Gilles Kepel, who has been saying that jihad violence is on its way out for years, advances his thesis by asserting that Al-Qaeda's entire 9/11 project was a failure. From Pakistan's Daily Times, with thanks to Skeetstreet:
ISLAMABAD: Al Qaeda’s plan to galvanise jihad internationally and win the sympathies of the Muslim world through 9/11 attacks went horribly wrong and instead provided Washington an opportunity to attack Iraq and redraw the Middle East peace road map.This was the crux of a lecture titled ‘War of Muslim Minds’, delivered by Dr Giles Kepel, professor and chairman of the Middle East Studies at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris.
The lecture was arranged by the Institute of Strategic Studies in collaboration with the French Embassy and the Alliance Francaise on Thursday. Kepel has specialised in Middle Eastern affairs with special focus on radical Islamic movements, which started in the 1960s and 70s and has also authored a book on the fallout of 9/11, titled ‘Jihad’.
Building his thesis on the 9/11 incident, Kepel said the attack was planned after almost a year of the revival of the Palestinian Intifada in 2000, to join the Muslim bandwagon at the world stage with a strong Arab backing and special focus on Palestine. However, he maintained that it was not clear who carried out the attack. He said radical Muslim movements had failed in Egypt, Bosnia, and Chechnya and more importantly in Algeria where they had come close to taking power. “They also failed to mobilise public support causing frustration among the ranks,” he said.
The failures perturbed ‘jihadis’ who ultimately resorted to suicide bombings like 9/11, Bali, Casablanca, Madrid and extreme actions like the Beslan School and Moscow Theatre incidents in an attempt to prove that they could strike anytime and anywhere in the world, he said.
And that is precisely why they are a focus of concern. I don't think they're going to realize their global agenda. But even small numbers of them can commit horrific acts of violence -- and many are out there still hoping to do so.
“The anytime and anywhere threat was Zarqawi’s idea and was disseminated through pamphlets ‘Knights under the prophets banner’, he said. “Zarqawi is the brain behind Al Qaeda while Osama Bin Laden is being used as a symbol in the war against the infidels,” he said.The pamphlet was a message, teaching followers that wars were not only fought in battlefields but also in people’s minds, he said. He added that the 9/11 incident backfired and instead of helping Al Qaeda, it provided an opportunity to new conservatives called neo-cons in Washington DC to further their agenda in the Middle East, which was the most complex problem Washington faced before 9/11.
“The neo-cons exploited the opportunity to make changes in the Middle East peace process in favour of Israel and also built a case to attack Iraq under the garb of finding weapons of mass destruction,” he said. He said the neo-cons had been planning to kill Yasser Arafat and replace Saddam Hussain since 1990s, once a darling of the USA, with a “friendly” administration in Iraq.
So I suppose it was Wolfowitz or Perle who administered the poison pill to Arafat? Kepel is starting to sound as paranoid as a conspiracy sheikh.
The motive behind the Iraq War was not only weapons of mass destruction but also to convince the world that the US army was capable of carrying out significant operations independently, he said, adding that that this would not last long as such actions could not be taken unilaterally without popular public support.“Americans are now trying to divide Iraqis into Shias and Sunnis. This jihad has been detrimental to the real cause in my view,” he said.
Kepel here again demonstrates the staggering ethnocentrism so common in Western Leftists: they assume that only Western powers are capable of acting, and that Third Worlders are only capable of passive reaction. The idea that Americans are trying to divide Iraqis into Shias and Sunnis, when they have done all they can to create a government that includes both, and when Shias and Sunnis themselves have been working rather energetically to divide themselves from one another, is just absurd.
Also, what is the "real cause"? According to traditional Islamic law and modern-day jihad theorists like Qutb and Maududi (and their present-day exponents like Osama and Omar Bakri), it is to impose Sharia upon Muslim states and then non-Muslim states. That cause seems to be advancing nicely in Iraq. In that sense, I must ask Dr. Kepel: has he considered the stated goals of jihadist movements inside and outside Iraq? For in light of them, it is hard to see how the post-9/11 jihad can in any sense be termed a failure at this point.
The "real cause" of violence is, of course, the mandate of the Koran. However, even if violence were on its way out, jihad can still me made through the use of other weapons: economics, demographics, politics, education and so on. Thus, violence is used to divert our attention away from the real dangers of Islam that will overtake and engulf us, and most won't have a clue how it happened.
epg-
Agreed.
