Something tells me that even non-Arabs who face the brunt of Arab cruelty, like the Kurds, are not to be trusted as our friends. No deals unless and until they bolt from Islam, otherwise, let Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraqi Sunnis&Shia deal with them (and vice versa).

Posted by: Infidel Pride at March 29, 2006 4:11 PM

These clerics want to kill ANYONE who dares tell the truth. I know they said 80 lashes, but.....I'll bet that's what he'd get first for letting out their "little secret". I hope they give him asylum.

Posted by: freewoman at March 29, 2006 4:25 PM

If Islamic males can have up to 4 wives and they beat them why don't all the wives get together and kick the c--p out of the dirtbag then hang the Sob with their burquas tied together?
They need to get Shania Twains CD and kick some s--t.

Posted by: Siciliano at March 29, 2006 4:25 PM

Do the wives know who the other wives are? I've wondered.

Posted by: freewoman at March 29, 2006 4:27 PM

freewoman...
They most likely do but are forbidden to say anything as they will be beaten. The husband can divorce any of them just by saying you are divorced...He can only remarry her if she has had sex with another husband then divorced again.What a load of Sharia crap!!
Think what that would do here in the USA to all the Divorce attorneys!

Posted by: Siciliano at March 29, 2006 4:43 PM

Yes, the women of islam are treated SO well. I wonder also, how these guys, and I've noticed a lot of them on the news lately who have been protesting, meaning, not working, can afford even one wife, much less three others.

Posted by: freewoman at March 29, 2006 4:53 PM

Re: "The Islamic League of Kurdistan has issued a "conditional" fatwa to kill Halabjayee if he does not repent and apologize for writing his book."

These death warrents are issued by clerics whose cages have been badly rattled. Of course, if there were no truth to the proposition that Islam oppresses women the clerics wouldn't issue a fatal fartwa. BTW, Islam is a religion of intolerance in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere....it's a bore...

Posted by: Frank at March 29, 2006 4:53 PM

How often this religion shoots it,s self in the foot you always hear what a religon of peace it is but now someone else is being threatened with death because they havn,t said what muslims want to hear.

What is needed is a mainstream news agency to start telling the world about these sort of things when ever they happen using TV which is so powerful but they just don,t have the balls.

Posted by: stevenz at March 29, 2006 4:57 PM

Critics of Islam are popping up all over the place. Too bad those who think and speak for themselves have to flee, but it is a start. How many "slimwas" does it take to collapse an outmoded hateful belief system that is really an intellectual house of cards. Salman Rushdie is one man. What happens when it is 100 critics living under threat of death? 10,000? There must be tens of millions of people, perhaps hundreds of millions, who deep down know Islam is a disaster. Muzzling them is becoming difficult, and refuting them on moral or logical grounds, impossible.

I think we critics need to be very careful in what we say and how we say it. Everything must be carefully weighed for maximum impact - that means no hating Muslims as Muslims, only criticism of the hateful and regressive aspects of Islam, and sympathy for its primary victims, the Muslims themselves. This is a time that will be remembered as the moment when Islam either collapsed or changed radically. The internet and the mass media are the enablers.

It is strange to paraphrase Jesus, being that I am not a Christian, but let's remember to love our enemies. They will need it when their beliefs fail them.

Posted by: Quijybo at March 29, 2006 5:03 PM

This case should not cause others to rethink their support for an independent Kurdistan. Such support does not depend on the wonderfulness of all Kurds. Muslim Kurds, as well as Muslim Turks, it should be remembered took part, enthusiastically, in the 1894-96 massacres of Armenians and in the later ones as well. Why should it have been otherwise? Muslims were killing Christians. What's new about that?

The reason for supporting Kurdistan is the same reason that Kurdistan now supports the Americans: self-interest. It is likely that an independent Kurdistan would unsettle and disrupt both Syria and Iran, by appealing to the Kurds within both countries. Kurdistan would, or could, be a source of inspiration to other non-Arab Muslim peoples, such as the Berbers in the Kabyle (and the Berbers in France, among whom one would wish to foment anti-Arab sentiment in order to split the camp of Islam). Furthermore, a free Kurdistan would bring to the world's consciousness the whole matter, understood by too few, of Islam as a vehicle for Arab supremacism.

