Alamgir Hussain writes for Islam Watch (not affiliated with Jihad Watch), a website whose focus is "Islam under scrutiny by ex-Muslims."
When General Sonthi Boonyaratkalin (also known as Abdullah), the first-ever Muslim head of the Thai army, seized power in a bloodless coup on September 19 (2006), news media around world became flooded with expert opinions and commentaries that there was a hope of peace in the insurgency-plagued Muslim provinces in Southern Thailand. Even the United States, which has been consistent in condemning any military coup in recent years, kept virtually quiet on the coup in Thailand. President Bush even nodded in agreement with the coup when he told the interim Thai Prime Minister during the recent APEC meeting that 'he understood the Thai Coup' [Nation Multimedia, Thailand - Nov 18, 2006].
The academicians have also taken a leading role in defending the coup. Following the coup, prominent academicians in Thailand wrote commentaries and made statements in Thai media praising the military takeover and expressing hope for peace in the South. In a September 26-28 Conference titled "Security Cooperation and Governance in Southeast Asia: Responding to Terrorism, Insurgency and Separatist Violence in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines" – jointly hosted by Singapore's Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies and Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies – prominent experts and academicians, studying the Thailand insurgency, also expressed an emphatic hope for peace in Southern Thailand after the successful coup. Never have I seen such unqualified praise for a military-lead coup that replaces a democratically elected Government anywhere in the World.
In the midst of unprecedented support for this coup to replace a democratic government, what has surprised me most is the unfettered expression of hope by the famous experts and academicians that peace was on the way in the insurgency stricken provinces in Thailand. Given the experiences of Islamic insurgency and violence from Kashmir to Chechnya and from Mindanao to Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina spanning decades, it was utterly naïve of the experts to pin such high hopes that an unethical coup would usher in peace in Thailand.
In line with this flurry of hopes for peace, the Muslim coup leader general Sonthi immediately made it clear that solving the insurgency in the South was his priority. Yet, insurgency continued unabated. After the caretaker Government was instituted, the interim Prime Minister General Surayud Chulanont made vigorous efforts to cool down the violence through repeated offers of concessions and privileges to the Muslims in Southern Thailand. He first visited the restive South on 2nd November to offer an unqualified apology for the previous excesses committed by the Thai military, which was immediately responded with a series of invigorated attacks by the insurgents. The general returned to the region second time in the same week to offer autonomy in the region which was also spurned by the insurgents with a series the violent attacks. The Prime Minister even made an offer to allow the application of Islamic Sharia laws in an otherwise secular democratic country. This offer was also rejected by the insurgents with increased violent attacks. In the final offer of Olive Braches, the Government offered to set up a Special Economic Zone in the Muslim South to help the economy, which was also greeted with a wave of attacks racking up at least 7 dead bodies overnight [Channel News Asia, 24 Nov, 2006]. The government implemented a series of other concessions, including the dropping of charges against some 58 Tak Bai protestors, a renewed pledge to solve the disappearance of Muslim human rights activist Somchai and the abolition of blacklists. In sum, the military-ruled Government has offered to Muslim provinces of South Thailand far beyond of what is desirable for a united and secular democratic country but all has been rebuffed by the Islamic insurgents with waves of invigorated violence.
Surprisingly, the experts make desperate yet naïve efforts to separate the religion of Islam from the violence in Southern Thailand. In the Sept 26-28 conference (Singapore), the experts emphasized: 'The underlying issue is essentially an ethno- nationalist one – it is bound up with Malay identity and the failure of the government in Bangkok to accommodate Malay aspirations. Religion is very much a secondary issue. This is about Malayness not about Islam, and linkages with ulama (Islamic scholars), mosque and madrasah (Islamic schools) are secondary and essentially coincidental… "
Rohan Gunaranta, a renowned expert on Islamic terrorism, also affirmed the same: He pointed out the parallels with Chechnya and Kashmir. "Those groups were initially nationalist but eventually developed a pan-Islamist outlook," he said. "I believe that within the next five years southern Thailand will become like the southern Philippines."
He also pinned high hope in the coup saying: "The coup was "a great opportunity that cannot be missed." [Telegraph, UK, 29 Sept 2006]
The efforts of the experts to distance Islam from this insurgency and their pinning high hopes on a coup to usher in peace in Thai South betray numerous evidences and experiences accumulated over the decades. The experts quickly disregard the most obvious fact that whenever Muslims form a sizable population in a region of an otherwise non-Muslim country, they start a secessionist campaign for independence of that region to form an Islamic state. That's also exactly what is happening in Kashmir, Chechnya, Mindanao and Kosovo and now in Thai South. The unsuspecting experts naively buy Muslims unsubstantiated allegations of oppression and marginalization as the underlying and justifiable cause for the insurgency. Despite decades of such incidences, the experts, consciously or unconsciously, ignore the most obvious fact that the people involved in these insurgencies are the Muslims and their common binding factor is Islam.
In regard to the allegation of oppression and marginalization of the Muslims, it is happening everywhere: in Kashmir, Mindanao , Chechnya, Kosovo, Australian, USA and all across Europe. However, such allegations are hardly substantiated in facts and figures. Not only that Muslims are oppressed and marginalized even in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia , where they are a majority. In the recent annual meeting of the ruling UMNO party in Malaysia, the issue of marginalization of the majority Malay Muslims by the minority Chinese and Indians became a heated topic in fiery speeches. The experts should, however, take note that if discrimination and marginalization are the valid causes of the barbaric insurgency that is going on in Southern Thailand, the minority Chinese and the Indians should have burned Malaysia into ashes with violence for the kind of discrimination going on against them as the constitutionally approved Government policy in that country.
Another factor the experts ignore is that a number of secessionist campaigns by various ethnic and religious groups have been solved over the recent decades. The insurgency by the Sikh people for independence from India is one such example. But none of the Islamist secessionist campaigns in non-Muslim countries have achieved a peaceful solution but instead, they have only gained strength in ferocity and violence. While, in cases like Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, they have gotten for what they initiated the insurgency, which is autonomy, and eventually independence in time to follow. Furthermore, instead of subsiding, new Islamic insurgency continues to spring up across the world on a regular basis.
There is little doubt in the fact that the experts on terrorism, especially those working on the Islamist violence and insurgency, are of great importance in today's world stricken by the Islamist terrorist activities at all corners of the world. Their opinion and advice greatly influence the policies of the Governments that shape the future of our world. It is important that these experts get the proper understanding of the fundamentals behind the massive Islamist insurgency and violence that plague the world. Else, their expertise is not going to help but instead, may only worsen the future of mankind.
As for the insurgency in Southern Thailand, the government should learn from the experiences in Kashmir, Kosovo and Mindanao etc. that nothing short of achieving an independent Islamist state would cool down the insurgency. History tells us that appeasing the Islamists, which is going on in Thailand, only emboldens them. Thailand should either choose between giving away the Southern Muslim provinces for immediately peace or engage in a decades-long battle like the governments of India and Philippine in Kashmir and Mindanao, respectively.
From laosuwan's depressing comments the other day, I'm not even convinced that Bangkok has either the will or the means to overcome this jihad. Which is what makes this even more depressing.
Any Jihadi prospects in Cambodia, Laos or Vietnam?
For a second there I got hopeful and thought that the MSM was reporting this. This captures everything that I've been trying to tell people about Islam for the past three months. I was sadly dissapointed when I found out it was coming from Islam Watch, and not a mainstream media corporation. An excellently written piece, unfortunately, few will wind up reading it.
Perhaps it would help if we had a Moslem as Secretary of State or Defense, or even President, so that we could for once and for all solve our probems with the Islamic world.
I am not serious, of course. Just as the Islamization of the Thai south goes on under this "Moslem hope (putsch PM)" for a solution, so would the infiltration and infestation of the United States continue--albeit at a faster rate--with Islamics in the government. (The one Congressperson is bad enough.)
