Let fools find comfort and cover where they will--like Jesus' Parable of The Man Who Built on Sand and The Man Who Built on Rock. Those who face the wind and seek the truth are anchored on rock and weather The Storm.

Posted by: John C at January 15, 2008 9:05 PM

uhhh arent his conclusions directly from the terrorist themselves. his work comes from an analysis of every known case of suicide terrorism from 1980 to 2005. instead of making up his own conclusions he looks at the data. why dont you debate him instead of posting this stuff. you guys are probebly going to now start to insult me and say that i am really a muslim posing as a jewish person. i dont care. there is nothing wrong with providing opposing viewpoints. by the way this confirms pape's work. And if you believe in letting people express their view you wont delete this comment the way you have all my other ones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7aFXRAW7mg

Posted by: jewwho69 at January 15, 2008 9:10 PM

Excellent point, Robert! Very good that you could bring that into the open.

If Muslim bloggers want to challenge regimes' Islamism, or to expose it for what it is to us kufars, they run the risk of capital crime by their regimes, a la Egypt, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia.

In the absence of objection by "We think YOU should bomb Iran," stunted-democracy-stumping, visiting foreign-dignitary George Bush, now Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will go one better - and not only arrest dissenting bloggers for their own deemed 'seditious' writings - but for COMMENTS made by anyone on blogs under Israeli jurisdiction!

First was Olmert's disarming of the surrounded, nationalist settlements, now their gagging.

Please read our story on this today before they gag us, too:

http://democracybroadcasting.blogspot.com/2008/01/bush-managing-us-mid-east-policy.html

Posted by: DemoCast at January 15, 2008 9:24 PM

"Middle East expert Martin Kramer suggests that Pape's theses may be comforting to Western readers who want to believe that if only the United States were to pull its military forces from the Persian Gulf and if only all occupation in the Middle East would end, that there would be no more suicide bombings."
-- from the article above

This is exactly what successive Israeli governments have done -- none as horrifically as the present government, of course -- in believing in negotiations, and Israeli concessions, and Israeli silences about Israel's legal, moral, and historic claim, and Israeli silence, or still worse wilful ignorance, about the texts, tenets, attitudes of Islam that explain the war against Israel, which has no end, has no "solution," but can be contained, if only the Israeli government, and other Infidel governments, see things aright and do nothing to encourage Arab and Muslim triumphalism, do nothing further to whet, not sate, Arab appetites, and recognize the grim truth that it is not through concessions, but only through overwhelming, implacable superiority in power, and especially military power, that the Arabs and Muslims will, most unwillingly, most begrudgingly, as they see it "temporarily" accept the situation. But if they are given further concessions, resulting in further Israeli weakness, they will never acquiesce, never accept even "temporarily" the existence of Israel.

The peace can be kept, but only if Israel recognizes the peace-keeping will be done on the basis of the Arab and Muslim acceptance of the principle of "Darura" -- Necessity. (Google "Darura" for more.)

And just as in Israel, in United States, and in many other Infidel lands, those who have a duty to instruct and protect others, would much prefer to believe that the menace comes not from those who understand Islam, but who “misunderstand” it, or who take an “extreme” rather than perfectly orthodox view of its teachings, and who have convinced themselves that Muslims have a discrete, and legitimate list of complaints, and if only we meet them half-way, and show that we are willing to recognize and meet those complaints, all manner of things shall be well. And since we have it in our power not to change Islam, it is comforting to believe, to convince oneself to believe, that it is not Islam’s texts and tenets and attitudes that explain the Muslim sense of grievance – a grievance that we do not everywhere give in to their demands – but rather something else, such as Israeli behavior, or our behavior, or the French laic state not permitting hijabs, or the inability, apparently, of every Infidel land to integrate its Muslim population even though it somehow manages to do so with its Buddhists, its Hindus, its Confucians, its Bolivan Indians, its everyone-but-Muslims.

