Jihad Watch: Fitzgerald: Hashemite Dreams, Iraqi Schemes

November 10, 2005

Fitzgerald: Hashemite Dreams, Iraqi Schemes

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the moderate Muslims in general and the moderation of the Hashemite rulers of Jordan in particular:

In the aftermath of the Al-Qaeda bombings in Amman one hears, yet again, about the moderate rulers of Jordan, the Hashemites. In this case as in all others, the phrase "moderate Muslim" should not be used unless it is clearly defined. I suggest that any Muslim who misleads non-Muslims about the central tenets of Islam -- whether or not he agrees with them -- is objectively furthering the Jihad, by rendering non-Muslims unwary, and keeping them in a state of naive trustingness that can only cause them harm. So that even if one who is routinely thought of, and describes himself, as a "moderate Muslim," does not subscribe fully to orthodox Islam, if he does not tell the truth about what Islam inculcates or what its canonical texts contains, to Infidels, the likely effect of his words is to further the Jihad.
And in any case, the mere presence in the Dar al-Harb even of "moderate Muslims" can swell the perceived political power of all Muslims, and especially of those who tend to be found in full-time Islam-related activities and as often "immoderate" Muslims quick to push Muslim demands for accommodation, and change in Infidel ways, on the larger society. These can reasonably be described not as "moderate" but as "immoderate" Muslims, but becuase the two kinds cannot readily be distinguished or such distinctions necessarily be relied on, the costs to Infidel taxpayers for increased monitoring of all Muslims, mosques, madrasas, meetings, rises as their number rises. This has been true throughout Western Europe, where security costs, including those of guarding all sorts of institutions that were never guarded before, keeps going up. And there is always the possibility that an ill-defined "moderate" or even "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslim, who out of some inner prompting, perhaps filial piety, perhaps the perceived need to declare some kind of identity, perhaps the belief that calling oneself merely a "Muslim in the cultural sense" should be sufficient to indicate at the same time both unbelief (i.e., I don't accept all that Islam teaches, I may even be a complete freethinker) and identification. But when someone who really no longer believes in Islam still cannot bring himself to declare, in the manner of Ibn Warraq or Ali Sina or Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Azam Kamguian or tens of thousands of others, that he is no longer a Muslim, and if he has children, and if those children are raised to be indifferent to Islamic belief but nonetheless are still taught to consider themselves Muslim, rather than as the non-Muslim children of an open ex-Muslim who is perfectly truthful with him in explaining what Islam is all about and why he is, therefore, an ex-Muslim, there remains available to them the temptation or need or desire to revert to Islam, not the "for-identification-purposes-only" Islam, nor in a form fruste, but rather Islam in its mainstream, orthodox, and therefore worrisome-to-Infidels form. As Infidels have no way of distinguishing those who are the true believers in Islam from those who are not, and individuals themselves may change in the fervency of their belief (Mike Hawash comes to mind, and others like him), it is hard to see what Infidels can do other than to regard anyone who insists on being considered a Muslim as a potential threat, no matter how unobservant he may be at present. Infidels who study the texts of Islam, and the history of Islamic conquest and mistreatment of the subjugated non-Muslims, may come to believe that the growth of Muslim populations in Infidel lands threatens the laws, customs, manners, understandings of the people in those lands, subjecting them to constant challenge and threat. The governments of the Western world have not helped; they have not dared to instruct their own citizens in the nature of Islam. Perhaps they have decided they do not dare to do so because Islam is called a "religion" and "religions" are never to be attacked unless that "religion" is sufficiently new, and small, and powerless to be called a "sect." Since governments have so far been so ineffectual, it becomes the duty of others to assume the task that should rightly be assumed by the government. Many outside the government, and no doubt many in (but not those who presume to speak for all of us) realize that they are under no obligation to commit civilizational suicide, and they will work to avoid it.

There are many in Holland, in Italy, in France, in Denmark, in England, in Sweden, in Germany, in Spain who today are just beginning to realize that they have been misled by their own elites into permitting the large-scale entry of Muslims who are bearers of an ideology that requires them to be implacably hostile to the un-Believers, to regard the lands of Dar al-Harb as Muslim by right, and to work, through the seemingly unopposed instruments of Da'wa and demography, to turn Dar al-Harb into dar al-Islam.
Among the most plausible of those charmers may be the Hashemites -- whether it is the stolid current king, that American-accented graduate of Deerfield , or his late father (the "oily little king," as Alan Clark cruelly dismissed King Hussein in his, celebrated political memoirs, the monarch conventionally described by his admirers in the West, from the Times columnist Anthony Lewis to Prince Charles, as the "plucky little king" -- a phrase which evokes those Soglow cartoons in old New Yorkers), or -- most soothing of all (but look online at the claims he makes for Islam when addressing Jordanian audiences) -- Hasan bin Talal, he of the plummy Philippe-de-Montebello voice (should the latter get laryngitis, one can imagine the Prince could happily do those Met audiotapes in his stead).

In 2003, Prince Hasan bin Talal, though not named directly, was promoted, in a political advertisement in The Wall Street Journal pretending to be an Opinion Article, co-signed by that enthusiast, James Woolsey, and by the more reserved Bernard Lewis -- who has been a guest of the Prince in Jordan -- as a suitable candidate for being set on the throne of Iraq as a Hashemite (and therefore Sunni)monarch. Such a proposal offers some idea of how both Woolsey and Lewis gauged, or failed to, the depth of Shi'a and Kurdish resentment at the treatment they had received from Sunni Arabs, not only during the regime of Saddam Hussein, and throughout the history of modern Iraq, but in the case of the Shi'a, a resentment that goes back a long time, th a rift that began more than a thousand years before the United States was founded. An implausible notion, this putative Hashemite Sunni monarch, and in the course of their article Woolsey and Lewis offered other implausibilites. In their view "democracy" ws not "impossible" in Islam. This charge, which corresponded to the rhetoric by Bush about how it "all people want freedom" and the other charge coming from some in the Administation that is somehow "racist" (again, note this irrelevant word "racism" being used so often to deflect discussion of an ideology), has in fact never been made. The charge is different: that the principle of the Shari'a, that the Islamic ruler obtains his legitimacy from Allah and not from the will of the people, which is why all political discontent in Muslim lands is expressed in Muslim terms. If the Al-Saud are corrupt, then it is not their corruption that we charge them with, even if that is the cause of our discontent: we charge them with being "Infidels" who are too friendly to Western Infidels. The simple charge of mass theft of state funds will not do, is not enough. It is not his despotism, but rather his not being a true Muslim, that is the only cause to rise up against a despotic ruler. The social contract theorists, Hobbes and Rousseau and Locke, the limited powers theorist (Montesquieu), offred views that guided the Framers of the Constitution in the first great Western democracy. The next country in the West to express the democratic impulse, France, relied less on Locke's conservative insistence on the right to "life, liberty, and property" and more on Rousseau's General Will; still others had other emphases. But not one of the Western democracies would have said that the only languge in which one could express politicla discontent, the only grounds for opposing a despotism, was that "the Ruler" was insufficiently Christian. Democracy in the Western world was always far more, right from the Bill of Rights, than mere head-counting.

Having set up the straw man to be knocked down, Woolsey and Lewis insisted that far from being impossible in Islam (as noted, a charge never actually maintained) , had actually maintained), was part of Islam, had a long history within Islam. This Op/Ed, which for his own reputation Lewis no doubt wishes he had never agreed to co-sign, alluded to a piece by Amartya Sen that had appeared a week or two before in The New Republic, in which Sen maintained that democracy had never been a product solely of, or limited only to, the West, and that other versions and variants, of "democracy" had long existed elsewhere, and particularly, in the Islamic world. Woolsey (and Lewis) described the piece as "brilliant." It wasn't.

In this capacious, too-capacious, version of democracy, it is apparently not important to believe that government obtains its legitimacy from the people (and not, say, from Allah, or the Qur'an, or the Shari'a), not important that there be great attention to minorities and care as to how they are treated before the law, not important that there be great solicitiousness for individual rights, including at a minimum the right of freedom of conscience (which includes the right to free exercise of religion, the right to free speech, the right to embrace one belief, to change that original belief for another, or to embrace unbelief), which help to define and distinguish the kind of democracies one sees in the advanced Western world from those defined as mere head-counting. The notion that when Muslim rulers consulted with a few or many or none of their subjects, this natural arrangement should be promoted to being called a version or variant of "democracy," was not far from that Aramco propaganda about the Saudi majlis, where ordinary citizens could come in and complain to the King or various princes, and these royal "office hours" somehow became transmogrified into Western-style democracy. One could see them practically holding a New England Town Meeting in a royal palace in Riyadh, but without the old-fashioned town moderator in shirtsleeves right out of some Frank Capra movie.

Lewis and Woolsey appeared to believe that the Hashemites in Iraq had overseen a relatively benign and smooth rule, with just a blip here and there. But they left out so much of that country's blood-drenched history. In their version of Iraq, the one that would welcome a Hashemite monarch to guide this new "democracy" where Sunni lion would lie down with still-unwary Shi'a lamb, much was left out. There was no mention of the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Assyrian Christians by Muslims in 1933, a few months after the British left. They also forgot about the Farhud, of June 1-2, 1941, in which great fun was had all over Baghdad tying up hundreds of Jews and killing them, sometimes by throwing them under the wheels of passing buses and motorcars; the mass killings of Jews all over Iraq in 1948; the bloody coup of 1958, when Nuri al-Said's body, still in the women's clothes he had put on in his attempt to escape, but with masculine organs cut off and placed rather indecorously elsewhere on his corpse, was dragged through the Baghdad streets. And so on and so forth, including the coup against the 1958 plotter, Qassem, and then the resistible rise of Saddam, and of course, what has happened since during the American adventure in Iraq: the deposing of Saddam Hussein and, with him, of the despotic rule by the Sunnis and the inevitable seizure of power, through purple-thumbed democracy, of the Shi'a; the pocketing of as much American aid as possible, to be followed by a return, sooner or later, to Islam, and all that that ideology implies for the hopes and dreams and best-laid plans that already so obviously gang agley of those trusting, hopeful, hardworking and brave Americans. Those Americans are so ignorant of Islam, so miscomprehending of Iraq, that they persist in trying to make Iraq a quasi-decent nation-state, and at the moment expend, indeed squander, at a time when husbanding resources for a longer conflict would make more sense, men's lives, and materiel, and money, and moral capital, and military and civilian morale, all on what has become an impossible task, and a pointless task, in Iraq.

