Recent developments indicate that there is a split in the al Qaeda organization.  Let me explain.

• First, on 14 September 2005, Iraq’s most notorious terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared a “full-scale war” on Iraq’s Shiites.  However, Zarqawi’s war on Shiites is deeply unpopular in some Muslim extremist sectors.  In fact, as Bernard Haykel has shown, there is a growing split among the jihadis that is undermining the theological and legal justifications for suicide bombing.  This could be the first significant split in what has appeared to be a united movement.  As Haykel writes, “The simple fact is that many jihadis believe the war in Iraq is not going well.  Too many Muslims are being killed.  Images of that slaughter, conveyed by satellite television and the Internet throughout the Muslim world, are eroding global support for the jihad cause.”  Many Muslim leaders have denounced the campaign against Shiites as un-Islamic.  Further, al Qaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri (in a letter dated 9 July and intercepted by the American forces), cautioned Zarqawi against particularly gruesome executions and attacks on Iraqi civilians for fear of the negative impact it is having on the global jihadi cause.

• Second, how do jihadis like Zarqawi justify killing civilians?  Haykel summarizes that the prevailing theoretical argument consists in saying that there is religious sanction for the killing of Muslim civilians, and that neither the innocent victims nor the bombers are doomed to suffer in hell.  These claims about salvation are the most important recruiting tool they have.  Jihad theorists claim that the Prophet Muhammad permitted the targeting of Muslim civilians in war.  They then draw analogies between the 7th century and today.  Zarqawi also banks on the fact that the killing of Shiites is supported by Sunnis, who consider Shiites heretics and will either approve or turn a blind eye.  But this is not occurring.  There is growing evidence that Muslim theorists and theologians can find no support for what Zarqawi is doing.  One jihadi, Abu Baseer al-Tartusi, has issued a fatwa arguing that all suicide bombings that target Muslims or innocent civilians are unlawful.  As Haykel has observed, “By employing extreme tactics, the jihadis have laid bare the contradictions within their own movement.  Their internal debates about suicide tactics are a sign of weakness—and of the fraying of the consensus al Qaeda so carefully built over the last decade.” 

• Finally, in the Zawahiri letter mentioned above, he cautions Zarqawi, “We are in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds of our umma [i.e., the Muslim peoples].”  The common folk are wondering about the beheading of hostages, the bombing of mosques and the slaughter of poor Shiite civilians, all of which the masses will never find palatable.”  Zawahiri is in effect saying that al Qaeda cannot attain power by terrifying fellow Muslims.  Further, in the letter, Zawahiri complains that the attacks on the Shiites are alienating Iran, which, he says, will take “countermeasures” against us.  He also laments that key al Qaeda leaders are being attacked and captured or killed by the Pakistani army.  He clearly indicates that al Qaeda has run into serious difficulties as it seeks to build its global caliphate.  Zarqawi’s actions are perceived by the al Qaeda leadership as defeating the larger goal.  This split is therefore huge and cannot be ignored by the West.  Keeping pressure on al Qaeda in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan is critical at this juncture. 

See Haykel’s article in the New York Times (11 October 2005) and David Ignatius, Washington Post (16 October 2005).

Occasionally on Issues in Perspective, I address the state of American culture.  In this edition of Issues, I want to do so again.  Each of these items is interconnected as we focus on the continuing deterioration of ethical absolutes within our culture.

• First, a few comments about the ongoing confusion of gender identity with our culture.  There is growing evidence of the confusion men are experiencing within our culture.  And there is no greater evidence of that fact than what is occurring within higher education.  If education is the gateway to success, then what occurs in college is critical.  All evidence now suggests that women are better students than men.  Listen to the summary recently offered by columnist David Brooks:  “From the first days of school, girls outperform boys.  The gap is sometimes small, but over time slight advantages accumulate into big ones.  In surveys, kindergarten teachers report that girls are more attentive than boys and more persistent at tasks.  Through elementary school, girls are less likely to be asked to repeat a grade.  They are much less likely to be diagnosed with a learning disability.  In high school, girls get higher grades in every subject, usually by about a quarter of a point, and have higher median class rank.  They are more likely to take advanced placement courses and the hardest math courses, and are more likely to be straight-A students.  They have much higher reading and writing scores on national assessment tests.  Boys still enjoy an advantage on math and science tests, but that gap is smaller and closing.”  Brooks also shows that the differences become more significant in college.  Women are more likely to enroll in college and they are more likely to have better applications, so now there are hundreds of schools where the female-male ratio is 60 to 40.  About 80% of the majors in public administration, psychology and education are female.  Until 1985 or so, male college graduates outnumbered female college graduates.  But in the mid-80’s, women drew even, and ever since have been increasing.  This year, 133 women will graduate from college for every 100 men.  By the end of the decade that gap will widen to 142 female graduates for every 100.  For African-Americans, that gap is 200 female graduates for every 100.  The impact of this is huge!  Women will obviously be holding more and more leadership roles within the culture.  There will be fewer males to marry at comparable education levels.  It is also clear that the age of oppressive patriarchy will be regarded as a “quaint anachronism.”  We are now seeing the fruit of our “war against the boys.”  As a culture, we have feminized our culture, where the behavior of boys as boys is discouraged and they are told to sit for long hours—and if they cannot do that we place them on medicine.  Our culture has promoted a unisex movement that produces nothing short of confusion for boys and that confusion spills over into their teen and young adult years.  Competition, playing with guns, rough sports and many other things boys love to do are often discouraged and repressed.  Our culture has ignored one simple fact about God’s world:  “He created them male and female.”  There are innate differences between men and women and you cannot ignore that.  Those innate differences spill over into every dimension of life.  The confusion that boys (and men) now manifest is in no small way a result of this push to fuse, ignore or change the innate differences between men and women.  We are now paying a huge cost for that decision.