So we assume, without naming it, the endless Infidel Man's Burden. We take their demands, and their assurances that if “only” this happens, or that happens, all will be well. There is no evidence of this. All the evidence goes the other way. In the long history of Israeli military victories, and of Israeli concessions matched by nothing on the other side at the negotiating table, and of every single treaty between Israel and the Arabs sooner or later being breached, in major part or wholly, by the Arab Muslim side, there has never been an example that supports this apparently endless faith – by Bush, by Rice – in negotiations and “treaties.” They have never heard the word “Hudaibiyya.” They have never read Majid Khadduri’s “War and Peace in Islam.” They are under the innocent impression that the basis for Western treaty-making – Pacta Sunt Servanda (Treaties Are To Be Obeyed) is not a Western, or at least non-Muslim, but a universal principle. They are quite wrong, and quite ignorant, and apparently those to whom they go, or upon whom they rely, for advice on Islam are also ignorant, or perhaps deliberate apologists for, collaborators with, the forces of Islam (such, certainly, is how one would describe John Esposito, or 90% of the members of MESA Nostra, the “professional organization” for academics specializing in Islam and the Middle East).

And besides, when the party being asked to make tangible sacrifices is not you,you’re your country, but tiny Israel, which has no choice but to be a part of the West, to be a loyal ally, it is easier to ask for those concessions, easier to put pressure, easier to overlook the claims, legal, moral, and historic, of that tiny ally, and easy to believe, to allow oneself to believe, those smiling daggers-and-dishdasha Arabs, hawks on hand, offering their fabled luxe (paid for by oil revenues, not by hard work), to a most impressionable Westerner taking “a leadership role,” and confusing wealth with real power (the wealth is not the result of an industrious, and entrepreneurial population, but merely reflects an accident of geology) to him at some “desert ranch.” And it is they who have told Bush that “if he pressures Israel enough” then “after that peace treaty is signed” then all kinds of good things will happen. You’ll see. Trust us. It’s all so obvious. It’s all so ludicrous. It’s all so infuriating.

Good God. It’s all so absurd, and all so obvious.

And it is the same with the robert-papes of this world. They haven’t studied Islam. I doubt if Pape has ever read ten, much less a few hundred, of the hadith. I doubt if he understands the role of Muhammad as exemplary figure, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil. I don’t think he has thought much about what it must be like to have the Qur’an as the source of authority, supplemented only by the hadith and Sira. I don’t think he quite grasps Islam, or possesses the imaginative sympathy (in its etymological sense) to realize what it is like to grow up within a society suffused with Islam, a society that is in which almost nothing else really matters. I don’t think he takes ideology seriously, for he is an American, and believes, in the end, that ideas don’t really matter – believes with the curious fervor of those who do not recognize the Marxism-cum-Free-Market-Fundamentalism that is the American ideology, the one which believes that everyone in the world is motivated by economics (so that “prosperity” or “employment” would remove the menace from Muslims), and that the “Free Market” is the answer to everything, no matter how complicated the question might be.

He’s a dope with a doctorate. He’s not the only one. They’re all over the place.

Posted by: Hugh at January 15, 2008 9:30 PM

From the summary of the linked article;

"Political activities are more important than military operations, and fighting is less important than propaganda." In confronting Islamist terror, ideology is perhaps even more crucial.

So why aren't our political leaders, examining the writings in the Qur'an and ahadith that promote terrorism? Why isn't the MSM discussing the idealogical motivation of the Jihadists? Why are so many otherwise intelligent citizens, so ignorant of the reasons Jihadists themselves use to justify their carnage? Has CAIR really been that effective, or are we just too fearful of being labeled a racist for even questioning anyone's "religion"?

Posted by: Xero G at January 15, 2008 9:32 PM

Papes argument is Idiotic ,"since others do it is cant have anything to do with Islam." is not an argument.

Posted by: GrennBeck at January 15, 2008 10:15 PM

by the way this confirms pape's work.

I hate this stupid rhetorical tactic of saying that an argument AGAINST a particular point actually PROVES that point, then offering no evidence or quotation to back up the assertion.

Your assertion is BS, plain and simple. Read the article again if you think it proved Pape's point. The author clearly shows that the secular terrorist has a completely different goal in mind than the Islamic terrorist.