Marisol, you have certainly laid out their M.O. once again. And the M.O. of our "leaders" like dhimwit Bush as well.
I agree that it doesn't look good for the Thai south. However, the comment about Vietnam raises some interesting possibilities. It would probably be a great thing if Jihad turned its attention to Vietnam or even better yet, China.
Given the communist governments of those countries, and the absence of the PC cultures found in Western societies, it would be a significant strategic blunder for Islam to focus its efforts on Vietnam or China. Any attempt to cause trouble would be dealt with severely. The post by Aug 22 on Japan points out Japan's relative immunity to Islam, and China or Vietnam would be bulletproof compared to Japan.
If anyone could devise a way to steer Jihad into China we could eliminate Jihad and delay any China concerns for a generation or two.
"it would be a significant strategic blunder for Islam"
Posted by: JSobieski
Does Islam need strategy?
Islam advances wherever conditions are suitable and it can exist.
Wherever it meets resistance it withdraws and bides it's time.
Islam is patient just as non-sentient microorganisms can be patient.
Islam doesn't need strategy.
Thinking of Islam as a micro-organism probably is a valid framework, but if one has any hope that Islam can be defeated, then there are actions that presumably could trigger defeat. Can one imagine a better scenario for us than an investment of all that oil money to try to undermine China? For the forces of Jihad, it is hard to imagine crashing into a stronger wall.
Even a micro-organism cannot instantaneously spread in all directions simultaneously.
Of course, what you may be saying is that Jihad by its own attributes will simply not try for a country like China until the West is under Sharia law.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Couldn't have said it better myself. Something the Muslim apollogists and the delusional to take home.
"Islam advances wherever conditions are suitable and it can exist.
Wherever it meets resistance it withdraws and bides it's time.
Islam is patient just as non-sentient microorganisms can be patient"
A couple of follow-up thoughts:
Are there recent examples of Islam withdrawing in the face of resistence? It seems to me like they persistently advance on all fronts.
Islam may be patient, but that doesn't mean that individual Muslims cannot make strategic mistakes. If it were only possible to have Iran try to cause trouble in China . . .
'The underlying issue is essentially an ethno- nationalist one – it is bound up with Malay identity and the failure of the government in Bangkok to accommodate Malay aspirations. Religion is very much a secondary issue."
-- from a posting above, quoting all kinds of "experts" on "terrorism" and "Islam"
Utter nonsense.
"Rohan Gunaranta [sic], a renowned expert on Islamic terrorism, also affirmed the same: He pointed out the parallels with Chechnya and Kashmir. "Those groups were initially nationalist but eventually developed a pan-Islamist outlook," he said. "I believe that within the next five years southern Thailand will become like the southern Philippines."
He also pinned high hope in the coup saying: "The coup was "a great opportunity that cannot be missed." [Telegraph, UK, 29 Sept 2006]"
-- from the same posting
Gunaratna is not the least offending, but he is all over the place, solemnly delivering himself, like so many of these "terrorism experts," either of the pointlessly obvious, or of the entirely misleading. There are so many of these people. Every network has at least a few of them on well-paid retainer. Their self-assured ignorance, and the description of them as "terrorism experts" by the respectful newscaster (so-and-so is a "terrorism expert" who is then consulted for his semi-worthless or downright idiotic opinion) leave the credulous public worse off, by telling it what to think, than if that public were asked to make sense of things themselves.
It is the ex=-Muslims, the defectors from Islam, the people who know all about it and are permanently unfoolable, who should be consulted in the corridors of power, and in the broadcasting houses of the Western world. By and large, they are not touched with a ten-foot-pole.
Has Ayaan Hirsi Ali been to Congress or the White House? Has anyone in Washington asked to see a group -- Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, and many others -- of those clear-eyed defectors? Or is there a fear of the reaction should sinister CAIR find out about it?
Is that it? We shall all suffer becasue of timidity and fear and ignorance on the part of those whose duty it is to instruct and protect us?
The post by Aug 22 on Japan points out Japan's relative immunity to Islam, and China or Vietnam would be bulletproof compared to Japan.
If anyone could devise a way to steer Jihad into China we could eliminate Jihad and delay any China concerns for a generation or two.
Posted by: JSobieski
How can that be done I ask? By the way, my Japanese GF tells me that her family has told her that islamos are coming into Japan and then they overstay their visas. They are working on it.
Our only hope is that the islamoFASCISTS will work too fast!!!
JSobieski said
China has Muslims, namely the Uighur people in Xinjiang province in northwest China. They are, surprise!, in a battle for independence, and trying to secede from China and establish the new nation of "East Turkistan".
I don't know if it's a strategic blunder, but Islam simply requires its followers to conquer the world. Each and every last inch. Doesn't matter if it's a democratic government or communist or socialist or dictatorship. Allah must have it all. And so, it is quite difficult to find any continent that is not suffering the effects of Islamic jihad.
That was a brilliant article. It gets to the heart of the problem; that 'intellectuals' are too paralyzed with political correctness to identify the obvious.
Meanwhile, Bush meets with Shiite parliamentary leader Al-Hakim for his help in stopping the violence. The name of Al-Hakim's political group?
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Clearly Al-Hakim is a moderate muslim. It's not like he leads a party called the Most Excellent Tribunal for the Violent Overthrow of Government and Replacement with Sharia in Iraq, or anything that means exactly the same thing but is shorter....
Think if al-Hakim called his party something not so devilishly misleading and hard to understand, like the "Party for Destroying the Great Satan (!!!!We Mean You America, You Stupid American Kufr!!!!!) in Iraq" , Bush might start to suspect he went to the wrong guy?
Alamgir Hussain said (in the original article above)
And, as the Russians learned in Chechnya, even giving them full independence will not "cool down the insurgency". Because it is not an insurgency. The goal is not political independence. The goal is to deliver the entire Earth to Allah. The method is jihad.
After a two year war ('94 to '96), Russia granted autonomy to a new "Chechen Republic of Ichkeria". But the terrorism did not stop. The Muslims did not want "independence", because that meant the end of welfare aid from the Russian government. No jizya meant no peace. And so the war began again, in 1999 to the present.
Describing all of these jihads around the world as "struggles for independence" is a dangerous misnomer.
[This was an excellent article. I hope to read more from Islam Watch. TheVoiceOfTruth says no-one will see the article, but according to the counter below, I see 5.5 million visitors to JW/DW who will have access to the article. Not too shabby.]
The issue is not about separatism, but about extending the Islamic empire into Southern Thailand.
there will be no "Independent" islamic state there. Just a state used like a frontline pawn by the Islamic imperialists.
Is so-called "Free Kashmir" (Azad Kashmir) independent?
The Muslims of Yala and Pattani may never feel to be Thais, but they will also lose their own distinct culture. They will have to drink the whole bitter cup of Islamic insurgent fanaticism.
by Alamgir Hussain
Indeed, Allah did not reveal or Muhammad did not create anything new in formulating the religion of Islam. Muhammad just assimilated existing ideas and incorporated them in his new religion. Famous authority on Islam Ignaz Goldziher writes: ".. Muhammad did not proclaim any new ideas. He did not enrich earlier conception of man's relation to the transcendental and infinite- The Arab prophet's (Muhammad's) message was an eclectic composite of religious ideas and regulations. The ideas were suggested to him by contacts, which had stirred him deeply, with Jewish, Christian and other elements." [Goldziher I, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law. Trans. Andras & Ruth Hamori, Princeton, 1981, p4-5].
Ibn Warraq writes, "Muhammad was not an original thinker; he did not formulate any new ethical principles, but merely borrowed from the prevailing cultural milieu. The eclectic nature of Islam has been recognized for a long time. Even Muhammad knew Islam was not a new religion and the revelation contained in the Koran merely confirmed the already existing scriptures. The prophet always claimed affiliations with the great religions of the Jews, Christian and others." The lack of novelty in Islam was most categorically asserted by S Zwemer in saying that Islam "is not (even) an invention, but a concoction; there is nothing novel about it except the genius of Muhammad in mixing the old ingredients into a new panacea for human ills and forcing it down by means of the sword". [Zwemer S, Islam: A Challenge to Faith, New York, p24]
Southern Thailand the new Palestine
"Islam advances wherever conditions are suitable and it can exist.
