And starring Pervez Musharraf as Winston Churchill. From Reuters, with thanks to nevermindlv:
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - An iron curtain is descending between the West and the Muslim world, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf warned on Monday.Political injustices, poverty and illiteracy are fueling religious fundamentalism and terrorism, he said in a speech while on a visit to Sweden, urging rich countries to help Muslim nations with investment and socio-economic reforms.
Most of Pakistan's 150 million people are Muslims, and a third of them live in poverty.
Many people in the Islamic world "feel deprived, hopeless, powerless" and could be "indoctrinated by distorted views of Islam," Musharraf said.
"A new iron curtain seems to be falling," he said. "This iron curtain somehow is dividing the Muslim world on one side and the West on the other side. This is very dangerous," he told Reuters in an interview after the speech.
"Muslim states are seen as the source of terrorism," he said, warning of new "depths of chaos and despair" and more "terrorism and an impending clash of civilizations" if the West, particularly the United States, and Muslim countries failed to eradicate the root causes of anger and resentment. ...
"If you manage to finish off one organization like al Qaeda ... you've chopped off a branch of that tree, but the tree will still grow. You must identify the root, and the root happens to be political disputes ... the root happens also to be illiteracy and poverty."
No. The root is jihad ideology. Until that is recognized, new terrorists will continue to stream out of the madrassas in Musharraf's own country. The idea that all this comes from poverty has been debunked again and again.
When even anti-fanatics can't correctly identify the problem:
1) the truth is too personally dangerous to utter,
2) the truth is too politically dangerous to say,
3) the speaker is too dull to realize what to say.
****
It is imperative that every patriot spread the truth. Use any setting to spread awareness.
Very few Americans want to look under the hood of Islam. Provide snapshots. Start with Islams staggering oppression of women; then expose mohammed's sexual 'style', emulation required by the devout!
Dogmas of bloodlust and deceit can come later.
The pagan history of Islam makes a nice coda.
Don't let your friends confuse this conquest cult with being a religion.
Expose mo'.
Exposure destroys Islam. That is why un-muslims are not allowed near Mecca; why repetition not inquiry passes for scholarship in the ummah.
We must emulate Paul Revere, "The [jihadis] are comming.
Perverse Mushhead has got to be kidding, but he's a little late for April Fool's, don't you think?
As far as I can read this, he's got to be playing on the misplaced "rich man's guilt" and dhimmitude of the Euros to get his failing country propped up financially, so as to continue the charade.
The West is responsible for political injustices? He should know first hand about political injustices, being the head of a dictatorship.
"...urging rich countries to help Muslim nations with investment and socio-economic reforms."
We're already attempting that with installing a democracy in Iraq, but the rest of the Islamic world doesn't seem to want that. Apart from the eradication of Islam, either by an outright elimination or changing it to a gentler form through reform, I don't see any way to actually improve their lot in life.
Ultimately, what he wants is a vast, global, continual import of cash into a welfare system for these people, whose own religion has created all of the issues stated by Musharraf. I for one am not interested in paying for tomorrow's terrorists.
Yes an Iron Curtin if you will has decended down between the West and Islamic Nations and yes poverty plays a big factor in the preception ( and reality ) of being oppressed in the Islamic Nations. These factors can ultimately be leveled by political solutions. The problem is that military dictators such as Musharrafe is part of the political problem.
The " Iron Curtin " and the overwhelming poverty it's self was inflicted on the Arab populations by Muslim idealogy it's self. The hatred indoctronatied into it's youth of Western lifestyles, ideals and political forms built that Iron Curtin and shut off that whole region of the world from the modern world.
Islam fears the world and cannot tolerate it in it's midst, so poverty is bound to overwhelm such a culture.
Even if a relative material wealth is allowed to take hold in a given Muslim culture ( such as is the case with Suadi Arabia ) the population still suffers from a stiffling cultural and intellectual not to mention political poverty. A totalitarian poverty neccesitated by the ' religious freedom ' of Islam it's self.
Take heart oppressed people of Islam , western democracy will sweep away all those centuries of mental crap like Herculeas cleaned out the Ageian Stables.
It is no wonder the Al Quida boys in Iraq were quoted panicing " If democracy takes hold in Iraq it will be the end of Islam. " You darn right terrorist scum because Islam cannot co-exist with political freedom and an empowered population. The very foundation from the elimination of poverty.