The Muslim jihadis have clearly read Sun Tzu's ART OF WAR. (As well as the Koran's similar strategies.)
You distract from the slow-motion immigration and demographic and p.c. educational attack by throwing out some violent diversions (9/11) to confuse the victims and get them to focus on the wrong aspect of the invasion.
Instead of learning about Islam, we are busy fighting meaningless skirmishes that squeamishly avoid noticing any of the reasons behind the maniacal behavior of the jihadis.
Time to start placing select excerpts from the Koran (9:5, et al) and the Hadiths inside the front cover of all of those motel and hotel room Gideon Bibles, to get the clues to the root causes of the Islamic fury out in the public mind.
It's the Koran, stupid!
"Look Martha", "It's a liberal"... Kepel needs to read our liberal self help manual, "How to get over yourself". With chapters on stopping self abuse, and eliminating bed wetting forever. The chapter on breaking the hold of Michael Moore, is a must read...Kepel's idea that American neo-cons are dividing Sunni's and Shiites is wrong (they have never needed help with that), but it might be a good idea. Maybe the neo-cons could engineer some more glaring failures for Jihadi attacks, causing the Jihadi's to become depressed and Jihad themselves. In this way neo-cons save the world. For depressed muslims repeated failures in Allahs eye's does not make for a happy Allah...dont forget, Allah is most merciful, most compassionate and oft forgiving, but only for those who throw themselves on the sword, in his name, when failure overwhelms them...So to defeat Islam, all we need to do is attack ourselves, blame muslim jihadists for limited damage, and the muslims will feel so bad they will self destruct, close up shop and fade away in disgrace...sounds like a plan...
The plan backfired because it gave the Neocons a reason to change the Middle East policy? That statement is just wrong in so many aspects. For one, it was meant to destroy the US economy. Two, our new "neocon" active involvement in the Middle East policy is there to prevent any future attacks from even getting off of the drawing board.
Anyways, I found something interesting.
The Unique Ninja Book for the Vigorous Mujahid!!!
http://siteinstitute.org/bin/articles.cgi?ID=publications8104&Category=publications&Subcategory=0
Who's winning? Given the $300,000,000,000 spent - so-far - by US taxpayers to subsidize the Islamofascization of the Afghan and Iraq dog's breakfasts, in the name of snake-oil "freedom" (read: one time mullah controlled plebiscites), I would say that the enemy of Western Civilization is winning on the battlefield of "faith based" indulgence.
I would bet dollars for pennies that most Jihad Watch post-viewers are not aware of Bush-Wolfowitz' disgraceful shilling for inclusion of Muslim-savage Turkey into Euro-Civilization. If you doubt the brain-death of those oil-patch mouthpieces (read: Saudi flunkies) then read this report on the demographic threat, inherent to fatal indulgence of the mortal koranimal enemy:
http://www.freeworldacademy.com/globalleader/population.htm
THE "ISLAMIC BOMB"
April/9/2005
SUMMARY
In 1950, the world population accounted for 2.5 billion. Today, it reaches about 6.5 billion. According to the updated projections of the United Nations (Revision 2004- Medium scenario), it will grow to 9 billion in 2050. Then it should stabilize and begin to decline after 2100.
Of course, these predictions bear some uncertainties about the future trend and the consequences of the growth yet to come. However we may posit that all the expected consequences will not represent a dreadful challenge.
However, there is one absolute certainty: The Islamic population will rapidly increase its share of the world population. The world population will increase by 2.5 Billion between 2005 and 2100. On this amount, the muslim countries will bring 1.75 billion (70% of the growth of population yet to come). In 2005, Muslims represent 24% of world population ( One man out of four). This figure will attain 33% in 2050 (One man out of three). It could reach 37% in 2100 (one man out of 2.7).
Instead of the Paul Ehrlich “population bomb”, we are yet experiencing an “Islamic bomb”. This phenomenon would mean serious consequences for many countries and notably for Europe.
In an interview in July 2004, the famous Princeton Historian Bernard Lewis was asked if the European Union could serve as a global counterweight to the United States in the future. He answered “ No. It could not serve as such because it would be a part of the Arabic west by the end of this century!”. Later, an European commissioner, Frits Bolkestein mentioned Lewis's remarks and said "The USA will remain the only superpower. China is becoming an economic giant. Europe is being Islamicized..."
LOL Ramaz. Nice.