A free and independent Kurdistan is likely to help divide the camp of Islam. Furthermore, among the Kurds one finds an awareness of the historic role of the Arabs as oppressors of the Kurds, because they were not Arabs, and regarded as dispensable, second-class Muslims. This realization is a step that, if taken by a sufficient number of non-Arab Muslims, can lead to some of them regarding Islam itself in a less flattering light. And then even to begin to question it, and its role -- the way some, a few but some, in Iran must now be reading Firdowsi's Shahnameh in a new light, and thinking more and more about the Arab "gift" of Islam, and the the Arab (especially PLO and Arafat) renewed "gift" of more Islam in the form of Khomeini, which has brought death to so many in Iran, and all that woe.

The treatment of this dissident reminds us that Islam remains the irreducible problem, and some Kurds are more Muslim than other Kurds. The more Kurds feel their Kurdishness, the less they are likely to feel that Islam -- and that is something to be encouraged. Bernard Lewis wrote a book all about the "multiple identities" in the MIddle East, but he did not offer a hierarchy. For Muslims, Islam tends to come first. Infidels would prefer to see a world where ethnic and other kinds of identity (including that of being a citizen of a particular state) took precedence, and weakened the hold of Islam, and the loyalty that is owed to it, and to it alone, by the umma.

Deplore this event, but do not allow such deploring to blind one to the usefulness, for Infidels, of an independent Kurdistan.

Posted by: Hugh at March 29, 2006 5:23 PM

Quijybo-

Well said. Though it is difficult not to feel contempt for clerics who order a hit on a guy for writing a book, we do have to remember that the people who must live with this nonsense suffer.

We live in a place where there is the relative free and open exchange of ideas and opinions, a place where public opinion matters. We rarely agree as we debate, argue, get annoyed at opinions contrary to our own, and usually think the other guy is a dope for having thus-and-such an opinion, but sometimes we come to see that the other guy might be rightafter all. Islam doesn't offer that.....

Posted by: Frank at March 29, 2006 5:32 PM

Hmmm. The fatwa committee. Behead? Or merely opposite hand and foot? Gouge out the eyes? Or just cut out the tongue?

He should have gone to Italy. More protection there.

Interesting point of Hugh's. Many must have said this before, but perhaps what Islam needs now is its own Martin Luthers, John Wesleys, Henry VIIIs, and so forth, in the persons of clerics from non-Arab Islamic countries, who can walk in a different direction from the political stranglehold of the Meccan hierarchy and redo and reinterpret the legal rulings. Hey, it worked for Christianity, maybe it will work for Islam.

Posted by: HaMalach at March 29, 2006 5:38 PM

l read in some magaizine that Kurds are working more closely with the AMerican in Iraq,and that the other arab iraqis are not too happy about taking orders from the kurds. l think with a little more patience, the kurds will take the north of iraq and then combine with other kurds with their own province and maybe statehoods later. you hear all this crap with the so called paliestine people having no country, and how mulims from other countries us this to bring terrorism to non-muslims.. what about the kurds, dont they deserve their own statehood? why does not bin laden and company not bring about giving kurds their own country? seems muslims prefer to fight for land only for abrab muslims, and not for non-muslims arabs..

Posted by: Lulu at March 29, 2006 5:40 PM

What on earth, pray, makes him think he'll be safe in Sweden?

Just hope he stays away from Malmö.

Posted by: Cato the Elder at March 29, 2006 5:43 PM

HaMalach,

I have considered the possibility of an Islamic reformation, but I do not believe it is possible. In the end Christianity has the message of Jesus. I am not a Christian, and I do not believe in the divinity of Jesus, but I cannot question the moral advance that his ideas represent. The teachings of Jesus can be the foundation of a just society; in fact they are the foundation of the west, in which people of many religions have prospered.

Compare this with the life, ideas and actions of Muhammad, and it becomes clear that Islam cannot coexist with true morality. Muhammad raped, molested a child, waged expansionist wars, had critics and apostates killed, and engaged in the most crass of political machinations the likes of which would have done Macchivelli proud. His life and teachings cannot be the basis of any useful moral system. Highlighting the tolerant Meccan revelations is helpful, but it merely papers over the rest. It is refreshing that Muslims today are beginning to do this, but it can only be a stepping stone to abandoning the faith altogether, or "reformed" Muslims will revert to the true calling of Muhammad: Jihad and hate of the other.