Nostrodamus
As long as Muslims are oppressed in one corner of the Earth, there'll be Jihad in another.
Adam~ you are So right. So long as religous dictatorships under islam oppress their own, their will be Jihad. Just as the dictators want.
Typical warped view of the world by Muslims: as victims. Poor, oppressed, victims. And it's all the nasty West's fault. Boo hoo hoo.
Look how successful the West is! Can't possibly be its respect for property rights, individual rights, free markets, separation of church from govt, rule of law, etc. No, of course not! Rulers of Islamic cesspit countries foster this "blame the West for your misery" constantly. It takes the heat off them, distracting the poor oppressed Muslims from the reality of the cause of their poverty and oppression: their own belief system and their own rulers. Islam ensures the individual is oppressed.
Throwing money at Islamic cesspit countries is the same as piling it up and burning it. Better to use it for homegrown problems and our own needy. The money will never get beyond the grasping corrupt hands of Islamic rulers anyway.
Musharraf claims that the fault line is between Islam and the West. It would be far truer to say that the fault line, the clash -- and it is not between civilizations, but between those who adhere to the belief-system of Islam, wherever they reside, and all those who do not -- that is, between Muslims and all Infidels.
East Timor is not "the West." The Moluccas are not "the West." The Hindus and Sikhs murdered in Kashmir, and the 400,000 Kashmiri pandits driven out of Kashmir, are not "the West." The Buddhist monks and peasants in southern Thailand, murdered by Muslims, are not "the West." The Christian Ibo, suppressed by the Muslim jihad which the Biafran leader, Col. Ojukwu, correctly identified in his Ahiara Declaration, as the main source of their oppression, were not part of "the West." No, there is no clash between "Islam and the West." The battle is between Muslims, not "humiliated" (as they like to claim) but rather thwarted, as they see, in obtaining that position of superiority and dominance ("Islam is to dominate and not to be dominated" is a phrase well-known to all Muslims) that should be theirs by right.
The root cause of Muslim aggression and violence, and of the Jihad which is furthered not only by those instruments, but by da'wa (conversion) and subversion from within the dar al-Harb, remains, as it has for 1350 years, and from Spain to China, the ideology of the belief-system of Islam. Musharraf's son leads a quiet, untroubled life in Canton, Massachusetts. No one harries him, as a Muslim. No one forces him to lead a life of insecurity, the kind of life all Christians and Hindus lead in Pakistan. Musharraf, one suspects, like his son, knows this perfectly well. And Musharraf claims to be a great admirer of Ataturk, having spent part of his own youth in Turkey; he even has Ataturk as his bedside reading.
If he, Musharraf, persists in uttering such misleading statements, then he is merely offering one more confirmation that even those who may not share the ideology of violent Jihad (and in Musharraf's case the amount of Janus-faced deception is considerable, given his own past), are still determined to mislead the unwary Infidels as to the nature of the problem, to deflect attention, and blame, from where it belongs -- on the passages in Qur'an and in the hadith, and in the example of Muhammad as reflected in the sira (the sacred biographies of Muhammad), that inculcate hatred, murderous in its final result, for all Infidels.
Would Musharraf care to deny what is clearly in the Qur'an and hadith? Is he willing to sit still for an interview by informed interviewers, who will question and cross-examine him, on this very point? The time for this kind of silly deflection of attention, this pretense that it is "the West" and not the entire non-Islamic world, that needs to defend itself -- and always has -- against the depredations of Islam, has long passed.
Who does Musharraf think his own ancestors were? Arabs from time immemorial? People who always saw the Truth of Islam? What did Ibn Batuta witness? What did both HIndus and Muslims leave as their own historical record, about the largest mass murder in history, that of 60-80 million HIndus by their Muslim conquerors and overlords? And when Musharraf's distant ancestors were forced to convert to Islam, does Musharraf himself, or his son, now sitting in Canton, Mass., ever give thought to what happened to India, what must have happened to their own ancestors to force them to accept Islam? Not a hint of any interest, any attempt to comprehend how Islam spread in India, and thus how Indian Muslims, and of course the "Pakistanis" came to be? What an amazing lack of curiosity.
Hi Folks.
First of all let me tell U...that I come in complete PEACE! I am a Muslim, an American, and a Paki. I am proud to b American! I am proud 2 b free!
I got 2 say that some of things I read on this site...frankly scare me. Before you go jumping all over me...listen to what I have to say. Some of the things you read or hear are greatly distorted...I urge you to take a look at both sides of the story. This is tough cuz its a long ass story with lots of historical crap.