Wherever it meets resistance it withdraws and bides it's time.
Islam is patient just as non-sentient microorganisms can be patient.
Islam doesn't need strategy.
Posted by: Mike_W "
You make it sound just like this disease it is, Mike!
Well put!
JSobieski
Welcome. I saw some of your posts on another thread - a bit busy today - and wanted to add my 2 cents worth re knowledge.I know I have posted these before, but I hope all the "oldies" will indulge me.
Firstly I want to endorse what others have recommmned, but will add these links which are really good if you have cable or adsl.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-692071627799119020&q=obsession+islam
and
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2533702461706761547&q=relentless
I hope they are still available. I know you can buy "Obsession" online
www.obsessionthemovie.com about $US20
Otherwise try the Honest Reproting website which is good in itself and may have links to these.
Cheers from Downunder!
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=obsession%2Bislam
PS
in case the other links don't work!
"If anyone could devise a way to steer Jihad into China we could eliminate Jihad and delay any China concerns for a generation or two."
yes, it would be great if the West were as wise as the Chinese.
Instead it seems more likely that China will steer Jihad into the West.
i forget who put a link to the Chinese book "Unrestricted Warfare" on here first (possibly Archimedes), but its a good one to take a look at:
http://www.cryptome.org/cuw.htm
a search for "terrorism" within the book reveals some very interesting suggestions.
You make it sound just like this disease it is, Mike!
Well put!
Posted by: Gramfan
Thanks Gramfan.
JSobieski is right though, there aren't many recent examples of Islam withdrawing in the face of resistance.
Perhaps an analogy with AIDS is more accurate.
Instead of withdrawing, Islam is more likely to change it's colors, chameleon like, by practicing taqiyya on gullible kuffars.
The people in Thailand are waking up slow. - Propbably too late then.
The King expressed deep concern during his speech on his birthday, but will the government and the people act?
Here's a recent article about Chinese Muslims:
China Uses Muslims to Woo Partners
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1164545877982&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout
"BEIJING — Chinese authorities are loosening restrictions on a section of its 20-million Muslim minority in an effort to win hearts in the Middle East, where it seeks to strengthen trade and oil ties."
The moslems are only in majority. What happens to the budhi and hindu population living in the southern Thai? I know that for sure, some of them must have packed towards the North.
This is a good piece. All over the net, we read of christians and others murdered in Thai. I think it's part of the islamic revival going on right now.
PCRS
Don't worry. Once Beijing starts sensing any turbulence in Xinxiang (and Gansu?), it will crack down in a manner that would make Tiennanmen Square look like a stroll at the beach. And no sanctions, no boycott of the Beijing Olympics would possibly work: all the thousands of companies that have set up manufacturing facilities there cannot relocate unless there is major unrest in Shanghai, Beijing, Shinzhen, Suzhou, Fujien, et al.
I'd even wager them cutting off their allies like Fuckistan at the knees, if it comes to that.
"This is a good piece. All over the net, we read of christians and others murdered in Thai. I think it's part of the islamic revival going on right now.
Posted by: Nwachinemere "
Every day there is some muslim outrage on MSM or the 'blogs. I can't belive it anymore. I look forward to a muslim-free day.
It seems to be intensifying.
MikeW,,yes. Just like an AIDS epidemic.
If only it was just a condom that would help diminish it:( it would be a lot easier.
Now we have muslim/"aids suffers" spreading this ailment, and a lot on "the western front" doing all they can to give them unsterile needles that intensify the whole spread of it.We are fighting on many fronts.
My guess is that is Sonthi doesn't get a handle on the insurgency in Pattani and Narathiwat, he will be replaced by a Buddhist general in another coup before too long. The Thai are an easy-going people, but they do love revenge against people who push them too far.
PRCS--Thanks for the link on the Hui. I believe part of the Chinese Communist government's loosening of restrictions is that there have been riots by the Hui in Qinghai and other places in the past decade +; and riots against them in Henan and Shandong a few years back. The moral of the story: if you're dealing with a bully (Communist or Muslim), fight back--and the nastier you are, the more likely you will succeed in taming him.
The religion of peace in action again
Thailand
11 dead as extremists escalate violence
(BangkokPost.com from Agencies)
Suspected separatist militants have killed 11 people, including two policemen, in Thailand's Muslim-majority south, police said, in a bloody two days across the troubled region.
In the latest attack, a Buddhist man was shot dead at a gas station in Yala province on Wednesday afternoon. Police said militants stole his pick-up truck.
Earlier on Wednesday, two men were shot dead in a drive-by shooting in Yala, while a soldier assigned to protect local schoolteachers was killed when a roadside bomb exploded. Two other soldiers were injured.
Two border policemen were killed in an ambush by militants in Pattani, another of three provinces bordering Malaysia beset by separatist violence and other unrest that has killed more than 1,600 people since January 2004.
In Narathiwat province, a 48-year-old Muslim was shot dead at his grocery shop by two militants who posed as clients, police said.
On Tuesday, two Muslims, including a 13-year-old boy, were shot several times in Narathiwat and died at the scene.
Police also confirmed that two people were killed by a bomb that exploded Tuesday morning outside a car showroom in Yala.
Violence has intensified in the three southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat in the past month, since the miliatary backed government took power and announced it intended to try to forge peace in the region.
"Has Ayaan Hirsi Ali been to Congress or the White House? Has anyone in Washington asked to see a group -- Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, and many others -- of those clear-eyed defectors? Or is there a fear of the reaction should sinister CAIR find out about it?"
Yes. they are all afraid. I thought that Ayaan's coming would be celebrated and be a major news. I tought that she'll be invited to the Congress to give her testimony and the things she has suffered.
Lo, everybody is afraid not to be termed 'islamophobia'. We'll see where all these will lead us.
However, i always ask myself, 'Are moslems the only people on this planet? Why is everybody afraid? Do they own the monopoly to violence? Why is everybody being or taught to be sensitive towards them?'
The eyes of the people will open when they'll come with a bill one of these days to request that they be given the legal right to implement sharia where they are majority right here in the US, of course they will call it a cultural move and human right.By then anyone who speaks against them would be sued or be labeled a racist or bigot.
I just think that these two words will be defined properly for what they really mean.
I hope that the FBI is meeting with Ayaan.
"Suspected separatist militants have killed 11 people, including two policemen, in Thailand's Muslim-majority south, police said, in a bloody two days across the troubled region."
Who are their sponsors? where do they receive orders from? Where do they get trained?
Now making all the commitments for the muslims aired by Al-Jazeera for more future muslim attacks at hand?
Muslims will use the commitments and then cut out every reason when it fails to attack even more violently and on a more international Jihad.
Hope he's smart enough in not to make any commitments. He'd better study their kithmans before any interview.
Thai PM gives Al-Jazeera interview
(Bangkokpost.com)
Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont will give a special interview with the English language service of Al-Jazeera TV network this evening, government spokesman Yongyuth Mayalarp said.
Gen Surayud will explain to the world about the government policies to curb with escalating violence in insurgency-torn provinces in the South, said the spokesman. The premier will talk about government's effort in restoring peace in the southernmost provinces, especially about its attempt to create unity among villagers, most of whom are Muslims.
Mr Yongyuth said the government decided to speak with Al-Jazeera because the television station has networks covering many Muslim countries and those in the Middle East.
Mr Yongyuth said that government hoped to create better understanding about the government's position in handling Muslim insurgents, by informing other countries about the government's peaceful means in solving the unrest.
