Al-Qaeda in Iraq: The Drafters of the Iraqi Constitution and Those Who Support Them Are Infidels Who Must Be Killed

This is the Islamic version of the Federalist Papers. What manifest savages. Imagine if the founding fathers of the United States had threatened to saw each others' heads off for holding disagreeable opinions. It is in such circumstances that the ideology of Islam stands naked before the world and its moral bankruptcy is as self-evident as the noonday sun.

Al-Qaeda and their ilk must be utterly destroyed. They are nothing short of a disease upon humanity.

Oooooeeeee, let's have us a fitna-festival!

Sufis Under Attack as Sunni Rifts Widen

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/international/middleeast/21sufis-web.html?pagewanted=1

August 21, 2005
Sufis Under Attack as Sunni Rifts Widen
By EDWARD WONG
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 18 - As the twilight ritual of the Sufi Muslims reached its crescendo, the five drummers pounded harder and quicker, inspiring the men standing in a circle to spin their heads ever more rapidly, their shoulder-length hair twirling through the air.

The sun dipped low beyond the shrine's inner courtyard, and the chanting rose in volume.

"God, you are the only surviving one, the only everlasting," the dozen men said in unison, their eyes closed, more than a hundred spectators surrounding them at this shrine in western Baghdad. "The oneness, the oneness."

Sufism, generally considered a branch of Sunni Islam, is divided into orders, the most famous being that of the Mevlevi, or whirling dervishes. Sufis seek, through dance, music, chanting and other intensely physical rituals, to transcend worldly existence and perceive the face of the divine. Their mysticism has contributed to their pacific reputation.

But in Iraq, no one is ever far removed from war. In a sign of the widening and increasingly complex rifts in Iraqi society, Sufis have suddenly found themselves the targets of attacks. Many Iraqis believe those responsible are probably fundamentalist Sunnis who view the Sufis as apostates, just one step removed from the Shiites.

Sheik Ali al-Faiz, a senior official at this Sufi shrine, or takia, rattled off a list of recent assaults - the leader of a takia in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi was abducted and killed this month; a bomb exploded in a takia in Kirkuk earlier this year; gunmen beat Sufi worshipers at a mosque in Ramadi in January; a bomb exploded in the kitchen of a takia in Ramadi last September and a bomb in April 2004 destroyed an entire takia in the same city.

The early attacks were frightening, but until this spring there had been few Sufi deaths. Then, on June 2, a suicide bomber rammed a minivan packed with explosives into a takia outside the town of Balad, 40 miles north of Baghdad, killing at least 8 people and wounding 12.

The attack took place in the middle of a ritual. The minivan hurtled through the front gate, then exploded when people ran toward it, said a neighboring farmer who gave his name as Abu Zakaria. "I hurried there with my brothers in my car," he said. "It was a mess of bodies. I carried bodies to the car without knowing whether they were dead or alive."

Five days later, at a gathering of mourners in an assembly hall fashioned from reeds in the village of Mazaree, the head of the takia, Sheik Idris Aiyash, lamented the loss of his father and three brothers. "If we keep on like this, we might really face civil war," he said.

Some Sufi groups in Iraq have built up militias and are bracing for more violence.

At the recent twilight ceremony here, Kalashnikov-wielding guards watched from a rooftop. "It's really chaotic now in our society, because the killer doesn't know the people he's killing, and those being killed don't know why they're being killed," Sheik Faiz said. "The entire community is threatened, including us."

There are no accurate estimates of the number of Sufis in Iraq, though the biggest orders are in Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan. Sheik Faiz said there were dozens of takias in the capital alone and more than 100 across the country before the war. That number may have dropped by as much as a third since the American invasion, he said.

The guerrilla war has crippled the flow of pilgrims to the Abdul-Qadir al-Gailani Mosque in central Baghdad, one of the world's most important Sufi shrines. Stalls selling religious souvenirs outside stood largely neglected one recent afternoon. Sheik Mahmoud al-Esawi, the imam of the mosque, said Sufi visitors from far-flung places like India, Pakistan and Europe had stopped coming.