Posted by: Quijybo at March 29, 2006 5:57 PM

From the article above:

"The "conditional" nature of the fatal fatwa is uncertain. Halabjayee reported that "a couple of weeks ago in Halabja, the mullahs and scholars said if I go to them and apologize they will give me 80 lashes and then refer me to the fatwa committee to decide if I am to be beheaded."

Seems like a good deal to me, I wonder why he went to Sweden instead? Maybe he was after the airline's loyalty program points?

Posted by: Ozi_bloke at March 29, 2006 6:35 PM

A brave mind. Let's welcome him and his courage.

It looks as if the West, once again, is taking on the status of 'place of asylum' for victims tyrannical oppression.

In this case from global Islamic Imperialism. And its dogmatic homicidal extremisms.

As we did in the 1930's with those fleeing the Nazis, and in the 1940's to 1989- with those who escaped from Communism, we will now have an entirely new refugee class to aid us. Of apostates and dissidents, to counterbalance the C.A.I.R.-eqsue fifth columns and general Muslim demographic invasion of the historically-daydreaming infidel world.

Enrico Fermi was a good rescue. Along with Einstein. (Being 'applied' to his 'pure' science.)

And now Hirsi Ali, and this Kurdish author Halabjayee, are among a new tribe of freethinkers we harbor. And they, too, are good rescues.

We are gaining the cream post-Islamic thinkers, and should thank our enemies for this "jumping universe" advantage.

As one of their own prophets, Issa [Jesus], put it:

"The rock which they have discarded is become the cornerstone."

Islam: Beware what you throw away.

It may ultimately make the Black Rock of the Ka'aba look like a gallstone.

Posted by: profitsbeard at March 29, 2006 7:12 PM

Why did he chose the most Dhimmified European Power to flee to?

Greece, Italy, Denmark and Germany would surely have been better nations to flee to.

Posted by: NicephorusPhocas at March 29, 2006 7:29 PM

Hugh wrote:

"This case should not cause others to rethink their support for an independent Kurdistan."

I beg to differ. I think the coalition forces should withdraw entirely from Iraq and Afghanistan, and let the pieces fall where they may.

There is going to be a "civil" war in Iraq, and there is nothing we can do to prevent it, nor is it necessarily to our advantage to prevent it.

The "Spencer Model" of Fortress Kurdistan, in which the coalition forces withdraw from Iraq proper and setup camp in Kurdistan, thereby leaving the Saudi backed Sunni and the Iran backed Shia to fight it out amongst themselves, has the following problems...

1. Coalition forces will be pressured by Turkey to reign in Kurdish expansionism.
2. Similarly, expect land battles with both Syria and Iran, also both fearful of agitation by their Kurdish minorities to form a greater Kurdistan.
3. Coalition forces will still be targeted by Moslem insurgents. To a lesser extent perhaps than now, but still a needless risk.

Iraq will be divided into three states, a Sunni arab dominated state in the south & west, a Shia state in the east, and a Kurdish state in the north. It is inevetable, we can't prevent it, nor is it to our disadvantage to prevent it.

Hang Saddam, then pack up your gear and come home.

Posted by: Ozi_bloke at March 29, 2006 8:08 PM

On a lighter note(and off topic), remember when Reagan 'made' Tom Clancy. A reporter asked him what book he read over a holiday and he talked about how much he loved 'The Hunt for Red October.'

I'd like a reporter to ask W, 'what book have you enjoyed recently?' Maybe Larry King. W should hold up Robert Spencer's book with the little piggy on the cover and say, "I Loved this book, Larry."

His polls would shoot up 20 % overnight. Next step. Announce the firing of Condi . . . to be replaced by Hugh. Karen Hughes would also be put out to pasture. The new speaker for the US to the Islamic World would be Robert Spencer. This would add another 10 % to the poll numbers. Maybe replace Cheney with Lou Dobbs while he's at it. Obviously this post is tongue in mouth, except the part of increasing W's poll numbers.

