The role of the Better Moes

As I wrote in part 1 of my 2-part series on the recent book on Muslim "Reformers" written by Robert Spencer's colleague, Christine Williams-Douglass:

Like all Counter-Jihadists who show themselves vulnerable to the wiles of the Better Cop Muslims, they pride themselves on remaining intelligently unfooled by the Good Cop Muslims, which allows them to have their cake and eat it to -- they can maintain their Counter-Jihad Cred while indulging their anxiety (rooted in their ethical narcissism) to avoid "painting all Muslims with a broad brush". 

For the umpteenth time, I will explain what I mean by the "Better Cop Muslims" (aka, "Better Moes").  First of all, the meaning of the term is relative to the similar term, "Good Cop Muslims" -- since the former are "better" than the latter.  Better, how?  Over the years, especially in the protracted, distracting wake of 911, various clever representatives of the Muslim world (increasingly expanding into our Western world) have popped up with protestations -- or rather assurances -- that Islam is a "religion of peace" and that it is "against terrorism".  Along with this basic message of honey comes a multitude of other preposterous falsehoods wrapped in deceptive half-truths (such as, to pluck from a keffiyeh one example of a thousand-and-one which one could adduce, that jihad is merely -- or (wink, wink) mainly -- an "interior spiritual struggle" when not merely the "struggle" to "make society better").

Now, this type of Muslim who has become more and more of a sociopolitical nuisance in our time only fools the broader Western Mainstream; he (or she) doesn't fool those who are "in the Counter-Jihad".  Since "the Counter-Jihad" is growing, albeit at an achingly snail's pace, it is reasonable to assume that Muslims who are worried that the West may eventually wake up in time to prevent them from destroying its great (but, of course, not perfect) civilization have realized that this growing awareness can't be fooled by the standard-issue apologetics-by-numbers taqiyya-dawa of the Good Cops.  And so, along the way, they developed a more daring taqiyya-dawa -- in short, a "better" sales pitch, in order to fool the savvier Westerners who ain't buying the Used Lemon of the Good Cops.

As I have discussed many times here (and the fine anti-Islam blogger at Logan's Warning has done similar work), the Counter-Jihad Mainstream has all too often shown signs of being fooled by the Better Moes.  This reckless naiveté runs the gamut from Frank Gaffney's gushing praise of Zuhdi Jasser; to Sam Harris's seemingly more reasoned partnership with Maajid Nawaz; to the "love" shown Muslims by Robert Spencer's colleague Jamie Glazov (whose own Counter-Jihad home has for years supported Muslims deemed to be our allies); to the ridiculously parsed doubt-cum-trust shown to "Reformer" Muslims by Robert Spencer's colleague, Christine Williams-Douglass (and Michael Devolin); to Spencer's own tap-dancing sophistry that forever holds an appropriate condemnation of these transparent snakes in abeyance (to protect his double-virtue-signalling?); down to the Counter-Jihad Civilians still scratching their heads 16 years after 911 and wondering "can we trust these Muslims? I'm not sure...Zuhdi seems like a nice guy..."

Why is there such a fertile soil of receptivity in the Counter-Jihad Mainstream to the new-and-improved sales pitch of these Better Moes?  As I said in my first two paragraphs above, which I will recap and expatiate upon here:

1) The Better Moes recognize there is a need to sell Islam to the West, as part of the Jihad of the Pen & Tongue (propaganda) -- a crucial part of the Stealth Jihad which, in turn, is a crucial auxiliary of the Jihad of the Sword which, as yet, has to remain cloaked, because Muslims are too weak militarily to engage in frank warfare against their perennial enemy (us). 

2) The Better Moes also recognize that there is the danger of the West waking up to the threat of Mohammedan intentions to realize their dream of destroying "Rome" (i.e., the West) -- and they detect this threat as located mainly in that area of the West (still minuscule, but growing, albeit still glacially and incoherently) usually referred to as "the Counter-Jihad".

3) Luckily for the Better Moes (and for the Muslims they stealthily represent and struggle for), the vast majority of the Leadership of the Counter-Jihad and perhaps the majority of Civilians thereof show abundant signs that they need to virtue-signal to the broader Western Mainstream in which they unavoidably swim and from which they evidently anxiously need approval (for more approval from them = more $$$ for Robert Spencer's new book) that they are "not bigoted" and "not racist" and "don't tar all Muslims with a broad brush".

4) With this anxious need so prevalent in the Counter-Jihad to avoid being "bigoted" against "all Muslims", the Better Moes swoop in and make a show of pretending to be deeply concerned about "Islamist extremism" -- i.e., they cleverly divide Islam into two parts, one part so small and disconnected from the massively larger whole of ordinary, mainstream Islam as to virtually denote something other than Islam.  But (and here's the Better Mo but): not so small and disconnected that it becomes irrelevant to the concern of the Counter-Jihadists.  I.e., the Better Moes flirt with the seeming appearance of making deep critical cuts into mainstream Islam, even while gently massaging the crotches of the Counter-Jihadists' need to avoid tarring all Muslims with one brush, by exploiting terms that, while they cleverly imply a division of Islam into two, fall apart into incoherence when examined more closely.  (And naturally the Counter-Jihadists, anxious to avoid tarring all Muslims with one brush, refrain from examining the construct they share with their Muslim allies, the Better Moes).  In short, the Counter-Jihadists desperately need to find decent Muslims to support, to show that they are not "bigoted" against "all Muslims" -- especially since long ago they have rejected the Moderate Muslim meme as untenable.  And in the Better Moes, the "Reformer" Muslims (or whatever other terms they want to use to substitute for the discredited Moderate Muslim meme), they find this Muslim ally.

Summary:

So, in summation, the role the Better Moes play is to provide those in the Counter-Jihad a way out of their quandary whereby the logic of their intransigence against Islam logically leads to a condemnation -- via reasonable inferences from the mountain of data and ocean of dots they've familiarized themselves with -- of all Muslims.  They don't want to tar all Muslims with one brush (no reasonable person wants to do this), but the force of the data & dots pulls them there.  At the same time, the typical person in the Counter-Jihad (whether of the Leadership or a Civilian) apparently is loath to examine their position more closely on this, and would rather remain on a fuzzy, emotional, and largely incoherent level.  Along comes the Better Moe to save the day, to give them (to mix metaphors) the snake oil of a Cake they can have and eat too.