Many takias across the capital have opted to hold their ceremonies in the late afternoon, so worshipers can get home before sundown. "The lack of security has created many negatives in our society," Sheik Esawi said. "Some groups dislike the takias and their rituals."

Many Iraqis say the attack outside Balad was probably carried out by Sunni Arabs of the fundamentalist Salafi sect, which counts Osama bin Laden and the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi among its adherents. If so, it might be an indication that the most hard-line Sunnis will increasingly turn on other Sunnis as sectarian divides widen.

But the bombing may have had its roots in a tangled web of religion and politics. The takia belonged to the Kasnazani order, which has emerged as the most political and possibly the largest Sufi group in the country. Its wealthy Kurdish founder, Sheik Muhammad Abdul-Kareem al-Kasnazani, has made many enemies. Martin van Bruinessen, a professor of Islamic studies at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, said that in the 1970's and early 80's Sheik Kasnazani, with the backing of Saddam Hussein, led a militia against the Kurdish forces of Jalal Talabani, who is now Iraq's president.

Sheik Kasnazani then established himself in Arab Iraq, increasing his following and acting as a middleman for Mr. Hussein's oil sales. He became close friends with Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, now Mr. Hussein's most-wanted aide.

But the sheik had a falling-out with Mr. Hussein shortly before the American-led invasion. In a measure of his lasting power, he was able to flee to the Kurdish capital of Sulaimaniya, where he now lives under Mr. Talabani's protection. From there, the sheik almost certainly helped the United States plan for the invasion of Iraq, said Mr. Bruinessen, who suspects that Sheik Kasnazani was a valuable informant whom C.I.A. officers called "the pope."

With the motives for the devastating attack in Mazaree unclear, Sufi groups are still reaching out and performing their ceremonies for non-Sufis, sometimes for money but usually with the intent that the spectators may see God. Sufi groups in Iraq have even performed at American military bases.

Before the evening of dancing and chanting began at the takia in western Baghdad, which belongs to the Kasnazani order, an elder in gray robes and a turban plunged a footlong dagger resembling a barbecue skewer through the lower jaw of a teenage boy sitting on the shrine's carpeted floor. He did the same to the left breast of a man who had stripped off his shirt. The man and the boy just stared ahead, apparently not feeling any pain, proud to demonstrate the strength of their faith to two American visitors.

Zaineb Obeid contributed reporting from Mazaree for this article, and Khalid al-Ansary from Baghdad.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Back to Top

The simple fact is, democracy, that is, obeying the laws of man, is heresy to Islam. The Islamic argument is as straight-forward as any, because in Islam obedience is worship, so to obey the laws of men is to worship them i.e., democracy is blasphemous idolatry.

The door was cracked opened in Iraq for Muslims to leave or at least to diminish Islam and join the modern world. Iraqis did not take the opportunity and Muslims the world over will not. They will continue to reach to Islam for answers and we must be thoroughly educated in what those answers actually are.

Light Unto the Muslim Nations in Iraq was a pipe dream. We are awakening to reality.

-Rebecca

We hold this truth self evident, the Jihadi Islamists are seeking world domination. Is this a religion? Is this a political movement? It is the worst of both. It is a religion in the sense that it is a way of life missionizing new adherents. It is the worst of religions because it has cult characteristics and is secretive and punishing and gives members and nonmembers few rights to think for themselves. Islam might be okay as a religion if it was not for the fact that Islam is not one religion among many disparate ones, that allows for the freedom of others to pick and choose according to their conscience, but rather requires submission, slavery, tax or death. It requires submission or death.

Islam is a political movement in that it wants to force the world to its politics. The Koran is the law. No other law is allowed. As a poltical movement, many have noticed Islam is fascistic. Actually it is profoundly comparative with Nazism in that it is: AntiJewish; Antidemocracy; Blames all ills of the world on Jews; wants to radically redo society into a pan arab movement under one Caliphate; uses violence. What is uniquely different about Islam from Nazism is that while allegedly subtracting racism (there are some elements of racism in the Koran and the Arabian world view) Islam has added Christians with Jews, to being people for special handling.

When Islam is attacked, Islam defends itself as a religion. Religions have special protections because matters of faith are supposed to be between the individual and the ineffable.