Posted by: biorabbi at March 29, 2006 10:18 PM

"I beg to differ. I think the coalition forces should withdraw entirely from Iraq and Afghanistan, and let the pieces fall where they may."
-- from a posting above

That is not differing. This has been advocated at this website, early and often -- far earlier and far more often often -- than anywhere else in the known universe. Support for Kurdistan through diplomatic means, and air cover from bases afar, and equipment sold or given to it, as the case may be, and occasional bombings to protect it from Arab assault -- that can all b edone without the presence of "coallition forces" in "Iraq and Afghanistan." Where do we differ, except that I think the Infidel world has a stake in promoting non-Arab Muslim interests if those interests will work against Arab Muslims, and more importantly, against the cohesion and unity of Islam.

Only in that respect is there a difference.

Posted by: Hugh at March 29, 2006 11:26 PM

Funny thing Hugh, I agree with very little of the thinking but almost all of the actions you propose in this post.

What's even more disturbing is that this is what Bin Laden asked for, too:

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/593298A0-3C1A-4EB4-B29D-EA1A9678D922.htm

Is it correct to submit to the demands of terrorists? Even when it seems like The Right Thing To Do?

Posted by: jehana at March 29, 2006 11:57 PM

"Is it correct to submit to the demands of terrorists? Even when it seems like The Right Thing To Do?"

I am indifferent to what "terrorists" say or don't say. Which terrorists? Terrorists in Tehran? Terrorists in Riyadh or Ramallah? Terrorists among the Hezbollah in Lebanon, or among the Sunnis in Jordan? Any Infidel who bases his policy purely on NOT doing whatever it is he believes someone in some tape tells him to do, or doing what he has been urged not to do, is an idiot.

Besides, sometimes one does things because they need to be done, no matter who else wants them done. Great Britain and the United States wished to defeat Adolf Hitler. This was The Right Thing To Do, despite the fact that Joseph Stalin wanted it done as well.

The war in Iraq is aimed at achieving the very opposite of what Infidels should wish to achieve. We should wish, at the lowest possible cost to ourselves, because this will be a very long, possibly endless war (yes, it will be endless, which is not the same thing as saying it cannot be reduced to the manageable proportions of the threat posed by the world of Islam before the OPEC trillions, and the migrating millions, began to change things, so that what had been largely limited to non-Muslim targets (Christians, Hindus) in Muslim countries, and to the Lesser Jihad against the Infidel state of Israel, now metastasized into a full-scale war, all over the world, where local grievances (there will always be grievances) against local Infidels became a network of commo grievances, with a mix 'n match of Muslim warriors ought to defeat Infidels wherever a campaign was being waged.

There is a need to husband, not squander, resources. It is clear that today the Sunnis will try to kill Americans, and tomorrow it will be the Shi'a, and then again the Sunnis. The civil war is inevitable. It was not caused by a series of missteps. The "misstep" or rather Four Hundred Billion Dollar Misunderstanding, was not to realize that this was what, inevitably, would happen. And not to deplore it, not to try to head it off, but to welcome all sectarian and ethnic divisions within Islam. Nothing further need be done except get out of the way. And if we wish to give an extra boost to the independent state of Kurdistan, that makes geopolitical sense -- let's leave sentiment out of it. Free Kurdistan destabilizes Iran and Syria (and if in addition to Iranian Kurds, others in Iran -- Baluchis and Azeris and Arabs in oil-bearing Khuzistan -- were to take their cue from this new state, the Islamic Republic of Iran would not know what to do, and in all the confusion, along with its smarting from the damage wrought on its nuclear project, it might just fall. Not to be replaced by something wonderful, but sometjing less dangerous to Infidels. If Sunni Arabs are also secretly pleased by this -- well, that's unfortunate, but you can't have everything.

Posted by: Hugh at March 30, 2006 12:12 AM

If Sunni Arabs are also secretly pleased by this -- well, that's unfortunate, but you can't have everything. Posted by: Hugh

They can't be secretly pleased for long, should such a thing, inshallah, happen. After all, would the Arabs prefer a Shia Iran or a non-Islamic Iran (be it Zoroastrian, Christian, Jewish, whatever)? If the Iranian regime collapses, Persians - a lot of who are said to have secretly apostatized - would openly ban Islam in the same way the Russians banned the CPSU in 1991. And having seen the way Shia Muslims are treated by Sunnis worldwide, there wouldn't even be a reason for them to have pride in it, since unlike Zoroastrianism, which was and is a Persian religion, Shia Islam is as Arab as Sunni Islam.