Geoff
Well, that's all just islamophobia: CAIR sez so. The cure is easy:
[FADE FROM BLACK]
[A COUPLE LYING IN BED. THE WIFE IS CLEARLY UNABLE TO SLEEP, TOSSING AND TURNING. HUSBAND TURNS TO HER.]
HUSBAND: What's wrong, honey?
WIFE: Oh, it's this darn islamophobia! It's got me up all night and I just can't sleep.
HUSBAND: [chuckles] Well, I told you not to read those jihadic verses from the Quran and all that al-Bukhari before bedtime!
WIFE: [pouting] Now I'm too nauseated and horrified at the true underlying nature of islam to get any sleep! Oh, it's no use! The things Ibraham Hooper and his gang have said in the past keep sticking in my head.
HUSBAND: [scratches chin] 'Sticking in your head', eh? Wait a minute, hon - I think I've got just the thing.
[BATHROOM, AT MIRROR SINK. WIFE IS HOLDING BOX.]
WIFE: What's this?
HUSBAND: Why, it's New 'CAIR-All', the new product from CAIR. They guarantee that it cures even the most lingering islamophobia and other stomach upset - and it's got 100% of your daily recommendation of lead!
WIFE: Wow! How do I take it? [Fills a glass and puts two tablets in her hand]
HUSBAND: [chuckles heartily] No, no, hun - it doesn't go in from THAT end. [chuckles again]
[ELAPSED CLOCK SHOWS FIVE MINUTES' PASSED TIME]
HUSBAND: How do you feel now, honey?
WIFE: [drooling slightly] No more islamophobia. Support the umma. Islam is not meant to be second to any religion in the land.
HUSBAND: And Ibrahim Hooper?
WIFE: [still drooling] Ibrahim Hooper is the kindest, warmest, bravest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my whole life.
HUSBAND: [big grin] That's right, honey - new and improved CAIR will take away all your legitimate concerns over violent islamofascist politics and put them...well...somewhere, anyway. We don't really know where! And who cares?
WIFE: [carrying on as if to self] And yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, something tells me it's not true.
HUSBAND: Ok, honey, that's great. So buy new all-improved 'CAIR-All' and let your concerns about islam wash away like the blood in an Afghani soccer stadium.
WIFE: [background] It isn't as if Hooper's hard to like. He's IMPOSSIBLE to like. In fact, he's probably one of the most repulsive human beings I've ever known in my whole life.
[HUSBAND RUSHES TO COVER WIFE'S MOUTH AS SCREEN FADES QUICKLY TO 1-800 NUMBER]
[DISEMBODIED ANNOUNCER: So buy New and improved 'CAIR-All'. Available at drugstores, local public schools, universities and everywhere else reasoned debate has been suppressed by incipient legal action. Buy before stocks run out and the government is forced to lock you up for your own benefit!]
[SECOND DISEMBODIED ANNOUNCER: Inshallah, side-effects may include misplaced anger, self-importance, antisemitism, general intolerance and nausea. Do not operate heavy machinery or explosives after taking New 'CAIR-All'. Women should wear protective cloth head-shields and have half the human value of men.]
Geoff
PS: Order now and receive a free copy of the "Manchurian Candidate" - on BETA. Say, while you're waiting, why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?
Geoff-
C.A.I.R. ful!
Humor is what got Theo Van Gogh in trouble with the joyless jihadi jellyfish. His work "Allah Knows Best" among other mocking retorts to the henna-haired pedophile prophet.
LOL at the line "...it doesn't go in from THAT end."
Is the Koran the first metaphysical suppository?
Just asking. Extrapolating on the data.
Not declaring anything, mind you.
Islam loves such theological questions.
Right?
A little exegesis is allowed by this peaceful religion.
I mean, Mohammad was always talking about mentruation and "stoned satans" and things. And no one cut his head off.
Right?
Gilles Kepel has been so completely wrong in his analyses and his prescriptions, that his record offers the example of genius in reverse. Whatever silliness is possible to say, Gilles Kepel says it. He has never understood Islam; his books are a gallimaufry of sociology (in the main, he is a sociologist of French Islam, a kind of couscous-connoisseur to simply does not allow himself to believe that many other people, millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, might actually be affected by the canonical and virtualy sole texts that occupy and preouccupy them and their societies. He knows that Islam is more than a religion, but he seems to thin that most advanced French Muslims -- the kind he associates with -- are somehow repreentative men. As well base predictions about Iraq on Kanan Makiya. Or about Saudi Arabia on attending a lecture on Islamic architecture by Sami Agarwal. It makes no sense.
