While Iraqi pols debate the role of Islam in the new government, Al-Qaeda adds is own unique contribution to the debate. "New Purported Video From Al Qaeda in Iraq," from AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Al Qaeda in Iraq released a video Sunday claiming to show the murder of an Interior Ministry official, and the debate raged about religion's place in Iraq's much-anticipated new government as lawmakers were summoned to their second-ever session.Supporters of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi criticized the involvement of the religious authority in politics, while Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, defended the role of the clergy.
"As long as we're alive and as long as Iraq and the believers are there, we will continue to work according to the directions and the advice of the religious authority," al-Hakim told the U.S.-funded Al-Hurra TV station, according to a transcript provided by his office. "The religious authority does not want to intervene in the details. It just gives direction when it thinks it will be beneficial."
Secular-minded politicians have expressed concern about the influence of religion in the National Assembly. In a letter to the United Iraqi Alliance, politicians who ran under an Allawi coalition warned against allowing religion to play a greater role in Iraq's government, saying it could "lead to instability in the relations between political forces in the Iraqi arena."
That could be the understatement of the decade.
Shiite leaders have repeatedly denied they are seeking an Islamic state, saying they plan to include Kurdish and Sunni Arabs in the government.After meeting Sunday with Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, the top U.N. envoy in Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, said al-Sistani told him he did not intend to involve himself in any political process, except for expressing his opinion in times of crises. The alliance, which won 140 of the 275 seats in the assembly, came together under al-Sistani's guidance.
Yes, al-Sistani actually brought himself to meet with a UN envoy. Of course, it helped that that envoy was a male Muslim.
Today’s Extras:
Leftist Academia loves Jihad:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/mc20050325.shtml
Juan of a Kind (Leftist Academia and Terrorism)
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17520
Democratic elections are not the same as democratic law making. Muslims can find canonical justification for embracing the democratic electoral process to raise their leaders, but the use of democracy to legislate is fundamentally incompatible with shari'a. That is why the West is so tolerant of despotic rulers in the Middle East. As long as they don't promulgate the shari'a, Western governments really don't care how the leadership comes to power and stays there. Democratic elections are a good start and it is good practice for the process of democratic law making, so it is promoted vigourously by the West, but unless the democratic process is used to legislate, the nature of the electoral process is of no consequence.
So now we come to the real issue. The democratic principle springs from the philosophy that sovereignty is vested in the people. In the United States, "We the People" make the laws, not some bevy of shamans cloaked in medieval cloaks arguing over whether dots on consonants belong there. The notion of vesting sovereignty in the people is anathema to Islam and is considered blasphemy of the highest degree. It represents perhaps the most profound and widest ideological chasm between the West and Islam. It is a chasm that cannot be bridged unless the vast majority of the world's Muslims eschew shari'a and thus become apostates, condemning themselves to the penalty of death prescribed by shari'a, or the West capitulates to the rule of shari'a.
Dr. Mack has beautifully put the matter: democracy is more than a matter of mere head-counting. Islam and democracy -- democracy as more than that mere head-counting -- are incompatible because it is Allah, and the Word of Allah, and the shari'a that embodies in Holy Law what Allah and his Prophet meant to be followed, whatever the silly wishes of men (who are so weak, and can be so misled by their own foolish desires).
Among the faults of those crowing about "democracy" in the Muslim world is their failure to explain what democracy means, and how it is connected, in the modern world, to the idea of human rights, including above all the rights of minorities, and the rights of the individual. A rereading of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and of the Bill of Rights, and then consideration of the basic principles of Islam -- beginning with the inadmissibilty of freedom of conscience (i.e., the right of apostasy) -- would show how premature and hollow is all this talk aobut "democracy" being the solution to what ails the Muslim world.
What ails the Muslim world, and what ails, through the presence of large numbers of Muslims, much of the Infidel world, is Islam itself. Let it be studied, understood, and its principles and immutable texts (Qur'an, Hadith, Sira) and Total Explanation of the Universe be thoroughly assimilated, so that Infidels will no longer be taken in by the vast army of apologists for Islam, both Muslim and non-Muslim, who have deployed their forces throughout the Western world.
I fear that it is indeed wishful thinking to hope that "real democracy" takes hold in Islam just because people cast some ballots.
But spreading human rights has been a failure too. It is too idealistic for been easily and quickly imposed.
I think that direct democracy might do the trick.
Because people love human rights, it is in their blood, in their bones. Just impose direct democracy and let them get to it.
Just let people talk, let them get to power through that simple, easily understood mean, and they will take their rights on their own.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy
http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226510816/qid%3D1111393506/sr%3D8-2/ref%3Dsr%5F8%5Fxs%5Fap%5Fi2%5Fxgl14/402-5851383-7722549