Yes, they are, but probably not in the way Sheikh Ali Bapir thinks. The main way they're ignorant is that here we have an Iraqi warlord explaining how he studied the Qur'an and Islam, and is ready to wage a war of ideas, while American TV talking heads (both the "liberal" and the "conservative" one) go out of their way to make sure that everyone understands that the equation of Islam and violence is offensive, and that in any case guys like this Sheikh are purveying a "twisted version of Islam." Yet I doubt that Sheikh Ali Bapir, if he were to see this clip, would find it daunting. He knows a lot more about Islam than either Alan Colmes or Sean Hannity, and he is secure in his knowledge that he is following the correct religious path.
Can we meet the ideological challenge he is intending to present, or do anything to counter the influence of his religious appeal to peaceful Muslims, by pretending that his appeal isn't religious at all, or that his appeal is self-evidently false on Islamic grounds and that most Muslims will immediately see it as such? Wouldn't it be more effective to discuss realistically the basis of his appeal within the teachings and traditions of Islam, so as to gauge the strength of that appeal and formulate effective ways to counter it?
"Iraqi warlord's defeat only hardens his resolve," by Borzou Daragahi for the Los Angeles Times (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):
IRBIL, Iraq — The Muslim warlord reclines in suburban opulence. He smiles mischievously despite his recent troubles.Over the last five years, his once heavily armed Kurdish militia has been disbanded, his mountainside base crushed by U.S. cruise missiles, his movement thrown into chaos. He was locked up at Baghdad's notorious Camp Cropper with his former blood enemies, including former President Saddam Hussein.
But Sheik Ali Bapir, the charismatic 46-year-old leader of a Kurdish organization called the Islamic Group, believes he has come through his travails as a winner.
His bestselling memoir has gone into a second printing and has been translated into Arabic. He leads a large political movement with its own satellite channel, news publications, six seats in the Kurdistan regional parliament and a plush compound on the outskirts of this predominantly Kurdish city.
Even his time in prison wasn't a waste.
"I took the occasion to study Islam with my fellow prisoners," he says during a rambling chat with a reporter he first met before the Iraq war. "I held Koranic classes. I succeeded in teaching them to recite the Koran by heart."
Bapir says he remains every bit the warlord. But he now sees himself as a general waging a battle of ideas against secular forces. His 22-month detention without charge, widely chronicled in the Iraqi press, only hardened his resolve against the West and what he calls its hypocrisies.
"According to their own laws as well as Sharia [Islamic law], it's not legal to put someone in jail without any evidence. Yet there I was, though I was never charged with committing any crimes."
He added: "The Americans are very ignorant about us Islamists."
But getting more enlightened every day, thanks to sites like Jihad Watch.
6 years after 9/11: tons of ridiculous, willful stupidity on Hannity & Colmes
Skeletor rejects reality, Emerson rips him, but the obstinate one insists: "‘Islamofascism is offensive because it conflates a whole religion, aren’t you demonizing a whole religion, I would call it fascism but not.. I object to that term, its extremely insulting to a whole religion.. you don’t have the right to define their religion… its not for you to define their religion…’
http://sheikyermami.com/2007/10/13/6-years-after-911-tons-of-ridiculous-willful-stupidity-on-hannity-colmes/
It's one thing when a fool like Alan Colmes tries to whitewash the violent nature of Islam, but the real shame is when someone like President Bush falls prey to the same illusion and bases our strategic alliances on it. I would hate to fight and die to prop up a "moderate" Islamic regime like the one in Baghdad or Kabul.
I thought Kurds were our friends. I have read that the Kurds along with Berbers could be made to realize that they were being Arabized by Islamic supremacism and they would see the light and know that Islam was destroying their culture, assuming they even want to preserve their culture.
Send Bapir a copy of this:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/015815.php
Delete the comments, of course. Should it be translated into Arabic?
I guess some non-Arab Muslims are OK with their Arabness, and even relish it and want everyone to be steeped in Arabness. Arabness uber alles.
Maybe Bapir is an aberration; maybe he is not a typical Kurd. Maybe he is just angry that the Americans destroyed his litle army, or maybe not.
sheik yer'mami
Funny how Colmes doesn't find it offensive that muslims call Jews apes and pigs,,and that would be Colmes himself.