Perhaps we do better to expose Islam as a political movement, rather than as a religious one. If we see Islam as a political movement, we can more readily see what we are at war with. We can more easily justify going to war against it. No one had trouble saying we were at war with Nazism during World War II. Who is opposed to going to war against a poltical movement that: AntiChristian/Antijewish? Anti-democracy? Blames all ills of the world on Christians and Jews? wants to radically redo society into a pan arab movement under one Caliphate? uses violence?

We are at war with Jihadist Islam because it is a fascist movement at war with the whole world and out to annihate Christians and Jews.

Well, Jihad Watch has been in existence, apparently since October, 2003. I have certainly been posting here since Jihad Watch first started. Come October, 2005, that will have been two full years of Jihad Watch. Two years is a fairly long time. What changes have I noticed over this period?

1) The word is getting out about Islam; almost everyone I talk to is suspicious of Islam. I meet very few people now who leap to defend Muslims and view any criticism of them as unacceptable.

2) The United Nations it is clear now has been partially if not completely captured by the Muslim nations.

3) I really have come around to the idea that Muslims are acting together in emigrating to countries all over the world. I have also come to believe that once they move here that they are doing their darndest to infiltrate our institutions, public and private, so as to influence our societies and politics. I can see it everywhere in our local and national governments. This problem will have dramatic consequences in future as our governments will end up doing things that the majority of people will find mystifying and wonder why they are doing it. For instance, I think it quite possible that soon some European governments will seriously think of clandestinely providing arms to Muslims to fight American or Israeli forces.

4) When you have an active fifth column in your society, how do you fight it - especially if even mentioning its existence is impossible?

5) The birth rates of Western countries are a tremendous cause for concern. Values are transmitted from parents to children and thence do not change much. Despite all the hoohah from Muslims about how many converts that they obtain, I see very little conversion happening on the ground; however, I do see lots and lots of Muslim children. The demographic issue is even more difficult to discuss in public than the religious issue.

6) The elites in Western societies, particularly those in the financial and corporate sectors, do not seem at all worried about Islam. They simply view Muslims as another source of labor, perhaps a little less tractable than other people, but they can deal with them. They certainly do not view Islam as a threat to the established order. Otherwise, they would be funding think tanks to attack Islam much as they fund think tanks to attack Leftist ideas and promote their causes, i.e. corporate tax cuts and the like. I think that this is one of the most troubling aspects of the Islamic infiltration is that the capitalist elite (and make no mistake, I am firm supporter of capitalism and free markets despite my use of terms like capitalist) does not view Islam as a threat to the "established order". As Hugh has pointed out, they probably do not view Islam as a threat because some Muslims have such huge investments in the private sector. How are you going to bite the hand that feeds you?

7) In an observation not directly related to Islam, I would simply point out the incredible growth in scientific and technical knowledge at the same time as you have this resurgence in 7th century religious thought. It is remarkable that as we are sending probes to explore Mars, creating synthetic life forms from scratch and making flexible nanotube sheets that there is this resurgence of an ideology that seeks to take us back to the 7th century.

8) Western life spans are increasing as our birth rates decline. Where is that going to take us?

9) Japan is roboticizing its society and soon cheap robots will be everywhere supplanting human labor. Where will that take us?

10) Information like capital flows freely in waves across cyberspace. Where is that going to take us? Will everyone, everywhere become a sort on-line witness to history and everyone, everywhere will provide online commentary and analysis about what is happening in the societies where they live?

Anyway, just some thoughts as I approach two years of posting on Jihad Watch.

1) The word is getting out about Islam; almost everyone I talk to is suspicious of Islam. I meet very few people now who leap to defend Muslims and view any criticism of them as unacceptable.

Well, Mentat, the last person I talked to about Islam emailed me the next day and said "Never communicate with me again!" The one before that said "If Muslims were acting up all over the world, wouldn't we hear about it in the media?" I said "They are acting up" and sent a couple news items from Thailand or Pakistan (maybe the bit about cutting the feet off the woman who tried to run away) whatever. And then he said "We're not going to talk about this anymore." The one before that said "Why are you upsetting yourself with these things? It's not happening here."