Everything he says in this article shows that he cannot supply an explanatory theory for much of Muslim behavior. Note, for example, that he has nothing to say about Muslims outside the Middle East. He cannot explain why, in Pakistan itself, the Hindu population has declined from 15% to 1% of the total, nor can he explain the persecution of Christians. He has nothing to say about the behavior of the fervently Islamic razakars in the 1971 war in Bangladesh, nothing to explain the murders of Hindus and Sikhs and Christians in Bangladesh. Nothing about the Christians in the Moluccas, East Timor. Nothing about the disguised jizyah of the Bumiputra system.
That he is an apologist for Islam is clear from his attempt not even to express certainty about the 9/11 attack -- that he is not sure, at this point, who was responsible is telling, and damning. He continues to come back, despite the everests of evidence, that the little matter of "Palestine" is the source of all our woe. He cannot read Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira -- or if he does, he refuses to think that anyone takes them seriously.
Really, he ought to stop going out to lunch or on lecture tours, and lock himself in his study, and once he has read and re-read those texts, spent a few weeks at Muslim websites, just to see what Muslims make of those texts. If it were anyone but Gilles Kepel (or Olivier Roy, or John Esposito, or Karen Armstrong or....) the results might prove enlightening.
But Gilles Kepel is a True Believer -- in no one being a True Believer.
There are limits to this petit sociologue -- he isn't Claude Levi-Strauss, after all, not by a long shot, and not even if he picked up a pair of blue jeans on his last trip to San Francisco.
The old story. Everything was all right, said the Frenchman, until that moment when la betise s'est mise a penser. When Stupidity Began to Think. So Gilles Kepel thinks he can think. Thinks.
"I don't think they're going to realize their global agenda..."--but, Robert, the agenda is not to spread terror, but to spread Islam. Surely Da'wa and demographic conquest are proceeding nicely, with scant opposition, and a little help in vulnerable Western Europe from such people as Gilles Kepep, are they not?
Hi Guys/Gals,
"However, he maintained that it was not clear who carried out the attack."
Uh....excuse me? WTF?
Al-Qaeda carried out the attack. No shit."
You are mistaken
'Four to five al Qaeda groups have operated in the United States for the last several years, but investigators have not yet found any connection between them and any of the 19 hijackers responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, according to government officials'
Please read
The Washington Post Online
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10846-2001Sep22.html
"our new "neocon" active involvement in the Middle East policy is there to prevent any future attacks from even getting off of the drawing board."
The Neo-Cons are firslt concerned with the safety of Israel, for Wolfowitz and Perle, Israel comes first, then the US. This was clearly demonstrated in a Panorama special shown on the BBC a few months ago.
The answer is blowing in the wind..
Europe stood by for too long, as great attrocities prevailed. Infact, the attrocities of the Arabs were wholly fostered by Europe, via the UN, as exposed in the food-for-oil scandal. Half a million Iraqi corpses have been unearthed since the Coalition took out Sadaam, while lottery sized rewards were dished out to any terrorist who blew up a school bus in Israel: these attrocities occured under the noses of the EU, who for decades conducted business as usual with the Pharoah Regimes - instead of taking them to task for each attrocity. The reason for this is because it concerned Israel - it was ok to commit such attrocities if Israel was the target area. The EU effectively corrupted law, and contrived evil via the UN, presenting it as International Law. In effect, Europe legitimised and fostered evil, and by default, caused 9/11. Europe's cry, VE VERE NOT AWARE, was false. Europe caused both world wars and the Holocaust in the same century, and has nonetheless enjoyed immunity, by virtue she is a kin of America.
9/11 was an omen this is no kin but an evil factor in the world for too long. Americans must know they have evolved into a new species, and one removed and varied from Europe. America's prevailing depends on this truth. The core of the axis of evil is the EU - and Israel has been a light unto America to shine this truth. Stem the EU and the Arab attrocities become wholly implausable, while turning the cheek from the EU will increase the evils of our generation.
If America continues to call a deathly 3-State solution to the Jewish problem as a 2-State, as conspired by Europe - she will be counted among those who cursed Israel - falsely, unwarrantedly and with no fear of Heaven.