I also want to comment on whatever that freak Reza had to say...I do NOT agree with shit like that. Shoving your religion or beliefs down someone elses throat is just wrong!! Its the fuckers like that scare me as well...these mother fucking long bearded freaks. Calling themselves religious leaders...they are NOT my leaders!! They do NOT represent Muslims, Islam, or anything. They spew their rhetoric and crap ideologies...thinking God gave them the right. FUCK THEM!!
My point is that...there are Muslims that want peace and dont believe in the shit that you read about or hear about. Unfortunately, when all said and done...everyone gets "generalized" into one big thing.
As for Pakistan....unfortunately, there is 2 much lawless ness still and Musharaf doesnt have power against the religious freaks. I wish to god those fuckers would leave the country. Its the smelly ARAB's that are root of the issue...they are typically more overzealous and believe in an "eye for an eye". U cannot create peace like that! Musharraf has done great things and Pakistan is making HUGE strides. It is often the poor and uneducated who get brainwashed...no fault of mine or yours but thats the way it is. Creating peaceful educational programs and providing assistance to the needy is the only way to quell the problem.
The USA has many faults as well...I wont elaborate but its the truth!
So I urge you all to think about some of the things you might say...cuz you are talking about a whole population of people but its just a select few who have their heads in their asses.
LOVE 4 ALL!!
- AMOS
"Who does Musharraf think his own ancestors were?" I am not a historian..neither do I care about history cuz its the past and frankly I believe that regurgitating the past is the root of all evil. However, if memory serves me correctly; Pakstani's, Indians, and Iranian's are considered caucasian...their ancestory starts back from Spain/Europe. ARABS I believe come from Africa which would equivalize them to modern africans.
Peace.
- AMOS
Right on Feralee! It's never their leaders who are holding them down but the Big Bad West acting, of course, for Israel.
"Political injustices, poverty and illiteracy are fueling religious fundamentalism and terrorism, he said in a speech while on a visit to Sweden, urging rich countries to help Muslim nations with investment and socio-economic reforms."
Where did Musharraf get this? The Imam Karl Marx? Pakistan is an economic basket case because it is a socialist state and because Islam's virulent anti-capitalism surpresses any attempts at entrepreneurship.
Musharraf had to choose between Islam and prosperity. He made his choice and now wants America to subsidize it. Let Pakistan drown in its own blood. If, after a sustained period of misery, Pakistan wants prosperity then let it adopt capitalism. That will turn the country around much more effectively than billions of dollars in bribes, er...I mean foreign aid.
AMOS,
did you read Hugh's post at all? Arabs are not the problem in many parts of the world where conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims is happening. Just to name two, East Timor and Thailand Muslims are not Arab, but they kill just as easily. If you are going to complain about generalizations, don't do it yourself.
I agree. The Jidist ideology needs to be countered with the introduction of democratic ideas. Otherwise, the war on terror could never end.
Amos if you really start thinking for yourself...you're halfway to apostacy.
When Christians started thinking for themselves it ended up being called the Reformation.
I strongly recommend you read other thinking muslims:
http://www.faithfreedom.org/
BLAME IT ON THE WEST
These foul blasphemers,filthy infidels
In Iraq to steal our oil wells
Kill the Dogs, each and everyone
No shirking until the job is done
Accursed creatures of unnatural hue
Their evil eyes green,grey or blue
'But Brother, we've got them too...
You know those Berbers'
A few
Sons of slaves
Shut your face
Abdullah, Palestinian pest
Just blame it on the West
I've got cousins in New York
City of Satan, Pagans and Pork
They got inside the U.S.A
They knew the right words to say
Help us!Persecuted and poor
Threatened with death,torture and more
We're claiming refugee status:we know your law
[Man, are those Kafir stupid]
'But Brother, they were lying...'
Shut up, Abdullah
Palestinian twit
It's okay to lie to Kuffar - we can
T'is written in the holy Qur'an
Our Mullahs and Inmans know best
So blame everything on the West
Now boy, go grab your gun
We're off to kill another one
In the service of Allah we have lots of fun
Punk American soldier or a Brit
Will bite the dust in little bits
'But they can't ALL be bad Brother?'
Listen cannon fodder,Abdullah
We're gonna' make you a Martyr
72 virgins and all that
In Paradise
'But I don't want to die,Brother
I have a poor, widowed mother...'