Not to mention that all non-muslims are called kaffurs. The man is an even bigger idiot than Hannity!
I was more liberal many years ago, but even then I would have been embarrassed by Colmes.
"His bestselling memoir has gone into a second printing and has been translated into Arabic. He leads a large political movement with its own satellite channel, news publications, six seats in the Kurdistan regional parliament and a plush compound on the outskirts of this predominantly Kurdish city.....
"'I took the occasion to study Islam with my fellow prisoners,' he says during a rambling chat with a reporter he first met before the Iraq war."
-- from the article above
Meanwhile, the American soldiers who remove Saddam Hussein, thus making possible Ali Bapir's "bestselling memoir" to be published, and his "political movement with its own satellie channel" and "news publications" and "six seats in the Kurdistan regional parliament" and a "plush compound" on the outskirts of Irbil, do not, in Iraq, or before they go to Iraq, learn a thing of use about Islam. Oh, now, a few years into the Iraq war, they are being told that there are "Sunnis" and "Shi'a." And they are taught a little of what is called demurely "cultural sensitivity" having to do with knocking down doors when there are women inside, and what hand to eat with when you are with Arabs, and so on. But that's it.
No real understanding of what it is that suffuses the societies of the people they will meet, but that they cannot see. No discussion of what fills the minds of men, in the country they will remain in for so long, risking their lives for a goal which, if they actually were taught about Islam, taught what the unshakeable Muslim view of Infidels is, and that any expressions of friendshp or loyalty are purely temporary, alliances of very limited convenience, designed --by the Anbar sheiks, for example, to win American money and above all, weaponry, and mean nothing about a long-term alliance, which is impossible.
The biggest failure of the Iraq War was and remains a failure of intelligence. A failure to intelligently understand the need for those making policy, and for those soldiers who have been asked to execute without questioning that policy, to learn about Islam, the threat of Jihad, the instruments of Jihad (that go far beyond acts of terror), to also learn -- more than a million have been in Iraq, and the chance to educate them was heaven-sent, and completely miffed.
Ossas of idiocy piled on Pelions of ignorance. That's the story, the continuing story, of the Iraq war.
And its opponents? They have yet to offer the deadliest criticism, the unanswerable criticism, the criticism offered here. And because they cannot formulate a criticism that attacks the declared goals not only as unattainable, but as making no sense, for we have no stake in the future stability of Iraq or of the area, but can profit most by the nightmare, for both Iran and Saudi Arabia, of continuous Sunni-Shi'a hostility and even warfare.
If the Americans leave, will the Shi'a give the Sunnis what they want (and what they have no right to demand, given the long record of Sunni discrimination, persecution, and murder?)? No. Will the Sunnis be able to take back Iraq? No. But they can try to preserve their presence in, and take back, fabled Baghdad, the loss of which will stick in Sunni Arab craws, for it was, for 500 years, the most important city of Islam (and for 400 of those years the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate). Money, men, and war materiel should come from both Sunni neighbors, and from Iran, and be a permanent source of unsettlement and expense. Is that a bad thing? Is it bad because Gates and Rice and others in the government are told, by Saudi and U.A.E. and Egyptian and Jordanian diplomats and rulers, that there will be "chaos" and "catastrophe" and they apparently believe what the people who tell them this say, without analyzing what lies behind those words, what those words mean?
"I thought Kurds were our friends. I have read that the Kurds along with Berbers could be made to realize that they were being Arabized by Islamic supremacism and they would see the light and know that Islam was destroying their culture, assuming they even want to preserve their culture."
