "The Great Compromise," and "Sam Stone" ("Sam Stone came home/ To the wife and family/ After serving in the conflict overseas...").

Prine balanced humor and pathos, and always honored pure American country music. He wrote and sang "Please Don't Bury Me," "Illegal Smile," "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore," and "Dear Abby" ("Dear Abby, dear Abby/ My feet are too long/ My hair's falling out and my rights are all wrong/ My friends they all tell me that I've no friends at all...").

Next to Bob Dylan, as a storyteller-songwriter he perhaps had no parallel. Just listen to his sad-lonely "Hello In There," "Donald and Lydia," "Souvenirs," "Mexican Home," "Lake Marie," and "Far From Me": ("And the sky is black and still now/ On the hill where the angels sing/ Ain't it funny how an old broken bottle/ Looks just like a diamond ring...").

Prine circa 1970s

Prine also co-wrote, with Steve Goodman, David Allan Coe's "You Never Even Call Me By My Name." But one of his masterpieces is "Angel From Montgomery," performed by, among others, Bonnie Raitt and Emmylou Harris ("Just give me one thing/ That I can hold on to/ To believe in this livin'/ Is just a hard way to go...").

Those lyrics share the theme of Albert Camus's "The Plague" ("La Peste," 1948,  translated by Stuart Gilbert, Alfred A. Knopf; Vintage, Random House). Camus is a rewarding read and brief escape for these COVID days of mandated self-quarantine. Like Prine's lyrics, Camus's prose captures surreal slices of life, often with deep melancholy, and, to misquote Hanna Arendt, a "banality of reality in a time of pestilence."

Camus in 1957

Camus writes of an imaginary plague in the town of Oran, French Algeria, in the 1940s. "The Plague" follows Dr. Bernard Rieux and other characters who all delay facing reality and taking action at first, despite obvious signs highlighted by hundreds of dead rats. "...Many concessions had been made to a desire not to alarm the public." The Prefect (government official) refuses to realize the danger of the outbreak, pushes a failed plan, and then tries to avoid responsibility. Eventually people self-exile in their homes; "commerce, too, had died with the plague."

Camus writes of "manpower" shortfalls, overwhelmed mortuaries, mass graves, use of cotton masks, despondency, fatigue, and faux therapies, including "peppermint lozenges." The dignity and dedication of the health care provider is at the center of the narrative.

In a "Week of Prayer" in Oran, in which people are encouraged to gather in church, the local priest, Father Paneloux preaches a  passionate sermon that starts, "Calamity has come on you, my brethren, and, my brethren, you deserve it." The priest blames the "scourge" on nonbelievers and "enemies of God."

Rome plague angel of death Levasseur, Jules-Elie Delaunay

Paneloux says the people have been "sentenced, for an unknown crime, to an indeterminate period of punishment." But as the story unfolds, the priest has a revelation, especially after working closely with Dr. Rieux. "What's true of all the evils in the world is true of plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves," Camus writes.

"The evil that is in the world always comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding." As a result of the devastating outbreak, one of Camus's characters says, "All I maintain is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it's up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the pestilences." People, including key character Tarrou, volunteer to be part of "sanitary groups" to help others as a "logical" way to confront the disease.

Though the people want to return to the life they'd known as soon as possible, the infection returns, evolving from bubonic to pneumonic. Poor people suffer proportionately more than the privileged, wealthy population. As people become more frustrated, it "made everyone aware that an ugly mood was developing among us."

"Meanwhile the authorities had another cause for anxiety in the difficulty of maintaining the food-supply. Profiteers were taking a hand and purveying at enormous prices essential foodstuffs not available in the shops. The result was that poor families were in great straits, while the rich went short of practically nothing. Thus, whereas plague by its impartial ministrations should have promoted equality among our townsfolk, it now had the opposite effect and, thanks to the habitual conflict of cupidities, exacerbated the sense of injustice rankling in men's hearts."

"The newspapers, needless to say, complied with the instructions given them: optimism at all costs," Camus writes. "To form a correct idea about the courage and composure talked about by our journalists you had only to visit one of the quarantine depots or isolation camps established by our authorities."