For instead of this Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations Project, or Iraq the Model, we should be relieved to take the next obvious occasion to announce our departure, carefully phrased: "We have done what we can, we have removed a tyrant, we have seen Iraq through an election, and the formation of a Constitution, and a referendum on that Constitution, and now through a second election, and it is time for us to go, for Iraq needs to be able to stand on its own, to prove to its own people that there really is an Iraq, and we Americans can be proud of what we accomplished -- list here of schools, hospitals, electicity grids, water-treatment plants, etec. -- and wish Iraq well." This will mean that no longer must Americans endure waiting for the Iraqis to signal when they -- they! -- are good and ready for American troops to return home.

The Shi'a would just as soon have the Americans stay as long as possible to fight the Sunnis for them, and not incidentally, pour in more money, and more know-how, and possibly leave some of that impressive military hardware behind for the "Iraqi" (i.e., Shi'a) army when they finally figure out what is going on, and leave without the permission of the Iraqi government.

If one consoles oneself with the dreamy idea that all that is going on is a "war on terror," and that Islam itself, as a belief-system, is no threat to the countries of the Bilad al-kufr, the Lands of the Infidels, then of course it is more difficult to see that "victory" in Iraq -- not "total" victory but some kind of gain to the Infidel side, can only come if the two countries which were the chief beneficiaries of Saddam Hussein being removed from power, Sunni (Wahhabi) Saudi Arabia, and Shi'a Iran, the two most dangerous Muslim states because of the kinds of power each possesses, are put back into the condition they would have been in "but for" the war in Iraq.

The best way to do this is to allow the natural sectarian and ethnic divisions in Iraq, which simply reflect larger divisions in Islam outside Iraq, to be fully expressed, and acted upon, and to hope that outside powers, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, will now be the ones to engage in a proxy war in Iraq. In so doing, it is they, and not the United States, that will be expending, or squandering, men, materiel, money, and morale. And while the Arabs in Iraq, Sunni and Shi'a, are occupied with one another, perhaps the Kurds will at long last manage to get that independent state they crave, and deserve, and which the Americans have discouraged them from attempting to establish. It is even possible that the Shi'a Arabs will not object, and might even welcome, a Kurdish attempt to undo the consequences of the forced arabization that took place over the past decades, and attempt to evict Arabs from Kirkuk or even Mosul.

The Americans have until now so discouraged the Kurds, because the dissolution of Iraq into the three Ottoman vilayets of which Iraq was originally constituted, by Sir Percy Cox, in the first place, is not part of Official Policy. That Policy is against Kurdish self-determination, and requires, for no good reason, that the state of Iraq remain exactly as it has been, despite the long history of despotism, persecution, discrimination, and mass-murder by the Arabs of the Kurds and Christians (no Jews are left to persecute), and of the Shi'a Arabs by the Sunni Arabs. Some, with diminishing enthusiasm, continue to repeat the slogans about Iraq the Model that were used initially, when all sorts of hopes were raised, based on two kinds of ignorance -- general ignorance of Islam, its theory and practice, the attitudes and atmospherics to which it naturally gives rise, and ignorance of the specific history of Iraq, and the sectarian and ethnic conflicts within it. But there is not, and will not be, Iraq as a Model but as a new cause of Sunni Arab resentment, and there cannot possibly be Iraq as a Light Unto the Muslim Nations. Never mind the fallacy of believing that the territory of the Abbasid Caliphate could be lost by the Sunnis to the now-dominant Shi'a, who are for many Sunnis if not "Rafidite dogs" then something close to Infidels.

Of course, a state where the Sunnis lost their grip on power, and the Shi'a were now the "democratically-elected" rulers, could not possibly serve as a Light Unto the (Sunni) Muslim Nations. But who was thinking about that? And who took seriously the universal desire of the Kurds not for autonomy, which they are for the moment constrainted to accept, but for full independence? Of course, successive American administrations have become tongue-tied when it is time to read the riot act to the Turks. But the Arab riots in France surely have put paid to the slender chances of Turkey to enter the E.U. Turkey needs American support more than ever. Turkey did not permit that fourth American division to enter Iraq. Turkey is no longer needed as a place for listening-posts and airbases to be used against Russia. It should not be beyond the wit of the Administration to explain to the Turks that the Kurdish state will come into being, that the Turks will receive an American guarantee that no territorial demands will be made by that state on Turkey, and any Kurds who do not like that state of affairs in Turkey can simply move to the new Kurdish state, and that the only states that might suffer from this new state would be Iran and Syria. Turkey needs military supplies, training, cooperation, diplomatic support, favorable trade treatment, knowhow of all kinds, from the United States.

And Kurdistan, so dependent on the Americans, can be asked not only to drop any territorial ambitions in Anatolia, but also to provide within its borders a refuge for those Christians now in Iraq who are suffering from mistreatment by some of the Muslims who are no longer held in check by Saddam Hussein (who used Christians as his waiters, tasters, household staff, for he understood that they were perforce apolitical, and could not possibly threaten him). With the return of a more virulent form of Islam than that permitted expression under Ba'athist rule, Muslims of every kind have been showing their hostility to the local non-Muslims in all the expected and time-honored ways.

The sectarian and ethnic resentments and even hatreds that exist in Iraq were not created by the Americans. The Americans now in Iraq have been trying in every way they can to discourage Kurdish dreams of independence, to train military units that will be neither Sunni nor Shi'a but "Iraqi." Both goals are not merely difficult, but impossible. What is most maddening about them is that they are the exact opposite of what the American policy should be. This deeply unpopular venture, if continued, will lower military morale, and hence both the number of new recruits, and those willing to re-enlist. The soldiers are not fools. Some may allow themselves to believe, still, despite all the evidence, that the current policy in Iraq -- with those non-existent "Iraqis" being trained to "defend Iraq" -- makes a kind of sense. But many, and more every day, are fed up with the self-evidently nonsensical policy that does not accord with what they have experienced in Iraq. Unless they are at the level of the highest officers, who must be good company men and stick with the program, and parrot, though with evident diminishing enthusiasm, the party line on Iraq policy, and more and more of them, especially those who are now out of the service, and running for office, will mince no words about the Iraq folly.

Why should the American forces leave Iraq promptly? They should leave because those ethnic and sectarian divisions within Iraq that they are apparently working so hard to overcome do not work to American, or Infidel disadvantage. Whatever "victory" is to be achieved in Iraq was achieved a while ago, and no further additional "victory" can come. It was achieved when Saddam Hussein's rule was ended, and the ballot put in place, for that was the end of Sunni rule, and this "democracy" insured permanent Shi'a dominance. That will not change no matter how long the Americans stay. There is no possibility of the Sunnis in Iraq, convinced that they have a mandate to rule, for in their view the Shi'a are not full or complete or orthodox Muslims even if not all Sunnis would take the Wahhabi position that the Shi'a are "Rafidite dogs," but they certainly have been terribly treated by the Sunnis (and not only in Iraq, but also in Pakistan, in eastern Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere), and the Sunnis are convinced that not only do they themselves deserve to retain their rule, but that even under this "democracy" they, the Sunni Arabs constitute not 20% of the population -- the real figure -- but rather 42%, and that anyone who says otherwise is lying. Ahd what's more, when they include the largely-Sunni Kurds as part of the Sunni total, the Sunnis become the majority in Iraq. The Sunnis in and out of Iraq will never permanently reconcile themselves to this loss of power in what was the site of the Abbasid Caliphate. It will always rankle, always remain unacceptable. This permanent conflict between dispossessed Sunnis and newly-enfranchised Shi'a is not something to discourage, as some in Washington appear to think. Whatever encourages division and demoralization within Islam is not something that should alarm Infidels.

If the Sunni and Shi'a within Iraq are forced, in the absence of the generous, good-hearted, far-too-unmachiavellian Americans, to deal with each other civilly, they may surprise all of us and do so.Fine. In that case the effort may be declared a success, and Iraq the Model will be on display in time for the Fall Fashion Show, or the Midterm Elections. And if they succumb to violence? If the Shi'a began to fight back, when attacked, as the Americans would never have permitted themselves to fight> And if, further, aid comes from outside, from Iran and Saudi Arabia, to co-religioinists on both sides? And so what? Was the Iran-Iraq War a good thing from the Infidel point of view, or a bad thing? Suppose there is a low-level Sunni-Shi'a war that simmers along, here and there now hotter, now colder. No longer will it be American men, American money, American materiel, American morale, American attention, being squandered in Iraq. The American solders who have been fighting and dying to suppress both kinds of Sunni insurgency (the dispossessed Ba'athist kind, and the Al-Qaeda kind) would return, and the military, which will have many tasks in the future, by no means all of them limited to the Middle East or to Islam, will be able to come to its senses, to recover its morale, to raise the standards again for recruitment as recruitment again becomes possible, and to raise the re-enlistenment rate for the young officers, so many of whom, after repeated tours in Iraq, where they have seen with their own eyes the difference between the Official Policy Line and the reality in Iraq, have been leaving the army.

And then the Americans, military and civilian, can concentrate their own efforts on what will be a very long Cold -- and from time to time possibly Hot -- War of self-defense against the Jihad. The kind of remark that Bush made last week -- that in Iraq "we will accepot nothing less than total victory" -- shows how uncomprehending of the situation he is, and how he must be made to comprehend it. The statment means nothing unless one really believes that all we are fighitng is a "war on terror" and that the number of recruits on the other side is limited, and can be eliminated. In fact terror is merely one, and not the most effective, of the various instruments employed in the world-wide Jihad to spread Islam, by overwhelming, and cause to end their opposition to the spread of Islam, all those who can be overcome, from within, by the judicious use of money, or the "wealth weapon," by propaganda conducted by a small army of apologists both Muslim and non-Muslim (the weapon of "pen, speech"), and by Da'wa (the Call to Islam), and in the last few decades, more and more openly, through demographic conquest. Neither the American army, nor any other army, can achieve a "total victory" over the permanent impulse to Jihad, prompted by the canonical texts -- Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira -- of Islam. The very invocation of "total victory" is telling; it is one more example of Bush's failure to understand that this is not and never was solely a "war on terror" -- a phrase that like its creator now invites, and receives, ridicule.

