I told you so update: in Iraq, as all over the Islamic world, there will always be a contingent of people who believe that Sharia is the law of Allah, and that it is therefore much preferable to democracy, which is human-devised law. And they will resist democracy, and fight for Sharia.
I am told by two eyewitnesses that National Review's Rich Lowry, at NR's recent party for William F. Buckley, stated that because of President Bush's bold and decisive foreign policy of spreading democracy in the Middle East, "the radicals' whole house of cards could collapse within the next four years." This puerile prediction betrays a remarkable and hardly excusable lack of knowledge of the history and teachings of the Qur'an and Islam, and of the modern jihadist imperative as enunciated by people like Maududi and Qutb. What he doesn't understand (among other things) is that if this sort of demonstration really isn't happening in four years, which I think is doubtful, it will simply be biding its time until conditions are right for it again. Throughout Islamic history there are periods of quiescence and periods of jihadist fervor. We are in the latter after a long period of the former. The error that most modern analysts make is to mistake the proximate causes of the jihadist resurgence for its root causes, and to think that if those matters they have wrongly identified as root causes are addressed, the jihad will disappear. It will not disappear: it will only go underground, and that only temporarily. Rich: call me in 2009.
"Protesters Call for U.S. Pullout in Iraq," from AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Tens of thousands of supporters of a militant Shiite cleric filled central Baghdad's streets Saturday and demanded that American soldiers go home, marking the second anniversary of Baghdad's fall with shouts of "No, no to Satan!"To the west of the capital, 5,000 protesters issue similar demands in the Sunni Triangle city of Ramadi, reflecting a growing impatience with the U.S.-led occupation and the slow pace of returning control to an infant Iraqi government.
The protest in Baghdad's famous Firdos Square was the largest anti-American demonstration since the U.S.-led invasion, but the turnout was far less than the 1 million called for by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr....
Sunni Muslim clerics also called on their followers to protest Saturday, and a large crowd gathered in the central city of Ramadi, a Sunni stronghold. Iraq's Sunni minority was dominant under Saddam and is believed to make up the backbone of the country's insurgency.
Sheikh Harth Al-Dhari, the secretary general of the influential Association of Muslim Scholars, praised both the al-Sadr protest, as well as the Sunni demonstration, telling Al-Jazeera satellite television: "We hail the demonstrations organized by the Iraqi people on the second black anniversary of their country's occupation."
If we had dealt with the Saudi terrorist entity the second that we learned that it was their citizens, instigated by their clerics, and paid for by their royal family, that was responsible for the 9-11 massacre, then Islamofascist Saudis wouldn't have a bullet to bite on, because the kingdom would not exist.
Here is some more crap that we have to deal with because Bush-Wolfowitz - ever the Abrahamist inclusivists - have deluded themselves into denying the Muslim demonization of Judaeo-Christian sacrad texts, as Satanic distortions:
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.aspxfile=data/theuae/2005/April/theuae_April349.xml§ion=theuae
Islamic scholars present papers on Zakat ruling
By Afkar Abdullah and Karim Raef
10 April 2005
DUBAI — Muslims should pay Zakat on money maintained in bank accounts since it is deposited with the purpose of earning returns through interest. This was the general opinion expressed by Muslim scholars participating in the 16th Islamic Fiqh Academy (IFA) Conference, which began here yesterday.
The conference, which will conclude on April 14, has been organised by Dubai Auqaf and Islamic Affairs Department under the patronage of Shaikh Hamdan bin Rahshid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and UAE Minister of Finance and Industry.
The event, attended by over 150 scholars from all over the world, was inaugurated by Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai Department of Lands and Property, on behalf of Shaikh Hamdan.
The opening ceremony featured speeches by Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa on behalf of Shaikh Hamdan, Hamad Al Shaibani, Chairman of the Supreme Committee of the Conference, Ahmed Al Ghazali on behalf of Akmal Al Deen Ihsan, Assistant Secretary-General of Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC)...
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An OIC backed ulama conference on Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) that legalizes interest - notwithstanding Koranic prohibitions - as long as zakat (charity and jihad financing) is paid, is highly significant. However, if the story is covered at all, it will be tossed in the Muslim modernization spin. CAIR-ISNA-AMC will be licking their filthy chops over this one.
If we had dealt with the Saudi terrorist entity the second that we learned that it was their citizens, (instigated by their clerics, and paid for by their royal family) that was responsible for the 9-11 massacre, then Islamofascist Saudis wouldn't have a bullet to bite on, because the kingdom would not exist.
Here is some more crap that we have to deal with because Bush-Wolfowitz - ever the Abrahamist inclusivists - have deluded themselves into denying the Muslim demonization of Judaeo-Christian sacrad texts, as Satanic distortions:
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.aspxfile=data/theuae/2005/April/theuae_April349.xml§ion=theuae
Islamic scholars present papers on Zakat ruling
By Afkar Abdullah and Karim Raef
10 April 2005
DUBAI — Muslims should pay Zakat on money maintained in bank accounts since it is deposited with the purpose of earning returns through interest. This was the general opinion expressed by Muslim scholars participating in the 16th Islamic Fiqh Academy (IFA) Conference, which began here yesterday.
The conference, which will conclude on April 14, has been organised by Dubai Auqaf and Islamic Affairs Department under the patronage of Shaikh Hamdan bin Rahshid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and UAE Minister of Finance and Industry.
The event, attended by over 150 scholars from all over the world, was inaugurated by Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai Department of Lands and Property, on behalf of Shaikh Hamdan.
The opening ceremony featured speeches by Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa on behalf of Shaikh Hamdan, Hamad Al Shaibani, Chairman of the Supreme Committee of the Conference, Ahmed Al Ghazali on behalf of Akmal Al Deen Ihsan, Assistant Secretary-General of Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC)...