JORDAN IS THE 2-STATE, AND THAT DWARF MUST BE MADE TO ADHERE TO THE ONLY CONDITION OF THAT COUNTRY'S CREATION - OR BE SENT BACK TO THE SAUDI SWAMPLAND THAT FICTICIOUS FIEFDOM CAME FROM.
The above is America's appointed task today.
Let America not cry, as did Europe, VE VERE NOT AVARE. Else...
HEAVEN HAS HER VAYS TOO.
Hugh-
On the nose.
And here's how it is being done:
http://www.islamicgarden.com/page1025.html
Along with hundreds and thousands of other similar sites.
Of course, that shouldn't stop others from using the same material for quite different ends.
Like building an Islamic website which specifically quotes those Hadiths, suras, etc. that shed a 'very different' light on Mohammad and Allah and Islam than are usually dispensed via the sanitized, p.c., sugarplum fairy fluff by the "usual suspects" at pro-Muslim websites.
Just a thought... maybe done for FREE at:
http://www.jeercan.com/signup.asp?step=2&package=0&process=new&lang=e
P.S.-
The last link above seems 'flakey' for some reason, so just go through the first link- at "Jeercan.com", click on its options, and use the first freebie site offered.
(You'll need a blind email address to register, unless you want a lot of halal SPAM. And the same-old-same-old death threats, invective, proselytizing, offers of marriage, etc. -especially if they catch on to your unflatteringly selective quotation methodology.)
Bloggers of the West, unite!
Let your symbol be a buttered croissant -with bacon.
Ia,
You are mistaken. I don't think you really read the article. You don't seem to have really grasped the sense of it. It's discussing how today radical islamic terrorists are not as stupid as those in the 1990's, who used to brag about their crimes on open telephone lines, etc. The point is that the connections are harder to establish.
"The members of al Qaeda have a level of commitment and zeal that is not easily understood in the United States. While in training, they sign an agreement called a bayat. They agree to go to a country on which a jihad has been declared and wait to be called upon to undertake a task, according to testimony at the recent New York City trial of bin Laden associates who were convicted of bombing the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
"You swear to agree about the jihad, listen to the emir . . . and do whatever work they ask you in group, you have to do it," said the government's prime witness, Jamal Ahmed Mohamed al-Fadl. "If they ask me to go anywhere in the world for specific mission or target, I have to listen. . . . They say when you make bayat and you agree about the al Qaeda and about the war, anything." "
Ergo, the interviewee was in fact working for al-Qaeda, whether he was part of the organization or not. This suggests in turn the same with respect to Mohammed Atta and the other muslims that attacked the Twin Towers. But thanks for bringing this to our attention.
A last, 'minor' detail: my use of 'today' above is quite loose...did you perhaps notice the article was from September 2001? I'm not saying that your mentality is locked into 2001, or has been for 3 1/2 years now, but it's something you should consider. New facts do emerge with time.
Geoff
pwnage
ia786-
You really should stop wasting your time on international Jewish conspiracy theories. Many in the US support Israel without any influence from Perle and Wolfowitz.
Why?
Because it is a fellow democracy surrounded by a sea of hostile undemocratic countries.
Because it is a scrappy little nation which has shown a lot of courage and initiative when dealing with difficult circumstances. Americans tend to admire these qualities.
For Christians, Israel is the birthplace of our religion.
All the time and energy that is wasted on hating Israel would be much better spent on internal political reform, education, and business/investment.
Consider these words from the Talmud "Live well. It is the greatest revenge".
Treehugger
Gilles Kepel has a point from the perspective of Osama Bin Laden and the Jihadist in general. When the 9/11 attacks were carried out they had no notion of the Talaban being overthrown in Afghanistan ( remember the Afghans were not put down by the neighboring Russians, so how could the American's half a world a way do that? )
Nor could they forsee infidel troops in Iraq.
Yes the sanctions applied to Iraq in the 1990's were in fact for the exspressed purpose to force Saddam from power. This is no mystery of conspiracy theory, it is an obveious geo-political fact. The horror is that the sanctions did not succed in doing this and a lot of civilians died. Saddam was more ruthless than thought possible.
Yes the overthrow of Saddam has paved the way of Islam to be impossed in it's most brutal form in Iraq, which is why a lot of leftist OPPOSSED the invasion of Iraq to begin with. Now that we are over there why can't we bring down the Iranian agent Al Tarda Mutsadr? Well that is just another chapter in the blundering of Bush in his War On Terror.