... and of course learn something from "relentless". It seems we're going to see the same pattern in Thailand very soon.
http://civoc.com/society/?p=11#more-11
I first started checking out this site around the time of the coup. It seemed at that time most posters felt that having a Muslim general leading a coup would not put a stop to the Islamania in Thailand. Those posters have been proven right. Meanwhile, the rest of the world thought otherwise. It appears the "idiots" who post here are a bit smarter than the world "leaders" who should really know better. This remainds me of New York in the late 1980's-because there were increasing racial problems many foolishly thought a black mayor would solve that problem. Well, racial problems got worse under that black mayor. Same kind of story in Thailand. If an infidel led that coup that might have been a different story.
So far, Abdullah's appeasement has failed miserably-unless he's willing to partition the country the only way he's going to get peace will be either to contaminate the whole of Thailand with the cult of death or make peace the old fashioned way-via iron fist.
Nwachinemeren said
The Muslims use murder and terror to force the non-Muslims to flee for their lives. The world is silent. But if the non-Muslims dare to suggest a compensated and humane repatriation of Muslims, that would be genocidal and racist.
Let anyone draw the borders for any Muslim conflict, in "Palestine", Chechnya, Thailand, Indonesia, Philipines, Sudan, take your pick, that will satisfy the Muslims. Can any of the apologists show us any example anywhere? Will the Muslims settle for 50% of the land? 75%? 95.5%? When they are losing, they will accept a temporary ceasefire until they can re-arm. But that is the most we can hope for.
Muslims Had Better Get Themselves Under Control is the title of a blog of mine I finished last night. And I really mean it because they're spooking our leaders. Keep in mind that until I read The Truth About Muhammad couple of weeks ago I was a faithful listener of Air America Radio and had the typical liberal blinders.
(I'm still liberal; I just have the blinders off in the case of Islam.)
Here's the blog:
I'm a Gnostic Christian, and I strongly suspect Muhammad got Gnostic training, so I'm about to pour through the Koran in chronological order and blog on it. His training clearly wasn't finished, which is what the problem is with this religion. It's not without reason in Star Wars that a Sith lord would removed a young Jedi from his training right as it's about to get completed. There's a critical final step that needs to get taken -- psychological death and resurrection -- when a new, balanced ego rises from the ashes. At this point the psychological debris of your upbringing, culture, &c. is cleared out and can no longer cloud your relationship with Christ Jesus. I'm afraid the more psychologically damaged you are the more frightening this process will be for you. Muhammad clearly had a lot of serious issues to work through.
(And I don't say that in a judgemental way. He background makes it clear that he needed to enter therapy.)
This is the vision of New Jerusalem in Revelations, the cube on top of the Apple Store in Manhattan, and the fall and rise of Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. Incomplete spiritual training of this kind also unleashed the Nazis.
If you start the training you have to finish it. And you can't be a coward, either. Otherwise you are a threat to believers and the world. The Church was right to clamp down on this, but wrong in turning its back on it. Now this thing is out there in the wild out of the Church's supervision.
Muhammad was clearly a spiritually potent force; but, alas, the greater the height the greater the fall into depravity.
On the contrary, Ibn Warraq aside - and other so-called "experts"- I DO think Islam is was a new religion - from a diseased mind. And Mo' got worse as time went on - he had a sexual obsession - and the STD that went along with it.
I do NOT need PhD's or other "experts" to take me by the hand - to tell me that islam got ideas from other sources. IT WAS A COMPLETELY NEW PHENOMENA.
It was new because Arabia Felix had gender equality - women were free to own business and property. They were free to marry whoever they wanted. Wore bright clothing and have their faces uncovered.
When islamic women protest that they are quite happy in this religion, the first thought that comes into my head is "These are the descendants of those unfortunate conquered women - that were raped and broken by Mohammed and his psychos. And the little girls born after could not be defended by their broken mothers. These women are slaves descended from slaves. Poor women!"
islam is a woman hating disease - it's obvious fr. the criminal actions the fundamental hoodlums are doing in Palestine, what sane, normal person is ever going to take it in their heads to get hold of acid and throw it in a woman's face? And they have the nerve to say " We will have no mercy on any woman who does not were a veil...." It's as if they were dealing with terrible enemies of their country - an organized military battalion that they will have no mercy on - yet these are their own women - their own. Pretty girls - flower - faced - young -to be held on the palm of the hands and treasured and protected from physical harm.
And then one hears of the islamics in Pakistan protesting em mass against the new women protection laws. Would you not say, these men are really women -haters?
It seems to me that there is something incorporated in the Koran to change the thinking and the brain waves of the young boys from normal to psycho. They sit and chant the words out loud all the while rocking back and forth. This is hypnotizing. You know science has discovered ELF - etc-and their effect on the brain.
I tried to read the Koran to see what it's all about - couldn't do it. 'Course the effects of the words on adults are not the same
God, I give so much thanks that I was born in the West! Yet, I have to laugh when I think of a mullah coming head to head with a fat Cuban mama - the ones one sees in Miami - fat wearing a tight tee - and w/red dyed hair. Or one a Mamaloi in Brazil. He, he, he.
Down with islam! YYYYEEEEAAAHHHH!!!!
On the contrary, Ibn Warraq aside - and other so-called "experts"- I DO think Islam is was a new religion - from a diseased mind. And Mo' got worse as time went on - he had a sexual obsession - and the STD that went along with it.
I do NOT need PhD's or other "experts" to take me by the hand - to tell me that islam got ideas from other sources. IT WAS A COMPLETELY NEW PHENOMENA.
It was new because Arabia Felix had gender equality - women were free to own business and property. They were free to marry whoever they wanted. Wore bright clothing and have their faces uncovered.
When islamic women protest that they are quite happy in this religion, the first thought that comes into my head is "These are the descendants of those unfortunate conquered women - that were raped and broken by Mohammed and his psychos. And the little girls born after could not be defended by their broken mothers. These women are slaves descended from slaves. Poor women!"
islam is a woman hating disease - it's obvious fr. the criminal actions the fundamental hoodlums are doing in Palestine, what sane, normal person is ever going to take it in their heads to get hold of acid and throw it in a woman's face? And they have the nerve to say " We will have no mercy on any woman who does not were a veil...." It's as if they were dealing with terrible enemies of their country - an organized military battalion that they will have no mercy on - yet these are their own women - their own. Pretty girls - flower - faced - young -to be held on the palm of the hands and treasured and protected from physical harm.
And then one hears of the islamics in Pakistan protesting em mass against the new women protection laws. Would you not say, these men are really women -haters?
It seems to me that there is something incorporated in the Koran to change the thinking and the brain waves of the young boys from normal to psycho. They sit and chant the words out loud all the while rocking back and forth. This is hypnotizing. You know science has discovered ELF - etc-and their effect on the brain.
I tried to read the Koran to see what it's all about - couldn't do it. 'Course the effects of the words on adults are not the same
God, I give so much thanks that I was born in the West! Yet, I have to laugh when I think of a mullah coming head to head with a fat Cuban mama - the ones one sees in Miami - fat wearing a tight tee - and w/red dyed hair. Or one a Mamaloi in Brazil. He, he, he.
I KNOW that all peoples have a right to worship any God - any thing they want, whether monotheistic or polytheistic. I myself don't need anyone to tell me God is in everything. Any "revelation" Mo had, was fr his own twisted mind. I say worship whatever, leave others alone - worry about you own wrongdoings. Leave others alone.
Allat - modern Gnostic
pneumatikon
I’ve been told Muhammad’s best friend for a long time was a top Christian scholar from Jerusalem named Rabih Bouhari. His friend was the one who ghostwrote, you can say, the good and peaceful parts of the Quran; the other violent and intolerant half of the Quran was Muhammad’s own inclusions (likely, stolen from other belief systems.) Once Bouhari was no longer of any use to Muhammad, Muhammad killed him and buried him in a certain well known place where an Islamic ritual takes place. Of course, Muhammad and his followers deny he killed Bouhari. This is the rotten roots of Islam people!
