Our old friend Raymond Ibrahim peels back some doubletalk. "Shameless Islamist Doublespeak Rages On: To English audiences, jihadists talk of ending oppression; to Arabic ones, they talk of oppressing the infidel," by Raymond Ibrahim in Pajamas Media, December 24:
"Al-Qaeda's Zawahiri Accuses Obama of Trying to 'Enslave' Arab World." So reads the headline of a recent Fox News report, which goes on to quote Zawahiri saying things such as "Obama's policy is nothing but another cycle in the Crusader and Zionist campaign to enslave and humiliate us, and to occupy our land and steal our wealth."Two years earlier, Zawahiri was even more dramatic. Then he implored "blacks in America, people of color, American Indians, Hispanics, and all the weak and oppressed in North and South America, in Africa and Asia, and all over the world, to know that when we wage jihad in Allah's path, we aren't waging jihad to lift oppression from Muslims only; we are waging jihad ... to lift oppression from all mankind. ... This is why I want every oppressed one on the face of the earth to know that our victory over America and the Crusading West -- with Allah's permission -- is a victory for them, because they shall be freed from the most powerful tyrannical force in the history of mankind."
Unfortunately for al-Qaeda, its very own words -- the Arabic ones directed at fellow Muslims which Westerners rarely see or read -- unequivocally contradict its repeated attempts to portray itself as an organization out to spread Robin Hood-style justice and equanimity vis-à-vis a tyrannical U.S. For in these Arabic treatises, al-Qaeda makes it perfectly clear that, short of submitting to Islamic hegemony, the non-Muslim world is the enemy, ipso facto.
Yet doublespeak is definitely not the sole province of al-Qaeda; the decades-long Arab-Israeli conflict has furnished the world with some of the most flagrant examples of Islamist doublespeak -- emanating from such players as Arafat, the PLO, and Hamas. Hezbollah offers a recent example:
According to Reuters, the terrorist organization's newly revised manifesto "tones down Islamist rhetoric but maintains a tough line against Israel and the United States. The new manifesto drops reference to an Islamic republic in Lebanon, which has a substantial Christian population, confirming changes to Hezbollah thinking about the need to respect Lebanon's diversity."
In fact, this "new" manifesto has been hailed as a progressive step forward for the terrorist organization: an AFP headline tells us that "Hezbollah strikes softer tone in second manifesto: [according to] analysts," such as one Paul Salem, head of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center, who asserts that the "manifesto is reassuring as it shows Hezbollah's integration with Lebanese political life."...
Wafa Sultan insists in her new book 'A God Who Hates' that "while Americans say what they mean and mean what they say", Muslims by contrast - because of their religious/cultural particulars - learn at an early age that deception is an indispensable trait for daily survival. All relationships in the Muslim world, between ruler and subject, between man and wife, between father and son, between mother-and-law and wife, every single one is jaded...built around the master/slave paradigm that defines the single most important relationship in the Muslim psyche: That between Allah and those who believe in him. Mere survival in these unequal relationships necessitates an almost daily dose of deception and manipulation, for after all, in the Muslim ethos, responsibility towards God falls under perfunctory rituals like prayer, ablution, pilgrimage etc,. Morality in the Western sense is non-existent.
Thus, we in the West who think of ourselves as so much more sophisticated than our Muslim interlocutors are in fact incredibly naive in how we understand them and relate to them. We actually take them at their word...and constantly suffer the consequences. They - on the other hand - have a good grasp of us and our cultural and moral proclivities. They are particularly adroit at manipulating our propensity for guilt.
taqiyya,
Deception is the one thing I try so hard to help people understand about Islam. Islam teaches that followers may do whatever they must to forward Islam; including lying to someone's face.
In the United States, we always give individuals the benefit of the doubt until we are, otherwise, proven different. It is an "innocent until proven guilty" approach. But with the situation we find ourselves in now, you almost have to approach anything Team Islam says in the "guilty until proven innocent" manner. And, honestly, it is against our nature to do that and causes one to feel a certain amount of guilt for doing it.
It's an "ends justify the means" mentality. But once Islam triumphs, it's the end alright.
Solo,
I hear what your saying, but I'm taking it a step further: Muslims lie habitually not only to infidels but to each other...their culture is so twisted and oppressive that it necessitates the lie as a mechanism for survival.
Nonie Darwish makes exactly the same point in her book on sharia - 'Cruel and Usual Punishment' - that people in Muslim societies *have* to lie not only to the outsiders (the non-Muslims) but also to themselves and to each other.
"they shall be freed from the most powerful tyrannical force in the history of mankind."
Acusations often tell more about the accuser than the accused. Islam one of the worst (if not THE worst) tyrannical force in history. Political Islam has lasted almost 1400 years.
The reason that the U.S. is seen as such an enemy is because we are about as opposite to Islam as humans can be regarding our government and economic system.