While in an Iraq without the Americans jockeying for power between groups will go on, here and there rising to the level of attacks and counter-attacks, or perhaps a bit more than just a small-scale attack here and antoher there, and these hostilities will likely preoccupy the two powers that gained the most from the removal of Saddam Hussein -- Iran and Saudi Arabia. And as that occurs, the Americans and those Europeans coming to their senses can concentrate on Iran's nuclear plans, and on consulting with one another about how the countries of Western Europe, where some are awakening from Abou Ben Adhem's "deep dream of peace," and from the slogans and assumptions and idols of the age, can together craft ways to head off, and reverse, what might otherwise be the inexorable islamization of Western Europe, with consequences for the very idea of the West, and for the survival of what makes the West the West, that one can hardly imagine. The sooner such measures are taken, the less drastic they will have to be. The Western world, with its laws, customs, manners, understandings, its wide variety of artistic expression, its encouragement of free and skeptical inquiry, its insistence on the equality of the sexes and on freedom of conscience and freedom of speech, finds this all being challenged. How did this state of affairs come to be? Infidels are now now menaced, right in the heart of Europe, because they were negligent. They remained ignorant as long as they could -- and many are determined to remain so -- about both the tenets of Islam, and the long history of Jihad-conquest and subjugation of the conquered non-Muslims. Millions of Muslim migrants were allowed to enter, and settle within, the Dar al-Harb, which is to say, within those lands which those aware of the permanent hostility between Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb rightly regard as behind enemy lines. Damage has been self-inflicted. Now that damage, the result of a colossal oversight, must be repaired, and people educated so that the same mistake is not again repeated.

The United States and other Infidel countries able to cooperate should be attempting to create the conditions under which Muslims themselves will produce their own Ataturks as a response to a felt need. If Muslims themselves can be made to see the connection between say, Islamic ideas of government and the prevalence of despotism in the Muslim countries, or to point to jizya-dependence (including the disguised jizya of foreign aid) and inshallah-fatalism as the main cause of economic underperformance (an underperformance which, given the $10 trillion in unearned OPEC reveneus, can no longer be explained away), or to link, in their own minds, the scientific backwardness of Muslim societies with the habit of mental submission, and discouraging of free and skeptical inquiry, that is part of Islam as a Complete Regulation of Daily Life, and a Total Explanation of the Universe. Finally, if Muslims begin to see the mistreatment of women and of non-Muslims as the moral failure it is, then like Ataturk, more will come to realize that even within Muslim societies, in which, given the immutability of the canonical texts, Islam cannot be reformed, nor can the meaning of those immutable texts be interpreted away (no further "interpretation" is permitted in Islam; the gates of ijtihad swung shut long ago) then, just as Ataturk did, they may try to limit the social and political power of Islam, in order to improve the condition of their countries and the lives of their people, and relegate Islam which officiallly should regulate and determine everything, to a much narrower sphere in the lives of Muslims. The example of Turkey shows both that this is possible, and that at the same time, the force and appeal of Islam unchained will require the secularists to remain eternally vigilant, and at times, as ruthless as Ataturk could be but as many of his more recent beneficiaries have not been.

Otherwise, as Infidels realize what it is they are in danger of losing -- that is to say, everything -- and finally prove themselves unwilling to peacefully submit to the transformation of their own countries through unhindered Da'wa, and demographic trends, it is hard not to be full of all kinds of forebodings.

Posted by Robert at November 10, 2005 8:15 PM
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Speaking of "moderate" Muslims, I know Hindus from India who lived during the bloody partition in 1947. They said that lifelong Muslims friends and neighbors suddenly turned crazy. Similar stories emanated during the Yugoslav war. Not that they are all prone to this, but you never know. There is always the feeling of Muslim vs. non-Muslim. It's intrinsic to the religion. The raison-d'etre.

Posted by: Benjamin

at November 10, 2005 9:01 PM

Hugh - Forgive me for drifting off topic, but can you spare a paragraph or two answering a question that bewilders me? Why do the mainstream media and the left in general champion the cause of Islam so devotionally when the thing they are defense council for would ultimately spell their own demise? I'm stumped on this one.

Posted by: Thumper

at November 10, 2005 9:03 PM

If you have any questions on why the MSM champion the cause of Islam, go to www.vicmord.com. Victor Mordechai is an IDF officer who has researched the infiltration of Muslims into media corporations.

At CNN for example, there are 24 licenses required for broadcast. 22 of those licenses are signed off by Muslims. The MSM is OWNED by Muslims (Saudi money mostly).

Posted by: rafael699

at November 10, 2005 9:10 PM

Hugh, That was an awfully long final sentence! Definitely requires a certain literary skill. I've only seen it in Sri Aurobindo, a Hindu mystic, who could write sentences that filled an entire page.

Posted by: Benjamin

at November 10, 2005 9:11 PM

Hugh writes:

"And there is always the likelihood that a 'moderate Muslim' who has not become an open enemy of the supremacist Islam of Zarqawi and his ilk -- in the manner, say, of Ibn Warraq -- will have children who, for whatever reason, may revert to Islam in its traditional, mainstream, highly dangerous-to-Infidels form."

I'm not sure I understand this logic. There is nothing preventing Ibn Warraq's children from reverting to Islam in its traditional form. Indeed, a not-unheard-of phenomenon among ardent atheists is that their children rebel against their parents' belief systems and are drawn intensely to embrace exactly what their parents reject.

It seems plausible to me that encouraging Muslims to be able to somehow retain their Muslim "identity"--whatever that is--while explicitly rejecting many aspects of Islam (a la Irshad Manji) may be a better way to achieve the same goals. After all, do you worry about getting the Kurds or the Druze to explicitly renounce their Muslim identity?

Posted by: kamala

at November 10, 2005 9:22 PM

Don't forget Queen Noor -- the Mother of all White American Reverts.

Posted by: Dr. Pepper

at November 10, 2005 9:34 PM

I think it's less likely kamala.

I mean afterall, Tariq Ali is an athiest Muslim. His parents were both athiest communists and he didn't "revert". Yes he does take up Muslim causes such as "Palestine" but he still remains hostile to Islam, and religion in general.

Plus, I think it would partially depend on who Ibn Warraq married. I don't think he would marry a Muslim, but maybe an ex-Muslim, or even Hindu or Christian. Who knows. It ultimately depends on how he raised his children and I think he would drill it into his kids at an early age the problem with Islam. By telling them the unfiltered truth about Islam, he'd make his children "Islam-proof". All of us here who have read and studied the Qu'ran, Hadith, Sira, and the history of Islamic conquest (without any apologetics) made us less likely to see Islam in a favourable light, but more importantly, the chances of any of us "reverting" is slim to none.

Posted by: igor

at November 10, 2005 9:38 PM

Moderate Muslims, what a joke!

There is a huge amount of media coverage in Australia about the 18 guys arrested over planning a terrorist activity. Many of the papers (particularly Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age) are building profiles on the suspects.

Almost unanimously their friends and family have described each suspect as being a really nice, kind guy who would never hurt a fly. They were all good muslims... didn't drink, go to night clubs.... geeez, so they were good blokes!

Family and friends are all so "shocked" by the arrests and many believe that it is just a conspiracy to make the Muslims look bad... they need no help. They were electricians, painters, travel agents, panel beaters etc, all would have been the first to help a little old lady cross the road, never mind the fact that they would be happy to vaporize her in the name of Allah.

So, at what point does a muslim change from a moderate to an extremist? Seems to be a very fine line indeed.

On a positive note and cause for much optimism, most of the media are calling the events for what they are. The 2IC of the Federal Government said publicly that "Australia is not an Islamic state and will never be an Islamic state. There are plenty of countries around the world that are Islamic states so if you want to live under sharia law that is where you can go".

Also, three of the five mulsims that bashed the camera crew and reporter have been ostracised at work. There has been industrial unrest at the warehouse where they work because the other workers are refusing to work with them. A group had to be dissuaded from physically assaulting them. I will never condone violence, but at least its shows the level of public awareness and disgust at a grass roots level.

Posted by: secularaussie

at November 10, 2005 10:08 PM

Sadly secularaussi -- those "18 guys arrested over planning a terrorist activity" ARE moderates, and their family and friends are telling the truth!

Posted by: jsla

at November 10, 2005 10:34 PM

Igor writes:

"All of us here who have read and studied the Qu'ran, Hadith, Sira, and the history of Islamic conquest (without any apologetics) made us less likely to see Islam in a favourable light, but more importantly, the chances of any of us 'reverting' is slim to none."

By this logic there would be no fundamentalist, Jihad-loving Muslims. The whole point is that the Muslims that Bush and Rice tell us have "hijacked" the religion are in fact just the opposite--they understand Islam incredibly well, embrace it completely and live their lives to satisfy its message. We need more Muslims to truly "hijack" Islam and morph it into something else.

Posted by: kamala

at November 10, 2005 10:40 PM

"The whole point is that the Muslims that Bush and Rice tell us have "hijacked" the religion are in fact just the opposite--they understand Islam incredibly well, embrace it completely and live their lives to satisfy its message. We need more Muslims to truly "hijack" Islam and morph it into something else."

YES !! Great point, Kamala -- This is it in a nutshell...

With all the uninformed, uncommitted, laissez-faire Muslims denying to their eyeballs that the "radicals" have anything to do with their religion -- EVERY ONE is either revealing his ignorance of his own religion, or lying to conceal the truth of the thing... This is why we're in such trouble with Muslims...

One set will rape you, steal from you, murder, maim, and destroy you -- all with explicit direction from the Koran -- and the other set will harbor those who will rape you, steal from you, murder, maim, and destroy you, and then deny those actions have anything to do with Islam -- This is as good as it gets from Muslims, and this is as good as it ever will get...