I’ve also been told Muhammad was a notorious chicken egg thief. I don’t know whether this was before he got a sugar mommy, or all the time. I suspect it was all the time, since thieving is an addiction, and there is a lot of evidence he had it.
No good can come from a Muslim government. Look at what's been happening there since the coup. I doubt those Muslims who have been killing the Christians will even be punished. This will become another terrorist state, you watch and see.
Something one of the posters said sparked a thought (yes, I know, very unusual for me lol) Nancy Pelosi accused the GOP of creating a 'culture of corruption' but the plain fact is that those who advocate political correctness are guilty of creating the culture of corruption- a culture that allows terrorist criminals to walk all over us- same thing will happen in Thai too unfortunately because they are scared of 'offending' the terrorists in any manner. http://sacredscoop.com
Yes, yes, yes and why isn't our administration reading your and Roberts words of wisdom.
I am chagrined, deeply, that an FBI agent, born in Egypt name of Bassem Yousef is suing the FBI because since 9-11, he has been assigned to a desk job..and here is what is disgusting his attorney is a Jew name of Kohn. Calls to mind another Jewish Attorney name of Lynne Stewart., and a rather famous Jewish attorney who has a cause and practise of representing terrorists in the name of human rights, name of Michael Ratner.
I was watching a segment on TV News, apparently there is nobody in the FBI with any knowledge of Islam, they didn't even know the difference between a Shi'a and Sunni, then again neither did (nor does) most Jihad Watchers..and there are only a handful who can speak Arabic, and they are probably Arabs..and even if Christian it seems, lamentably, most Arab Christians identify first and foremost with muslims unable to reflect on the fact that their identity as Arab is one that was imposed on them by their conquerors...I guess no one really wants to admit that they are submissive, and fools.
Back to the dearth of Arab speakers in the FBI, the Translation department is populated by muslim Arab speakers, so guess what comes out of that department.. accoring to Paul Sperry in Infiltration Sephardic Jews need not apply, in fact the one lone Arab speaking Jew was reassigned to a desk job outside the highly secure translation department because the Arabs objected to their presence.
Beware the advancing green slime...
Hi pneumatikon and ofcourse
interesting posts - I do love a good conspiracy theory! I've often wondered how Bush could have been so stupid to invade Iraq without knowing that the "country" would descend into anarchy. It has crossed my mind that perhaps they were engineering a war between suni and shittie. Unfortunately I don't think they are bright enough. The story I heard a while back was that on the eve of the invasion, Bush was entertaining some Iraqi dissidents and one of them enquired about what might happen between the shitties and sunis following the invasion. Bush's reply was "I thought they were all moslems in Iraq"
Rabih Bouhari I think was a Nestorian (but don't quote me) Anyway Nestorianism certainly had a major influence on Islam along with other Gnostic sects that were prevailant at the time in that area. His knowledge of Jesus were derived from apocryphal sources including the crucifixion being only apparent "They crucified him not, but they only had his likeness" (4:156) Medieval Christian scholars did not look upon Muslims as members of an alien faith but as heretics who had broken away from the fundamental Christian doctrine.
My understanding (very limited) of Gnosticism is that the teachings were esoteric and intended to lead the initiate towards Gnosis via sybolism and allegory. Unfortunately Muslims seem to interpret the more mystical/beautiful passages of the Koran literally along with the more unpleasant stuff i.e head-chopping. The 72 virgins reference that suicide bombers are so fond of is probably a reference to the pentagram/Venus (but I could be wrong)
Any way must stop ranting what I meant to say is that literal interpretation of old books (written by men including the Bible/Talmud is a bad thing
"The story I heard a while back was that on the eve of the invasion, Bush was entertaining some Iraqi dissidents and one of them enquired about what might happen between the shitties and sunis following the invasion. Bush's reply was 'I thought they were all moslems in Iraq'"
-- from a posting above
Reported by Woodward I believe, as fact, not as apocryphal. But even were it taken as such, it is clear that no one making policy believed that there would be the hostilities between Sunnis unwiling to acquiesce in the loss of political and economic power, and Shi'a unwilling to give the Sunnis (why should they?) what they want Once Saddam Hussein was removed, those hostilities became inevitable. The timetable, and the ferocity, of those hostilities, might vary a little depending on the acts of the Americans, but the outcome -- not at all. And the same goes for what the Kurds see as their one chance at independence which, despite the existence of some Kurds in the so-called national government (President Talebani, etc.) remains an inextinguishable desire.
Those who made policy in 2002-2003 were snookered or inveigled by Shi'a in exile, westernized, secular, attractive Shi'a, who assured one and all that all manner of things would be well once the Americans invaded. They forgot to add: all manner of things shall be well for us. As for you Americans, who cares?
And now that Wolfowitz and others who listened to all those assurances are out, a new group of Ameican policymakers has arisen. These are the ones now prepared to stay in Iraq becuase they are credulous believers in what the Saudi, Egyptian, and Jordanian rulers tell them. They "must" stop Iran, but not, of course, by dealing with Iran's nuclear project (no, that would help Israel). They "must" stop it by remaining in Iraq to make sure the Sunnis get their share, and of course that "share" as defined by the Sunnis is far more than the Shi'a or anyone else save those Sunni Arabs would consider to be their "share."
First the Shi'a call the tune, now the Sunnis, and the Americans, eager to please, incapable of figuring out why they should leave and let whatever hostilities can continue to simmer continue forever, and instead of deploring or trying to head off, wish devoutly for aid to come from Hezbollah in Lebanon (thereby using up volunteers and weakening Hezbollah in Lebanon), and from Iran, on one side, and from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan on the other, with Syria, as always, allowing both Sunni volunteers, and Iranian weaponry were necessary, to pass through -- a way for the Alawite ruler to assure, as he sees it, his own continued survival. He's very likely wrong.
But so are the Americans. When Gates says we must get it right and avoid all kinds of bad things happening in Iraq --you know, bad things like the Saudis and Iranians fighting a proxy or not-so-proxy war -- he has it all backwards. But what did you expect, of such a company man? Did you think he had spent the last several years studying up on Islam? What was the ratio, do you think, of the time he spent attending football games with big donors at Texas A. & M., to the amount of time he spent studying the one subject that he and everyone else involved in the making of foreign policy, or even in having an intelligent opinion about foreign policy, the tenets and attitudes and atmospherics of Islam, and the world-wide manifestations, and varied instruments, of Jihad?
hierophant I agree with what you said. From what I read, Gnostics at the time were liberal and, for the most part, sheltered Muhammad from his enemies, although his beliefs were going onto a tangent into hell. In some cases, because of their high morals, they saved Muhammad’s life, even after he had slaughtered many Christians. Unfortunately, there was obviously no law in Arabia, which should have had him hung for creating countless disturbances and spreading a hateful cult.
Hugh, I think America did right going into Iraq. Iraq must be used as a foothold into the Islamic world, but it will not come without great cost. In the meantime, Islamists invade the West, but the free world will control the land that counts the most to them: Arabia.
The terrorism in our south is tooted in both culture and religion. The Malay are a viciously racist people who view themselves as superior to other cultures; they are also violent, as daily newspaper headlines affirm. You need only read their speech, consider the words of their apologists in PULO and others of their ilk, to see how much they despise other races. The irony is that although Western and liberal media commentators are mute about the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Thai and Chinese from Southern Thailand at the hands of these Malay Muslims, any effort by we Thais to defend our state is considered by these commentators to be imposition of an alien and foreign culture by us, although the local Malay culture is not and has never been under any attack and is even protected by the law, and despite it constituting only a small percentage of our population that no one else is very much interested in. So, yes, Muslim terror in the south is a race and nationalist issue (for them).