The best one really was the woman I was talking to about the Muslim compound (surrounded by barbed wire) nearby. She said "They're just like us. They just want to live in peace. They left the big city because of that. Oh sure. There are some problems with the kids in school, like they were bringing knives and such, but that's just kids being kids."

Whistling Dixie:

I live in a large urban centre with lots of subways. After the London bombings, most people here are worried and anxious. I think that accounts for why people here where I live are perhaps more suspicious. Education by murder and all that.

As paradoxical artist M.C. Escher (I think) once said:

DEATH TO ALL WHO SHOUT "DEATH!"!

These fatwa heads are impossible to please.

Here they get the U.S. to overthrow a secular state and install Sharia Law, and they're not satisfied?

They want SUPER Sharia Law?

Well, I'll just reiterate:

DEATH TO ALL WHO SHOUT "DEATH!".

Someone invades America and hires puppets to write a new constitution...what would you say about them? Here we all are, total hypocrities complaining that Islam is taking over America and creating a new social structure, yet we complain when others say the same thing about us taking over their country.

Shukri wrote: "hires puppets to write a new constitution..." We did not "hire" puppets. We invited all Iraqis to write their own constitution. How you can equate the allies including the United States, a democratically elected government and a country with individual freedom that fights to depose a vicious killer and tyrant? The short answer is we would like it if we did not live with the precise freedoms we have if someone came and liberated us. How about Germany after World War II? How about Japan? How can you compare our efforts as analogous to Islam trying to take over our world? Can you not distinguish between good and evil? Do you agree with Jean Jacques Rousseau that there is no crime in freeing a slave? Do you agree with him Rousseau that it is moral when slaves are forced to be free? Implicit in your comment Shukri is the ridiculous "politically correct" principle that all cultures are morally equivalent. I suppose if Mayans begin human sacrifice again we must accept this as the exercise by Mayans of their right to freedom of religion. Who are we to judge the sacrifice by Mayans of virgins for Yucatan prosperity to return to Yucatan?

We may judge of other cultures. We should judge other cultures. The doctrine of cultural equivalence is morally bankrupt. One is allowed to criticize a culture if the culture is savage. One is allowed to criticize a culture that cuts off a civilian person's head with a rusty knife. It is sufficient to say one is a cultured person if one knows the difference between civilization and savagery.

The U.S. is actually one of the only countries in the world that is truly made up of people from all over the world. It is enough to say that in the U.S. one distinguishes between individual liberty and barbarism. The litmus test of political culture is freedom of religion, freedom to assemble, periodic elections, consent of the governed, freedom of press, freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances, freedom of speech and equality of men and women under the law.

Every person has a right to require this of all countries in all parts of the world. If these are inalienable rights, one has a duty to require this of all other parts of the world.

Perhaps Iraq will not be up to the task of adopting a constitution that respects all people and allows people the freedom they need to escape the cesspool they find themselves in. We should encourage them, and we should not hesitate to overthrow tyrants in that part of the world whenever they threaten us directly or indirectly.
It is sickening that the Allies in Iraq are criticized for their largesse.

Yussuf al-Ayyeri, one of Osama bin Laden's closest associates since the early '90s was a Saudi citizen also known by the nom-de-guerre "Abu Mohammad". He was killed in a gun battle with security forces in Riyadh in June 2003. He said in "The Future of Iraq and The Arabian Peninsula After The Fall of Baghdad", a book he wrote published by a bin Laden front company, The Centre for Islamic Research and Studies, that "secularist democracy" is a threat "far more dangerous to Islam" than all its predecessors combined. The reasons, he explains in a whole chapter, must be sought in democracy's "seductive capacities."
This form of "unbelief" persuades the people that they are in charge of their destiny and that, using their collective reasoning, they can shape policies and pass laws as they see fit. That leads them into ignoring the "unalterable laws" promulgated by God for the whole of mankind, and codified in Islamic shariah. The goal of democracy, according to Al-Ayyeri, is to "make Muslims love this world, forget the next world and abandon jihad." If established in any Muslim country for a reasonably long time, democracy could lead to economic prosperity, which, in turn, would make Muslims "reluctant to die in martyrdom" in defense of their faith. Al-Ayyeri said that it is vital to prevent any normalization and stabilization in Iraq. "If democracy comes to Iraq, the next target [for democratization] would be the whole of the Muslim world," Al-Ayyeri wrote. Al-Ayyeri is dead, but his ideas are being carried on by the terrorists. Al-Ayyeri made a tactit admission that Islam is an abnormal state of poverty, slavery and submission that seeks to destroy the individual will. It is imperative to the war on terrrorism that democracy succeed in Iraq and elsewhere.