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An OIC backed ulama conference on Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) that legalizes interest - notwithstanding Koranic prohibitions - as long as zakat (charity and jihad financing) is paid, is highly significant. However, if the story is covered at all, it will be tossed in the Muslim modernization spin. CAIR-ISNA-AMC will be licking their filthy chops over this one.
If we had dealt with the Saudi terrorist entity the second that we learned that it was their citizens, instigated by their clerics, and paid for by their royal family, that was responsible for the 9-11 massacre, then Islamofascist Saudis wouldn't have a bullet to bite on, because the kingdom would not exist.
Here is some more crap that we have to deal with because Bush-Wolfowitz - ever the Abrahamist inclusivists - have deluded themselves into denying the Muslim demonization of Judaeo-Christian sacrad texts, as Satanic distortions:
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.aspxfile=data/theuae/2005/April/theuae_April349.xml§ion=theuae
Islamic scholars present papers on Zakat ruling
By Afkar Abdullah and Karim Raef
10 April 2005
DUBAI — Muslims should pay Zakat on money maintained in bank accounts since it is deposited with the purpose of earning returns through interest. This was the general opinion expressed by Muslim scholars participating in the 16th Islamic Fiqh Academy (IFA) Conference, which began here yesterday.
The conference, which will conclude on April 14, has been organised by Dubai Auqaf and Islamic Affairs Department under the patronage of Shaikh Hamdan bin Rahshid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and UAE Minister of Finance and Industry.
The event, attended by over 150 scholars from all over the world, was inaugurated by Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai Department of Lands and Property, on behalf of Shaikh Hamdan.
The opening ceremony featured speeches by Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa on behalf of Shaikh Hamdan, Hamad Al Shaibani, Chairman of the Supreme Committee of the Conference, Ahmed Al Ghazali on behalf of Akmal Al Deen Ihsan, Assistant Secretary-General of Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC)...
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An OIC backed ulama conference on Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) that legalizes interest - notwithstanding Koranic prohibitions - as long as zakat (charity and jihad financing) is paid, is highly significant. However, if the story is covered at all, it will be tossed in the Muslim modernization spin. CAIR-ISNA-AMC will be licking their filthy chops over this one.
Re the demonstration in "Firdos Square": the square is named after the closest section of Muslim Heaven to their god-concoction ("Allah"). Authoritative Muslim centers - as al-Azhar and Islamic University (Medina) - usually translate that term as: "firdaus."
And check out this deadly accurate concept of perverted Muslim "heaven":
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/heaven.html
Al-Qaeda sold hundreds of thousands of copies of a jihad-incitement tape, "In the Heart of the Green Birds," through Muslim Students Association and other jihad resources. Muslims believe that jihadis who commit supreme sacrifices, will pass eternity flying through all parts of the Muslim-heaven in green parrots (I don't see how the houris could fit in a parrot's breast). It would be hard to concoct fictions, as vivid as those that the mortal Muslim enemy believes.
Also, the Muslims first meal in heaven: the liver of a Red Sea fish. Hmmm...Muslim-heaven doesn't appear to exist beyond the self-appointed, pedophile "prophet's" personal imagination. That should speak volumes to sensible people.
This and the previous two threads have an interesting "thread" in common: George Bush, the Saudis, and the question of priorities. Smokem offers up the tautology that if we had attacked Saudi Arabia immediately after 9/11, the Kingdom would no longer exist.
But of course, there would still be 1.3 billion surviving members of the RoP and -- by extremely conservative estimates -- 1% or 13 million Sunni or Shia able-bodied and very motivated Jihadists across Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Pakistan, Algeria, and Morocco. Not to mention the thousands already stationed across Europe and South America.
Wahabbi-funded terrorism and subversion may have ended but lots of petrodollars would still be flowing to the Mullahs and their proxies like Hezbollah. Bin Laden alone, is estimated to be worth $400 million and it only took $400,000 to kill 3,000 New Yorkers on 9/11. At that rate -- with careful planning and the right shopping list -- he could murder 3 million Americans before calling in the Administrators.
I agree that an exercise in connecting the dots from 9/11 leads much closer to the Saudi Spoiled Family than to Saddam Hussein but as Wolfowitz was alleged to have suggested, Iraq was "do-able". There had already been dozens of UN resolutions against Iraq -- many of which Saddam was in material breach of -- paving the way for a war which has resulted in the embryonic stirrings of the first Arab democracy in the ME and a caveat for the other dictators and theocracies in the region.
It's still early days and as Robert points out, there will always be a contingent of Sharia hold-outs but Rome wasn't built in a day and even America had to fight a civil war nearly 100 years after its founding in order to dispel an institution and its adherents at cross-purposes with democracy.
Some background on the history of U.S., Saudi relations
...in 1943 the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that the defense of Saudi Arabia was a vital interest to the United States and dispatched the first United States military mission to the kingdom. In addition to providing training for the Saudi army, the United States Army Corps of Engineers constructed the airfield at Dhahran and other facilities. In early 1945, Abd al Aziz and Roosevelt cemented the nascent alliance in a meeting aboard a United States warship in the Suez Canal. Subsequently, Saud, Faisal, Khalid, and Fahd continued their father's precedent of meeting with United States presidents.
As early as 1947, the administration of Harry S. Truman formally assured Abd al Aziz that support for Saudi Arabia's territorial integrity and political independence was a primary objective of the United States. This commitment became the basis for the 1951 mutual defense assistance agreement. Under this agreement, the United States provided military equipment and training for the Saudi armed forces. An important provision of the bilateral pact authorized the United States to establish a permanent United States Military Training Mission in the kingdom. This mission still operated in Saudi Arabia in 1992.