I would bet that should that happen, the Arabs would declare their next Jihad against the Persians, in addition to Israel. Since there is no reason for the West to tolerate that, it's unlikely that the battle of Kadeshiya would be repeated. So once an Infidel power emerges on the other side of the Persian Gulf, the Arab Sunnis aren't going to be happy for long.

Besides, once open Shia-Sunni civil war breaks out in KSA, Bahrain, Iraq and Syria, the Arabs would be too busy in their own war to be capable of doing anything outside Arabia. Once that happens, the Indian subcontinent and the East Indies will need to be worked on. That's where Islam stands to lose the most in terms of numbers, if that can be pulled off.

Incidentally, Jehana, are you an Iranian?

Posted by: Infidel Pride at March 30, 2006 1:15 AM

Thank you Robert, and Hugh for enlightening, and awakening the sleeping masses by lifting, no, removing the veil, and revealing the true face of islam/muslims.
There are many, many more like me, who visit JW daily, and get all riled up, and ready to shout from the roof tops!
Sharing a lot of eye-opening information from here with friends, and family, especially the children.

You do amazing work - and a lot of it.
Many thanks.

Posted by: freetoBEfree at March 30, 2006 1:50 AM

Hugh wrote:

"That is not differing. This has been advocated at this website, early and often -- far earlier and far more often often -- than anywhere else in the known universe."

I do apologise Hugh, I had misread your previous posts on this topic and thought that you advocated moving ground forces into Kurdistan.

Infidel Pride wrote:

"... since unlike Zoroastrianism, which was and is a Persian religion ..."

Persian by location only, Hebrew by influence. Zarathustra was a student of the Prophet (a real Prophet) Jeremiah, see..

http://britam.org/zarathustra.html

Posted by: Ozi_bloke at March 30, 2006 2:21 AM

People, people, people, why is it that EVERYONE overlooks the obvious? If there is a civil war in Iraq or if the US pulls out only ONE person comes out on top – Zarqawi! WHY do you ask? Open your history books! The most ruthless inevitably come out on top. Stalin in Russia, Hitler in Germany, Pol Pot in Cambodia, Castro in Cuba. Zarqawi sent his zombies to blow up a "Moslem" wedding, he has beheaded people on aljazeera TV, and his zombies have beheaded people in every city, town and village he has taken over and scared the locals s***less. He will turn Iraq into an Afghanistan on steroids. An hour after the last American soldier leaves Iraq Al Sadar will be blown up, a day or two later Al Sistani joins him. With Zarqawi funneling his zombies through Iran to Afghanistan to help the talaban the pressure to remove our troops from there will be overwhelming. With the talaban in control of Afghanistan the Islamists assassinate Musharraf (the 5th time is sure to work) and Iran gets the bomb in 6 months. The terrorists and their cleric backers will rule from the Mediterranean to the Arabian Sea. Why? Because in Islam he who holds the Qur’an rules and he who holds the Qur’an and an AK47 rules completely. Nobody in congress who favors a pullout in Iraq and no one here has an answer to what do we do then? Excuse me, a few here favor dropping the big one or several big ones. No politician now or far into the future has the guts to drop one first. Well maybe that wrestler who was the Gov. of Minnesota would. Iran has already proved they can put a missile on a freighter and hit a target several hundred miles away. One day we watch a mushroom cloud form over NYC. Who did it?? There is no Id on the ship, the ship is sunk and every on board is dead. We vaporize Iran but it was Pakistan that bombed us. What president wants to go down in history for vaporizing a country that did not attack us? Look at all the grief Bush is getting over Iraq. If we pull out of Iraq before Zarqawi and ALL his zombies are killed and pull out of Afghanistan before mullah Omar and ALL his zombies are killed we doom several million American to death. Some day we may have a president like that Gov. of Minnesota who will unleash the Trident and put Islam in the dust bin of history where it belongs, but unfortunately it will not happen in my life time.

Posted by: WLF at March 30, 2006 2:52 AM

"Persians - a lot of who are said to have secretly apostatized - would openly ban Islam in the same way the Russians banned the CPSU in 1991"

I wouldn't hold your breath. I know several very nice Iranians, who start to get quite defensive when I remotely suggest that the problem is Islam itself and not just the Mollahs.

Like all 'moderates', they are instinctively anti-semetic and refuse the acknowledge even slightly the barbarism done in the name of Allah.