Where does that leave us?

Posted by: jsla

at November 10, 2005 10:47 PM

Great point Kamala.

Of course there are Muslims who know the religion as well as we do and accept it wholesale, and those "moderates" either delude themselves thinking Islam is something else or they lie to infidels about what Islam really is. The point I was trying to make was that looking at it from an outsiders perspective (and the children of an ex-Muslim would be the outsiders), if they are taught correctly about Islam, without whitewashing its history, I think the religion would seem less palatable to them and the chances for "reverting" would be small. Usually, Muslims who try to convert infidels try to portray Islam in a more flattering light by telling half-truths and flat-out lies because if they told the full-truth to the potential "revert" then the chance of that person reverting would be less likely. I mean who but the mentally deranged would convert to a religion where marrying a nine year old girl is considered "normal"? That's why the potential "reverts" aren't told that little tidbit until they've finally made the leap of faith and said the shahada.

Posted by: igor

at November 10, 2005 11:13 PM

King Hussein of Jordan went out of his way to inform Golda Meir of the impending attack on her country in the weeks leading up to the Yom Kippur War in '73 (oddly, she ignored his warning).

There ARE qualitative differences among Muslims and in their disposition towards the West. Kurdish tribesmen and Shiite soldiers have fought and died alongside Americans, as have Afghanis. Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria have been stellar in their anti-terror cooperation. Other Muslim countries less so...and others like Iran have been completely non-cooperative.

To brand all Muslims as the same and ignore the important ideological distinctions between them is to cripple our ability to fight and win this War.

Posted by: Cornelius

at November 10, 2005 11:19 PM

secularaussie:
Thank God (no offence meant!) for you aussies. This seems to be the time in history for a recognition of what you stand for; shame on those like me who have not known yee.

Posted by: ovidius_naso

at November 10, 2005 11:35 PM

Benjamin & Others-

My God, can we not have a real discussion about the dangers of fundamentalism without getting carried away?

1 million people died during the Partition of India, many of them Muslims killed by Hindus and Sikhs. Sure, Muslims did their fair share of killing, but this was an equal opportunity holocaust, showing only that people everywhere, of any religion, can be driven to irrational hatred. Plus, lets look at the recent communal violence in Gujrat in which the State supported the mass murder of Indian Muslims. Muslims can in fact be targets, not instigators.

For all the Christians out there who are so quick to demonize Islam, remember that the Christians hold the title in the 20th century for Genocide. The majority of Germans are Christian, and yet they killed millions of Jews, Gypsies and others. Rwanda is majority (80%+) Christian and we know what happened there. Serbia, which oversaw the ethnic cleansing of Muslims, is Russian Orthodox. And their crime, in Bosnia, was to hold a referendum to declare independence. Shocking!

IF we want to, we can go back in history and find as many or more examples of Christian atrocities as Muslim ones. Much is still made of the fact that Jews were expelled from Spain or forced to convert. Why is it almost never mentioned that Muslims were also expelled and/or forced to convert?

I've noticed a lot of supporters of Israel on this list. Presumably, that means you have something against Anti-Semitism. Surely you will agree with me that Anti-Semitism is one of the great evils of the past 100 (or is it 1000?) years.

Replace Muslim or Islam in many of these posts with their Jewish equivalents, and they start to sound shockingly like the types of statements that led to the Holocaust.

That is why I, a Roman Catholic, actually care enough about this to write. It is time to stop this. Let's discuss Islamic Fascism, or whatever we're calling it today, but recognize that we actually have a lot in common with most of the billion+ Muslims in the world and stop demonizing the entire religion.

Posted by: RickS

at November 10, 2005 11:45 PM

Cornelius -

Very well said.

RSW

Posted by: RickS

at November 10, 2005 11:48 PM

Igor writes:

'Usually, Muslims who try to convert infidels try to portray Islam in a more flattering light by telling half-truths and flat-out lies because if they told the full-truth to the potential "revert" then the chance of that person reverting would be less likely.'

It's been a while since I read the whole story, but I think Osama bin Laden himself comes closer to proving my point than yours. His father became rich working for the "infidel" Saudi rulers.

According to the wikipedia, Osama bin Laden allegedly frequented strip clubs, bars, and discos while living in Lebanon in the '70s.

Yet Osama rejected that life and embraced Islam fully, without any need for half-truths or flat-out lies. Indeed, according to wikipedia at least "it is said that his fanaticism stemmed partly from his remorse in what he sees as previous immoral actions."

Posted by: kamala

at November 10, 2005 11:53 PM

From post above:

"To brand all Muslims as the same and ignore the important ideological distinctions between them is to cripple our ability to fight and win this War."

I am certain that similar patient and fair minded distinctions might have been made among Nazis in WW2 -- Clearly there were many who were Nazis for identification purposes only, or who simply became Nazis because the prevailing pressures prevented dissent, or limited career options -- certainly there were many among the ranks that didn't embrace the creed of Aryan supremacy -- But had we been shackled in WW2 trying to distinguish between "good" Nazis and "bad" ones before we were permitted to fight ALL Nazis -- we'd still be parsing good from bad, or worse, naming our children Ava and Adolf in loving memory of Emporer Hitler the first and his Empress...

Such distinctions may prove impossible when an existential threat such as the one Islam poses today has reached such menacing levels...

If more 9/11s are in store, and everyone seems to agree more and worse is coming, then where do you switch from your patient thoughtful approach?
DO YOU switch from your approach?
Do you drop it after 100,000 are dead in NYC, and the Eastern Seaboard is unihabitable from New Hampshire to Washington? Is your approach REALLY necessary to win against them?
How...
Why?
Exactly how much help have we received so far from the Muslim countries you mentioned?

I'm not arguing that some has been forthcoming ... But so far it looks to me like we're pretty much flapping in the wind regarding aid from Muslims, and the elusive moderates, and the so-called Muslim allies look pretty thin on the ground...

Are they really helping us "win?"
Do they agree what "winning" would look like?
Tell me what you know about their opinions regarding Islam and infidels..
Tell me what you know about Islam's supremacy to all other religions in their eyes...

My patience was already running thin somewhere between tower 1 and tower 2... and the ensuing 4 years have convinced me that the problems with Islam in TOTO are far worse now than they were then -- Symptoms: UBL has taken root in their collective consciousness -- He is idolized by the PAN ISLAMIC WORLD -- and he is admired and adulated by nearly 50% of all Muslims, INCLUDING MILLIONS in the nations you name as allies... and there is a spiralling number of terrorist attacks proliferating across the globe... Are these fair metrics of how much they're helping us?

Or are you suggesting that little sites like this dedicated to revealing the simple links between their blood curdling religion and their blood curdling behavior is somehow to blame for making Muslims more extreme than they otherwise would be?

Posted by: jsla

at November 10, 2005 11:59 PM

RickS writes:

"That is why I, a Roman Catholic, actually care enough about this to write. It is time to stop this. Let's discuss Islamic Fascism, or whatever we're calling it today, but recognize that we actually have a lot in common with most of the billion+ Muslims in the world and stop demonizing the entire religion."

---

Rick, precision in language is important. Muslims are simply people who identify themselves as Muslims.

Islam the religion is prescribed by the "word of God revealed to Muhammad" (Qur'an) and tradition around emulating Muhammad--what he said and did (Sunnah).

As Robert has said many times, many (most?) Muslims are fine, moral, people who believe in equal rights for men and women; believe in freedom of religion and equality of Muslims and non-Muslims; renounce violence in the name of religion, etc. But be aware that such beliefs are there in good people *despite* the teachings of Islam, not thanks to Islam.

Thus, it is not "Islamic Fascism" you/we should be worried about but in fact literal Islam.

Posted by: kamala

at November 11, 2005 12:05 AM

Benjamin.. i have read massive volumes of sri aurobindo at virginia tech library..3 feet of bindo..tomorrow i may drag out a quote from the adventure of conciousness

Posted by: otterfisher

at November 11, 2005 12:48 AM

"Perhaps they have decided they cannot do it, in which case it becomes the duty of others to take the place that should be taken by the government. Many now realize that they are under no obligation to commit civilizational suicide, and they will work to avoid it."

What are we to make of the above statement? I mean, what are we to make, not in our minds and our dreams and our wildest phantasies while having a long hot shower, but what are we to make of it with our hands?

Posted by: sonofwalker

at November 11, 2005 12:55 AM

Sri AurobindoSri Aurobindo's teaching states that this One Being and Consciousness is involved here in Matter. Evolution is the method by which it liberates itself; consciousness appears in what seems to be inconscient, and once having appeared is self-impelled to grow higher and higher and at the same time to enlarge and develop towards a greater and greater perfection. Life is the first step of this release of consciousness; mind is the second; but the evolution does not finish with mind, it awaits a release into something greater, a consciousness which is spiritual and supramental. The next step of the evolution must be towards the development of Supermind and Spirit as the dominant power in the conscious being. For only then will the involved Divinity in things release itself entirely and it become possible for life to manifest perfection.

Posted by: otterfisher

at November 11, 2005 12:58 AM

but.. i also found in the ramblings of sri aurobindo ,,an aversion to sex..he described the smell of sex as a bad thing..i then turned away from sri aurobindo,,because i think sex smells just fine,,

Posted by: otterfisher

at November 11, 2005 1:03 AM

Kamala -

Thanks for your reply.

Two things come to mind:

1 - While Robert has said many times that most Muslims are fine, moral people, and while he says at the beginning of every comment section that "Comments that are off-topic, offensive, slanderous, or otherwise annoying may be summarily deleted.", this site has a strange number of comments on it that denigrate the religion as a whole and the people as a whole. It seems if he really believed what he says, he would be a heck of a lot more diligent about removing the posts. It's really not that hard.

2 - I think I am in agreement with your point about "we should be worried about... literal Islam". My point in bringing up the horrors inflicted by Christians is that I think we need to be worried about the "literal" interpretation of any religions. Some interpretation of a peaceful religion like Christianity has resulted in something like 10 million people being "exterminated" in the last 60 years - Christan priests supporting genocide in Rwanda, Christians supporting the genocide of the Jews. Only Stalin has a worse record in the last 105 years.