Where the Jihad is having success is not because of the 9/11 attacks but because of the blundering of George W. Bush. Including right here in the United States where he never misses an opportunity to praise Islam as a " great religion of peace " and is diverting tax payers money to Islamic orgainsations for the promotion of Islam here in the United States under the guise of faith bases initiatives.
And look at the tax breaks he gave SUV buyers last year. That only rampted up our oil consumpion and made us MORE depended on muslim oil. That is not a conspiracy theory but a fact.
Nossy
testing
ia786
Investigators Identify 4 to 5 Groups Linked to Bin Laden Operating in U.S.
No Connection Found Between 'Cell' Members and 19 Hijackers, Officials Say
By Bob Woodward and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 23, 2001;
NOTICE THE DATE=September 23, 2001;
How about an update!!!!
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Default.htm
Islam: The Religion of Peace!!Is the connection
Dont look to the Infidel lying Washington Post Look to the truthful[according to you]koran there you will find the connection
Islam: The Religion of Peace!! Since 9/11 more than 2000 Attacks and the connection for all of them is Islam,there-fore connecting you to the
19 hi-jackers[again the magic number]
When I started commenting on this site I was very much against Guns,and I posted a lot in defence of moderate moslims,well I have changed.
The actions of your peace loving brothers/sisters speak the truth,far more so than your lying tongue
Giles Keppel is a scholar I respected before 9/11. I must now regretfully agree with Hugh that he is probably just a "couscous" connoisseur--and the proof is his conspiracy theory re the JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOZ. His analysis of failed political Islam (shades of Olivier Roy?) fails to note that almost every other kind of politics the Islamic world has tried has also been a colossal flop--perhaps one reason why everywhere between Nouokchott and Ningxia seems to be on the boil.
Wolfowitz, Perle, and others, along with Rice and numerous others (Jewish or, in Rice's case, other--hmmmm....nobody mentioned Sandy Stuffed-pants Berger while looking around for "perfijjus JOOOOOOOOOZ") is worried about US security and international peace. Hey! Since I mentioned Rice, do you suppose that because of Powell, Rice, Thomas, and Bush getting a little more African-American support in 2004 than in 2000, those brainy Yurruppeens will make anti-Black racism fashionable again?
And, IA, one of our American problems is that we don't think throwing people out the countries they live in is necessarily a solution; and if such a thing happens (and it's bound to happen, given the kind of species we are), you do what you can to resettle them so they can rebuild their lives. Resettling refugees does cost money, killing people en masse is most unpleasant amd morally repugnant, so we're stuck with trying to find a way to encourage peace between the Arabs and Israel. That's why our umpteen-times accursed Great Shaitan of Kafir country has given passport-holding, property rights, and voting rights citizenship to more 1948 Falastin refugees and their offspring than any seven Arab -majority countries (exclusive of Jordan--and, if you count Arabic-speaking Jews as "Arabs", Israel) put together. Keeping so many people as stateless "refugees" in the midst of people of similar culture, language, and religion when others make them citizens, my friend, is the true "dishonor" of the Arab world.
Not holding to a Zionist eschatology, I'm perfectly happy to say that the state of Israel was a mistake--but so were so many others whose borders are just lines drawn by diplomats in distant capitals who hadn't the foggiest notion of what the people they were drawing borders around were like). However, now that Israel's there, we have to live with it (after all, in 1812-15, we Americans learned we had to live with a goodly chunk of North America that preferred to retain its ties to the British Crown; hence, we think that other countries and people ought to learn to live with their losses, too).
On the other hand, believing in the guiding providence of God in history, I think that just maybe the Almighty made the late 19th century Europeans stupid enough to retain Jew-hatred as the one shred of a sociological so-called "Christian" identity in order to drive Teddy Herzl to found Zionism simply because He wanted to drive the Islamic world into an ultimately self-destructive frenzy; if only to convince the Christian Fundamentalists that he really meant it when he told them to leave vengeance to him (Romans 12:19).
Hugh:
You say: "'I don't think they're going to realize their global agenda...'--but, Robert, the agenda is not to spread terror, but to spread Islam. Surely Da'wa and demographic conquest are proceeding nicely, with scant opposition, and a little help in vulnerable Western Europe from such people as Gilles Kepep, are they not?"