In his other fiction and nonfiction, Camus wrote for the French Resistance during World War II, and against totalitarian communism after the war. Knowing that, it's easy to see the symbolism and metaphors to war and peace, superstition and logic, terror and freedom, and fear and courage.
In "The Plague," Camus also paces his story with beautiful hues of prose. For example:

"Once they were on the pier they saw the sea spread out before them, a gently heaving expanse of deep-piled velvet, supple and sleek as a creature of the wild. They sat down on a boulder facing the open. Slowly the waters rose and sank, and with their tranquil breathing sudden oily glints formed and flickered over the surface in a haze of broken lights. Before them the darkness stretched out into infinity. Rieux could feel under his hand the gnarled, weather-worn visage of the rocks ... After the first shock of cold had passed and he came back to the surface the water seemed tepid. When he had taken a few strokes he found that the sea was warm that night with the warmth of autumn seas and borrow from the shore the accumulated heat of the long days of summer. The movement of his feet left a foaming wake as he swam steadily ahead, and the water slipped along his arms to close in tightly on his legs ... Rieux lay on his back and stayed motionless, gazing up at the dome of sky lit by the stars and moon. He drew a deep breath."

Among other themes explored in "The Plague": reality and illusion, life and death, love and friendship, knowledge, memories, separation, and good and evil. Similar themes can be found in the passionate lyrics of John Prine.

Prine's tender, funny, sad, and sometimes absurd revelations about life are a source of joy in these trying times. His song "Summer's End" about separation is especially poignant this weekend:

     Valentines, break hearts and minds at random
     That ol' Easter egg ain't got a leg to stand on
     Well I can see that you can't win for trying
     And New Year's Eve is bound to leave you crying

     Come on home
     Come on home
     No you don't have to be alone
     Just come on home

Thankfully, John Prine left us an impressive number of recordings, including great live performances and some recent duet collections, including with Iris Dement. "In Spite of Ourselves," sung with Dement, is one of his funniest, saltiest creations: ("She likes ketchup on her scrambled eggs/ Swears like a sailor when she shaves her legs/ She takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'/ I'm never gonna let her go...").

Prine inspired other new Folk/Americana artists, including, among others, Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile, and Prine protege Sturgill Simpson. Yesterday, Simpson announced he is self-quarantining till April 19, diagnosed with COVID-19. Simpson coupled his announcement with a passionate complaint about his inability to get a coronavirus test until April 6 even though he has had symptoms that brought him to the ER March 13.

Navy veteran Simpson's "A Sailor's Guide to Earth" album follows Prine and Camus themes of self-awareness, resilience and redemption. Simpson's "Guide" features a song, "Sea Stories," about a WestPac cruise and becoming a shellback ("Sailing out on them high seas/ Feels just like being born..."). Simpson describes what he still carries with him from his transition from "pollywog" to "shellback," wrote:

     Memories make forever stains
     Still got salt running through my veins
     I've got sea stories
     And my shellback, too

Camus and Prine wrote existential stories while carrying their own "shellbacks." World War II influenced Camus, who saw France invaded by the Nazis and witnessed the rise of Soviet communism after the war. 

Photo by Sgt. Ken Scar

The Vietnam War affected Army veteran Prine. In his concerts he would tell stories and provide commentary, including what it was like visiting the Vietnam War Memorial, looking up the names of friends he lost in the war and the power of seeing ones own reflection in the black marble.

Both creators faced multiple life's traumas. Both painted their words from a surrealistic, sometimes absurdist, palette. Case in point: both Camus and Prine brought parrots in bars into their stories. From "The Plague": the room was empty, the air humming with flies; in a yellow cage on the bar a parrot squatted on its perch, all its feathers drooping." From Prine's "Space Monkey": "In a karaoke bar having a few drinks with some of his friends/ There was the dog that flew Sputnik/ And a blind red-headed, one legged parrot/ Who had done some minor research for Dow Chemical..."

In this time of COVID, we remember Camus, who can help us understand what has happened and how we react, logically and thoughtfully and with a sense of humor intact, making informed decisions based on science.

And we remember John Prine for his existential story songs that could make us laugh, cry, contemplate, and imagine, tongue-in-cheek, life and beyond. From "When I Get to Heaven": "When I get to heaven, I'm gonna shake God's hand/ Thank him for more blessings than one man can stand... // Yeah when I get to heaven, I'm gonna take that wristwatch off my arm/ What are you gonna do with time after you've bought the farm?..."

"Pollywogs" aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD 1) run the obstacle course Nov 25, 2017 to become "shellbacks" during a crossing the line ceremony. The crossing-the-line ceremony is a naval tradition which recognizes when members of the crew cross the equator for the first time. Wasp transited to Sasebo, Japan to conduct a turnover with the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) as the forward-deployed flagship of the amphibious forces in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Levingston Lewis/Released)