Posted by: venividivici at January 15, 2008 10:37 PM

Why should we listen to all these pointy headed
intellectuals, when we have 'Adam the American', Osama, and Beasty Boy Ahmadinijad, to tell us whats what. Who knows more about suicide bombings, and Islam, Hamas, or Pape? Who knows more about the Islamic connection, than those who study the Islamic connection, that does not exist, yet it is studied.
What a bunch of double talk. No, or little, attention is given to the mental condition of a suicide bomber himself/herself. I don't believe a muslim will kill himself for strictly, 'tactical reasons'. That would be unIslamic and may be apostacy. The whole idea of being a muslim is to please Allah, and get into Heaven/Paradise.
A good muslim always has Allah at his side. Tactics may be used, but they are never out of Allah's sight. It is impossible to separate a good muslim from Islam and Allah. A good muslim is purely Islamic, not purely 'tactical'. Everything is for Allah...'Adam the American' told me that.
And I believe him...

Posted by: duh_swami at January 15, 2008 10:53 PM

"University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape argues, for example, that Islam has little to do with suicide bombing. Rather, he suggests, that suicide bombers, wherever they are in the world, are motivated much more by tactical goals."

That's the strangest, if not irrational, theory of what motivates suicide bombers I've seen.
If tactical goals are the motivation of suicide bombers, they are indeed a different apecies of human beign.
there's nothing illigical about a person who commits suicide believing that the act of killing himself will catapult him into blissful existence somewhere beyond the grave.
But for someone to kill himself simply to win a tactical advantage is totally irrational, especially considering he won't be around to see, or benefit, from his sacrifice.

History is filled with examples of courgeous men who layed down their lives for King, Country and faith, but no one has ever thought of them as suicides. We assume, and rightly, that in their courgeous acts, it was never their intention to die, but rather to risk their lives in a cause greater than themselves. If they had succeded and lived it would have been a normal human reaction to be relieved that they they achieved their goal and lived to go on with life. They would have been strange birds indeed to kill themselves for tactical reasons. In fact, it would have been unnatural and unhuman.
I would say Mr. Pape is as flaky as a blizzard if he thinks Muslim suicide bombers kill themselves for tactical reason. When they pull that cord thay are motivated by something far more substantial than gaining a tactical advantage over an enemy.
Islam provides them with all the motivation and rewards they need to take their own lives, and those of others. It's called Paradise.

Posted by: rational at January 15, 2008 10:57 PM

Pape's example of the Tamil tigers is the new McVeigh...an attempt to prove ideological moral equivalency, which ultimately ends up being nothing more than Islamic apologetics masked to draw attention away from Islamic terrorism...also widely and accurately known on this site as the jihad.

McVeigh, like the Tamil tigers, is the exception, not the rule. The rule is terrorism via the jihad and its obvious and well-documented correlation to Islam.

Posted by: awake at January 15, 2008 11:30 PM

If jihadis blow themselves up -on an almost daily basis- to terrorize infidels and fellow "insincere" Muslims for Islam's sake, and for its ultimate domination of the Earth, while an occassional Tamil Tiger (or other ideological nutjob) does the same thing -once every year or five- then Pape's desperate attempt at equivalence becomes the risible and transparent folly that it obviously is... to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to the deadly ways of the world.

The real world.

Not the insubstantial Zone where such "Intellectuals" live, - variously known as Aristophanes' Cloud-Cuckooland or Laputa, Jonathan Swift's floating island city of crank scientists.

To those of us who face the Kabul blasts, the Bagdad blasts, the Bali Bombing blasts, the London Underground blasts, the Madrid railway blasts, the Israeli pizza parlor blasts, and 9/11, we know the hard fact:

Islam: its membership is booming.

Posted by: profitsbeard at January 15, 2008 11:46 PM

Posted by rational: There's nothing illogical about a person who commits suicide believing that the act of killing himself will catapult him into blissful existence somewhere beyond the grave.

Muhammad's gift to mankind...the gift that keeps on giving.

Posted by: Xero G at January 16, 2008 2:17 AM

rational

I agree.

The mainstream Christian church generally discouraged people from going out and looking for martyrdom.

Though, when pushed into a corner, and forced to choose between continuing to confess your faith, and getting killed, or renouncing it, and surviving, both Christians and Jews have often chosen the former; it has to do with not being able to endure breaking that relationship with G-d, with just not being able to lie even to save one's life.