Having said that, it is also a religious issue. Most of the killers are deeply religious Muslims who have come out of Muslim schools. For them, killing non Muslims is an opportunity to gain treasures in their hoped for imaginary afterlife. They are receiving support from fellow Islamists in Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as Bangladesh and probably elsewhere. The fact that our current Prime Minister of the month is also Muslim is probably just coincidence. His family has served country and King for several generations and he has most people’s respect. While has moves to give limited Sharia, autonomy and so forth are undesirable, they probably stem from a genuine desire to obtain peace for the region; few here in Thailand suspect he is a fith columnist as some posters here have speculated.
Personally, I don’t see how we can have peace in the region if Malay Muslims define peace as Sharia. That leaves us only two choices; resist them or abandon the provinces to them. It seems irrational to expect efforts to bring education and prosperity to the Muslims there to work if they prefer to spend their nights planting roadside bombs and their days hiding in the grass waiting to shoot some elderly Buddhist monk walking around on alms rounds.
We will be forced to make a choice between war and abandoning territory in the coming year. I don’t know what we will choose. Thaksin’s efforts to destabilize the government and our beloved King continue from his new base in China. If we see anarchy in his strongholds of the north and northeast at the same time insurrection becomes unbearable in the south it could possibly cause the collapse of our country. And now, in Bangkok, we have the Iranians and Saudis building mosques and broadcasting hate TV in the mornings. A second passport in Vietnam is beginning to seem like a good idea for our children.
Yes laosuwan,
I just read the Bangkokpost and got this
Insurgents shoot family, young child
(Bangkokpost.com)
Insurgents continued daily attacks by gunning down a three-person family that included a one-year-old child on a road in Yala today, police said.
The drive-by shooting took place at Yala-Betong road in Than To district at 11.35 a.m.
All of them are in serious condition.
PM: Insurgents to stage more attacks
(Bangkokpost.com)
Insurgents will stage more attacks in southernmost provinces from now until New Year, said Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, citing intelligence information from Defence Ministry.
Gen Surayud said Defence Minister Boonrawd Somtas informed him today that suspected extremists might stage more violent activities during the period in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat.
Gen Surayud told public not to worry, saying government has been closely monitoring work progress of involved parties.
NICE TO SEE COMMENTS TO PEOPLE NOT TO WORRY WHEN THEY GET SLAUGHTERED.
HE SHOULD BE MORE SENSITIVE TO THE DIGNITY OF THE VICTIMS ONE COULD GUESS.
By the way laosuwan. Do you have anybody or even yourself to translate the speech from Brigitte Gabriel. It looks like the same pattern showing up for Thailand.
http://civoc.com/society/?p=8#more-8 - Because they hate - clips 1 - 7
From Lausuwan:
That leaves us only two choices; resist them or abandon the provinces to them.
Do no abandon the provinces, If they acquire the provinces, they will move on to the next location. Soon you will have nowhere to run. Actually the two choices are resist them or join them.--They intend to kill you if you resist,if you do not join them or if you run. There is no dishonor dying for your freedoms or beliefs. Hope is only availiable through resistance.
"I think America did right going into Iraq. Iraq must be used as a foothold into the Islamic world, but it will not come without great cost. In the meantime, Islamists invade the West, but the free world will control the land that counts the most to them: Arabia."
-- from a posting above
If the stated goal -- to enter and destroy major weaponry -- was the real and only goal, then it at least was rational and defensible. However, if that stated goal was not the real goal, and the one that quickly replaced it, that of bringing "democracy" and thereby "transforming the Middle East," was all along the real goal, and not something disastrously concocted after the invasion, then the original invasion itself was not justified, was irrational, would end in failure.
Clearly the real goal was never to do what would always have been justified: to enter Iraq, seize or destory major weaponry, topple the regime, a disguised Sunni despotism, of Saddam Hussein, and then leave, with the power struggle within Iraq to continue for a very long time, and inevitably given the natural aggressiveness and winner-take-all (there is the victor, there are the vanquished) attitude that comes naturally to peoples suffused with Islam.
That would have been not only defensible, but admirable.
But that, clearly, was not the goal. Those who made policy really were just as naive, and many remain so today, as they were then. They stll prate, as one Dan Barrett did on NPR last night, about the "President's plan" and how it was working, how "democracy was spreading all over the Middle East" in such places as "Lebanon" (where true "democracy" would doom the Christians, so thank god the 1932 census is still the basis of the non-democratic power-sharing that Lebanon remains, despite those "democrats" the followers of Nasrallah)and the "Palestinian territories" (where elections brought Hamas to power, that is the Fast Jihadists replaced the Slow Jihadists) as well as in "Iraq" (what "democracy" there? the winner-take-all democrats, enforcing the purple-thumbed nonsense, the Shi'a militias?). And others, including a great many "conservative" columnists, continue to support the effort, or to support it in part, because they remain Bush loyalists, but more than that, it is too disturbing for them to admit how wrong they have been all along. They would lose face. They would not recover. Start with My Weekly Standard, and go from there, even unto Krauthammer and Victor Davis Hanson, the pets of so many.
They have all refused to identify Islam as the source of the menace, as the menace itself. And failing to do that, they have failed to describe the proper goal in Iraq, as elsewhere, as one of weakening the Camp of Islam. In Iraq, that possibility presents itself on a platter. Of the three main divisions within Islam, sectarian, ethnic, and economic, that is between Sunn and Shi'a (the Ibadiya cannot conceivably count), the Arab and non-Arab Muslims, and the oil-rich and the Muslims without oil (which means without much at all, save in the case of the two states that hold Islam in check, Turkey and Tunisia, and that have therefore managed to overcome the inshallah-fatalism of Islam, and have also been welcoming to Infidel tourists who still, as yet, feel safe), two are present: the sectarian and the ethnic.
It is criminal not to see this, and not to exploit those divisions, by pulling out.
Oh, an "exit strategy" is needed? Why? The "exit strategy" is that the Exit itself is a Strategy, the very best Strategy of all. No need to apologize. We did not create, we did not exacerbate, the sectarian divisions and the mistreatment of non-Muslims (the Kurds in this case) that are as old as Islam. For the Sunni-Shi'a divide goes back to the first century of Islam, and Sunnis have been persecuting and killing Shi'a ever since (see what happened to the Hazara in Afghanistan under the Taliban; see what Sipaha-e-Sahaba has been doing to Shi'a mosques and professionals for the last decade or more, see how Shi'a are treated in Saudi Arabia, in Al-Hasa province, see how Shi'a and Sunnis get along in Lebanon, in Yemen, in Bahrain, in Kuwait). As for the Arab mistreatment of the Kurds, where have the Arabs ever treated non-Arab Muslims as their equals (see the Berbers of the Kabyle, see the black Muslims of Darfur) given the many ways in which Islam is a vehicle for Arab supremacism. The Muslim must read the Qur'an in Arabic, and even if he does not understand a word, ideally memorize, as so many madrasa students do, that bok in Arabic. He usually takes an Arab name. He prays five times a day toward Arabia. He takes as his model of everything a seventh-century Arab and, for some things, looks as well at what that seventh-century Arab's Arab companions did. He often, in some cases, pretends to a lineage that makes him a descendant of the Prophet -- my god, a third of Pakistanis seem to be "Sayeeds" which would imply quite a polyphiloprogentivie Prophet indeed, and that is not what the Qur'an says.