So lets fight fundamentalism everywhere - fine - but lets also start showing much more impatience with people who write things like "he is either as misguided as the least dangerous Muslim is, or as invidious and sinister as the worst Muslim is...".

Posted by: RickS

at November 11, 2005 1:05 AM

One more thing... if the assertion that good, moral Muslims are that way **despite** Islam is true, then it is certainly also true that good, moral Jews and Christians are that way despite their religions. The Old Testament, for example is hugely violent in places, and just as unforgiving.

Posted by: RickS

at November 11, 2005 1:24 AM

-----------

A Christian is one who follows Christ and His teachings. Christ did not teach genocide...therefore those who enacted the genocide were not Christians even if they think they were.

The Muslims who strap bombs on themselves and blow up babies, wedding party members, amputate limbs, rape, decapitate Christians, and murder are both following the example of the founder of Islam and the teachings of Islam.

There is no comparison.

Posted by: Abby

at November 11, 2005 1:26 AM

Rick writes:

"My point in bringing up the horrors inflicted by Christians is that I think we need to be worried about the 'literal' interpretation of any religions. Some interpretation of a peaceful religion like Christianity has resulted in something like 10 million people being 'exterminated' in the last 60 years - Christan priests supporting genocide in Rwanda, Christians supporting the genocide of the Jews. Only Stalin has a worse record in the last 105 years."

So lets fight fundamentalism everywhere - fine

Rick, I would not disagree that fundamentalism in any religion is dangerous.

But fundamentalist Christians do not today run entire nations as theocracies with nuclear ambitions (such as Iran), threatening to wipe Israel off the map. Fundamentalist Christians are not responsible for the threats and violence I happened to hear about today on the morning news--in Iraq, in Jordan, in Australia, and in France (and by the way, NPR did not mention Islam once in this sequence of reports). Fundamentalist Christians are not killing schoolgirls in Indonesia. Fundamentalist Christians are not decapitating men in Thailand. Fundamentalist Christians are not crashing planes into buildings, bombing trains and subways--and promising more. Do I need to go on?

It's one thing to disapprove of fundamentalism everywhere, perhaps across religions. But "fighting" fundamentalism is really only urgent and critical in the case of fundamentalist Islam.

Posted by: kamala

at November 11, 2005 1:27 AM

RickS your argument is like a nice slide of hand magic trick. It is a good argument at first but very misleading. Sure no one on this site is saying all evil is from Islam. (we all know its the Joos(sarcasm)) Seriously there have been Christians who have been evil. And as individuals there are good Muslims. What most people are arguing is that Islam as an ideology is incompatible with our liberal western culture and there are many aspects of Islam that are immoral. Such as the subjugation ofwomen, slavery, the second or third class status of non-muslims, etc.

But the argument you made about the Nazis being Christian is misleading. First of all Nazism is an ideology. A lot of Nazis were either aetheist, secular, or in some cases pagan. The SS were encouraged to worship an ancient norse god of war. Either way their crimes were done not in the name of Christianity but in the name of Nazism. The holocaust had to be kept secret from the general public because it was known that most of them would not stand for it. Compare this to the Islamic murderers of Jews today. They are treated like rock stars in the middle east. Also the Islamo fascists are committing their crimes in the name of Islam and there is no contradiction between their acts and what is considered moral in their religion. Well at least the majority of Muslims either agree with suicide bombings, and terrorism or they refuse to condemn these actions. Also you are wrong about the serbs. If you dont believe the MSM when they said weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq why do you believe them when they stated that genocide occured in Yugoslavia. Fact is that there was a three way civil war instigated by outside forces. Yes
American foreign policy has a lot to be ashamed of but it was mainly the Germans who started this mess by recognizing Croatia and encouraging them. Either way that is another topic but did you know that over 600000 serbs were ethnically cleansed from Croatia in 1995. More so than any other ethnic group. The serbs suffered more than any other group. In fact the Serbs suffered the most in WWII along with the Jews and Gypsies. The croatians who were christian and the bosnians who were muslims were aligned with hitler. they commited genocide against the serbs and gypsies in WWII.
So I do agree there are evil acts done in the name of other ideologies or religions. But either it was a minority of individuals who acted in ways that contradicted their religion.

With the Nazis our entire way of life was threatened and how we survived was not by being tolerant of their intolerant ideology. We didnt try to see things from their perspective. We went to war. We didnt ask for the war but we got one and we defeated it. I hope it doesnt come to this with Islam.

Posted by: pissedoffcanadian

at November 11, 2005 1:33 AM

RickS writes:

"One more thing... if the assertion that good, moral Muslims are that way **despite** Islam is true, then it is certainly also true that good, moral Jews and Christians are that way despite their religions. The Old Testament, for example is hugely violent in places, and just as unforgiving."

I have no problem telling the world that I reject parts of my religion as dictated by the historic texts that "formally" define it. I do it all the time. And so do millions of people who share my religion. For example, I have no problem with homosexuality whatsoever.

No one threatens to kill me. No one forces me to change my name and go underground.

Where are the millions of Muslims standing up and declaring that they believe in equal rights for men and women (and thus reject Sura 4:34 and others); that they believe in freedom of religion and the equality of Muslims and non-Muslims (and thus reject Suras 9:29, 9:30, and others); that they renounce violence in the name of Islam (and thus reject Sura 8:12 and others); that homosexuals shouldn't be killed (and thus reject Sunan Abu Dawud 38:4447).

Name one Muslim group that has made such a declaration.

Why not CAIR?

Name one rally where more than a handful of people have shown up to say this.

Posted by: kamala

at November 11, 2005 1:47 AM

Hugh, the Hashemites are a special case, in a way. The enemy of my enemy is my sometime friend. What I mean is this: the Jordanians(leadership)are useful for our purposes. They have a respected spy network with ears and highways into Iraq. Israel views the Jordanian Kingdom as warm towards Israeli and US interests(but obvious are precarious). I guess you could ask the question were we wrong to support the Shah?? One could argue that maybe we should have supported him more strongly then Carter's unrealistic wishy-washy human rights approach towards the Shah. The Shah was a US asset. I'm completely against this democracy Buch-neocon arguement of 'transforming' the middle east. It's broken, and the BEST we can hope for is a Western-educated suit-wearing playboy US loving benevolent dictator like the Jordanian's King's Dad. You could argue that these people are disrepresntative of Islam . . . that is exactly the point. Support the benevolent thugs like the Shah or the Jordanian's ruling party, support the Kurds and especially the proud Marionite Christians in Lebanon. In otherwords, these people are assets to be played by us and our interests intersect.

Posted by: biorabbi

at November 11, 2005 1:57 AM

Wait now....the so called"denigration" you refer to is simply telling it like it is.The doctrine of the Islamic faith is incompatible with modern civilization.It ruthlessly eliminates individual thought and choice,and replaces it with the collective goal of world assimilation. Submission,death,and shame are the real "choices delivered by the manifesto of muhammed,which in reality is nothing more than proportional punishments meeted out on any who dare to oppose or differ from from the collective in the shared dream of a complete and whole muslim world, free from the interference of any thought or idea that does'nt fall in line with the stated goals thereof. Show me any literal interpretation of Christs' teaching in the Bible that calls for the extermination of humankind in difference to the basic principles of Christianity.Jesus told his followers to "shake the dust from their feet",if they were unable to grasp the concepts of redemtion of sin through his eventual sacrifice,not theirs.And here in lies the largest and inevitably the most important difference between the faith of Christianity,and the spiritual and physical servance to islam. Nazi Germany was NOT a Christian based idealogy! It was completely PAGAN in origin! Indeed, many Christians were persecuted for their oppostion to Hitlers' policy toward the jews,and many died in concentration camps because of it!And who was doing the killing in Rwanda?Take a closer look my friend! The only "denigration of people" that occurs here is solely aimed at those adherants to islam who do the bidding of the master.Sacrificing their own existance as human beings to the greater collective genocidal laws laid down by the so called "prophet" to further islams' influence THROUGH ANY MEANS NECESSARY. To say that Christianity is responsible for millions of deaths, second only to STALIN, is fictitious,irresponsible,and simply wrong. Fundamental Christians are not supporting faith based murderous genocide of the infidel. Fundamental Christians do not use the biblical scripture as a motivational basis to murder fellow human beings! Fundamental Christians do not not refer to the biblical texts to justify oppression and anguish. It all starts with the referencial texts upon which these two completely different belief systems are focused and based.Muslims whom do the books bidding are in complete agreement with the basic principles of the "faith" of islam i.e. submission and mortal self-sacrifice to further the wisdom of the prophet.It is fortunate that the ideals of humanity is unable to be "washed" from many muslims,who simply want to spiritually live a better existence.To be said in a word"Empathy". Christians whom do the bibles' bidding are in complete agreement with the basic principles of Christianity,that is; love thy neighbor as thy self,(whether he's a Christian or not);Be given redemption from sin by simply believing in the Christ.No killing,no suicides,no airplane rides,no bomb making.Faith grants a pardon,there is none available through the prophet. Only martrdom through death ensures "heaven".Huge,huge difference!

Posted by: leviticus

at November 11, 2005 2:17 AM

Pissedoffcanadian and Kamala -

Yes, I have been making broad generalizations, but I have been doing that to make a point - that all Muslims, or even the majority of Muslims (or to be more precise, for Kamala, all followers of Islam) are not Jew-hating, Freedom-hating, Suicide Bombers in waiting, any more than all Christians are Inquisition-loving Nazi-supporting Jew-haters.

Read comments on the other articles on this site, or read Benjamin's original post that I commented on, and you'll see that that is exactly what a large number of the commenters on this site believe (about Muslims, that is, not Christians).

I also, incidentally, am actually a practicing Catholic, and actually believe that Christianity is a force for good, not evil. But an "outsider" could certainly pull down a laundry list of things, supported by our divinely inspired Popes, contained in our holy books, and sanctioned by the Church.