The huge Dhahran Air Base had been used by the United States Air Force from 1946 to 1962. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy had ordered a squadron of fighters to Saudi Arabia to protect the kingdom from Egyptian air assaults. In 1980 President Jimmy Carter loaned four sophisticated airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft and their crews to Saudi Arabia to monitor developments in the Iran-Iraq War.
http://countrystudies.us/saudi-arabia/59.htm
From Anthony Shadid's story in the Washington Post about the demonstration:
"The cheers yesterday were for Sadr, interspersed with denunciations of the United States, Isarel and Hussein.
"No, no to the Americans," the crowd shouted. "Yes yes to Islam."
"We're defending our country, our people, our sacred places and our beliefs," said Ali Abboud, 21, standing atop a fence and waving an Iraqi flag. "We have one set of beliefs and the Americans have another. We won't let them stay."
The Administration, and some (but not all) of the enthusiasts about the current policy in Iraq (which now include those who were critical of the firststage of the Iraq war -- the sensible part) apparently cannot bring themselves to distinguish between disarming Iraq ( legitimate and necessary) and the subsequent, "Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations Project that some in the Administration have convinced themselves, without much discussion or analysis of what Islam teaches, of what Iraq is like (what studies convinced them that Iraq was just the place to build a nation-state?), will work. But this reveals the refusal, or perhaps inability, to take an ideology seriously (unless it is called "Communism" or "Nazism"), as if invocation of the magic word "religion" was a kind of apotropaic talisman, used to ward off the "evil" of critical scrutinty by Infidels.
Or what is worse, there is occasional reliance on learning just a bit about Islam from those who are apologists for Islam. A taxonomy of the four main groups of apologists is useful.
The first group consists of those born into Islam, but unstated dissidents who continue, out of filial piety, or embarrassment, to recognize what it is about Islam that causes Muslims to behave as they do, to perceive the world as they do, to conceive of non-Muslims as they do.
The second group, the smallest, consists of Muslim "converts" who, in the main, are bizarre specimens, whose own knowledge of Islam is imperfect, and who, if they came to Islam as the Last Stop on their Spiritual Search, are ill-inclined to get back on the bus but will remain, from here on out, with Islam -- even if it is not the real Islam, not mainstream Islam, but an imaginary, willed construct, possibly what they encountered at a particular moment, in a particular place, where all the stars were in propitious alignment (say, in Bosnia in 1990, with local Muslims, already modified in outlook by decades of living in and around powerful non-Muslims, favorably inclined toward their recetn Amercian saviors). These carrriers of My Own Private Islam, while comical, if they are able to persuade others that they (new to it, but sudden experts) "know all about Islam," can be a menace. And of course if the convert in question is given to portentousness, being a "Muslim convert" at this point may make one somehow more interesting, to oneself and to others. Or at least that is the expectancy and hope. Sometimes it works.
A third group consists of non-Muslim students of the MIddle East who, either through financial dependence (and hope of future gain) have been bought, directly or indirectly, by Arab and therefore Muslim interests. If someone is paying for your well-endowed bottom to sit on a well-endowed chair, or has supplied the wherewithal for your Center for Muslim-Christian thisandthat, how likely is it that you will produce books that do not pooh-pooh the Jihad, but instead provide a coffee-table guide to Islam, heavy on the illustrations of ravishing mosques, tulip tiles, and turbaned Turks or gurgling fountains of Guadalquivir water in Cordoba?
A fourth group consists of those who know better, but have decided that they cannnot tell the full truth about Islam because it "just won't work" so we have to pretend that it is otherwise, shun Ibn Warraq and Ali Sina, and plump up those whom, we allow ourselves to believe, at least are "moderates" who can be enrolled in the fight against the worst -- i.e., Wahhabi -- Muslims. But of course this does nothing to prevent the kind of folly we now see in Iraq, which is based entirley on the premise that it is not Islam, but only "Wahhabi" Islam, and that "democracy" is the cure for what ails Islam, and, and...."
A fifth group consists of those who (the very nice James Woolsey, for example) who have learned all about Islam from one man -- Bernard Lewis, who is Never Wrong (except on the Oslo Accords, except on his proposal for his friend Prince Hassan to become the new king of Iraq, except for his belief in the entire Iraq Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations venture which J. B. Kelly tried to explain would not and could not work). They ought to be aware that Lewis has never made dhimmitude the object of study; his analysis of anti-Jewish activity in the Muslim world treats it almost exclusively as an import from the West, as if without European antisemitism the 1350-year treatment of Jews, as of other non-Muslims, as dhimmis was not to be studied too closely. He has not helped Bat Ye'or, and finds her too "polemical" -- whatever that means. He is internally self-contradictory, and constantly. How can one who claims that there is really nothing wrong with Islam then worry aloud about the "islamization of Europe" which will be "inevitable" well "before the end of the century"? If Islam does not imply all sorts of grim things, then what's the worry?
But Lewis is, compared to those who have attacked him, Said, Esposito, half of MESA Nostra, so comparatively impressive, that many tend ot overlook those personal and professional ties -- being lionized in Istanbul can go to anyone's head -- that have caused him to mischaracterize Turksih treatment of non-Muslims, not least the Armenians, but also, for example, Jews in the Ottoman Empire (see, e.g., Joseph Hacker). In his mass-market survey "The Middle East" exactly 3 small paragaphs out of 400 pages are devoted to the treatment of non-Muslims under Islam. Two of the paragraphs are exculpatory.
Those are the main groups of apologists, or semidemihemi-apologists, or apologists who do not even know they are part-apologits, but refuse to see or delineate the full truth, or to put proper emphasis on certain aspects of Islam.
