Iran: Protestant clergyman tortured for "converting Muslims"

In Islam, there are so many enemies and so little time..........

Iran: Protestant clergyman tortured for "converting Muslims"
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Repulsive. How's that 'extended hand' working out for us?

"Iranian intelligence officials told his wife that he might be executed for his alleged activities..."

Here's who needs to be executed: Ahmadinejad. Just like Saddam.

When the British left Iraq in 1932, not after "years of colonial rule" (as Arab propaganda and ill-informed Westerners like to say) but after a mere ten years, in which the British set up, in Mesopotamia, modern Iraq under a Hashemite monarch, Feisal (his older brother Abdullah was handed on a platter all of Eastern Palestine, with 78% of the full land area originally contemplated as the territory to be assigned to the Mandate for Palestine, with its sole purpose being the establishment of the Jewish National Home), they were worried about the fate of the Christians under Arab rule. But the Arabs smilingly assured them that they need not worry, that the Arabs themselves would protect the Christians, that any worries were foolish.

Within six months of the departure of British troops -- they were not "driven out" as Iyad Allawi claimed in his imaginative electioneering the other day, but chose to leave because of the expense of sitting on top of what Churchill so accurately described as an "ungrateful volcano" -- a phrase we may find soon to be aptly re-cycled) -- the Arabs started killing Assyrians, and did not stop until about 100,000 had been killed. At the 70,000 mark, or at least at the news that "70,000 had been killed," the writer William Saroyan, who had survived the Muslim (Turkish and Kurdish, with a little help in the Syrian Desert from marauding Arabs) mass murdering of Armenians, and so was keenly aware of the precariousness of life for Christians anywhere in Dar al-Islam, wrote a book, "70,000 Assyrians." It was about murder, and it was about Western ignorance, and Western indifference.

It is now 2010. The Americans believe they have done a great thing in Iraq. Everyone says so: the Wall Street Journal says so. The Bush loyalits say so. Charles Krauthammer, and William Kristol, those keen students of Islam, say so. The Obama Administration says so, and even tries to claim credit for the way things are turning out so wonderfully in Iraq. But soon enough we will see people start to ask the most obvious question, that so far they have avoided asking: in what way does the holding together of Iraq, in what way does the primitive version of democracy, consisting of mere electioneering and voting, but not of the development of democratic mores, of the idea of the citizen, of the idea that government should express the will of the people and not the will of Allah (oh, there are some advanced Iraqis, secular Iraqis, who grasp this, but the primitive Muslim masses certainly do not, and continue to harbor their resentments, continue to believe that one is either Victor or Vanquished), further our ends, and what are those ends? Those ends should be to weaken, preferably with as little action and expense by the West as possible (and exploiting pre-existing fissures, sectarian, ethnic, and economic, cost nothing, require nothing more than learning to recognize such fissures and doing nothing to prevent their further widening), the Camp of Islam. How is that achieved through the goals that the American government, and its many cheerleaders (Kristol, Krauthammer, Kagan, and now Democrats too, with all the former scoffers now so eager to confess -- a bit prematurely, I'm afraid -- that "I was wrong, Bush was right, the surge worked, it's all coming out just fine, what a fool I was to ever think otherwise).

Now as the Americans leave Iraq, they must ask themselves what they intend to do to protect the Christians -- those that are still in Iraq.

And they must also ask themselves what, if anything, they are prepared to do about the most monstrous and dangerous regime in the Muslim parts of the Middle East, that is the Islamic Republic of Iran, and about its treatment of Chrisetians?

The Administration, pusillanimous, fearful, and confused, has made of its pusillanimity, its fear, its confusion, a virtue, claiming that it is behaving as it should, taking steps slowlly, always offering the possibility to Iran of a rapprochement, and meanwhile, doing what it can to win friends in such places as Syria. The behavior of the Administration, and of its "experts" in this area, show a misunderstanding of the Muslim mind, of the deception that comes naturally to those who rule in such places as the Islamic Republic of Iran, of the fact that the British description, cruel though it was, was also accurate, and that the Muslims of the Middle East are "either at your throat or at your feet" and we, in finding it unseemly to say and do the things that would put them "at our feet" are unaware of all the ways in which, as a result, they are "at our throat."