Shut your gob
Cowardly son of a dog
Dying's Awesome
Your mother will be proud of you
[Anyway I've slipped Viagra in your pocket.This will help with the virgins.]
Ready..
Good
Explosives strapped to your chest...
That's another death, we'll blame on the West!
Musharraf must to eliminate the blasphemy law already!, and this vision of poverty create terrorism is simply a lie.
Greetings
U R right I suppose but much of the stuff happening in the other parts of the world...stem from the ARAB's. There is something called a "Tableeghi" Jamaat...which consists of travelling Mullahs. The main effort of a Jamaat is shove religious beliefs down a persons throat. They have spread far and wide.
I know enough about Christianity...since I had attended Catholic school since Kindergarten. Tho I dont think Muslims will ever "reform". The only way to some kind of reformation is to get rid of the long bearded over-zealous freaks.
I am not totally against what you all are saying...trust me...I am all for Peace!
- AMOS
More than thirty years ago, I spent five weeks in Pakistan. How much has it changed, I wonder.
Not in Indonesia, Morocco, Bosnia, Lebanon or “Palestine”, nor in Turkey, hardly in Iran (a handful), nowhere in Afghanistan, but it was in PAKISTAN that I first, suddenly, found non-marginal numbers - in fact, large numbers - of a fair cross-section of people, who had blithely swallowed the poison of Revolutionary Jihadism, seriously viewing it as a valid “life (and death) Philosophy” to pursue, reflecting this in their deranged, dangerous attitudes and behaviours.
This usually included harsh enmity towards everything Western, non-Koranic, and a heated desire to eventually - as predestined in their dogmas - destroy them and kill or convert and enslave all their bearers, thereby “restoring the superiority of Islam over the Earth”.
So when youths in Lahore, screaming “Allah Akbar!”, drew a knife on one of my companions (who luckily escaped in the nick of time, in a taxi), in our pathetic innocence of those palmy days, we sought to rationalize this proto-Jihadi, xenophobic animosity and assault as just a predictable residue of the “bad rap” which Pakistanis had got from the West, in general, during the appalling Bangladeshi War of Secession, which had finished only two or three months prior.
Objectively, it’s not even remotely possible that the shocking, horrifying fanaticism I witnessed nearly everyplace there then has DECREASED in the interim, I’m afraid.
On the contrary, the fanaticism of the majority of Pakistanis has most probably become a great deal WORSE: a lot more radicalized, adamant and ingrained than before, conditioned and propagandized to a tee by their peculiar perception of history, as a Conspiracy against them.
(To fuel the Pakistanis’ pervasive delusions, the intervening decades have encompassed the rise of the Ayatollahs in neighbouring, Shi’ite Iran, the Soviet invasion, war and defeat in adjacent Afghanistan and the rule and dispersal of the Taleban there, sporadic el-Qaeda terror-strikes, renewed “Holy War” in Kashmir, others in Chechnia and Fergana, Uzbekistan, the civil war in Lebanon, the one in Algeria, the “el-Aqsa Intefada”, the Iran-Iraq War, the Kuwait War, the fighting in Bosnia and Kosovo, the debacle in Somalia, the liberation of East Timor, India’s acquisition of a nuclear war-fighting ability, 11th September 2001, the ousting of Saddam, etc.)
Though a modern, moderate, middle-class has tentatively emerged in Pakistan over the last 15 years or so, at this juncture, it’s statistically pretty negligible in the mass of 120+ million Pakistanis. Most of the rest of the population remains steeped in squalor, illiteracy, obscurantism, reaction., superstition and violence, sunk stubbornly in the pathological atavism of the Jihad.
Mr Musharaf’s fully cognisant of Pakistan’s severe internal volatility. He ought to know further that there’s no chance whatever of it ending until militant Islamism in his country’s either been comprehensively reformed or irreversibly replaced, by something more positive and progressive. It’s the sine-qua-non: without it, no amount of money will make any difference at all.
He SAYS he’s striving to transform Pakistan into a non-terrorist, constructive state, indeed, declaring his strong admiration for Kemal Ataturk and his feats in secularizing Turkey. Let’s hope he’s not snowing Washington on this score - and that he’s well aware that he doesn’t have unlimited time to take difficult and irrevocable strides, however personally and politically perilous. Always remember, in addition, that HOPE IS NOT A PLAN.