So here is what we now have:
Under Saddam the demonstrations organized by the government were called to denounce the demonized "United States, Israel, and Iran." The United States and Israel then represented the Infidel enemy -- that is, the most powerful or immediate parts of that world). Iran represented Shi'a Islam, enemy not only to Ba'athist Arabs but underneath the Ba'athist veil, to the Sunni Arabs who used Ba'athism as the ideology to protect their continued position of dominance in Iraq (as the semi-syncretistic, and islamically suspect minority of Alawites in Syria have used Ba'athism to maintain their control).
And the word "Iran" stood not just for the external enemy, but for the Shi'a who opposed Saddam Hussein within Iraq, and who were crushed in the 1991 uprising -- that is to say, almost all the Shi'a of Iraq.
After more than two years of warfare, with 1600 dead and more than 10,000 seriously wonded, with great damage to American weaponry from desert wear and tear, or in some cases to supplies that seem to suffer a good deal of tare and tret, with other damage done to the citizen-army of Reserves and National Guard (my, silly of those Reservists to think that they were just that -- "Reserves" to be used in case of absolute National Emergency; how ridiculous of those National Guardmen to think they were to be on call to defend the home front, or to help out in times of disasters at home -- hurricanes, fires, terrorist attacks, civil unrest. Neither Reservists nor National Guardsmen realized that we were, apparently, in a World-War-like situation, and there was no way to "win the war on terror" (which has no end, and can't be "won" and is not on "terror" in any case) except through the prodigal use of the most expensive military operations.
And the $300 billion that is now being spent is being done so without many, or possibly any, at the top even trying to understanding, even thinking it might be worthwhile to understand or to create a cadre of aides able to understand, Islam. And the only voices are those coming from those who are so silly and shrill, against the entire war, against the very idea that there is any problem with the Muslim world or nice Muslims all over the world -- so that the opposition to the current campaign is led by those whom one finds even less informed than those who seem to think that a New Day is Dawning in the Middle East (it isn't and it won't) and that the Vast Majority of Peaceful Muslims will Win the Day (they aren't, they won't, not as long as the Infidel world does not embarrass them into doing somethin.
And that will happen only when a sufficient number of Infidels show that they have studied the theory and practice of Islam. That means, in turn, that those Muslim "moderates" who, objectively, further the jihad at present by continuing to mislead --- perhaps out of embarrassment or filial piety -- about Islam, will and should be treated as part of the problem, and not the solution.
More people in the government need to be less prodigal in attempting to bribe Muslims into what can only be very temporary good behavior, for the Jihadist impulse, and the hostlity inculcated against Infidels, does not go away, and does not depend on the wealth or poverty of the Believers. It depends only on the strength and power with which the texts of Islam are received, distributed, believed. That's it.
If the hundreds of billions now being spent on foreign aid, direct or indirect, to Muslim countries, was instead spent on nuclear and solar and wind energy, on conservation measures, on figuring out how to appeal to and enlarge the fissures and resentments within Islam -- of non-Arab Muslims for Arab suporemacist ideology within Islam, of Shi'a for Sunni oppressors in Pakistan and Iraq and Bahrain and Kuwait -- it would save -- oh, save enough to save Social Security, and give everyone in the United States a full scholarship to college, and a few other things like that.
Again one keeps coming back to what should be obvious: the ideology of Islam, not poverty or wealth, not democracy or despotism or variants on either, is for Infidels and Believers alike --the source of the Great, if sometimes seemingly intermittent (in those periods of quiescence when Muslims lack the wherewithal to act on their beliefs) and Permanent Divide. That Divide comes from immutable, canonical texts.
Those texts -- Qu'ran, Hadith, and Sira -- are now spread far more efficiently, in capillary fashion, even unto the farthest village, through the technology available for the Western world through a system of distribtution -- audiocassettes, videocassettes, satellite televsion -- far more potent and therefore far more dangerous, than what has ever existed before. And out of ignorance and criminal negligence, Western governments allowed large numbers of Muslims into their own countries, to the now-obvious great distress of the indigenous Infidels, and damage to the civil institutions, and to the way of life, of those Infidel lands. Among some Infidel populations, the dawning of comprehension, still imperfedt, has come with some spectacular event (the killing of Theo van Gogh and attitudes revealed after it). In many countries, governments are working furiously to shield their Infidel populations from learning about, or discussing openly, the problems that need to be discussed. Self-censorship, so as not to offend the supposedly delicate sensibilities of Muslims, who play constantly upon this, with a blend of smiling Muslim discussion of "peace," "tolerance," the "example of Andalucia," and "Dialogue" with, at other times, threats that range from litigation to physical harassment to violent demonstrations in the heart of cities ("Death to France" Muslim rioters changed in the middle of Paris last year), to threats of murder, to murder.
It appears to be difficult, or even impossible, for Western leaders, Western chanceries, and even those who for some reason present themselves as stout defenders of the West but too often are simply young and not-so-young men on the make in so-called "conservative" magazines and newspapers, to begin to comprehend the simplesst matter: what people are taught to believe matters. And the more complete that system of belief, the more it attains to the condition of a Total Explanation of the Universe, with a division of that universe between Believer and Infidel, the more dangerous to the outsider, the enemy, the Infidel, that belief-system is, and always will be, whatever the nice visiting Americans do to improve the schools, the hospitals, the power grids, the bridges, the roads, the oilfields, and no matter how many toys, how many soccer balls, how much candy they give away to the children, or how many contracts to clamoring locals. Gratitude, even if occasionally unfeigned (those children, still too young to have been completely brainwashed to hate the Infidels, probably are grateful for that candy, those soccer balls), is transient; Islam is, for these people who have little or nothing else in what thin spiritual or intellectual life they may be said to possess, the only thing going -- and it is permanent.
It is now mid-April 2005. About $10 billion a month is being spent on the military campaign of this "war on terror." Many other billions are being spent on security within the United States. Hundreds of billions more have been spent all over Europe on similiar security.