Shukri is obviously a Muslim apologist. Ignore him.

"Shukri" 1a678, "Saladin"

is the same a-sole troll that annoys posters over at DW. He never makes sense of anything, but tries to make Islam a race-issue.

Of course he is a die-hard Mohammedan, complete with coffee-filter and screws deeply drilled into the brain, so that nothing of any value can ever penetrate...

useless to bother with him...

"It is imperative to the war on terrrorism that democracy succeed in Iraq and elsewhere."

I would argue that the more of a disaster Iraq turns into the better it is for us, because it provides a continual reminder to Westerners about the incompatability between Islam and liberal values, sexual equality etc. For this reason let the troops remain in Iraq, to exacerbate the situation still further. If the troops are withdrawn Iraq will largely disappear from our screens. The media will lose interest, and Muslims in the West will have one less thing to rant and seethe about. The US government has stirred the pot sufficiently for even the BBC to start questioning the status quo, so let the process continue.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/uk/4166402.stm

"For this reason let the troops remain in Iraq, to exacerbate the situation still further. If the troops are withdrawn Iraq will largely disappear from our screens. The media will lose interest, and Muslims in the West will have one less thing to rant and seethe about."
--- from a posting above

If the troops remain in Iraq, even for one more year, there is no doubt that those who wish not to appease Islam will have no chance to win favor from voters in the United States. Instead, the tarbaby of Iraq, the continued desert-degradaton of military equipment, the stillicide of steady drop-by-drop American casualties, the self-evident failure of Iraq to turn into anything like what a democracy should be, or even to create the conditions -- including that of the idea of the individual citizen's worth -- will lead to a collapse of Infidel morale just when there needs to be a determination to do what will be required, over many decades, in order to halt the expansion of Islam, and to reverse it, and to work to cause division and demoralization among Muslims themselves, sometimes by intervention, and sometimes by deliberate non-intervention.

If troops are withdrawn, Iraq will not settle down to a peaceful existence. Not at all. It will be no more peaceful than were Iran and Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. It will be the scene of internecine warfare, now hot, now cold, now punctuated by steady attacks, now seemingly dying down. And the American army can begin to recover its sense of itself, of what it should be deployed to do and what it should not be deployed to do, and we Infidels can look coldly ast the spectacle in Iraq, learn to appreciate that the best course is to leave Muslims to go at it, wherever and whenever they seem likely to do so. And in Iraq, they seem very likely to do so -- not through any diabolical cleverness on the part of the Americans, but despite the incredible innocence and ignorance of those Americans.

Some suggest we have a choice: either "Win in Iraq" or "Get Out." They fail to realize that they have missated the case. It should be: "Get out of Iraq, in order to win (or at least to gain the greatest advantage in the war of self-defense against the Jihad)." That states the case most accurately.

Bohemond_1069 said "The goal of democracy, according to Al-Ayyeri, is to make Muslims love this world, forget the next world and abandon jihad."

That is an instructive posting. The actions of the jihadists around the world are incomprehensible and confusing, as long as we continue to try to understand them from the viewpoint of Western society.

As soon as we stop and actually listen to what they are saying and explaining, their actions make perfect sense. And the solution starts to become clear, as well. They are rational and they do work towards clearly defined goals; but their rationality and their goals are quite different from Westerners'.

Shukri,
It's quit simple,
Political Islam is evil, Democracy is good.
Do you believe this statement to be true?

Doctor Phibes said "I would argue that the more of a disaster Iraq turns into the better it is for us..."