Chinese Christian students at the university of Peking after the Communist takeover were lined up and told: publicly renounce your faith, and live; or persist, and we cut off your head here and now. Not one was willing to live a lie; they all died. Likewise: the Jewish martyr Sol Hachuel, 17 years old, in Morocco in 1834, whose life would have been spared had she converted to Islam, simply *could not* do it.

Otherwise, it is only permissible to lay down your life in hopes of saving the life of another, or others. (See Charles Dickens' 'take' on this, in "A Tale of Two Cities').

For example: Maximilian Kolbe took the place of another prisoner who had been condemned to die by the Nazis. He made the guard promise that, since he himself would die that person's death, that other person would live (and they did).

A similar principle seems to apply within Judaism.

During the Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006, a young IDF soldier, reciting the Sh'ma, threw himself upon a grenade that was about to explode. His body absorbed the force of the explosion; he died but his companions were saved, whereas had he not done what he did, they might all have been killed.

Islam, on the other hand, with its 'slay and be slain' mentality, exalts the suicide-murderer: one kills oneself expressly in order to kill others! - and what for? - to spread Islam, to create more people willing to suicide-murder. Khomeini was prepared to destroy all of Persia in order to make Islam dominate the world; but every Islamic empire has devoured itself in endless internecine warfare and assassinations.

When one reads the endlessly dreadful accounts of Jihad conquest in The Dhimmi, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam, and in The Legacy of Jihad, one begins to think that in Islam there has always been a terrible undertow toward death for its own sake, mass murder exalted and practised as an end in itself rather than as an (evil) means.

In pursuit of an illusory paradise Islam annihilates the self and the earth; whereas Jews patiently practise tikkun olam and Christians, though looking 'beyond' have created, here and now, astonishing earthly analogues of the heavenly - e.g. the Bach Art of Fugue, Dante's Commedia, Byzantine icons and liturgy, the Benedictine or the Amish or the Taize communities.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at January 16, 2008 3:30 AM

"I would say Mr. Pape is as flaky as a blizzard if he thinks Muslim suicide bombers kill themselves for tactical reason. When they pull that cord thay are motivated by something far more substantial than gaining a tactical advantage over an enemy."

I think Pape would agree, that they are motivated by something more substantial. Then he (or his followers) would cue the next front in the argument: the something more substantial that motivates the suicide bomber would be "poverty", "desperation" and the anger at American and Israeli "imperialism".

And around and around they go (circling the wagon of Islam, that is).

Posted by: cantor at January 16, 2008 3:37 AM

I don't quite understand this point- how does Islamic jihad not fit into "existing political theory"?

Anyone care to explain briefly? I'd be grateful.

Posted by: carpediadem at January 16, 2008 4:39 AM

"Middle East expert Martin Kramer suggests that Pape's theses may be comforting to Western readers who want to believe that if only the United States were to pull its military forces from the Persian Gulf and if only all occupation in the Middle East would end, that there would be no more suicide bombings. Western thinking admires empirics, metrics, and pie charts. The secular emphasis of Pape's theories also comforts. But comfort does not correlate with reality. Islamism is an ideology, and that it does not fit neatly into existing political theory should be beside the point.[4]"

Yep, there's the Jihad Watch Mindset again. Let's translate Kramer into plain English:

"Western thinking admires empirical, secular thought. Islamists don't, and will probably carry out suicide bombings no matter what we do. Therefore, we should forego the 'comforts' of Western thought and steel ourselves for the coming battle."

The "comforting" train of secular, logical though that Kramer refers to dates back to the Scientific Revolution. It underpinned our current ideas on freedom, and helped us move from a continent-wide, religion-based inferno to a continent that is largely free and prosperous today. There is a strong historical case to be made that the Scientific Revolution gave Europeans a decisive edge over the Ottomans.

Oh well. Those "comforts" were nice while they lasted. Since Islamists have managed to attack 0.01% of American citizens, I guess we'll have to abdicate the last four centuries of Western thought. That way, we'll "hurt" the Islamists by compounding their damage across the other 99.9% of the population.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is why many people misconstrue this site as a Crusader haven.

Posted by: Shlomo_Michael at January 16, 2008 4:44 AM

"A dope with a doctorate".

nice expression Hugh, I'm spreading this one!