Whatever it cost to destroy Saddam's weaopnry was well worth it. But now? Why, especially when the price of oil has doubled, should American soldiers be risking their lives, either to keep the Iraqis from being at each others' throats (for when the Americans leave, at each others' throats they will be, sooner or later) when having them at each others' throats is not only to be expected in a country which was originally composed of three distinct Ottoman vilayets (Mosul, Baghdad, Basra), but in which, during more than half of its brief history (modern independent Iraq may be said to have existed from 1932 on, when the British left), the regime has engaged in the persecution or even mass-murder, of Kureds by Arabs, of Shi'a by Sunni. The 10-year regency (with the British as the Regents) ended in 1932. The Hashemite monarchy lasted for 26 years, during which non-Muslims (the Christian Assyrians in 1933, the Jews in 1941 and again in 1948, with continued persecution and murder of the Jews who remained from 1948 on) were murdered. The country exhibits not one but both kinds of fissures within Islam that it is very much in the interests of the Western, Infidel world to do nothing to discourage, and certainly nothing to attempt to lessen: the clash of Arab and non-Arab (Kurdish) Muslims; the clash of Sunni and Shi'a. And for the Americans to damage their citizen-army, to use up weapons, to show continued inability within the army to tell the truth about Islam. What does it mean when one colonel has to take aside a few officers and discuss with them "privately" the nature of Islam -- and even to worry about news of this conversation getting out, when the nature of Islam, and the history of Jihad-conquest and dhimmitude, ought to be the subject of courses at West Point and what the Army War College?
What were those January elections? Did Iraqis march off, to cast their ballots not as "Kurds" or "Arabs," nor as "Shi'a" or "Sunni," -- but as "Iraqis," the free proud yeoman who had thoroughly internalized an understanding of democracy, and guarantees for the rights of minorities, and limits on power, and the centrality of the rights of the individual -- all those things that make Western (i.e., "real") democracy more than a matter of mere head-counting? Or did they go off to see justice done, to get as much power for the "Kurds" or the "Shi'a" as they could, doing the bidding of some leader, voting as told, and of course proud to think that they had done something that was "just like" the democracy they have in the outside world. But it wasn't; it isn't. It won't be.
In the old days, they would denounce "America, Israel, and the Shi'a." And now? Now they denounce "America, Israel, and Saddam."
What a difference two years makes. Shall we keep it up? Shall we stay, because the forces of Moqtada al-Sadr tell us to leave and we never ever want to do what one of our enemies tells us to do? Or shall we stay, until the Iraqi government is "good and ready" for us to leave -- putting our own soldiers' lives, our own limited wealth, our own attention, our own policies -- in thrall to what Iraqis, for god's sake, want or think they want? If they want us around as their police force, while their soldiers remain with their training-wheels, to come in and rescue them in any and every operation, and if they want us around to leave even more American money on the table, on the ground, stuck to the walls -- and how they do -- well, it's understandable. In our refusal to cut aid to malevolent Egypt, in our continuied bribing of Pakistan, in our belief that we should "economically develop" the unviable "state" of "Palestine" (there is no two-state "solution"; if one builds up "Palestine" one threatens Israel -- it is a zero-sum outcome, despite all the insistence that "both parties cna live in peace and prospoerity").
The international jizyah -- disguised even from those paying it -- has got to end. And the demonstration yesterday was one more bit of evidence: "No, no to Americans. Yes, yes to Islam."
What did you expect?
Irrelevant and obfuscatory. Saddam was an apostate and on the Muslim Brotherhoods hit list. The invasion of Iraq stirred up the hornets nest, and hornets have flown out to created more hives, and Iraq is now a terrorist recruiting and training center. This is the same thing, only worse, as our intervention in Bosnia, an operation which the Saudi's supported with millions and with recruitment of Jihadis' from all of the world, including the US (to wit Todd Ismail Royer, now a guest of the Federal Government).
That Iraq was "doable" is not an excuse for kicking the hornets nest and bankrupting our nation and spilling the blood of our troops.
There are hundreds of "doable" countries in the world, what kind of mentality is that.. to invade a country because it is doable. Fact is Iraq wasn't doable, and the only thing that has come of the invasion besides bankrupting out economy and spilling our childrens blood (no I don't care about the Iraqi's), is to create an Islamic Republic of Iraq, even worse than Saddams dictatorship, (Iraq has been thrust back into the stone ages and now even non Muslim women have to live under Wahhabi like laws).
Under Saddam Shari'a was not the basis of constution and law, but it is now.
Wolfowitz turned the asylum over to the inmates, by taking out the warden and you call that a victory?
For starters read Evan Kohlmann's Al Qaida's Jihad in Europe: The Bosnian Afghan Network.
All our intevention in Bosnia accomplished was to provide a training ground for Jihadi's that have since fanned out all over Europe, America, And the rest of the world. (It also gave the oil interest leverage in Kosovo, and now there are bases built by Haliburton subsidiaries sitting astride projected pipeline routes from the Caspian sea, like Camp Bondsteel, Camp Monteith and Camp Eagel)
Sudan is and was a much bigger threat than Saddam, with a worse case of genocide, but we didn't invade Sudan did we? That would put the US in conflict with China, because China has oil contracts with Sudan. We didn't invade Saudi Arabia did we, yet Saudi Arabia is the chief source and financier of Islamic Terrorism, from Prince Turki to Bandar Bush.
All that we have accomplished in invading Iraq, is bankrupting our economy (we went from a budget surplus to a trillions of dollars of debts), 1,500 American Lives and climbing, and creating millions of American Hating Iraqi's who perceive as occupiers and agents of Israel.
Not to mention the beheading and guerilla experience we are providing for the Jihadis.