I would argue that when Iraq descends into civil war and/or a religious thugacracy, it will be used as an argument against acting militarily against jihadists the next time. I believe that we have lost all momentum after 9/11 towards defeating the jihadist threat. We will hesitate on stopping the Iranian nuclear weapon program which they will then have time to complete, and we will allow Saudi and Pakistani and Syrian assistance to the jihadists to continue. By focusing our anti-jihad fight against one of the least-jihadist dictatorships in the M.E., we have drifted way off course.

Shukri wrote: "hires puppets to write a new constitution..." We did not "hire" puppets.

Mr. David London, A puppet cannot act without the puppeteer. Similarly, the Iraqi authorities are unable to act without the Occupation.

It is sickening that the Allies in Iraq are criticized for their largesse.

Largesse?

"Shukri" 1a678, "Saladin"

is the same a-sole troll that annoys posters over at DW. He never makes sense of anything, but tries to make Islam a race-issue.

Terminator, you appear to have me confused for someone else. I've only posted on this site as "Shukri".

It should be: "Get out of Iraq, in order to win (or at least to gain the greatest advantage in the war of self-defense against the Jihad)." That states the case most accurately.

Exactly so, Mr. Hugh. You have caught on to what everyone seems to miss. I.E: The War and Occupation is increasing terrorism worldwide (see London bombings) and only the end of Occupation can serve to defeat terrorism. The Israeli's have also realized this somewhat, as indicated in their withdrawal of Occupation from the Gaza Strip.

Political Islam is evil, Democracy is good. Do you believe this statement to be true?

William The Crusader, please define for me, "Political Islam", "Democracy", "Good" and "Evil" and then, God willing, I can give you an answer for definitions seem to vary for the above terms.

Thank you.

As Christopher Hitchens said, "you believe that fighting terrorism creates terrorism?" Well, too bad, we will not lay back and enjoy it.

As Christopher Hitchens said, "you believe that fighting terrorism creates terrorism?" Well, too bad, we will not lay back and enjoy it.

Carolyn2, what the US has done is to create new terrorists that were not there before and now we claim that our Occupation of Iraq is a fight against terror. Completely bizarre.

"Shukri" 1a678, "Saladin"

Shirk: the only one in a permanent state of confusion is the musulman, is you.

Is it the same shirk 1a876 that calls us infidels "death-worshippers"- why ??

The common slogan for the sons of Allah is "We love death, you love life"- now Shirk, why would YOU claim it is the other way around?

As for the above:

"William The Crusader, please define for me, "Political Islam", "Democracy", "Good" and "Evil" and then, God willing, I can give you an answer for definitions seem to vary for the above terms."

Sure, you are clueless!
The only thing you believe you 'understand' is Islam, and that's not very much. From your previous postings I can tell that you don't know much about that either...

If you don't know how to define 'good and evil', 'Democracy' then I suggest you should educate yourself about it before you post here.

At this moment you are enjoying the -undeserved- benefits of one of the oldest democracies in the world, GB

As for 'political Islam' - that is what we are discussing here day in day out.

To ensure a working democracy, we need to ensure that we stop Islamic invasion and deport creeps such as yourself and all those that attach themselves to the teachings of a marauding, child molesting bandit.

Shirk:

"what the US has done is to create new terrorists that were not there before and now we claim that our Occupation of Iraq is a fight against terror. "

Shirk:

The US didn't 'create' them: Islam created them. These creatures are being killed off as we speak! Don't you think it is a good thing that they all moved to Iraq so we can kill them there?

Would you rather have them blow up trains in London?

And that's not in Iraq alone.

Read more on our website:
Leaflets ridicule democracy, ask for Islamic rule.

http://www.acage.org/news/?day=08182005&id=0010

It is all but natural to expect the same sentiments voiced in other parts of Muslim world, for, as Rebecca has pointed out, democracy is an act of heresy, a shirk if you will, that not only has to be resisted, but ultimately destroyed as a whole. Hence the calls for marching on the White House and turning it into a Muslim house that Robert brought up a few weeks ago.