For winning a hollow, even a pyrrhic, victory of tempoorary sorts in Iraq, and with more or less the same inevitable dismal outcome being what is sought in Afghanistan -- again, what outcome in Afghanistan would lead to the only goal that makes sense, a weakening of the world-wide Camp of Islam, a dividing and a demoralizing of that camp? -- the Administration chooses to do nothing about Iran's nuclear project that makes sense, and still worse, moves heaven and earth to prevent Israel from assuming the resopnsibility toward its own people, by taking the action that, rightly, the Americans should be taking.

The policies that result from a wilful ignorance of what is staring you in the face, and a naivete that is suicidal, has been seen before within the memories of men. It could be seen in the understanding of the Nazis, or misundersetanding, that Neville Chamberlain put on display in Munich. And many found ways to not only justify, but hail as great statesmanship his doughty deed of peacemaking at Munich.

Now, in order not to overturn non-existent applecarts in Iraq and Afghanistan (and out of worries that somehow the Iranians would be able to "hit out" at American forces in retaliation for any attack -- but they are unlikely to be able to project their power into largely Sunni Afghanistan, across vast distances, with so many enemies between them and the American targets, and with American missiles and planes all over the place, ready to inflict damage that would reduce Iran, and its regime, in the way reminiscent of the damage inflicted on Nasser and his regime in the Six-Day War, which led to his humiliation, collapse and, just a few years later, his death and the end of Nasserism). And in Iraq, the Iranians, who already do what they can do against the Ameridans (there isn't much more that they can safely do) as quietly as they can, don't dare to hit out directly, for the same reasons. They fear American retaliation, but they do not sufficiently fear Israeli retaliation, which is exactly why Israel may be forced to attack Iran. With or without the approval of those who currently make policy for this Administration, but with the certain approval of all those in this country who grasp the meaning, and menace, of Islam.

Iraq and Afghanistan were never important; it was always Iran, and its nuclear project, that should have been paid attention to. There is no need to invade countries, to spend years trying to make them better, to spend trillions of dollars we desperately need here. We need only make sure that there is no further acquisition of weapons of mass destrcution (beyond the bombs that Pakistan was permitted to acquire through Western inattention) by Muslim states, and that the Muslim presence in the West is diminished through changes in immigration policies, and making clear that therer will be no concessions made, none, to the aggressive demands of Muslims in the West for accommodation of their very different laws, customes, moeurs, and that we intend as well to continue to subject Islam and its adherents to our study, our scrutiny, and to our well-justified -- look at the texts and tenets, look at the history of Islmaic conquest and subjugation and mistreatment of many different non-Muslim peoples, from Spain to the East Indies -- alarm.

"Incidents like these show the brittleness and weakness of the Islamic regime that so intimidates the Western world."--Robert

In light of polling data indicating that a large majority of Iranians support sharia rule, I interpret this punishment of the Christian clergyman rather differently. At minimum, the majority of Iranians are possibly indifferent to this type of persecution. However, given their overwhelming support for sharia rule, it is more likely that most Iranians approve of this punishment, since proselytizing done by anyone other than Muslims is clearly against sharia and threatens Islam. In light of this, I see the Iranian regime's action here as a routine administration of sharia-as-usual and possibly an attempt to appeal to popular anti-infidel sentiment. It seems most likely that the Iranian regime is carrying out the will of the majority of Iranians (i.e., who are overwhelmingly Shia Muslims).

Hugh,you are a Great Thinker, you are Fabulous it's amazing what you say it's so Clear.I hope you will work closely for the next President the world need you and your Knowledge.

People related to me would be very amused by your remarks, but I will ignore them and, with thanks, pocket your praise.

There is nothing that strikes more terror in the hearts of the Islamic clergy than the prospect that Muslims might be exposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Their own spiritually sterile theology has nothing to offer but fear and punishment, so any message that offers hope and forgiveness must be destroyed, along with those that teach it.

There god is so small that he cant defend his own word and cant understand prayer but in one language must not be GOD..

Sounds like the big legal challenge will be getting the proper public assembly and crane permits.

"Attention muslim shoppers:

We have a wet Christian clean-up on aisle 6!

And thank you for shopping at jihadmart!"

Is it possible to "convert" a Muslim into anything useful and that infidels would actually trust as genuine?

If a Muslim is converted, how many generations does it take before all vestiges of this vicious ideology are expunged?

Islam spreads like bacteria and requires a very powerful anti-biotic to remove it. This anti-biotic has not yet been invented and so the only techniques left are "isolation" and "avoidance of contamination".

Isolate Muslims in the Muslim-majority countries and avoid contamination via their travel to infidel lands.