The "ideology" of Islam is no more out of sync with Western ideology than the "ideology" of Christianity. Let's take one of the points made as an example - the subjugation of women.

"Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife ..." (Ephesians 5: 22-23)

Sounds pretty incompatible with our liberal Western culture, no? The beauty of our Western culture is our ability to separate church and state - make religion a private, not public matter (although the Vatican has historically disagreed with that as well). If there is one incompatability between Islam and the West, it is that point. All the complaints about slavery, women's rights, etc are shockingly common across religions - the Bible also has many stories of accepted slavery, for example.

POCanadian said: "But either it was a minority of individuals who acted in ways that contradicted their religion." Exactly. The same is true now, with Islamic terrorism or Islamic slavery or any of the other examples you mention. It is all a minority of people.

Good Muslims are not just people who don't really follow Islam, as Kamala says. However, virtually all bad Muslims are people who don't follow Islam.

Why have we forgotten the honest demonstrations of sympathy by common Iranians when 9/11 happened? Have you ever spent time in a Muslim country and asked what people think of the US? The answer is telling - in general, they love the US, our principles, our people. They watch our movies, listen to our music, wish for the concept of free speech in their countries. They sometimes think we are a little decadent, especially around issues of sexuality (sounds like the Religious Right), and they absolutely hate our foreign policies, true enough. But they desire the same things we have - and are actually angry that we, the US, have gone a long way in denying them that, by voiding elections, supporting dictators, fueling instability. Read "All the Shah's Men" for a good example.

This is not to whitewash the sins of the Muslim World. Many Muslims don't like/hate Jews. True enough. Israel, not religion, has a lot to do with that, but it has (for worse) taken on religious overtones on both sides, both because of people like the Saudis, and because of Israeli insistence that anything said critical of Israel is anti-Semitic. If you insist it is religious, people start to believe you.

And, there is no excuse for not speaking up louder about shocking attrocities like those recently in Indonesia, re: the schoolgirls. Every Muslim I know is angered and disgusted by that. They don't know how to broadcast that disgust enough, and they are somewhat resentful of having to defend their religion. Why should a good, law abiding doctor in Boston have to speak out against attrocities in Indonesia or Pakistan or Israel? When was the last time an Irish doctor was asked to apologize and defend their religion when IRA bombs kill innocents? (Actually, I have actually been in bars in Boston when they "passed the hat" to collect fund for the IRA... I have yet to hear an apology)

I understand their frustration, I suppose, but I do think need to try harder to make the point given the sheer scale of what is happening and the sheer lack of understanding about Islam and Muslims in the US.

Slightly off topic, two specific attempts at rebuttal:

Most Germans who fought in WWII surely didn't support the Holocaust. However, it is still the case that good Christian Germans elected Hitler back in 33 (I think) with his anti-Semitic views well known, and they probably had some degree of sympathy with them. So, yes, Nazism is an ideology, but it fed off of the existing prejudices in the land, many fueled by the church.

And, the Serbs... I never said the Serbs were the only people who did bad things in the Balkans. I fully acknowledge that they too suffered, especially in WWII, and I am sure the Croatian point you make is true (Croatia is a Catholic country, btw). My response was to Benjamin's point, that "They said that lifelong Muslims friends and neighbors suddenly turned crazy. Similar stories emanated during the Yugoslav war." Even if true, it is surely irrelevant as it seems everyone suddently turned crazy, Christian and Muslim.

Posted by: RickS

at November 11, 2005 2:32 AM

Kamala -

Honestly, I am not a religous scholar of any sort, just someone who reads, travels, and talks a lot. I have read the Quran, but don't feel qualified or justified in trying to defend/explain certain parts.

I similarly don't know if any organized group has done so.

Keep in mind, though, that Islam is not an organized religion. There is no clergy (in Sunni Islam anyway) with any authority of interpretation, unlike Christianty and (I think) Judaism. It is much more like Buddhism in that regard, or so said my religious studies teacher a long time ago.

That means it is quite hard to have a group with any authority come out with what you are asking for. It is actually completely against the tradition of religious interpretation in Islam to have such Top Down dictates - despite all the calls for 'fatwas'.

Posted by: RickS

at November 11, 2005 2:43 AM

RickS when I read posts like yours I do feel good. Because you make a good argument, and for a moment I truly make myself believe that I have it all wrong and that we will be able to live in peace. But then the logical side of me kicks in. I do agree with most of the things you state but I just can't get my head around one thing. Why is it most of the world can get along. Once you throw one element in, Islam the violence comes out in everyone. I know thats a broad statement. You have shown all groups are capable of violence and all have been guilty one time or another. But when will muslims stop blaming others. When will they do some soul searching and when will they change. I will play the devils advocate and say all religions were bad and all went through periods of violence. Even if that is the case when will these people change and when will they be willing to join the rest of the world in peace. I am tired of people making excuses for them.

Posted by: pissedoffcanadian

at November 11, 2005 2:53 AM

By the way, PissedOffCanadian, regarding your statement: "Sure no one on this site is saying all evil is from Islam."

Seems like Leviticus is basically saying exactly that.

Leviticus -

The religious composition of Rwanda is, according to the CIA: Roman Catholic 56.5%, Protestant 26%, Adventist 11.1%, Muslim 4.6%, indigenous beliefs 0.1%, none 1.7% (2001). In other words, roughly 95% Christian. So clearly, the majority of the people who participated in the genocide were Christians.

I've addressed the Nazi issue in my earlier post.

It's amusing to see how wound up people get when making generalizations about things close to home (everything is a shade of grey or whitewashed when it is about you), but when talking about "the other", the same person says:

"the doctrine of the Islamic faith is incompatible with modern civilization.It ruthlessly eliminates individual thought and choice,and replaces it with the collective goal of world assimilation. Submission,death,and shame are the real "choices delivered by the manifesto of muhammed,which in reality is nothing more than proportional punishments meeted out on any who dare to oppose or differ from from the collective in the shared dream of a complete and whole muslim world, free from the interference of any thought or idea that does'nt fall in line with the stated goals thereof."

But since you asked about objectionable passages in the Bible, consider the following from Deuteronomy 20:

"When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13 When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves...

16 However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy [a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you. "

That last part sounds an awful lot like genocide to me. Unless you can otherwise explain "do not leave alive anything that breathes".

Posted by: RickS

at November 11, 2005 3:02 AM

PissedOffCanadian -

Thanks for your reply.

Let me throw out there a theory. May be right or wrong, but something I have been thinking through.

Assume that religions (or "civilizations" more generally) are inherently likely to cause tension. If that was the case, the civilization with the greatest number of contacts with other civiliations would be the one in the most conflict with the other civilizations.

The Islamic World happens to be centrally located in the world, and so has the most direct historical contact with other civilizations. There is little historical contact between Hindus and Christians or Buddhists and Christians, or Sikhs and Christians. Islamic civilization has had constant, daily contact with each of them for the last 1400 years or so. That in itself would lead to more conflict and explain the perception of Islam being more violent.

I don't think that is all it. I do believe the Saudis have created this current problem, and we should figure out a way to deal with them. Wahhabism is a terrible interpretation of the religion, in my opinion. (note that most Muslims are NOT Wahhabis or supportive of Wahhabism). And the Saudi money machine has made their message broadcast louder than anyone else. Most other Muslims, the moderates of the world living in Lahore or Beirut or Amman or Istanbul, don't have the money, clout, or reach of the Saudis. And so what we see is disproporitionately representative of them, even if it is not the mainstream.

Lastly, I do believe the US has deliberately played the Muslim world for the last 60 years. We or the USSR have supported every cruel, evil dictator in the region. We have overthrown democratic governments. We have propped up evil governments like the Saudi's. And in doing do, have allowed a lot of people to be oppressed.

Religion is one way that oppressed people express their frustration and resistance. I think we saw that in Iran, where the despotic Shaw was overthrown through a religious uprising. And as the French Revolution has shown in our part of the world, once you start a revolution, it often easily turns evil. And that has happened.

I don't know when it will stop. I am as scared as the next person. I think Bush is on to something with supporting democracy and freedom there. I wish we were going about it more competently, but it is the right path.

But I am pretty sure the answer is not in the blanket vilification of the religion of 1 billion + people.

Posted by: RickS

at November 11, 2005 3:18 AM

RickS
I have to disagree with you on this statement:

"IF we want to, we can go back in history and find as many or more examples of Christian atrocities as Muslim ones."

1. It has been estimated that approximately 60-70 million Hindus have been killed due to Islamic Jihads over the past approximately 1400 years. The largest single slaughter of POWs and non-combatants, probably in all of history, was committed and documented by Islamists when they massacred 100,000 Hindus during one of their expansionist jihads into India.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14964
I believe you can find the "60-70 million Hindus" estimate in Bostom's _The Legacy of Jihad_.

As recently as the early 1970s, Jihadists killed approximately 3 million Bangladeshis, and in their rampage managed to systematically rape 200,000-300,000 women. All of this (massacre and rape) is strictly in accordance with Islamic war policy based on the core Islamic religious texts.

2. The most obvious error in your argument, as some posters such as Abby have pointed out, is that, whereas there is doctrinal support in Islam for all of these jihadic massacres etc., there is no such doctrinal support for massacres in the New Testament. Christ at most told the apostles (or, by extension, his followers generally) to go out and spread Christianity. Christ did warn of a huge penalty against people who rejected the message, but he did not command believers to deliver that ultimate penalty. Disbelievers would be punished by the Lord, not by believers. But the Koran, Hadith, and Sira all command the (male) believers to wage jihad, if they have the military strength, in order to kill, convert, or subjugate the disbelievers until all religion is for Allah and the whole world is "House/Land of Islam."

(Also note: the Koran says that when Muslims kill non-Muslims in jihad, it is Allah that is doing the killing).