There are scores of new "Islamic Brigades" in Iraq,with recruits from all over the world, and those that survive will seep into Europe and America, the Philipinnes, Thailand, just as al Qaida did after Afghanistan and the Mujahadeen did from Bosnia.
Here is what the International Institute for Strategic Studies[says in Strategic Survey 2003/4
Argue with that statement, I don't think you can
Charles: I think that you misstate Robert, and it is obvious that nothing Robert has said about Islam and the Muslim mindset has seeped in.
Either you are in engaging in wishful thinking or spin meistering for the disastrous and counter productive policies of the neo cons.
Charles Martel:
My belief is that the war on terror can only be won, if a well defined enemy is declared: Islamofascism. And that enemy must be eradicated on a global scale, and with the Western anathemization of mass killing, in abeyance. It certainly can't be won until the captive peoples do most of that killing for us. Bush-Wolfowitz policy involves including Islamofascists within a nominal "democratic" process that will somehow yield "freedom" (the oil-patch trust uses that term much more liberally than I do).
An example of the folly: on Sept. 11, 2001, Egypt's Secular government held 19,000 Islamofascists within that countries prison system. Three years of State Department pressure has led to the release of over half of those wild animals. Ikhwan Musulum (Muslim Brotherhood) members have pledged participation in the nominal "democratic" process, because they know that they can win democratic elections if Western leaders continue to indulge mosque based terror incitement and recruitment. It is axiomatic: opposition parties always eventually form governments. Far from conducing "democratic dominoes" Bush-Wolfowitz' indulgence will license the formation of jihad-entities, all legitimated under the licentious "freedom" cover.
You live in a plural society. Citizens of the Saud and Pakistan terrorist entities rarely see anyone whose ideology varies in any way from their own. Post Partition, Pakistan reduced Hindu and Christian minorities by 20 fold. Qazi Hussein Ahmad (leader of Jamaat-i-Islami, and paid State Department consultant in August 2000, while travelling on a diplomatic passport and living in the Embassy of Pakistan to the US) can put 1,000,000 Islamofascists in the streets of any city of the terrorist entity, on a day's notice. Musharaf meets with Qazi once a year. Why? Sensible speculation is that he tells Qazi to cool it, because Pakistan's jihad terror objectives are being assisted with the assistance of the "faith based" Pollyannas in Washington.
Bush-Wolfowitz' inclusivistic indulgence of Islamofascism was once openly declared, in an October, 2002 article in Pakistan's only liberal publication, The Friday Times:
"The US attempt to reach out to the religious political forces in Pakistan and get them to participate in the process of governance is a positive step but may not work out as intended, say sceptical liberal and political observers."
"The issue is being debated since the US ambassador to Pakistan, Nancy Powell's Sept. 24 visit to Peshawar, where she met with politicians from different parties including leaders of the ruling Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal government."
"The US move seems to try to replicate its experiment in Tajikistan where Islamists have joined the government following hectic efforts to get them to do so, by US and European governments. Tajikistan, which saw civil war through the nineties, is finally settling down and the inclusion of the Islamists could help Dushanbe govern with greater degree of stability..."
"Unlike Central Asia, religious-political parties in Pakistan have always participated in the political process. They have a vote-bank and they mobilised it pretty well in the last elections. Today the rule the North West Frontier Province and are in the coalition government in Balochistan. 'They have no reason to change their spots. They are in government on the basis of the very ideology which is anathema to the liberal forces in Pakistan and abroad. Why should they leave that anchor and begin to dance to a different tune,' asks another political observer...in Pakistan the 'situation is worse than in Central Asia. The state supports fundamentalism and petro-dollars from the Arab states have made fundamentalists even stronger in Pakistan."
"During her meeting in Peshawar with senior leaders of a liberal political party, the US Ambassador talked of her country's successful experiment in Central Asia, where Islamists were threatening the former communist-led Tajikistan government. She hoped a similar experiment in Pakistan might yield some good results. 'That is what I understand when I sought her opinion on the MMA's role,' says a leader of the party."
"This politician, who is also a member of the conservative-dominated Frontier Assembly, said he did not agree with the American diplomat. 'I told her that she should not treat Pakistani fundamentalists with those in Central Asia. The fundamentalists in Central Asia are completely different from those in Pakistan."
"A Western journalist who was assigned the task of bringing fundamentalists into the government in Dushanbe, told The Friday Times: 'That experiment appeared successful and Tajikistan is comparatively peaceful now.' Requesting that he not be named, he said: 'If Islamists are part of a government in Pakistan, their behavior can change and they will act more responsibly."
"The US government is working on the same pattern in Afghanistan also. They are trying to co-opt conservative leaders like former president Burhanuddin Rabbani and Abdur Rab Rasool Sayyaf. But Khan (a Pakistan commentator) has strong objection to the US approach in Afghanistan. 'The Americans have made a mistake by allowing former jihadi leaders to be a part of the government in Kabul..."
"The US and the European countries continue to stay in touch with the MMA government in Peshawar. Even the World Bank continued negotiations for a loan to Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani government. Donor countries, unexpectedly, did not cut off any aid to the Frontier government despite the fact that pro-Taliban MMA is ruling the province."
"During her lecture at the Area Study Center of the University of Peshawar, Ambassador Powell said her government wanted a dialogue with the Muslims to remove the 'misunderstanding' that exists on both sides of the divide."
This is an important the Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal to take a different political line would mean looking like any other party. “If they have to become liberals they might as well merge themselves in the PPP,” says an observer.
Khan also points to the fact that in Pakistan the “situation is worse than Central Asia”. “The state supports fundamentalism and petro-dollars from the Arab states have made fundamentalists even stronger in Pakistan.”