See the powerful editorial by David Brooks in the New York Times (16 October 2005).

• Second, consider the hottest program on television this season—“Commander in Chief.”  The new series stars Geena Davis as the first female president.  She is actually the new president because the previous president died in office and she was the Vice President.  But she is also a mother, and must deal with all the challenges as she raises her young daughter.  In the TV program, Davis blocks out time for dinner and deals with juice-box spills on her presidential blouse!!  She is clearly liberal in her political persuasion and compelling in her demeanor.  Women and young girls now have a role model in Geena Davis as President.  Mesh this with the nomination of Harriet Miers as Supreme Court Justice.  Miers was chosen because she is a woman, filling the seat of Sandra Day O’Connor.  We now live in a culture where gender, especially the female gender, is the touchtone issue for positions of power.  What I am arguing is that, in both instances, being a woman is what is most important!  This reality has another tantalizing possibility.  Television is telling us that it is time for a woman president and perhaps 2008 is that time.  I wonder who will find this a helpful stepping stone.

See Ruth Marcus, “A Supreme Moment of Ambiguity,” Washington Post (13 October 2005).

• Third, consider the current evaluation of how the media covered Hurricane Katrina, especially in New Orleans.  Consider these facts:  New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin told the world that there were “hundreds of armed gang members killing and raping people” and that he believed there would be 10,000 dead found in his city.  He and his police chief reported that babies were being raped.  There were exaggerated statements in almost every area of reporting and there was little skepticism from the media about the facts being presented.  Joel Belz, in an editorial in World magazine, quotes broadcaster and writer Hugh Hewitt:  “American media threw everything they had at this story, all the bureaus, all the networks, all the newspapers, everything went to New Orleans, and yet they couldn’t get inside the convention center, they could not get inside the Superdome to dispel the lurid, the hysterical, the salaciousness of the reporting.”  He calls the reporting from New Orleans “one of the worst weeks of reporting in the history of American media” and raises this question: “If all of that amount of resources was given over to this story and they got it wrong, how can we trust American media in a place far away like Iraq where they don’t speak the language, where there is an insurgency?  The answer comes back: We really can’t.”  Perhaps it important for us to remember an important Proverb (18:17):  “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.”  It is time for us as American citizens to examine the American news media.  The reporting and unquestioning attitude that pervaded the coverage of New Orleans is a national shame. 

See Belz’s editorial in World (15 October 2005).

The founder of Soviet Russia, Vladimir Lenin, is buried in a brown marble and granite mausoleum in Moscow.  But he is actually not buried there; he is preserved in a specially sealed, transparent chamber for all to see.  However, today not many wish to see him.  His body is cleansed each year with a special solution to prevent mold and decay.  He is dressed in a suit and looks eerily asleep, not dead.  Since he died in 1924, Lenin has lain in this place in Red Square in Moscow.  It was an attempt to preserve him and make him appear eternal.  Like his statues that pervaded all of the Soviet Union, the presence of the almighty Lenin was the key to the success and endurance of the Communist revolution.  But it has failed.  There is no one that sees Communism as a viable path for the future.  Only in American universities are Marxist-Leninists alive and well.  It is a bankrupt ideology and now it is time to come to terms with one of the founders of this bankrupt system. 

A debate has surfaced again in Russia over what to do with Lenin.  It would probably be accurate to say that the average Russian does not care.  In one article I read, the young people of Moscow do not even know who Lenin is.  They could not identify his role in Bolshevism or as a founder of the Soviet state.  But for others he represents the past and to do away with his body would betray that past.  Lenin, in short, is out of fashion in Russia and the calls for him to simply be buried are growing.  What is in in Russia today is a Kremlin honor guard that wears 1812-era uniforms and a rejuvenated Russian Orthodox church.  The Stalin-era national anthem is back.  The theme of current Russia is blending the nostalgia of Imperial Russia with an occasional nod to the greatness of Stalin’s Soviet Russia.  Vladimir Putin has yet to take a public stand on whether to move Lenin’s body, but it seems only logical that one day in the not too distant future Lenin will be buried in the ground and decay, just like all other mortals.  In many ways, Lenin’s preserved body is a metaphor for Russia today.  In an attempt to hold on to the past, Lenin, like Russia, is preserved as a museum piece.  But Russia’s past, like Lenin, is totally irrelevant and absurd. 

From God’s perspective, Lenin died in 1924 and at that point realized the horrific errors of his ways.  God has demonstrated within history that the Communist ideal, which Lenin embodied, was unworkable and self-destructive.  The over 70-years of Communist rule nearly destroyed Russia and all other lands it touched.  All of these peoples are only now coming out from under the self-destructive tendencies of Communism.  It is time for the rulers of modern Russia to bury the past mistakes of Communism—and that begins with putting Lenin’s body in the ground where it belongs.  Lenin is dead—and Russia needs to bury him—finally!

See the news report on Lenin’s body in Time (17 October 2005), p. 54.