And if this "Exit Strategy" business, which long faces solemnly tell us we "must have," as if it were something remarkably difficult, and as yet undiscoverable thing that no one could conceivably locate, no one had yet been able to come with -- is supposed to, in the words of the Iraq Study Group, to proceed very slowly, very cautioiusly, with only combat troops to be taken out by 2008 (2008!),with some remaining for "force protection" (what does that mean? how open-ended is that?) and then others remaining, preumably, in a sitatuion of maximum peril to themselves, to "train" Iraqis by being "embedded with Iraqi units." American soldiers "embedded with Iraqi units" have already been killed (three, including a lieutenant colonel, died just last week), and one naturally imagines that this would be the most dangerous of all jobs: to entrust your life to fellow soldiers who are Muslism, who do not wish you well, and at least one or two in each unit would be just as glad to see you dead. Yet this is the task our uncomplaining soldiers are being asked to undertake, and to keep doing, apparently, long after 2008. And who will they be "training"? The non-existent "Iraqi" army and possibly, to a now-lesser extent given its performance, the so-called "Iraqi" police. How much longer will it take the Bush administration, and the Iraq Study Group people, to put aside entirely the use of this misleading adjective "Iraqi" or at least to hold it up for proper critical inspection, so that there may be some intelligent discussion of what it is that makes this adjective so misleading?
If Bush's men are still prating about "democracy," this tells us three things about them. One, they are ignoring what "democracy" means in the places where elections took place. Among the "Palestinian" Arabs this meant that the Slow Jihadists (Fatah) were replaced by the Fast Jihadists (Hamas). In Lebanon, "democracy" appears to have been interpreted to mean those "Cedar Revolution" demonstrations in Beirut, but those "Cedar Revolution" demonstrations (with those pretty Christian girls snapped sitting on the shoulders of Christian boys) were nothing compared to the Hezbollah demonstrations, and if the Shi'a now constitute 40% of the Lebanese population, and are allotted by the power-sharing arrangements established long ago for less than that (those arrangements are based on a 1932 census) real "democracy" in Lebanon, of which Bush's man Dan Barrett and Rice and Bush prate, would only mean a rise in Hezbollah's power, and certainly be the end of the Christians of Lebanon). As for "democracy" elsewhere, where is it, or what would happen if it came? In Syria, it would be the end of the Alawites. They would be massacred overnight by the Sunnis, in their villages, and the other Christians -- the Orthodox, the Maronites, and the Armenians -- would no longer enjoy the protection (my god, the Syrian govenment shuts at Christmas, and Good Friday processions are allowed in public, and the Muslims do not dare touch them) of the Alawite regime. If you want "democracy" in Syria, you are asking for an end to that protection of Christians.
The second way in which "democracy" has been misunderstood by the Bush Administration has been in its ignoring of the nature of Islam, the main subject, virtually the only subject, that is of significance when one discusses the Middle East, and completely absent from both the decision-making of the Bush Admiinistration and from the banal and often stupid suggestions of the Iraq Study Group. Islam teaches its adherents that the uncreated and immutable word of God, the Qur'an, as further glossed by the Sunnah (that is the Hadith and the Sira, which together provide a guide, through tbe recorded words and acts of Muhammad, of what this or that Qur'anic passage must mean), is the source of all authority. Islam means "submission" and it is the duty of Muslims to "submit" to the word of God, not to quesetion themsevles, not to exercise their own powers of ratiocination or, still worse, their own moral judgment. Morality is not part of it. If Allah commands, that is it. For Allah Knows Best.
Islam is a complete system, that comprises not merely, not even mainly, what we in the West think of as religion, with rituals of worship and some posited anthropomorphic Creator of the Universe, but also extends into, and covers, every other area of life, including the political. Indeed, Islam owes its origin to the desire and felt need of conquering Arabs, who had already begun to seize the lands of non-Arab Christians and Jews who were civilizationally far more advanced, and more settled, and richer, than they, and to create or to exploit a belief-system concocated partly of bits and pieces of Christian and Judaic stories and major figures, which was appropriated in distorted fashion to become part of Islam, as well as of pagan Arab lore from the time of the Jahaliyya (Ignorance), such as the "djinn." Islam, in other words, was created both to justify, and promote, conquest by the Arabs, and it helped to have a belief-system that looked, superficially, as if it might be, as they insisted, the "true version" of something that those they conquered had a lesser, distorted edition of --- not so much a rough draft, as Jewish and Christian texts that were themselves debased versions, versions gone awry, of the True Text of Islam, which those nice conquering Arabs were offering them as part of the package of conquest.
In the belief-system of Islam, political as all other legitimacy is located in the Word of Allah, in the uncreated and immutable Text. It is not to be located in the expressed will of mere mortals, who after all have one duty: to submit to Allah. When Bush saw the elections in Iraq as some kind of wonderful confirmation of "democracy," he did not understand -- and no one around him understood-- that the election took place, as it did, because the Shi'a were happy to do as their leaders told them. Al-Sistani gave the word from on high and other Shi'a clerics followed suit: go ahead, vote, Why? Because the Shi'a were sure to win, constituting as they did 60-65% of the population. That was the only reason. And they marched off, and voted just as told, en bloc, and then held their purple thumbs up, for all the world as if they had been like New Englanders going off to vote for Town Meeting. All nonsesense, but who wanted to sourly, and truthfully, explain what was oging on back in January 2005, when a New Day Was Dawning in the Middle East?
The third way in which the word "democracy" has been misused by the Bush Administration is in its shallow conception of what this means. It is clear, from all the analogizing by Rice and Bush, for example, between what went on in Iraq and our own Revolution and the Framers of the Constitution, including those hideous comparisons between the Muslims of Iraq in their "constitutional" undertakings and the brilliant, unsurpassable collection of men who met in Philadelphia, that neither Bush nor Rice has an understanding of either the ideological currents that led up to, and created, the men who met in Philadelphia, nor of the nature of what they achieved, nor of much else about American history. We are now ruled, apparently, by people who do not know about Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, about Montesquieu's "The Spirit of the Laws," about what Jefferson or James Madison or James Wilson readd or what they wrote or thought about -- the dumbing down has also been a dumbing up, and the people who rule us are not like those who once did, whom one could expect to have known American history and the history of the development of the idea of freedom, a subject about which those who presume to instruct and protect us should be expected to know all about -- should now what it is they are supposed to protect. "The Idea of Freedom in Human History" is not exactly an abstruse topic. See Herbert Butterfield, see Herbert Muller. But apparently Bush, the Andover and Yale cut-up, never had much time for book-learning, and Rice was too busy being the dutiful striving graduate student in Kremlinology to learn about American history, but American history, and the history of the Western political and cultural tradition and achievements, should be a requirement for participation in government at the upper levels. If there is no understanding of what it is you are supposed to be protecting and cherishing, and if you have so little historical sense or understanding of what the Framers achieved th that you dare to compare those semi-primitives in Iraq with the Framers of Philadelphia, then you do not deserve power, or proximity to power. You deserve mockery, and banishment from power.
Now comes another kind of folly: the Iraq Study Group. It states the obvious, that "we are losing in Iraq" by which it means, given the definition of "winning" which apparently the Iraq Study Group is too unimaginative to question, we "are losing." And this is considered a great achievement. But it is merely a statement of the obvious. And along with that statement of the obvious comes so much else, that is even more stupid and potentially dangerous than what the Bush Administration it criticizes now offers, that one is left feeling colossally depressed.
There is, for example, the suggestion that Iraqn and Syria be "talked to." On the face of it, who can object to "talking to" anyone? But in the Middle East, "talking to" lends legitimacy, gives support to, those regimes one wishes to isolate or at least to cause to feel isolated. It is not as if there the views of these regimes are not fully known already. They are not hermeitically sealed off, like the military regime in Burma. We already know what the regime in Syria wants: it wants as much protection from its enemies, as much power and money, as it can get. It wants to continue to dominate Lebanon. It wants to continue the Alawite dictatorship by doing the simultaneous bidding of both the Shi'a in Iran (who have declared the Alawites to be "true Muslims" which is not what the Sunnis think, and Sunni Muslims constitute 70% of the Syrian population) and the Sunnis, by allowing the latter free entry to leave Syria and go to fight (and, the Alawites hope, die) in Iraq.