Shukri is so typical of the brainwashed and unwashed fools that serve themselves through other peoples misinterpretations of whatever passes as islamic intelectuals (if that is not an oxymoron).
Such saddoes are not wothy of analysis or reflective comment because without promting by an immam or a quotation from the koranic book of lies, they have nothing to offer the pursuit of analytical discourse.

As Christopher Hitchens said, "you believe that fighting terrorism creates terrorism?" Sure. Just like fighting rapists creates rape.

special_guest, I agree that it would have been better to invade, say, Saudi Arabia than Iraq. But still the net effect of US actions since 9/11 seems to have been a slow but definite shift in the minds of Westerners. The BBC just did a total demolition job on Iqbal Sacranie and the MCB - a week ago I would not have believed this to be possible. So something has changed. And if this change continues, arguments against acting militarily in response to future Islamist attacks on the West are likely to fall on increasingly deaf ears, regardless of what kind of mess exists in Iraq.

As for Iran, we were told recently that "all options are on the table", which doesn't sound very hesitant to me. Whether we have sufficient intelligence to do the job properly is another matter.

Doctor Phibes: "But still the net effect of US actions since 9/11 seems to have been a slow but definite shift in the minds of Westerners"

I couldn't agree more. However badly Iraq appears to have turned out, it has served to turn over a big stone and expose all the creepy crawlers lurking beneath. The beheadings, the videotaped "Allah Akbhar" ravings, the state of the western media (and the extreme left) with its craven moral equivalency, our naive multicultural assumptions and so on and so on. It has brought all the creepy crawlers out into the light and most importantly of all (besides bringing Islam itself into the light)- made westerners notice something that would have otherwise continued quietly and under the radar - the massive immigration of Muslims into the west. I don't think 9/11 alone was sufficient to turn the rock over. But Iraq was. So whatever the mess we've gotten ourselves into due to our ignorance, it behooves us to appreciate the silver lining in the cloud so to speak and move on from here all the wiser.

A transcript of the BBC programme described by Dr Phibes is available here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/4171950.stm

Judging the BBC comments on the web, I guess the comment selectors were not particularly impressed by the islamocritical line taken by the programme.

Anyway, well done BBC. Next week a programme on the history of life of Mohammed presented by Bat Ye'or.

Just kidding.

Amazing - the BBC telling it like it is.

An indication of the truism that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged (the London bombings).

Anything is possible if we keep exposing these fools, if we can see change in this sickening leftist apologist public media the BBC,then maybe we can win.

Right on. The fight is just beginning.

It should come as no surprise that Shukri is in complete agreement with Hugh. Jihadwatch's esteemed Vice-President has formulated the fascinating theory that American defeat in Iraq is somehow a victory against terrorism and that a Western disengagement from the Muslim world (with the corresponding reduction of influence) is in our best interests in the war against jihadism.

I've made my point in greater detail at dhimmiwatch, "Indonesia: Muslims call for killing infidels" ....comments

I am not defending Hugh as I don't need to, he is capable of doing a better job but the defense of my own understanding is..I have never heard Hugh say anything about wanting a U.S. defeat,in Iraq or anywhere else.
Is it possible to disengage ourselves from the muslim world? They live in the west for G-d's sake, we cannot avoid engagement. That seems obvious to me anyway. I would enjoy any idea that would keep us from needing to deal with those snakes.

I missed Hugh's post when I checked back here before. Being outside the US, it's difficult for me to assess the potential effect of Iraq on the 2008 Presidential election. I was convinced that Bush would lose last year anyway, due to the "unpopularity" of the war in Iraq that the media kept telling us about. But from a UK perspective it seems fairly certain that if we didn't have troops in Iraq, 7/7 wouldn't have happened, and the BBC wouldn't be dishing the dirt on the MCB. (And also making the point, repeatedly, that terrorism is terrorism, even in Israel.)

It seems highly unlikely to me that any Presidential candidate in 2008, Republican or Democrat, is going to tell the American people the truth about Islam, and to spell out the dangers of Muslim immigration into Western countries. For that reason, it might be better to just accept whatever bunch of jokers comes into office, and to take heart from the fortuitous side-effects of their mistakes. And so far, Iraq seems to have been the most fortuitous of all. (This attitude has the added advantage of allowing me to believe that our troops have not given their lives so that Iraqis can turn their country into another shariah state - our troops have given their lives so that people in the West might wake up, before it's too late.)