Posted by: carpediadem at January 16, 2008 4:45 AM

Mr. Pape's intellect is smeared. It is not clear thinking to equate suicide bombing of the LTTE with that of Islamic militants.

The LTTE's terrorist activities are the result of years of failed negotiations with the Sinhalese majority of Ceylon. The LTTE's terrorism (or fight for freedom, as they style it to be)has nothing to do with religion. The LTTE is not suicide bombing other countries of the world for their ends. This is not any kind of Jihad. The LTTE is not fighting for a place in paradise, by bombing others. They are only standing up for their legitimate rights.

Compare this to Islam, wherein muslims have to kill somebody or the other to gain a place in paradise. Muslims have to kill somebody or the other for the love of God. And Muslims have it all religiously sanctioned.

Yes, as carpediadem said, "A dope with a doctorate"

Posted by: proud-hindu at January 16, 2008 5:22 AM

Check it out folks.....a fascinating interview with an expert on the subject of suicide bombings...

Q - ARE SUICIDE BOMBERS PRINCIPALLY MOTIVATED BY RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS?

A - YES, IT IS THEIR ONLY CONVICTION. They don't act to gain a territory or to find freedom or even dignity. They only follow Allah, the supreme judge, and what He tells them to do.

-----------------------------------------------

The Psychology behind Suicide Bombings. By - Pierre Rehov, documentary filmmaker

On July 15, MSNBC's "Connected" program discussed the July 7th London attacks.
One of the guests was Pierre Rehov, a French filmmaker who has filmed six documentaries on the intifada by going undercover in the Palestinian areas.

Pierre's upcoming film, "Suicide Killers," is based on interviews that he conducted with the families of suicide bombers and would-be bombers in an attempt to find out why they do it. Pierre agreed to a request for a Q&A interview here about his work on the new film.

Q - What inspired you to produce "Suicide Killers," your seventh film?

A - I started working with victims of suicide attacks to make a film on PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) when I became fascinated with the personalities of those who had committed those crimes, as they were described again and again by their victims. Especially the fact that suicide bombers are all smiling one second before they blow themselves up.

Q - Why is this film especially important?

A - People don't understand the devastating culture behind this unbelievable phenomenon. My film is not politically correct because it addresses the real problem, showing the real face of Islam. It points the finger against a culture of hatred in which the uneducated are brainwashed to a level where their only solution in life becomes to kill themselves and kill others in the name of a God whose word, as transmitted by other men, has become their only certitude.

Q - What insights did you gain from making this film? What do you know that other experts do not know?

A - I came to the conclusion that we are facing a neurosis at the level of an entire civilization. Most neuroses have in common a dramatic event, generally linked to an unacceptable sexual behavior. In this case, we are talking of kids living all their lives in pure frustration, with no opportunity to experience sex, love, tenderness or even understanding from the opposite sex. The separation between men and women in Islam is absolute. So is contempt toward women, who are totally dominated by men. This leads to a situation of pure anxiety, in which normal behavior is not possible. It is no coincidence that suicide killers are mostly young men dominated subconsciously by an overwhelming libido that they not only cannot satisfy but are afraid of, as if it is the work of the devil.
Since Islam describes heaven as a place where everything on Earth will finally be allowed, and promises 72 virgins to those frustrated kids, killing others and killing themselves to reach this redemption becomes their only solution.

Q - What was it like to interview would-be suicide bombers, their families and survivors of suicide bombings?

A - It was a fascinating and a terrifying experience.
You are dealing with seemingly normal people with very nice manners who have their own logic, which to a certain extent can make sense since they are so convinced that what they say is true. It is like dealing with pure craziness, like interviewing people in an asylum, since what they say, is for them, the absolute truth. I hear a mother saying "Thank God, my son is dead." Her son had became a shaheed, a martyr, which for her was a greater source of pride than if he had became an engineer, a doctor or a winner of the Nobel Prize.
This system of values works completely backwards since their interpretation of Islam worships death much more than life. You are facing people whose only dream, only achievement goal is to fulfill what they believe to be their destiny, namely to be a Shaheed or the family of a shaheed.
They don't see the innocent being killed, they only see the impure that they have to destroy.