Just because people who claimed to be Christians committed atrocities does not mean they had clear doctrinal support for it. There are anti-Semitic comments in the New Testament, but there's no open-ended directive for believers to engage in a Holy War to spread the word of Christ or kill Jews. There are some extremely violent and disgusting passages in both the Old Testament, and in Revelation of the NT. In the Old Testament, every imaginable crime is either ordered, or committed, or permitted by God. But neither Christians nor Jews are instructed, as a FUTURE goal (future being after the time the books were written), to exterminate any group or wage holy wars. In contrast, Islamists are explicitly instructed by Mohammad, according to the Hadith, to drive Christians and Jews out of the Arabian Penninsula and to eventually kill off all Jews in bringing about the End Time. This is a FUTURE goal (future meaning everything after Mohammad's death) that must be carried out by literalist Muslims.

For clear evidence of Islamic doctrinal support for violent aggressive jihad, including approval of the killing of women and children, POWs, and non-combatants, see this link (another Bostom article, 4 pages). This also includes doctrinal support for imperialist world-dominating jihad.
Islamic Holy War Policy
Link. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14578

Further confirmation of such doctrinal support can be found here. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18732

I should point out that I don't believe in any of the revealed religions. I think Christianity is morally superior to Islam by far, after having read both the Koran and the New Testament.

And I do know this: I can criticize Christianity (or any other religion or ideology except Islam) openly, anywhere in the world, without having to worry about my personal safety. This cannot be done with Islam. This is a devastating indictment against Islam. The doctrine is so bad, so weak, that the only way to defend it is through threats and force. Any ruthlessly honest critique of Islam, expressed publicly, will automatically put a critic in peril in any country in the world today. Mohammad started assassinating critics and satirical poets 1400 years ago, and the tradition continues up to today. Again, there is doctrinal support for this kind of terrorism, including as demonstrated by the prophet Mohammad's own example.

And compare Jesus versus Mohammad. This is as clear-cut as it gets. Mohammad committed every major crime known to man (mass murder, assassinations, rapes, sexual abuse of a 9-year-old girl, beating his wives and ordering male believers to beat their wives too, enslavement, robbery, torture, terrorism, violating treaties, etc.). Jesus produced the Sermon on the Mount, killed no one, and was put to death. Worst of all, male Muslim believers are expected to follow the prophet Mohammad's example in how they behave. This is a recipe for, well, all the violence and intolerance we've seen from hard-core Islamists throughout history and throughout the world today.

PS. Regarding your examples of Rawanda and Nazi Germany, these atrocities are not supported by the New Testament. Regarding your examples from Leviticus and Deuteronomy, these are indeed most reprehensible policies (and there are many in the OT), but that is (allegedly) history. I don't see this being a command for Jews or Christians to carry on the activities on into the future, to destroy all religions in the world, to continue the jihads (in Islam, the policy is killing, conversion, subjugation) until all the world is Dar al Islam and all religion is for Allah.

Posted by: Archimedes

at November 11, 2005 3:40 AM

RyanS,
I kept going on about doctrinal support. Here it is. I was reluctant to add it because regular readers here have seen this all before.

Over Goal, Islamic Holy War Policy.

The ultimate goal: defeat/kill/convert/subjugate all unbelievers until all religion is for Allah 2:193, 8:39. Muslims who fail to fight for Allah will be sent to hell (see below). Allah sent Mohammad to conquer all other religions (9:33, 48:28, 61:9).

The only protection from the kill, convert, subjugate policy includes those who have temporary treaties with Muslims. However, these treaties are regarded as temporary tactical moves that can be overridden by the greater strategic goal, and, even under a treaty, there would not necessarily be full freedom from subjugation of threat. (To see an example of Mohammad breaking a treaty with the convenient help of "Allah's" approval, see 9:1-17).

Violent Jihad

According to the Koran it is wrong (in general) for Muslims to kill other Muslims (4:93) or argue with them about Allah (42:16). Jihad (whether actual physical fighting or non-violent conflict) must always be against non-Muslims (to the extent directed outward).

Extra rewards for jihad/fighting/killing in the name of Allah 2:149, 2:215, 2:244-245, 3:163, 3:169, 3:195, 4:57, 4:69, 4:74, 4:97, 9:20, 9:81, 37:40-49*, 48:19, 48:28-29, 61:2-4, 61:9-12. *Note that 37:40-47 says the true pure slaves of Allah will be rewarded with (among other things) lovely-eyed virgins of modest gaze.

Extra rewards for sheltering those who fight for Allah (8:74).

Together with prophets and saints, martyrs are best company and favoured by Allah (4:69).

Believers must terrorize the disbelievers 3:151, 9:5, 59:13. Also see 33:35-36, 59:2, 21:97.

“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been made victorious with terror.’” Bukhari:vol. 4, book 52, no. 220

Bukhari: vol 4 Book 53, no. 386. Our Prophet, the Messenger of our Lord, ordered us to fight you till you worship Allah alone or pay us the Jizyah tribute tax in submission.

Muslim vol. 9, book 1, no. 31. I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify to the fact that there is no god but Allah.

Tabari VI:138. Those present at the oath of Aqabah had sworn an allegiance to Muhammad. It was a pledge of war against all men. Allah had permitted fighting.

When Allah gave permission to his Apostle to fight, the second Aqaba contained conditions involving war which were not in the first act of submission. Now we bound themselves to war against all mankind for Allah and His Apostle.
Ishaq:208

‘Men, do you know what you are pledging yourselves to in swearing allegiance to this man?’ ‘Yes. In swearing allegiance to him we are pledging to wage war against all mankind.’
Ishaq:204

If you come upon them (infidels), deal so forcibly as to terrify those who would follow, that they may be warned. Make a severe example of them by terrorizing Allah’s enemies.
Ishaq:326

We have been dealt a situation from which there is no escape. You have seen what Muhammad has done. Arabs have submitted to him and we do not have the strength to fight. You know that no herd is safe from him. And no one even dares go outside for fear of being terrorized.
Tabari IX:42

The unbelieving infidels should not think that they can bypass Islam; surely they cannot escape. Koran 8:59 (see all of 8:57-59)

Believers must kill and be killed for Allah (9:111). Exhort the believers to fight the unbelievers (8:59-70, esp. 8:65).

Expulsion and Extermination of the Jews

A report narrated by a man named Muslim from Abu Hurayrah, the prophet said: “The hour (of the Day of Judgement) will not begin until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. A Jew will hide behind a rock or a tree, and the rock or tree will say ‘Oh Muslim, O slave of Allah! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!’ –except for the gharqad (bow thorn), for it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (Reported by Muslim, 2922). This passage was also quoted by Osama bin Laden, May 28, 1998, in an interview with John Bell of ABC News.

Hadith:Book 19, Number 4366: Narrated Umar ibn al-Khattab:"Umar heard the Messenger of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) say: 'I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Penninsula and will not leave any but Muslims.'"

Muslims Conduct, Including Conduct in Holy War

Must not turn away from fighting the unbelievers, otherwise go to hell (8:15-16). Must fight, or receive a painful doom from Allah (9:39). Believers must wage war for Allah, whether they like it or not (2:216). Fight the unbelievers using your weapons (heavy or light) or your wealth (9:41), your wealth and your lives (61:11). Fight for Allah against the unbelievers (4:76)

Do not take captives until you have first made slaughter in the land (8:67).

Those believers who argue amongst themselves about Allah will incur His wrath and will receive an awful doom (42:16).

Muslims should not believe non-Muslims (3:73). (How can you have a treaty if you are instructed not to believe the other side?)

Act hard against the unbelievers but be merciful to other believers (48:29). (General policy).

Only true believers fear the mention of Allah’s name (8:2)

Allah grades (or ranks) the honour among believers (4:95, 4:96, 8:4). He favours those who are active in promoting Islam rather than mere sedentary believers (4:95). Only single-minded slaves of Allah will escape eternal doom (37:127-128).

Allah tests believers by compelling them to kill unbelievers (8:17); true believers will kill or be killed for Allah. Allah could punish the disbelievers directly, but instead he tests some people (believers) by using other people (disbelievers); those who are slain in battle will be rewarded (47:4). Allah uses the prospect of battle to find out what is in men’s hearts; disbelievers stay away from the fight, but believers go into the fight. Those who die fighting for Allah will be rewarded (3:154-159; 3:167-172).

Apostates, those who reject their belief in Allah, will receive an awful doom “because they have chosen the life of the world rather than the Hereafter” (16:106-107). Apostates condemned, doomed (47:25, 47:32, 47:34). Apostates to be put to death (9:11-12). Another point concerns females. I believe some passages say the penalty for a female apostate is essentially a life sentence of house arrest. Children are not to be put to death, but may face the penalty when they get older. Also, men must be of sound mind.

Do not call for peace when you have the upper hand (47:35).

Posted by: Archimedes

at November 11, 2005 4:16 AM

RickS,
You cited an example of unequal status of men and women in the OT. Of course, there are many such verses. There are also many verses throughout the Bible that could be taken to imply equality or near-equality. Moreover, it is Islam that is generally in more need of reform, today, in its interpretation of doctrine on women's rights and status.

In any case, based on reading over sites such as skepticsannotatedbible, etc., I have to conclude that Mohammad, and the Koran (and the Hadith reports) are a heck of a lot worse for women. Here's what I've got so far on women in Islamic doctrines.

"I have seen that the majority of the dwellers of Hell-Fire were women....[because] they are ungrateful to their husbands and they are deficient in intelligence. " (The Prophet Muhammad) Sahih Bukhari vol. 2 book 24, no. 541

Treated very badly/unfairly/as inferior (2:191, 2:216, 2:223, 4:3, 4:11, 4:14, 4:15, 4:19, 4:20, 4:24, *4:34, 4:176, 24:31, 63:9, 64:14-15, 70:10).

*4:34 does say “beat” her (or hit, or scourge). Some apologists have tried to weasel out of this by claiming that the Arabic word does not say “beat” or means a light symbolic hitting (Yusufali added the adjective “lightly,” but this is his addition; it is not in the Koran). At least 10 available respectable translations of the Koran say “beat” (or scourge, or hit). In 4:34, beating is the last in a progression of increasing punishments named in 4:34. A discussion of 4:34 and the word “beat” can be found at http://answering-islam.org/Silas/wife-beating.htm

Women are unclean. If a man has touched a woman at all before prayer time, he must wash up before doing the prayer. If he can’t find water, he should wash himself with dirt (5:6).

