fighting defensive wars.
After some 350 pages rambling through hundreds of
the later wars of Muslims against all manner of non-Muslims
(with Muslims being the aggressors in almost all conflicts),
War, Terror and Peace in the Qu’ran and Islam ends with
an epilogue rather than a conclusion, a plea for peace and
understanding. The key item of this epilogue is the idea that
the Koran could be read in ways other than traditional
literalism:
In the future the Qu’ran might be re-
organized and recited in ways that can be
very revealing, such as by the historical
chronology of the suras, or by certain
topics, such as instructions for making
peace or for waging war”.^365It is as if the author had no idea that the Koran had been
published in chronological order in English, French and
German in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.^366 It
seems the ex-marine hopes that putting the Koran in
chronological order might make Islam look more
peaceful, when in fact the reverse is the case. Schwartz-
Barcott’s book came from the press of a major military
college, and its subtitle makes it clear that its intended
audience was “military and government leaders”. Yet it
offers its intended audience nothing of any value. This is
how ill-served the people of the West have been by our
experts in the age of The Grand Lie.
It is hard to estimate how much damage this form of