Q - ARE SUICIDE BOMBERS PRINCIPALLY MOTIVATED BY RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS?

A - YES, IT IS THEIR ONLY CONVICTION. They don't act to gain a territory or to find freedom or even dignity. They only follow Allah, the supreme judge, and what He tells them to do.

Q - Describe the culture that manufactures suicide bombers.

A - Oppression, lack of freedom, brain washing, organized poverty, placing God in charge of daily life, total separation between men and women, forbidding sex, giving women no power whatsoever, and placing men in charge of family honor, which is mainly connected to their women's behavior.

Q - What socio-economic forces support the perpetuation of suicide bombings?

A - Muslim charity is usually a cover for supporting terrorist organizations. But one has also to look at countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are also supporting the same organizations through different networks. The ironic thing in the case of Palestinian suicide bombers is that most of the money comes through financial support from the Occidental world, donated to a culture that utterly hates and rejects the West (mainly symbolized by Israel).

Q - Is there a financial support network for the families of the suicide bombers? If so, who is paying them and how does that affect the decision?

A - There used to be a financial incentive in the days of Saddam Hussein ($25,000 per family) and Yasser Arafat (smaller amounts), but these days are gone. It is a mistake to believe that these families would sacrifice their children for money. Although, the children themselves who are very attached to their families, might find in this financial support another reason to become suicide bombers. It is like buying a life insurance policy and then committing suicide.

Q - You say that a suicide bomber is a 'stupid bomb and a smart bomb' simultaneously. Explain what you mean.

A - Unlike an electronic device, a suicide killer has until the last second the capacity to change his mind.
In reality, he is nothing but a platform representing interests which are not his, but he doesn't know it.

Q - How can we put an end to the madness of suicide bombings and terrorism in general?

A - Stop being politically correct and stop believing that this culture is a victim of ours. Radical Islamism today is nothing but a new form of Naziism.
Nobody was trying to justify or excuse Hitler in the 1930s. We had to defeat him in order to make peace one day with the German people.

Q - Are these men traveling outside their native areas in large numbers? Based on your research, would you predict that we are beginning to see a new wave of suicide bombings outside the Middle East?

A - Every successful terror attack is considered a victory by the radical Islamists. Everywhere Islam expands there is regional conflict. Right now, there are thousands of candidates for martyrdom lining up in training camps in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Inside Europe, hundreds of illegal mosques are preparing the next step of brain washing to lost young men who cannot find a satisfying identity in the Occidental world. Israel is much more prepared for this than the rest of the world will ever be. Yes, there will be more suicide killings in Europe and the U.S.
Sadly, this is only the beginning.

Posted by: Cornelius at January 16, 2008 6:06 AM

Pape is intellectually dishonest with his "revisionist" theory that de-emphasizes the religious motivation found in the ideology of a terrorist mindset.

Jonathan Fine has done a good job exposing Pape's intellectual shortcomings and misunderstandings.

Unfortunately, the majority of western politicians, academics, and media types are simply unwilling to emphasize the huge volume of religious passages contained within Islamic texts that endorses and inspires violent jihad.

Fearful of being labeled a "racist" or afriad of being targeted by jihadists causes many critical voices to fall silent.

Exposing Muslim texts to western critical methods will hopefully break down the rigid structure that holds the weak foundation of Islam together.

But true reform must come from within. Muslims need to come to terms with the sinfulness and dishonor that terrorism unleashes upon the world.

Posted by: Johnathan at January 16, 2008 6:14 AM

FYI:
See download page for Khomeni's "Islamic Governance."

http://aquella.pl/wiki/Hokumat-e_Islami_:_Velayat-e_faqih_(book_by_Khomeini)

Allow me to post my first long section. Please save the following segment of Walker Benjamin's "Foundations of Islam." He detailed several Muslim exterminations of "apostates."

"The theologian Jaad ibn Dirham was executed in Wasit in 737 by order of the same caliph for expressing belief in free will. The theologian Jahm ibn Safwan was executed in 746 for his theory that man was a puppet entirely manipulated by God, and for denying the eternity of paradise and hell, saying that both would pass away in time.