Woman’s testimony is worth half a man’s (2:282).

Women (and children and the “feeble”) are unable to devise a plan (4:98).

The wives of disbelievers will also be doomed with their husbands (37:22-31).

Allah (Mohammad) may replace wives who criticize their husband (66:5).

Women must wear covering veils except when they are with their immediate family (24:31, 33:59).

On the Last Day, pregnant women will suffer miscarriages, and nursing mothers will abandon/forget their infants (22:2).

Disbelievers name the angels with female names (53:27). They invoke in His stead only females (4:117), also see 37:150-153. (Why does Allah/Mohammad consider this bad?).

Allows Muslim men to take girl-slaves for sex. (23:6, 33:50)

Marriageable age in some Islamic countries for females is nine years of age. This follows Mohammad’s pedophilic example, because the age at which he consumated his marriage with Ayesha was 9. (He married her when he was in his fifties and when she was 6; he fantasized about her when she was five. This fits the profile of someone with pedophilic tendencies).

Ayesha said “I have not seen anyone suffering as much as the believing women. Look! Her skin is greener than her clothes!” Bukhari. vol. 7, book 72, no. 715. The “green” adjective is in reference to the bruising from the beating.

“…He (Muhammad) struck me (Aisha) on the chest which caused me pain....” Muslim, book 4, no. 2127. Mohammad’s child-wife Ayesha tells of how the prophet struck her hard enough to cause pain (and an enduring memory of it).

Volume 1, Book 4, Number 229: Narrated 'Aisha: I used to wash the traces of Janaba (semen) from the clothes of the Prophet and he used to go for prayers while traces of water were still on it (water spots were still visible).

Volume 1, Book 4, Number 232: Narrated 'Amr bin Maimun: I heard Sulaiman bin Yasar talking about the clothes soiled with semen. He said that 'Aisha had said, "I used to wash it off the clothes of Allah's Apostle and he would go for the prayers while water spots were still visible on them.

There's more, practically all of it is bad.

Posted by: Archimedes

at November 11, 2005 5:04 AM

Hugh sez:

"...The governments of the Western world have not helped; they have not dared to instruct their own citizens in the nature of Islam. Perhaps they have decided they do not dare to do so because Islam is called a "religion" and "religions" are never to be attacked unless that "religion" is sufficiently new, and small, and powerless to be called a "sect...."

Most governments in Europe were clueless about Islam. Sure, the French should have known better, after all they "knew the Muslims" from their colonies, and that goes for England and Holland. In Germany you still have shameless fools in the polit-scene, who go on TV-talk shows declaring that we 'must not be suspect of an immigrant-person just because he or she follows another religion..."

It is this ignorance that is to blame, for the most part. But what I find revolting is those immigrant-social-raisers, who are often born and raised in a western country, have joined political parties and are now constantly on TV-talk shows promoting the entry of Turkey into the EU, they tell us that "they are here to stay and that is irreversible"- (I know you have particular dislike for that line) and that there is nothing to worry about 70 million Muahmmedans joining the EU, and then there is "of course, Islam"- which needs to be spread by any means, (they avoid saying that - but you can tell that they mean it!) Yes. And then there are the females, who would not have the slightest chance to go into politics in their home-countries, but who are now polit-props in infidel countries who allow it. One of them. quite pretty-, declared that she "is not ready for the hijab, not yet..."
And of course she rejects western values totally, because we are so 'decadent'- hair-raising stuff! And the timid PC moderators swallow it whole!

And so on, and so on. We have no Churchill in all of Europe, and the French whores are showing us clearly what surrender looks like. The bill, in this case, will not arrive in the mail.

Posted by: sheik yer'mami

at November 11, 2005 5:14 AM

RickS,

You present your arguments well.

To me, they smell very islamic though. I've seen that stuff before and yours is not overly original.

Troll alert!

Posted by: sheik yer'mami

at November 11, 2005 5:19 AM

Hugh, you made me nostalgic when you brought up all that pro-Saudi propaganda from the 50s and 60s. It wasn't just in ARAMCO ads --and today's youth should know that-- it was in major magazines, like Time, Life, Reader's Digest, National Geographic, etc.
As I recall, the National Geo used to wax poetic over the unlettered tribesman coming to Ibn Saud's tent to petition his friendly, accessible, and democratic king --perhaps sharing a thimbleful of coffee with him. The National Geo hacks used to write that it wasn't exactly western-style democracy but rough DESERT DEMOCRACY, and no less democratic for all that. And if you didn't mind sand in your coffee cup, it was tremendously romantic and inspiring.

Speaking of Wahhabis and alcohol, an American gal who married a Saudi prince back in the forties wrote a book about her experiences after she came back to the USA. As you would expect, she has more to say about the women's lifestyle in the newly air-conditioned palaces. But, as I recall, she talks about the future King Faisal, and mentions his drinking and leaning toward other Western vices. As king, he was known for being a strict, puritanical Muslim, etc. Check out her book: At the Drop of a Veil, by Marianne Alireza.

Posted by: Eliyahu

at November 11, 2005 5:22 AM

Rafael sez:

At CNN for example, there are 24 licenses required for broadcast. 22 of those licenses are signed off by Muslims. The MSM is OWNED by Muslims (Saudi money mostly).

Posted by: rafael699 at November 10, 2005 09:10 PM

Rafael: This is interesting. Could you elaborate on that?
I couldn't help notice that CNN has an ever increasing number of Muslim announcers, they promote the 'Haj' and you never hear anything critical of Islam, but if you could give us a bit more info on what you point out above it would be appreciated.

Thank you!

Posted by: sheik yer'mami

at November 11, 2005 5:40 AM

even the majority of Muslims...are not Jew-hating...

I have to just make one comment in response to this. I have never met a muslim, anywhere in the world (and I've met quite a few over the years) who didnt hate or execrate Jews. Perhaps, at a casual acquaintance, you wouldnt see the extent or depth of that hatred, but its there.

Posted by: thomas ato

at November 11, 2005 6:26 AM

Indeed, thomas ato:

As a seasoned traveller to many Muslim countries I can testify to that.

I have never, not once met a Muslim who was not full of irrational hatred for Jews and above calling for total genocide:

Its in the Koran. Ahmandinejad of Iran said it openly and never retracted. The West just shudders and the PC brigades tell us "it can't be true, they don't mean it, it is too horrible to contemplate,"
But they do mean it and they will do it if they get a chance.

Hitler is revered as 'a great man because he wiped out the Jews...'

Enough said.

Posted by: sheik yer'mami

at November 11, 2005 6:39 AM

Sheik;

Interesting how RickS shows up after the little lovefest with CAIR. A hired gun?

RickS; Breifly, Christianity has undergone a reformation. You are far from the first to come here and compare 1000 year old Christian acts to Contemporary acts committed daily by Muslims.

Christians are not committing mass murder in the name of their religion. Here. Now. Today.

Muslims are committing mass murder in the name of their religion. Here. Now. Today.

Additionally, a personal tip, take it in the spirit intended. You remarked earlier that you were speaking in broad generalizations. I would advise against that here. While I may not be the sharpest pencil in the box, there is a large number of extremely intelligent people here, with a breath and depth of education(s) that will bring you to your knees. If you want to wade in, make sure you are prepared. This site does not suffer fools lightly.

Posted by: t-ham

at November 11, 2005 7:18 AM

T-ham,

RickS is a roman catholic like I am an Eskimo from Uganda.

Why do these guys always have to lie? Do they think it makes their drivel more palatable?

The islamic psyche: Deflect and obscure, moral, historical, religious equivalence- we've all seen it before.

Go and take a haj, " RickS"

Posted by: sheik yer'mami

at November 11, 2005 7:40 AM

Eskimo from Uganda! Too funny. And he was sweating about the same by the time he gave up.

Regarding Hugh's remarks on Kurdistan;

Saw a commercial-type piece on Fox last night showing a string of people, young, old, male, female, thanking the US for taking the boots to Saddam. Put together by the Kurdistan Dev. Corp., a Kurdish govt. agency. "Warm and Fuzzy" kind of piece but still, SOMEONE said thanks.

See article about the piece here;

http://www.krg.org/

Posted by: t-ham

at November 11, 2005 8:00 AM

Sheik and t-ham:

Whatever RickS is and whatever his purposes in posting here, he utilizes moral equivalences, which invariably lead you down the garden path to stupid assumptions.

Posted by: waterdragon52

at November 11, 2005 8:34 AM

RickS writes:

"However, virtually all bad Muslims are people who don't follow Islam."

Did you mean to write this? For all your points this one certainly doesn't pass the sniff-test.

Is Osama bin Laden a "bad" Muslim? How about Mohammad Atta? Abu Bakr? Or the many many other Jihad warriors out there today?

If not bad, are they good?

Are you saying that bin Laden and his ilk "don't follow Islam?" Which parts aren't they following?

Posted by: kamala

at November 11, 2005 9:08 AM

Rafael sez:

At CNN for example, there are 24 licenses required for broadcast . . .

The link you provided supplies no such details. Google and Yahoo searches have not supplied details.

Kindly elaborate on source for 22 of 24 CNN licenses are signed off by muslims.

Posted by: miira

at November 11, 2005 9:09 AM

RickS,

I suppose by now everyone has gotten tired of these 51+ comments and is no longer reading this. Also, I see that a lot of comments were addressed to you, which suggests you got some vigorous debate.

Regarding Gujarat, I just want to say that you've been misled by the leftist/marxist press, which is even worse in India than in the West. Those riots were started by Muslim thugs setting fire to a train full of Hindu men, women and children, on top of years of Muslim terrorism in Kashmir and elsewhere. The Muslims have always started most of the riots in India. Occasionally, the Hindus react out of sheer exasperation, when the Gandhian coma temporarily loses its effect.

Posted by: Benjamin

at November 11, 2005 9:53 AM

Talk about being late for the party.

One of the best displays of the stupidity of multiculturalism with its handmaid moral equivalence.

Be strong, support the military, gun ownership and religious belief (think about it effendi).

Not easy in Canada, but flip you Paul Martin.

Posted by: dgene

at November 11, 2005 10:16 AM