Doctor Phibes said "As for Iran, we were told recently that all options are on the table, which doesn't sound very hesitant to me."

But here it is 12 months later, and we are still talking about what the options are. Just like we talked and talked and talked until North Korea announced they had completed their program, and they now have several completed nuclear warheads.

I liked the BBC story, but I wouldn't call it a direct confrontation with Islam. The host was still suggesting that it was a problem of translating the Qur'an, that the Saudis were somehow spreading a militant form of Islam that is not originally there in the Qur'an. One can quibble about particular words or phrases or verb tenses, but when I read the Qur'an the main point of it seems very unambiguous.

"It seems highly unlikely to me that any Presidential candidate in 2008, Republican or Democrat, is going to tell the American people the truth about Islam..."

True enough, that would be asking too much. Before WWII, Roosevelt was not talking about the dangers of Germany, he was playing it down in speeches. But behind the scenes, he was taking prudent steps to prepare, and he was supporting our ally England who was on the front line. Today, I see the president telling us how Islam is peaceful and how the Iraqi people are just like us; but behind the scenes, he is pressuring our ally on the front line, Israel, to negotiate and capitulate and retreat. We are not supporting our allies, and we are not taking steps to prepare for defense.

get out of iraq ..get out of all the lands of the seething ingrates..oil will still go to market and democracy here or there will not affect the price ten cents a barrel..

and our presence or absence in the lands of the seething shiite heads won't change the number
of jakals who want to cut our throats..
bring our guys home and let them do their term of service securing our borders and transit systems..

Well, that's why they want the Caliphate so badly: it can issue orders to wage jihad that can be offensive and doesn't have to be pushed under the definition of 'resistance to occupation.'

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dolphin, CAGE co-founder.
http://www.acage.org

I apologize for the previous post; I loaded the wrong page.

Someone invades America and hires puppets to write a new constitution...what would you say about them? Here we all are, total hypocrities complaining that Islam is taking over America and creating a new social structure, yet we complain when others say the same thing about us taking over their country.

Posted by: Shukri at August 21, 2005 02:37 PM

Shukri:

Iraq was a disfunctional mess under Saddam and you damned well know it. You're fond of (mis)quoting Chris Hitchens are you. Here's what he recently said to an interviewer from a Washington based progressive Muslim website:

"But lets look at the case of Iraq and the left. If you asked someone who has the principles of a 1968 leftist the following question: what is your attitude to a regime that has committed genocide, invaded its neighbors, militarized its society into a police state, that has privatized its economy so it is owned by one family, that has defied the non proliferation treaty in many ways, that sought weapons to commit genocide again and cheated on inspections, that has abolished the existence of a neighboring arab muslim state? What is your view of this as anyone who is a 1968 leftist? For me, I would be appalled if anyone knew me even slightly would not guess my attitude. Iraq should have been taken care of a long time ago. Instead, when I made my view public, I was berated by the left and my view was seen as an insane eccentricity. "

No more of your inappropriate moral equivalencies please.

Stopp the press..
Omar the "Iraqthemodel" blogger reports that now they have reached an agreement about the constitution. About the issue of Sharia, he describes the decision thus:

"Regarding Islam and the constitution: it was agreed upon that no laws that are against the widely agreed upon values of Islam can be issued and no laws that are against the values of democracy and human rights can be issued."

Err... what? The way I read it, this means that no laws at all can be passed. A permanently lawless state?
Can somebody help me out here?

Just like our founding fathers, these freedom loving Islamic types!

There's lots of positive comments on the BBC (on this occasion) here... can people please write to them as well?

The Times reported that there had been 250 complaints against the programme and just 45 in favour. Further, some activists are running campaigns to get people to write in against the program... so unless people do likewise supporting the program... the BBC may decide honest reporting is not worth the hastle.

Please send emails to: panorama@bbc.co.uk

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One of the ZionistGuys
Zionism on the Web