Juma Khan says the fundamentalism in Pakistan is a by-product of communism, which Washington fought with the help of Islamists. “The US has really developed fundamentalism in Pakistan. It helped fundamentalism grow in Pakistan in order to stop Moscow from spreading the ideology that was threatening capitalism. Today, they are even politically powerful and are not a marginal force,” he said.
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Note: the Pakistan political party that Musharaf supported - Pakistan Muslim League (Qaid i Azam; translates as Great Leader, Jinnah) - is in a coalition in Balochistan, with Qazi's openly Islamofascist Muttahida-Majlis-e-Amal. The MMA rules Northwest Frontier Province, under Taliban principles (music is outlawed).
Hugh - what do you propose, in lieu of the Bush administration's attemp to begin to defang Islam by creating a democracy in Iraq?
Hugh is mistaken in the belief that Ali Sina is an Islamic apologist. Ali would like to see Islam destroyed, period! He has written many artlicles to this effect. While he may show sympathy to some Muslims(more out of pity than anything else)his underlying belief is that Islam if not destroyed will destroy us.
Giaour
You're a Monday morning Quarterback, and a piss-poor one at that. Why do you think we went to war in Iraq? For shits and giggles? Lay down the conspiratorial junkfood for five minutes and THINK!
What is "irrelevant": the fact that the war in Iraq has made possible the first and only nascent Arab democracy amongst 22 countries since the borders were first drawn by the allies or the fact that there has not been a single terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11?
Let's give some credit where credit is due.
The invasion of Iraq stirred up the hornet's nest...
But the conquest or destruction of the holy cities in Saudi Arabia would have resulted in ... what exactly? Global Muslim submission?? World peace???
We didn't invade Sudan did we? That would put the US in conflict with China, because China has oil contracts with Sudan...
Oh I see, so we only go to war where we won't piss off other countries... like say, France, Germany, and Russia for example. Sorry to toss a small dose of reality into your hallucinatory rant but China had oil contracts with Iraq as well.
The war has focused the energies and resources of al-Qaeda and its followers while diluting those of the global counter-terrorism coalition...
You must be joking! Not only have thousands of Islamists been caught or killed, but al-Zawahri's latest tape sounded less like a death threat for the West than a requiem mass for Islam.
Has the war been costly, both in economic and human terms? Of course. But WWII cost the US 300,000 men and the Cold War is estimated to have cost us well over $4 trillion in additional military expenditures (in 1947-1991 dollars). Those are the realities of fighting a world war against a vicious and intractable enemy.
I have many criticisms of GWB and the "neo-cons" which you hold in so much contempt but reading "House of Bush, House of Saud" doesn't make me an expert in second-guessing their policies from the comfort of my Lazyboy.
"Hugh is mistaken in the belief that Ali Sina is an Islamic apologist." --from a posting above
But I did not write, and certainly do not think, that Ali Sina is an "Islamic apologist." How could I? How could anyone who goes to his website www.faithfreedom.org? What I wrote, in offering a taxonomy of apologists of Islam, had exacty the opposite meaning:
"A fourth group consists of those who know better, but have decided that they cannnot tell the full truth about Islam because it "just won't work" so we have to pretend that it is otherwise, shun Ibn Warraq and Ali Sina, and plump up those whom, we allow ourselves to believe, at least are "moderates"
They, those apologists, not I, who know the truth about Islam but cannot or will not follow all the way the logic of what Islam contains, and therefore what the True Believer believes, are the ones who urge us to avoid the real "fanatics" -- in other words, the articulate, witty, and altogether delightful Ibn Warraq, and the articulate, impassioned, great-souled Ali Sina (who may also be delightful, but I don't know him).
No, the point is that they should not be shunned, but embrced, supported, made much of as they deserve. When they became ex-Muslms, they did not suddenly lose all comprehension of Islam. They understand it perfectly. They understand the way in which people are inhibitied, or trapped by filial piety, or have found solace in Islam (of course it provides solace: it offers Faith, a Total Explanation of the Universe, and Assurance That Believers Are On the Deserving Side, the Winner's Side -- what could be better?).
I hope that clarification sweeps away all clouds of doubt from whatever skies have darkened or at least obnubilated as a result of that misunderstanding, leaving sunny dispositions for miles and kilometers and versts all way round.
"Hugh - what do you propose, in lieu of the Bush administration's attemp to begin to defang Islam by creating a democracy in Iraq?"--from a posting above
The "defanging" took place when weaponry was seized and destroyed, and weapons projects interrupted, and weaopns scientists arrested or brought to the West, and all sorts of information about who was helping Iraq, and how and what and where. Iraq is now "defanged." "Democracy" follows upon the development of some rudimentary civil society. It also must be demonstrated that "democracy" will constrain Islam; in Iraq the opposite seems to be the case -- or rather, the primitive and temporary "democracy" that has come about in this three-vilayets-under-one-flag misconceived state, will do nothing to force those in Iraq to face up to the failures, political, economic, intellectual and social, of Islam.
And why are we staying in Iraq now? To build up the Iraqi army -- why? To make it more difficult to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, by having soldiers held hostage to Iranian retaliation? In order to spend another $100 billion (with about half-a-billion earmarked for the giant American Embassy alone?). Because the Administration cannot say, publicly or even privately, that it should not really care if Iraq holds together, and that a free Kurdistan, and Sunni-Shi'a fighting, are not bad things, but possibly highly desirable things, in which we constantly attempt to fixate on the fissures within Islam (that exist, that were not created by INfdiel outsiders, and which Infidel outsiders should no nothing to discourage).
