"Iranian Celebration Canceled," from the Washington Post, with thanks to EPG:
A celebration scheduled for this weekend at Montgomery County's new hotel and conference center, marking the 26th anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Iran, was canceled after the hotel's operator learned that it would violate federal law.The Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, which opened in December, was to play host to 1,000 guests at a reception thrown by Ali Jazini, director of the Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
John Wolf, a Marriott spokesman, said yesterday that the hotel canceled the event after realizing it is illegal to do business with Iran. He said Marriott officials will "be taking steps" to prevent similar bookings in the future.
Announcement of the event raised an outcry from Iranian opponents of the country's regime who live in the United States. They organized a campaign calling on Marriott to cancel.
"For them to come celebrate the anniversary of their glorious revolution in the United States is just wrong," said Iman Foroutan, director of the Iran of Tomorrow Movement, an American-based organization working to oust Iran's fundamentalist regime. "If they allowed this, I would not be surprised if al Qaeda celebrated their next anniversary in the heart of New York."
Let them have the even, just heat the place with kerosene heaters.
Corrected: Let them have the event, just heat the place with kerosene heaters.
The Marriott is now presumably in possession of the names of many of those who would be staying there, or who were involved in making arrangements for the macabre witches' sabbath. Those names and whatever other information is availabe should be turned over to the FBI, so that a list can be compiled of those who think that the Ayatollah Khomeini's regime and ideas are worth celebrating.
If you have forgotten what the Ayatollah Khomeini was all about, or his hanging judge Khalkhali, consider that virtually his first act was to reduce the marriageable age of girls to nine (and by now you know why), and to start executing the leaders of the Bahai and Jewish communities. Later on his followers would polish off the naive leftists who had initially thought they could use him, though it turned out to be the other way round: Shahpour Bakhtiar being the most deplorable example. Twenty-five years of terror, idiocy, and boredom have had one unintended benefit: Islam, at least for those Iranians who think and feel, is beginning to be understood as the problem. There are still those "reformers" who pretend it is not Islam (i.e., Shirin Ebadi), and those who allow themselves to believe, never having studied what actually has been the treatment of Armenians, Jews, and Zoroastrians ever since the Arabs came to town, bearing as their little gift (in the shape of a Trojan Horse) the mental strait-jacket of Islam.
And lest anyone forget the quality of Khomeini's Muslim-drenched thought, the fons et origo of the Islamic Republic of Iran, reread just the words (indeed, print them out, put them under a magnet on your refrigerator, every time you feel your resolve beginning to weaken) quoted in Ibn Warraq's "Why I Am Not a Muslim" (p. 11-12) and Robert Spencer's "Islam Unveiled" (p. 35).
Here it is:
"Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled or incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world. . . . But those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. . . . Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender [to the enemy]? Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Qur’anic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim."
These are not the words of a "Wahhabi" extremist, but of a learned Shi'a theologian. He says nothing that does not have complete support in Islamic theology and ideology. No one has been able to show that Khomeini misuses the Qur'an, Hadith, or Sira -- for he does not.
It is the "reformers" who will have to jettison the texts, or play fast and loose with them, or pretend they can do things with them that almost no one will accept -- and that, in any case, Infidels cannot assume that enough Muslims will have really accepted. One does not bet one's civilization, or one's immigration or military policy, on the possiblity of something for which there is no evidence that it coudl ever happen, that it has ever happened in 1350 years, or that somehow, all of a sudden, Muslims around the world will now start to learn an entirely new Islam. If Jihad is remmoved from Islam, if the relentless and aggressive desire to spread Islam, and to create the conditions in all the lands of the Infidels so that Islam may rule, and Muslims may dominate (whether or not they have become a majority is irrelevant -- they need only be a powerful and focussed minority, determined to threaten or remove all "obstacles" to the spread of Islam that non-Muslims may fail to remove voluntarily). If Islam were to be "reofrmed" so as to dissolve the strict boundary, which Muslims are urged to maintain in every way (or to offer feigned friendship to non-Muslims if it helps Islam, for example by keeping Muslims from being examined too closely, or if it promotes Da'wa by softening up the non-Muslims) and distinction between Believer and Infidel, it would no longer be Islam. If Islam were to be "reformed" so that its Total Explanation of the Universe became subject to modern science, it it became "reformed" so that its similar Total Regulation of Life were no longer merely ignored by many, but actually tossed out, it would no longer be Islam.
It was the real Islam, the Islam of Khomeini, the Islam of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which those merrymakers were intending to celebrate at the Marriott. Is it the position of the American government that such people, who are here to celebrate Khomeini (again, read that speech), can conceivably NOT be a threat to the United States, to its citizens, to its political, economic, and social understandings? Is it the position of the American government that those who become naturalized citizens merely reciting an oath of allegiance have done enough, even if it is undeniable that such an oath is belied completely by their adherence to Islam and loyalty to the Islamic Republic of Iran?
Why?
Hugh, I agree. If jihad ideology were excised from Islam, what's left? In Islam, what's good is not original, and what's original isn't good.
Instead of "creeping Islamization" coming this way, we need to get "creeping Christianization" going the other way. Democracy won't likely stand without religious pluralism and the protection of freedom of religion, starting in Iraq (which isn't likely).
Keep shining the light on Islamic oppression and injustice! The major media won't do it.
Thank God for Jihadwatch!
best, Rebecca
Prickzilla:
Do you suppose any mullahs are going to say the Iranian mosque fire that killed 60 people occurred because it was infiltrated by infidels and used for unIslamic purposes?
Questian:- If jihad ideology were excised from Islam, what's left?
Answer:- ?
Do you suppose any mullahs are going to say the Iranian mosque fire that killed 60 people occurred because it was infiltrated by infidels and used for unIslamic purposes?
Posted by: waterdragon52
I would imagine that the mullahs will blame the woman in the veil for starting the fire, and will sentence her to be buried up to her neck in the sand, and stoned to death in front of her husband and her children. islamic justice, ya know.