On the Iranian dissident websites, there is nothing condemning Islam.

Any one reading here with iranian friends can deduce this for themselves by quizzing them gently on the following.

1) Who really attacked the twin towers?
2) Who is really responsable for deposing the Shah?

After you have put up with the anti american paranoia in their answers, (presented very reasonably of course) you can quiz them on the more unsavory aspects of Mohammed's life. And then on the realities of life for women and infidels in the muslim world.

You will be presented with the same delusional claptrap you hear from any other muslim: that you are reading the wrong translation, you are being out of context, you are dealing with a tiny minority of extremists etc.

As as I can see, gambling on the hope that the Iranians are somehow moderate is once again grasping at straws.

Sorry.

Posted by: Sebastien at March 30, 2006 3:11 AM

Obviously this post is tongue in mouth...

My posts are usually hand in glove or cheek by jowl.

Posted by: Interested at March 30, 2006 3:53 AM

All this talk about the Kurds and a free Kurdistan reminds me of what I heard about the "corageous freedom fighters" (read terrorists) of the UÇK. Man did they look good on those CNN news updates!

And the Kurds are not that diferent. The Kurds are for the most part a barbaric medieval people stuck between the borders of Europe (through Turkey), the Caucasus and the Middle East - which can largely explain why Kurdistan is currently shared by Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.

With the exception of giving birth to Saladin (that brave islamic knight whose "rightiousness" and "moral superiority" over his Christian counterparts is slowly starting to crumble to pieces) what have the Kurds done with their share of history? With the exception of being the lackeys of the Ottomans (the KaPos of death camp entrusted with carrying out the worst of tasks in the most barbaric way possible), they did nothing. More recently, the Kurds have been involved in terrorist attacks and in a civil war within Turkey that - allied with the inherent barbarism of the Turkish military - has made tens of thousands of dead. Who is the more barbaric, the Turk or the Kurd? Hard to say, but the Turk is probably more civilized thanks to geography.

Oh, and let us not forget that many of the "Turkish" immigrants in Germany are in fact Kurdish. The same "Turks" (read Kurds) that look upon German women as fair game (read "game" literally, as in a hunter's prey), and look upon their own as a cause of shame if they happen to become to used to the freedoms garanteed to them by the West. Thus all the honour killings.

A few years ago, someone called Kim du Toit wrote an article called "Let Africa sink". You can guess the theme of the article, an article whose main points were recently defended by a black African economist who stated that western aid only fortered laziness, corruption and poor economic options.

Let Kurdistan sink. Let Iran sink. Let the whole Middle East and all of North Africa sink. We don't need them, they need us. Let them eat humble pie until they learn their lesson. One western soldier is worth more than one thousand of the Afghans wanting the head of that Christian convert. Afghanistan was once home to the great civilization of Bactriana. The Mongols and the subsequent Muslim invaders turned that rich land into the basket case it remains to this day. Let them clean their own mess.

Posted by: cruzado at March 30, 2006 5:49 AM

"Let Kurdistan sink. Let Iran sink. Let the whole Middle East and all of North Africa sink..."
-- from a posting above

Understandable sentiments, understandably expressed. But that is not a substitute for thought. Kurdistan, as a place and not as an idea, is a place that, if given a little boost (a boost, not boots on the ground -- they are different things), could, by its mere existence, do a good deal of damage to the interests of both Syria and Iran.

To the interests of Syria (that hideous place, where one wishes to preserve the Alawite regime, under different and much more chastened management, only because the alternative is a regime of "real" Sunni Muslims, and everyone in Syria, though apparently few in the Infidel world, knows what that means for the Christians of Syria, and of Lebanon), by appealing to restless Kurds within Syria in its current, but not necessarily permanent borders). Syria is a hideous place with a hideous regime. That regime needs to be placed under new, and chastened, management -- but still under the rule of the Alawites, for only they, and only out of their own self-interest and terror at what would happen if they lost control, can keep a lid on the real Muslims, the non-Miriam-worshippiing Muslims who if they could, would massacre as many people as they could in the Alawite villages, and the Christians the Alawites protect (Syria is a country where the government shuts down -- the government! -- on Christmas Day).