Ibn al-Mukaffa wrote a book criticizing Muhammed and claiming that he could imitate the style of the Koran. In 758 first his limbs were hacked off one by one and thrown into the flames, then his trunk followed. The blind poet Bashar ibn Burd, accused of introducing Zoroastrian dualism into Islam, was thrown into a swamp in Batiha in 784.

Fayad ibn Ali, head of the Mimiya or Muhammadiya sect, was executed in 895 for preaching the divinity of Muhammad, which was thought to resemble the Christian concept of Christian. Mansur al-Hallaj was executed in 922 for heresy, blasphemy and infidelity when he claimed spiritual union with God.

The Shia mystic Shalmaghani was executed in 934 for declaring that both Moses and Muhammad were impostors; Moses because he had behaved treacherously in the mission entrusted to him by Aaron (Harun), and Muhammad because he had behaved treacherously in the mission entrusted to him by Ali.

Shihabuddin Yahya Suhrawardi was executed in 1191 for apostasy, on the order of Saladin...He taught that all living things have their being in Truth, and based his proof of God on the symbolism of light. Abul Futuh, a voluminous and imaginative writer in Persian who tended to pantheism, was found guilty of heresy and executed in 1191.

Fazlulla of Asterabad in Khorasan, Persia, claimed that God had disclosed to Adam the secret of nine letters of the Arab alphabet, to Abraham fourteen and to Muhammed twenty-eight; but to him God had revealed the meaning of all four orthographical signs as well, making thirty-letters in all. He was executed in 1398. Imaddudin Nesimi, a Turkish poet who also claimed to have received a special revelation on letter mysticism, was flogged to death in Aleppo in 1417.

Muhammad Sayid Sarmad was a rabbi before he embraced Islam. A great Persian poet and idealist thinker, he denied the reality of matter. He was executed in 1661 in the reign of the Mughal emperor Aurungzeb. His tomb in Delhi attracts hundreds of Muslims.

Mirza Ali Muhammad, known as "Bab" (meaning "Gate"), founder of Babism, the predessor of Bahaism, proclaimed his own prophethood and was executed in the public square of Tabriz in 1850 as a heretic. His followers - men, women and children - were hunted down for years and were put to death with atrocious cruelty.

Muhammad Mahmud Taha was executed in 1985 in the Sudan because he believed the Medinan part of the Koran was no longer applicable."

Ad nauseum...

Posted by: supercargo at January 16, 2008 6:44 AM

Oh well. Those "comforts" were nice while they lasted. Since Islamists have managed to attack 0.01% of American citizens, I guess we'll have to abdicate the last four centuries of Western thought. That way, we'll "hurt" the Islamists by compounding their damage across the other 99.9% of the population.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is why many people misconstrue this site as a Crusader haven.

Your "point" about the number of Americans attacked by Muslims already shows you're incapability of analyzing the dynamics of this situation. Do you think that Hitler's "Beer Hall Putsch" was front page news around the globe? Do you have even an inkling of understanding of how trends start?

I'm not saying to abdicate any aspect of the Enlightenment or Scientific Revolutions, I'm saying apply the lessons from them, especially lessons in understanding how institutions like religion can screw up an entire group of people and make them unfit for civilized society.

If the choice is between temporarily giving up "comforts" to ensure that our Western civilization is inoculated against the Islamic jihad virus and losing those "comforts" permanently due to a demographic swamping, I choose the former. There is a long tradition, going back to the Roman institution of "dictator", of altering the rules of civil society when a real external danger exists.

The entire MO I would utilize against Muslims has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the fact that I am against all forms of politicized religion. In fact, I think it's an intellectual travesty of the highest order that "Enlightenment" or "Western comforts" have somehow gotten confused with tolerating the most inane forms of thought and societal structures, so long as they are associated with non-Westerners. If a "white guy" started acting like a typical Muslim, blathering on about Allah this and Muhammed that, I'd tell him to drink a tall glass of STFU, but because the typical Muslims isn't "white", somehow this becomes offensive. A little double standard that greases the wheels of everyday society is fine, but a double standard that enables potentially homocidal maniacs isn't my cup of tea.

