The Association of Muslim Scholars is a group of Sunni clerics who support Al-Qaeda. How is it that they became clerics and somehow still became Misunderstanders of Islam? Why is it that so many clerics, who have dedicated their lives to Islam, seem to misunderstand it so drastically?
Here, in sum, is yet another story that shows up the hollowness of the mainstream public discourse about the jihad threat. Every public spokesman in the West, from George Bush to Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, is sure that Islam at its core is peaceful. Yet scholars of Islam like this Association seem to come to a quite different view. But nothing can be done about it, although this is the basis for jihadist recruitment, because we cannot even talk about this phenomenon at all.
From The Associated Press (thanks to all who sent this in):
BAGHDAD: The Iraqi government seized the west Baghdad headquarters of a powerful Sunni Muslim group Wednesday, cordoning off the building and accusing the group of supporting al-Qaida, officials said.The Association of Muslim Scholars, a hardline Sunni clerics group with links to insurgents, has its headquarters in the Um al-Qura mosque in the capital's Sunni-dominated Ghazaliyhah neighborhood.
Iraqi security forces dispatched by the Sunni Endowment, a government agency that cares for Sunni mosques and shrines, surrounded the mosque complex at 9 a.m. Wednesday and demanded that the building be evacuated before noon, the association said in a statement posted on its Web site.
Employees were told to remove all personal belongings and even haul out furniture, that troops said would be destroyed if left behind, it said.
The group also operates a radio station from the mosque, and its transmission was cut as well, the statement said. The final sounds on the air were of an announcer apologizing to listeners and telling them he was being forced out of the building, the group said.
The head of the Sunni Endowment held a news conference at the mosque later Wednesday, accusing the clerics group of supporting al-Qaida.
"The Association of Muslim Scholars has regrettably been attacking any tribal awakening, resistance or worshippers whenever they form a force to purge their neighborhoods of al-Qaida elements. The association has always justified killing and assassinations carried out by al-Qaida," Ahmed Abdul-Ghafoor al-Samarraie, the Sunni Endowment chief, told reporters.
"The association no longer has a place here...These headquarters now belong to the Sunni Endowment," he said.
The Association of Muslim Scholars has regrettably been attacking any tribal awakening...
--from article
Tribal awawkening?
Ummm, okay, I get it:
Choose one of the following:
1) Inter-tribal enmity and warfare
2) Sectarian blood-letting
3) Al-Qaeda terrorism
4) All of the above
===============
I'll take door #4.
Bush's folly marches on. $1.7 Trillion and counting.
These clerics are clearly Islamaphobes
The hate, the aggression and the will to power at its source - it's in the koran.
Here is the core of the cancer that has come to eat at the West.
The foolishness is in not recognizing it - which avoidance can result in it becoming malignant.
First clean the wound and it can heal.
Kudos to our brave men and women who fight for us. God bless you and keep you.
Thank you General Petraus and G.W.
(hey all you Bush and Cheney haters - choke on your bile)
(same for all you defeatists who are afraid of victory)
4:89 Have no unbelieving friends. Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them.
Islam is a self-purifying form of regression. Neither George Bush, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, nor all of the State Department’s money can change that. The only thing that can change Islam is Islam, and good luck with that.
There was this guy I used to know by the name of Craig. He owned a bar, was a really good guitar player, and did some heavy drugs. He used to tour with a group that you would recognize. He was usually OK to be around, but whenever he came into money he became an ass, until he blew all the money, and then he became OK to be around again. I think he’s dead now.
It's interesting to note the manner in which some particularly prominent anti-Jihad public figures have recently radically moderated their views viz. Islam after initially coming out strongly against Islam and terrorism. The two television examples mentioned above come specifically to mind: Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. When these pundits finally even took notice of Islam itself ( in both cases after absurd lapses long after the 9/11 attacks), their positions on Islam were fairly harsh, and seemed to equate Islam with terrorism itself. But in both cases in recent times miraculous conversions have happened, and now they take great pains to stress the peaceful nature of Islam, and the fact that the millions of clerics, terrorists, and throngs of Muslims across the globe and spectrum within various strains of Islam are simply "hijackers" of a "great religion" etc when they promulgate and conduct terroristic Jihad.
Who got to them?
Was it the Republican political hierarchy which also purveys this nonsense? Or is it possibly a concerted effort by certain Muslim groups to selectively target prominent "infidel" spokespersons with the intent to suppress their righteous opinions about Islam?
I have never subscribed to conspiracy theories in the past, but I'm amazed at the manner in which these two personalities, Beck and Hannity, have not only redacted their initial take on Islam itself in the recent past, but by the manner in which both preach from the exact same hymnal about Islam: Analyse their terminology and you'll find them using the exact same phraseology to label Islam "a religion of peace", to assert that a " 'great' religion has been 'hijacked' by "extremists' ", to assert that "most Muslims are peaceful people", and that the terrorists are "perverters" of Islam, etc.
Again -- who got to them? What's behind this drastic revisionism? What's behind the homogenous portrayal of a warm fuzzy Islam -- an Islam which has yet to manifest itself in reality?
jsla,
my bet is that big cash infusions by the saudis (with Rupert Murdoch in one instance) caused the changes.
OT - Anyone seen Tancredo's campaign ad? Pretty sweet. He's getting flamed as a fear monger etc by the usual "conservative" suspects, but the tone and content of this ad were unheard of not long ago. I hope that we will look back on this ad as appearing in a day when such unblinking portrayals of the Muslim threat were rare.
The MSM is almost completely Bi-Polar. Reverse what they tell you and your just about on the Money.
There was a time when what they said was worth a Grain of Salt. That was back in the good old Days.
I believe I've seen this phrase recently used on these pages:
"...asserting their humanity over their wretched religion."
Quite right.
In the Iraqi civil war, which side do we want to win?
Hold the champagne. Fighting against Al Qaeda is very convenient for the Shiite-dominated Iraqi regime. According to Mokhtar Lamani, the Arab League's former envoy to Iraq, who has an op-ed in today's jpost.com, Iran is steadily taking over Iraq. Fighting Al Qaeda helps win American kudos and aid and eliminates a powerful Sunni opposition group. They're just doing Iran's dirty work.
Sure is hard to tell who the good guys are over there.