Why would an independent Kurdistan help to weaken Syria? Because there are many Kurds in Syria who do not like the way they have been tretaed, and would be encouraged by the mere existence of an independent Kurdistan. And if the American government wished to funnel military aid to Kurdistan, and through Kurdistan to Kurds in Syria and Iran, and at the same time to remove any threat of Syrian bombing (by removing, in one fell swoop, Syria's air force --the Israelis when they last encountered Syrian planes destroyed 82 at one go, with no loss of any Israeli plane. One suspects that the Americans will be able to perform at a similar level of competence).

And then there is the Islamic Republic of Iran. Unlike some in Washington, who meet those unrepresentative Iranians, and are quick to believe all kinds of things that they wish to believe, the Iranian dictatorship is not on the verge of collapse. But it can be weakened, and weakened most effectively by exploiting the one main thing to know about Iran: ethnic Persians make up about 50% of the country; Azeris make up one-third (Azeris as in "Azerbaijan," as in Soviet-occupied "northern Iran" after World WSar II), and Baluchis, Kurds, and ethnic Arabs (in the oil-bearing region) the rest. There is already low-level unrest, here and there. And there is very little -- appeals to Muslim solidarity do not always work, and especially do not work where there is a long history of government from Tehran indifferent to the desires of non-Persians. This is what the rulers of the Islamic Republic fear most -- and because they fear it, some of them have concluded that they now have a stake in dampening unrest within Iraq, a stake in preventing a free Kurdistan (which would inspire the Kurds in Iran -- aod do more than inspire them). In other words, what the Islamic Republic of Iran now fears is a "civil war" in Iraq, just the way, for different reasons, the Sunni Arabs outside Iraq fear such a "civil war."

What maddens is that the "civil war" that could do such damage to the interests of the two main beneficiaries of the removal of Saddam Hussein, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the (Wahhabi) Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is being prevented, or delayed, almost entirely by the presence of American troops, and naive American attempts at directing this or that while failing so completely to relate the fissures within Iraq to the larger picture of the menace presented by the Jihad, by Islam.

This blanket curse above, this call to let X, Y, and Z "sink," is a substitute for thought.

Pope wrote Peri Bathous, or, The Art of Sinking in Poetry.

There is another art, not as high, but even more necessary and at this point in history, necessary if the poetry of Pope, and everything else that has been left as a legacy in the Western world, survives and continues to be added to. How to deal with many different levels and instruments of Jihad, how to deal with many different levels of ignorance or denial among Infidels, how to inflict the most damage, of the right kind, the kind that will help to weaken Islam in the most effective, and likely least expensive way, which is to play upon the natural divisions and resentments and animosities within Dar al-Islam, and in so doing, to allow intelligent people who, through no fault of their own, were born into Islam, to ponder what it is about this belief-system, with its abhorrence of free and skeptical inquiry, its limits on artistic expression, its iinshallah-fatalism, its support for The Ruler as long as the Ruler is considered to be a Muslim, what it is that makes Islam itself the cause of the political, economic, social, intellectual, and moral failures of Muslim states and polities. And there is one more audience. The spectacle of internecine strife among Muslims, which could take place in Iraq but will draw in men, money, and materiel from both Sunnis and Shi'a outside Iraq, and therefore have consequences (good for Infidels, bad for Muslims) in Lebanon, and Pakistan, in eastern Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and Yemen, will be instructve for Infidels, who are taking their sweet time -- who can blame them, given the way that an informal, but most effective withal, Islamintern International has placed its members in the U.N. bureacracy, its apologists in the E.U. bureaucracy, its willing collaborators in the press, radio, and television of much of Western Europe, in those areas that include coverage of Islam and the Middle East, and finally, have managed, as in this country with the members of MESA Nostra, to control the access to study of Islam to those who are apologists rather than students of the subject.

The Iran-Iraq War tied two ruthless regimes up for eight years. From the Infidel point of view, it should have gone on forever. There is another chance. The Bush Administration, having still failed to grasp the scope of the problem, and the nature of the problem, posed by the Jihad and its various instruments (hardly limited to terrorism), is obstinate in its titanic -- in every sense -- efforts. It needs to be forced, through political pressure, to withdraw from Iraq, to end the misallocation of resources, the colossal sums being spent that could so much better be applied to energy projects, and to small-scale efforts, as in Kurdistan, to give a little "equalizer" (as the Colt .45 was once known) to the side that we wish to prevail, but only from afar.