Precisely. Of course their message is not to spread terror, but to spread Islam. So I have argued in all my books and many articles. While I don't think they will ultimately succeed in imposing Sharia upon the rest of the world, their project is indeed proceeding quite nicely in Western Europe. I alluded to this success in my last question to Kepel: "I must ask Dr. Kepel: has he considered the stated goals of jihadist movements inside and outside Iraq? For in light of them, it is hard to see how the post-9/11 jihad can in any sense be termed a failure at this point."
Cordially
Robert
Robert a broken clock is correct twice a day.
Kepel said
[i] “The neo-cons exploited the opportunity to make changes in the Middle East peace process in favour of Israel and also built a case to attack Iraq under the garb of finding weapons of mass destruction,” he said. He said the neo-cons had been planning to kill Yasser Arafat and replace Saddam Hussain since 1990s, once a darling of the USA, with a “friendly” administration in Iraq.[/i]
You said:
That statement was beneath your stature and dignity, it is the same kind of argmuent ad ridiculum I've seen from the Islamoids and their dhimmi's on other forums.
I've followed the Iraq invasion from all aspects, and the real reason for the invasion had nothing to do with WMD"s,Saddam as a threat to his neighbors, his links to al Qaeda.Those were all excuses to justify an action that was in the works before the election.
The invasion was a convergence of agenda's, including OPEC's,Irans, the Gulf States, oil interests and yes, Israels.
I would not have made such a ridiculous statement as yours of saying that Kepel is paranoid or would claim Arafat was administered a poison pill.
Actually it looks like he died of AIDS, I saw him on Arab News as he was being escorted to the helicopter, kissing his entourage, square on the lips with big slobbers, not the Arab cheek kiss, the man had lost it, and his entourage was obviously embarrassed, even gay websites speculate that he died of AIDS, probably contracted when he was romping with young male prostitutes in Romania. Google it yourself and see what I mean.
Kepel said:
You said:
Kepel here again demonstrates the staggering ethnocentrism so common in Western Leftists: they assume that only Western powers are capable of acting, and that Third Worlders are only capable of passive reaction. The idea that Americans are trying to divide Iraqis into Shias and Sunnis, when they have done all they can to create a government that includes both, and when Shias and Sunnis themselves have been working rather energetically to divide themselves from one another, is just absurd.
You are correct here, the notion that America is trying to split Shi'a and Sunni is absurd
The Shi'a are the majority and want to rule, this is the first time in the history of Iraq that they have gained power, the Sunni are rightly terrified,because it was the Sunni who were Saddam's henchmen, Mukhabarat, Republican Guard,and Army Command and it was Sunni Triggers that filled the mass graves of al HIlah and Mosul with Shi'a and Kurd bodies.
But for a Jihad watcher it is irrelevant who wins, who loses or how Iraq is finally constituted, it will at the end of the day be an Islamic Republic under Shari'a. Whether it is Sunni or Shi'a mutawain (religious police) roaming the streets is irrelevant. And regardless of how the government is constituted it will be inevitably hostile to the US.
However it is my assessment that people on both sides of this issue are grossly ignorant. Ignorant means lack of knowledge and uninformed, and this true of both left and right.
I know no one who has read anything about the region, or studied it in any detail, and what they do read is always the choir masters notes.
Kepel is, ignorant he listens only to voices that he wants to hear, just as the Islamoids and just like the right wing.
It is a human failing.
If a person has a predisposition and an identity (as left, right, Chrisitan, Jew, Muslim), they wil believe ANYTHING that emanates from their pulpit and cheering section, and reject everything that emanates from what they perceive as the opposition.
This is true of left and right, Christian, Jew and Muslim.
That is why for instance, regardless of facts and logic you can't make a dent in the Muslim consciousness, they filter everything, rationalize and justify, but it isn't just the muslims who do that..it is a human failing.
"I've followed the Iraq invasion from all aspects, and the real reason for the invasion had nothing to do with WMD"s,Saddam as a threat to his neighbors, his links to al Qaeda.Those were all excuses to justify an action that was in the works before the election.
The invasion was a convergence of agenda's, including OPEC's,Irans, the Gulf States, oil interests and yes, Israels."
Does anyone buy this commies daily irrational mental excretions. Hussein had many many opportunities to avoid an invasion and passed. He thumbed his nose at the world and told us all to go to hell. Hussein could have done what was demanded of him and there would have been no invasion. To try to mislead us by saying this invasion was planned from the beginning by the GOP is false. Yawn, the vast right wing conspiracy theory has ran it's course.