-- from a posting above, which I will take to be directed at me
I never wrote that "the Kurds" are "our friends." I wrote that the Kurds of Iraq (and whenever one uses such coarse terms as "the Arabs" or "the Kurds" one begs forgiveness from the gods, requesting special dispensation because what is being discussed -- politics, geopolitics, large masses of men -- forces that coarseness and that necessary grouping and generalizing that, in any other circumstances, would be intolerable) are genuinely grateful for the American protection they received, from 1991 to 2003, from Saddam Hussein's air force, and that they recognize that the Americans are the only ones who have allowed them autonomy and might be persuaded to allow them to move to full independence. They also understand that Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Iraq are not likely to tolerate such independence unless the Americans back the Kurds, running diplomatic interference with Turkey, and supporting the Kurds not for sentimental reasons, but because a Kurdish state would unsettle both Iran and Syria, could pay for itself (if the Kurds are allowed to reassert control over the oil in the north, which belongs not just to them, by the way, but to the Assyrian Christians who lived in the north, and were partly displaced by the movement of Kurds southward after World War I). And a Kurdish state, having thrown off the Arab yoke, could inspire -- and at least would raise in the consciousness of non-Arab Muslims -- other non-Arabs such as the Berbers to demand much greater rights from their Arab masters, and a halt, or even a reversal, of the cultural and linguistic imperialism that everywhere the Arabs, who constitute only 20% of the world's Muslims, impose or attempt to impose on the non-
Arab Muslims.
The Kurds are not allies to the U.S. but they could be useful. In the end that is all you can expect from any nation or peoples that have Islam as the majority faith. However by helping the Kurds we hurt the Iranians and Syrians etc. We helped the Chinese during the Cold War because it would hurt the Soviet Union not because China was a real friend. We helped the Soviet Union in WWII against the Nazi Germans and on and on.
We have no friends in Iraq or in the land of Islam.
I would guess that the vast majority of Americans were unaware of the suicidal, murderous traits of the people Islam and their 'religion of peace'. That's one thing, as most Americans want to be left alone to their own pursuits, but for the Administration to be uninformed or ignorant of their religious stance before starting the conflict and realizing their potential to refuse to accept democracy in full, wanting a theocracy instead, is reprehensible. Bombing Hussein into the stone age is one thing, to stop his genocide, destroy his weapons, and free the Iraqis to decide things for themselves, but sending our guys to die for something that will never exist - a true democracy - will be a blunder that we, and especially George & his administration, will have to live with forever. There are some muslims who do appreciate our efforts, but they are doomed to the small minority, and when they say it out loud they take their lives in their hands. Their 'book' and their murderous/suicidal way, especially against themselves, will prevent their culture ever to rise above the 'adolescent' age. They will be stuck in the teenage/gangbanger age for along time, or until they 'grow up' in their culture to realize AGAIN, since they learned nothing from their 'defeat' and decline after the age of the Crusades, that if they want to live on, grow and prosper in the modern age, they have to stop all violence ande get along with the rest of the world. I pray every day for this to happen.
I did not direct that at you, Hugh, I refered to that because I am confused about this whole Berber-Islam, Kurd-Islam relationship. Turks are not Arabs, and recent events indicate that Islam trumps Turkishness. Turks may not have real-life Arab masters, but they do worship a virtual Arab master and follow the Arab spiritual life-plan.
Will Islam trump Kurdishness in the future? Are Kurds unique because they have been denied their own country? When and if they do realize a Kurdistan, all I can do is cross my fingers and hope it will not be another Islamic Republic with the Quran as the constitution. If that happens, we have gained nothing.
I wrote that I thought Kurds were our friends. You did not say it; I did in a misplaced fashion. (friends? allies? partners?) I have a grand nephew in the Irqi north, and his letters say that it is rather peaceful and the people are mostly cooperative and mostly grateful.
You said in you essay that the Kurds want out and they have had it with the Arabs; when and if they also slip out from under the big Islamic thumb, then and only then will I produce that tentative sigh of relief.
Hmmm...
"The Americans are very ignorant about us islamists."
Well...ya gotta admit, he's right.
To call it a religion of peace IS not only ignorant, but naively suicidal.
One need only research their universal escape clause, aka, taqqiyah to see what it's ALL about...
along with a reality check...
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/9/24/152943.shtml
...which goes to prove, even more so, that Robert's latest book is right, "and islam isn't".
Of course, islamists never let facts get in their way regardless, so the clown's comment is relegated to the comedy category.
PS- sheik: LMAO, liked the "skeletor" bit-never looked at him that way before-but it fits! ^5s!
If he wants to oppose 'secular forces' -- meaning us -- why did we let him out of 'detention?' Is this a civilizational death-wish?
Every day I read 3-4 stories about how we always shoot ourselves in the foot, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the 'war on terror' -- the term itself being the first of countless shots to the foot.