Telemachy -- fighting from afar. And Telemachus was the son of Odysseus. Wily Odysseus. All this nonsense, this hallucinatory nonsense, about how "everyone loves freedom" and how we "are going to win the war on terror" through "our success in Iraq" which will take care of the "terrorists" forever (there is no "forever" that will end Jihad -- containment, and reduction in the size of the threat, is another matter) -- this has to stop. Events will cause it to stop, because in the next presidential election only someone who promises to remove our troops, right away, from Iraq, can conceivably win. But the American government should not wait that long. The silence of the Democratic lambs, who are capable, apparently, of breaking that silence only in order to bleat all the wrong kinds of criticism of Bush, rather than the unanswerable, and therefore deadly, kind that is offered here -- need to change. It only takes one or two intelligent people. They must exist. Where are they? And the same is true of the Republicans, whose misplaced loyalty to a foolish and wasteful policy, could do great damage to their own political survival.

A big failure all way round.

There already exists, as noted above, "The Art of Sinking in Poetry."

Practitioners of geopolitics, a harder art, a colder craft, in every sense, should look at all the advantages an independent Kurdistan could bring, not least as an inspiration to non-Muslim Arabs everywhere, who might, as they begin to focus on Islam as the vehicle, as it has been, of Arab cultural and linguistic and political imperialism, so that Islam is seen -- correctly, despite its universalist pretensions -- as the Arab national religion, can be reduced in its appeal to the 3/4 of the world's Muslims who are not Arab.

And that new geopolitics, of selectively sinking this or that threatening ship of state, or even wandering coastal barks, laden with explosives however, that have made their way along the shores, or even into the waterways, of the Lands of the Infidels (as Muslims call them), is perhaps a harder art, a colder craft.

Let's call it "The Art of Sinking in Geopolitics."

Posted by: Hugh at March 30, 2006 7:04 AM

On the Iranian dissident websites, there is nothing condemning Islam.

I recall Ibn Warraq's book being listed very prominently on an Iranian dissident site, when the book came out. I'm basing my observation on what I've read on Ali Sina, who seems to be closely in touch with what's going on there. Also, in the city where I live, there is an Iranian Christian Church, so I have to conclude that Iranians, at least in the US, do apostatize in fairly large numbers.

I don't doubt that it still has its large numbers of those still afraid to bolt. But in a free Iran, once enough people have taken that first step, it could become a trend.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at March 30, 2006 7:11 AM

Persian by location only, Hebrew by influence. Zarathustra was a student of the Prophet (a real Prophet) Jeremiah, see.. Posted by: Ozi_bloke

Persian by ethnicity, not location. Much of his upbringing was in Balkh, now in Afghanistan, but then a part of the Persian empire. He was friends with Cyrus, and that contributed to his religion getting accepted by Persia. I don't deny any Hebrew influence, but wouldn't question its Persian credentials.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at March 30, 2006 7:25 AM

The Kurds may be Muslim but their mindset is arguably well adjacent to the Islamic one. One of the best articles I have read on Islam is written by a Kurd called Showan Khurshid (make yourself a coffee before you read it):

http://www.kurdmedia.com/articles.asp?id=10849

In 2001-002 the UK experienced an invasion of migrants based at the Sangatte refugee camp in France. Most were Iraqi Kurds, from places like Sulaymaniya and Erbil. I remember at the time there were reports of fighting at the camp between them and the other main group of migrants - the Afghans. Unlike the Afghans - many of whom, despite fleeing the Taliban, have remained as devoutly Muslim in the UK as they were back home - the Kurds have largely secularised. When the police (wrongly) arrested some Manchester-based Kurds a year or two ago on suspicion of terrorism-related offences there was general amazement in the community there. I recall one of the detained men saying he had not set foot inside a mosque since he arrived in Britain - his only place of worship was Old Trafford. In my view, they remain the only Muslim migrants to Britain who show genuine gratitude for the opportunities they have been given.

In Iraqi Kurdistan, there is as free a press as you will find in the Middle East outside Israel. There is no seperation of the sexes, either in university campuses or on the street. The Islam that poses no threat to non-Muslims is that practised by (most of) the people there. Realpolitik considerations notwithstanding, they deserve our support.

Posted by: Effractor at March 30, 2006 10:12 AM