RELIGION, NATION, MARRIAGE: THE LOYALTIES OF MEN
PRAY, WORK, STUDY, PROTECT: THE DUTIES OF MEN


Saturday, January 10, 2015

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, January 10

Religion and Geopolitics this week includes:
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made an extraordinary speech on New Year’s Day to Cairo’s Al-Azhar and the Awqaf Ministry calling for a long overdue virtual ecclesiastical revolution in Islam.

American foreign policy must come to terms with the religious ideological nature of our enemy as a jihadist Salafist-Sunni form of Islam. We must stop demonizing those who should be our allies. We must take a deep breath and ask that our senators and lawmakers learn the religious historical setting of the Arabic story in the Mideast. Our enemies are not the shrunken Shia nation-states of Assad's Syria and the American-generated Shia Iraq, nor the more robust Shia nation-state of Iran. These are natural allies. Our enemies are the radical Sunni jihadists and the monarchy tyrannies most responsible for their continued existence: Saudi Arabia and Qatar. We can start our education by releasing the full 9/11 report including the redacted parts about Saudi involvement. While we define more clearly the enemy, the Christian nations of the Americas and Europe must find a way to integrate Muslim men into the protective pacts of their new countries. This will be much easier for the United States than France, Germany, and England.

This analysis by Raul Gerecht of the Islamic attack in France explains the magnetic effect of the new ISIS caliphate on young Muslims in France and the subsequent development of independent cells and jihadist actors in Europe. His perceptive understanding of shared identities and the "charisma of the new ISIS base" help guide us in to the kind of discussion we will need for the war ahead. He also reminds us of the unique French asset of intelligence developed in that country's long, multi-war shared history with Algeria.

The establishment of civic order in Mexico will depend on a renewal of public protective citizenship and strong government action. For now in too many areas it appears the criminals have the populations in their hands despite the presence of federal troops and the witness of Catholic priests. We need to translate the eucharistic love of the Mass into the communal bonds of protective citizenship which (like the bonds of marriage) are natural fruits of the apostolic Church.

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