It would be nice to read about something we did right once in a while. If only we could manage one.
It's an uphill battle for sure.
They happen every day, but the MSM doesn't report anything good (by their own admissions)-that makes their puppetmasters look bad.
Should have just hanged him, too.
This pussyfooting to oblivion is tiresome folly.
He studied the manual of hate called the koran -
going to jail for this guy was like attending the university of criminality.
Some OT news.
OT -
http://galliawatch.blogspot.com/2007/10/they-arrived-in-waves.html
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Violence in Marseilles is the topic of this article, dated October 3, from La Provence.
Armed with knives, sometimes fishing harpoons, they wait for passers-by on the street corners. "This summer, hardly a day went by that an old woman was not thrown to the ground," relates a baker on the rue Longue des Capucins. This summer he kept a butcher's axe ready, hidden under his work table.
In two months, no less than 20 complaints of violent theft have been reported in the neighborhood of Noailles. Most of the victims were old women, savagely assaulted under the powerless eye of the surveillance camera... Some recognized their attacker: ten in all, ages 15 to 20, were arrested last Tuesday in a police raid carried out in their hideout on the rue du Musée. The whole sidewalk, or almost.
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OT-
http://covenantzone.blogspot.com/2007/10/france-tv-speak-no-evil-just-chat-with.html
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Like muggings and petty theft, car burnings remain so common in France that it is no longer news-worthy to talk about them. A colleague of mine was surprised to hear, and somewhat dubious of, the ongoing reality that cars continue to be torched throughout France’s suburbs, because “it’s not on tv anymore”. Then it can’t be happening, right? If it’s not on television it isn’t happening.
This week the French municipality of Saint-Dizier saw a particularly rough non-event take place..: [my translation of the yahoo/france account]
Calm returned Friday to the sensitive neighborhood of Vert-Bois in Saint-Dizier (Haute-Marne), the day after violent acts committed by forty to fifty hooded youths against police and firefighters.
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OT-
http://covenantzone.blogspot.com/2007/10/violent-riots-demolish-swiss-political.html
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Violent riots demolish Swiss political rally
A planned parade and political meeting by the Swiss UDC party (Swiss People's Party, or "Democratic Union of the Centre") was stopped in its tracks by a violent army of masked far-left rioters over the weekend.
The conservative party, headed by Christoph Blocher, saw several of its members physically attacked by the anti-free speech protestors, while waiting for the police to arrive. Several stands at the planned rendez-vous point were overturned before being set on fire... while the UDC members were still within them.
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That's an anti-immigrant rally similar to the one in Brussels. Attacked by leftists for immigration. 17 police wounded.
Pelayo
The Turks never had an independent identity outside Islam - prior to it, they were always part of either the Chinese or Mongol empires. It was after they Islamized that they started empires of their own - from the Balkans to India.
I once did an analysis of which countries are most likely to de-Islamize, and which ones aren't. Countries like Iran and Indonesia, which had pre-Islamic histories they could write home about, are potential candidates. Countries with Afghan or Turkic peoples aren't. Pakistan and Bangladesh wont - they'll lose any distinction from India. Arabs definitely not. The Kurds are borderline - before Islam, they were part of the Sassanid empire and Zoroastrians - but reverting to that would mean accepting Persian suzereinity. If they become Christian or Jewish, they might have a future. I don't know much about the Berbers.
Just finished watching a new DVD by Joel Gilbert, titled "Farewell Israel - Bush, Iran and the Revolt of Islam". You can order it at http://highway61ent.com/
I think this should be seen by as many infidels as possible, including the pols and students from 6th grade on. It is a cold dose of realism about Islam, Israel, and Western & Israeli ignorance about Islam. Gilbert has compressed 13 centuries into 1 hour and 45 minutes with excellent maps and backgrounding. He makes the Arab definition of 'Peace with Justice" abundantly clear. The Israeli government should require every pol to watch it at least 5 times. America and the Euro pols too.
There is more historic info packed into that DVD than any of our high-schoolers are getting on Islam.
Where it should go is on National TV, and replayed at least 3 or 4 times a week for a year. This will probably never happen with the networks under Saudi-Muslim Brotherhood-CAIR thumb.