As for "talking to Iran," the American govenment already knows perfectly well what Iran wants. It wants precisely to "talk, talk, talk" with everyone under the sun, in order to keep any attack from actually taking place that would stop its headlong rush toward obtaining nuclear weapons. Only a fool would think otherwise. And only fools would think that formal "talks" would add to the American store of knowledge, of finding out what "Iran really wants" when we know perfectly well what Iran really wants: it wants that weaponry, and the power, and the threat, that go with it. And the current regime, we have every reason to believe, is certainly prepared to use such weapons against Israel, in a final chiliastic frenzy. The suggestion that the American govenment "talk to" Syria and Iran sounds perfectly harmless, perfectly fine, unless one thinks clearly about what such "talks" would mean.
Of course, there are "talks" that could be brief, and could go something like this:
To the Syrian regime, the Americans could say: Alawites are not true Muslims. We know this, and the Sunnis know this, despite your attempts to hide behind that single fatwa from Iran claiming otherwise. The Saudis are prepared to use their money to broadcast through the Arab press, in the Middle East, and in London, ably assisted by the Jordanians and the Egyptians, that the Alawites, those non-Muslims, must go. You think you can continue to rule, despite being 12% of the population. You think we will not support a
Sunni Muslim effort to depose you. At this point, your behavior is such that we regard you as dispoosable. But it is not we who will do the disposing. It will be the Ikhwan within Syria. We will publicize your permitting Shi'a missionaries to come from Iran. We will have the Saudis and others display pictures of Mary in every Alawite village. Your Alawite generals will get more and more nervous. They do not all wish to be slaughtered -- which is what the real Muslims will do to you. You have a choice. Leave Lebanon alone. Stop helping Iran. Forget about the Golan Heights; you will never get it back. We will give you a free hand in Syria. But that is it. That is more than enough. That, or a Sunni uprising that will not end in a mere palace coup, but in the mass murder of Alawites everywhere. Your choice.
That would be the way to have "talks" with Syria.
And the "talks" with Iran? Something along the same friendly lines. Something like this: Fifty percent of your population is not Persian. There are Kurds. There are Azeris. There are Baluchis. There are Arabs in Khuzistan, where all your oil is located. We are prepared to arm, through Kurdistan, those Kurds. The mere existence of an independent and American-backed Kurdistan will inspire, not only those Kurds, but also those Baluchis and those Arabs and, if we can make a deal with Azerbaijan, possibly even those Azeris as well. The Ottoman Empire dissolved after World War I. What remains of the Persian Empire -- that is, modern Iran -- can dissolve, or be shrunk still further. Could you put down simultaneous revolts among the Kurds, Baluchis, Azeris, and Arabs? You don't think we dare do it? Why not? What do we have to lose? What could you do now that is still worse than what you are already doing? Let's be clear: we are not out to overturn the regime, but we can inflict such damage on your country that others, within, will overturn your regime. And kill the Mullahs in their luxurious homes. Do you want that? Do you want to lose the oil of Khuzistan to the Arabs? We wouldn't dare, you say? Why wouldn't we? Why should we care - we buy oil from wherever, and we pay the market price to you or to them. What reason do we have for keeping Iran together? Instability should worry us? Why? Why should it?
Something like that, to both Syria and Iran, would be the only kind of talks worth having.
As for the sinister business in the Iraq Study Group about Israel, in which not only all the cliches about a "two-state solution" but, courtesy no doubt of such operators as that virtual agent of the Arabs, Raymond Close (why has his participation, and his shadowy background, not been made the subject of discussion?), but also of Robert Malley, that full-time and tireless promoter of the "Palestinians," who was the behiind-the-scenes organizer (the front man was Gareth Evans) of the International Crisis Group's little effort (one of those "signed by World Leaders" things) to demand renewed pressure for Israeli surrender, an effort one of whose
World Leaders" was none other than Lee Hamilton, famously unsympathetic -- always has been, always will be -- to Israel, though not perhaps for the same reasons as Texas fixer and Saudi-connected ("Our friends in the Gulf") James Baker.
Oh, there's a good deal more to say about the Iraq Study Group, none of it good. The only good thing is that, along with much vicious nonsense, and of course without a hint of comprehension of the nature or scope or instruments of Jihad (these are all Yesterday's Men and Women, and far too famous and busy to have the time to learn, at this point, about Islam), that it managed to state the obvious: that the Bush policy, on its own terms, is not "winning" in Iraq.
The more intelligent criticism, the one that requires examination of what should constitute "winning" for the United States in Iraq, was beyond that committee's capacity. After all, that would take real thought. That would take study, and reading, and time. That is not something to be asked of such busy busy people as James Baker, and Lee Hamilton, and all the rest. They had their "experts" -- such people as Raymond Close and Shibley Telhami. What did you expect?
Hugh
wish you and Robert had the ear of some of those policy makers on capitol hill, but I don't think they are machiavellian enough to take on board your proposals.
If we are to support the Kurds it would mean severing ties with Turkey which I am all for (speaking as a European)
We should kick Turkey out of NATO and admit Israel instead - that would set a cat amongst the pigeons.
Will never happen though
The power in Lebanon was rightly divided. Before WWI Lebanon was 80% Christian, mostly from Phoenician backgrounds (who can track their Christian heritage to 57 AD,) but a lot with Greek and French roots going back even before Islam existed. During WWI, adding insult to injury, a third of the Lebanese Christians were killed by the Ottomans, many from starvation, but a lot from town cleansing: Ottomans would go into a town, and eagerly lead by Muslim residents who have lived side-by-side with the Christians all their lives, they would break into Christian homes and do all sorts of nasty things to the Christians with blades, leaving no one in there alive. If that isn’t the most invasive form of terror, I don’t know what is. Accounts have been given of rivers flowing red with Christian blood for months.
After WWI Lebanon was still a Christian majority country until the 1960’s, by which time most had fled to the West, through a gateway that was open to them only 100 years before, away from the continuous Islamic terror. The Shias, breeding like rats, became pressed for resources and began forcefully taking Christian land and property. The Islamists finally decided that if Lebanese Christians won’t convert, we’ll rub them out.
Believe it! The same tactics and horrors done in Lebanon will come to the West.
Lebanese Christians express well the cost of freedom and the Christian faith. Lebanese Christians have, since the invasion of Islam a millennium and a half ago, been fighting and/or struggling to have both. In the last century, to have them they sacrificed half their population, half the land they owned and shaped since the beginning of time, and they never participated in the population growth that every other country had in the 20th century. This is the true price for being free and Christian among Muslims, and the West needs to wake up to it. The West needs to stop this Muslim appeasement and promotion, and get back to recognizing and fighting for the values we cherish the most.
I disagree with you, Hugh, implying the status quo in regards to Syria is good. The current Syrian regime has been a menace from the beginning. Those Christians you talk about, in the Syrian government, are intelligent puppets. They certainly aren’t thinking of Christians when they bombard Lebanon with countless killer plots over the last 30 years, support and shelter terror groups, and demonise Israel. Sadam also had good policies towards Christians, and many of his top personnel were Christian too. These Syrian and Iraqi Christians only help the regime they are under, tyrant or not, to survive. Don’t melt over Syrian propaganda so easily.
Syria and Iran are currently the swords of Islam, and they must be neutralized; the sooner the better. They have been destabilising the Middle East.
Islam is tribalism. It is not something for the modern world.
I agree with you, our leaders (in the later half of the 20th century) are weak at heart and loyalty. They don’t have that spark of past leaders that made them stand up and fight for something. The problem is they no longer take anything seriously from too much diplomacy. I agree with you that they must develop the characteristics of our previous most admired leaders.
I agree with you there is nothing to talk about with Syria and Iran. They have taken their position, and America has taken its position. There is nothing to discuss. It all comes down to this: they stop their fundamentalism, hostility, and attacks towards the West, or the West takes them down. Not acting on that statement can cause us serious harm in the future. We’ve been pussyfooting too long with them already.
With regards to the old schoolers, the architects of today’s mess, I would scrutinize every word they say.