Educate the public, or the educable poublic, about the doctrine of Islam. An educated public will undertand why Muslim migration to the Western world is ill-advised and dangerous. Attempt to bloc all Muslim powers and peoples from acquiring major weaponry. If they are supplied with anything dangerous, make sure whatever tanks or planes they get have been specially outfitted (as the super-computers supplied to the Soviet Union ) so that they can be sabotaged, if misused, from afar. Stop foreign aid to Muslim states, and instead recognize that every bit of aid they get, is aid that makes their own lives less devoted to scrambling constantly for their existence, and that time on their hands always ends up being deovted to Islam, and more Islam. And realize that a free-market ideology would not have enabled the Manhattan Project to proceed, or many other important projects requiring the kind of investment only govenments can make, and the same is now true for energy projects.
There's more. But that's a start.
So "FatBoy" Sadr is back in the news,while Iraq settles into its new road to a free and democratic society with foreign soldiers working to train Iraqis to protect the Country and take over while troops start their withdrawls,Sadr
now tries to be the hero and pretend he's behing the whole exodus.
The slimball murdered Muslims in a Mosque and not one Islamic nation was outraged,he's attempting to emulate the self-appointed God "Muhammed" that found followers by inflicting fear and threatening people with death for opposing him.
The taste of freedom for many there will hopefully drive them to put weasels like Sadr in the big-house for a long time and there he can
worship Allah until his dick falls off,that's if he can see it to notice it's gone.
Yes, Al-Sadr's timing is indeed curious, isn't it, given that he declined to run for office in the January elections. And I doubt there's any great trick in gathering 10,000 or even 100,000 Iraqis to demonstrate against the presence of US and other foreign troops.
"No, no to Satan!"
Satan: "But you muslim fundies say yes to me all the time."
Satan: "Hmmm. I get it. You are really saying no to the forces of good. I am most pleased:). You are still saying yes to me after all!!!!!"
Because there are so many muslims (1.2 billion), many of us recoil at naming the enemy. But, reality will not be denied. Eventually, we must acknowledge the enemy or lose this war.
We should recognize that it is not necessary to destroy all 1.2 billion muslims on earth. We need only impoverish them: seize the oil fields.
Along the way, we must stop treating islam with respect. Instead, we must treat it with the contempt it so richly deserves. islam Is not religion. It's only the enemy's ideology.
Rich Lowry is a dhimmi pansy that has mastered the art of Bushspeak. He's the reason I stopped reading National Review.
Iain Hook's Murder: Dr. Jack Shepard and The Socialist Worker London Newspaper agree on the covered up April 2, 2005
visit: http://www.shepardusgov.com/dedicated/Iain.html
Dr. Jack Shepard says:" Why was the Targeted Assassination of Iain Hook a top British UN official by the Israeli Defense Force covered up by prime Minister Tony Blair?"
The Socialist Worker London Newspaper headlines say:
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php4?article_id=6158
Iain Hook: Blair buries evidence of murder by Israel
April 2, 2005
by Socialist Worker
Tony Blair's government is involved in a cover-up over the killing of the British United Nations (UN) official Iain Hook, who was shot in the back by an Israeli soldier in 2002.
Last week the foreign office flatly refused to release the information it holds on Iain’s death, saying this could damage relations with Israel. The refusal came in response to a request made by BBC News under the Freedom of Information Act in January this year.
Iain Hook, 54, was shot as he stood in the UN compound at the West Bank town of Jenin in November 2002. The Israeli army forced an ambulance to wait for 25 minutes while Iain bled to death. An inquest into his death has yet to be completed.
Rejecting the BBC’s request, the foreign office official John Gillan said other information on the killing could not be released because it related to the “formulation or development of government policy”.
In the opinion of the foreign office minister Baroness Symons, this information constituted private discussions between officials that would “inhibit the free and frank provision of advice” if released.
Iain was an official with the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which works with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
He was funded by Britain’s Department for International Development to head a project rebuilding the centre of Jenin refugee camp after it had been flattened by an Israeli assault.
A UN source told Socialist Worker, “It’s hardly surprising that the British government is reluctant to make clear the circumstance of Iain’s death.
“The UN itself has suppressed a report on his death. The government has refused to give out this information rather than upset the Israelis, even though Iain was a British citizen and an employee of the government.
“The circumstances in which Iain was killed were quite straightforward. He was shot in the back after he had been on the phone to the Israelis for several hours trying to get his people safely out of the UNRWA compound. The Israelis claimed Palestinian fighters were in the compound. This was never the case. An Israeli soldier decided he was going to shoot Iain.”
New Labour has refused to condemn Israeli murders of British citizens in the Occupied Territories. Israeli soldiers also shot peace campaigner Tom Hurndall in April 2003 and documentary maker James Miller in May 2003, both in Rafah in the Gaza Strip. American Rachel Corrie was also killed when she was crushed under an Israeli army bulldozer in Rafah in March 2003.
Sophie Hurndall, the sister of Tom, told Socialist Worker, “If you look at all the cases — Tom, Rachel Corrie, Iain Hook, James Miller — Israel has had a systematic policy of cover-up. It has directly lied about these events to protect its soldiers.
“The US and British governments have not gone out of their way, even though these cases have involved their citizens, to pressurise Israel to do what is right. There are hidden dynamics in the relationships between these countries. But the very least the US and Britain can do is stand up and demand an inquiry into the deaths of their citizens.
“Palestinians are dying in similar circumstances every day. We had to campaign for six months on the TV and in the papers before Israel admitted Tom hadn’t been armed or been shooting at them. The BBC case just adds to the deeply shocking state of affairs.”
© Copyright Socialist Worker. London You may republish if you include an active link to the original.
Dr. Jack Shepard and The Socialist Worker London Newspaper agree:
Dr. Jack Shepard says:" Why was the Targeted Assassination of Iain Hook a top British UN official by the Israeli Defense Force covered up by prime Minister Tony Blair?"
The Socialist Worker London Newspaper headlines say: April 2, 2005
Iain Hook: Blair buries evidence of murder by Israel
by Socialist Worker