Read what Marx had to say about the "backward" Europeans of his day and how sure he was that it was Communists' job to bring them "up to date". That kind of self-confidence in one's own culture is something that comes naturally to me and it frustrates me to no end that it doesn't come naturally to those around me in large enough numbers for people to stop making excuses for Islam and castigating others for having "Crusader mindsets". Show me someone with an intellect of significance, i.e. someone whose work will stand the test of time for centuries, who believes that "Western comforts" preclude the most robust possible response to the Muslim threat. You can't, because the whole theory and practice of multiculturalism today is anti-intellectual and, hence, anti-Enlightenment.

Posted by: venividivici at January 16, 2008 7:20 AM

"Your "point" about the number of Americans attacked by Muslims already shows you're incapability of analyzing the dynamics of this situation. Do you think that Hitler's "Beer Hall Putsch" was front page news around the globe? Do you have even an inkling of understanding of how trends start?"

Are you implying that the Beer Hall Putsch was the start of a trend? After the failed coup, the Nazi party (and Communist party) gained substantial support. Then, as Germany experienced some prosperity, both parties' popularity crashed. Finally, during the Great Depression, Hitler had enough support to take power.

The Putsch did not make international news because it WASN'T international news. It was a feeble coup attempt that did not seriously threaten the German state. The real problem was the Great Depression, which caused mortal damage to state institutions and allowed Hitler to fill the void.

The other Great Powers could have handled this better. Since Versailles, their postwar policy was primarily based on revenge. They wanted to make Germans pay for the Great War, even though the Weinmar Republic was a favorable arrangement. So they began punishing the Weinmar Republic. This contributed to Germany's state failure, and allowed for Hitler's rise.

As Clemenceau said at the time, "Our grief will turn to anger, and our anger to resolution." Oh sorry! That was Bush after 9/11.

"I'm not saying to abdicate any aspect of the Enlightenment or Scientific Revolutions, I'm saying apply the lessons from them, especially lessons in understanding how institutions like religion can screw up an entire group of people and make them unfit for civilized society."

No offense, but you are applying the lessons of the Enlightenment in a manner that is not within its spirit. This is prejudice--not in the perjorative sense, but in the Cartesian sense. According to Descartes, we should draw conclusions from empricial observation, not based on our preconceived ideas ("Prejudices"). Blindly applying an idea to a situation, whether or not it fits, is bad news.

Here's something I'd like you to exnplain:

"That kind of self-confidence in one's own culture is something that comes naturally to me and it frustrates me to no end that it doesn't come naturally to those around me in large enough numbers for people to stop making excuses for Islam and castigating others for having "Crusader mindsets"."

"the whole theory and practice of multiculturalism today is anti-intellectual and, hence, anti-Enlightenment."

If multiculturalism is anti-intellectual, the most common explanation I've heard is that it puts "prejudice" against the West over reality. But you urge people to have "confidence" in their own culture. When does confidence shade into anti-intellectualism?

Posted by: Shlomo_Michael at January 16, 2008 12:33 PM

dumbledoresarmy,

Well stated!

Self preservation is the most normal and powerful of human instincts, no matter how advanced or primitive a person might be.

Only Islam has been successful in annihilating that instinct in large numbers of people, and young people at that, the least likely to want to annihlate themselves.

But then Islam has been successful in turning many things upside down, including our natural understanding of good and evil: Evil is good, unnatural is natural, abnormal is normal.

Posted by: rational at January 16, 2008 4:52 PM

Are you implying that the Beer Hall Putsch was the start of a trend? After the failed coup, the Nazi party (and Communist party) gained substantial support. Then, as Germany experienced some prosperity, both parties' popularity crashed. Finally, during the Great Depression, Hitler had enough support to take power.

Fine, measure the "trend" from the exact moment within the Great Depression when Hitler's "stock" had finally hit bottom following the Putsch and started it's inexorable rise. Was that event "international news"? No, but it was the start of a trend. By the time the jihadists hit us with 9/11, lots of little things had already happened, e.g. Clinton not going after him when Sudan gave us an opening. My point is pretty straightforward in that you can't wait for the perfect event to justify action because it's too late once the perfect event happens. I believe that the goal is to prevent the next 9/11 or worse, however clumsily that goal is being pursued.

According to Descartes, we should draw conclusions from empricial observation, not based on our preconceived ideas ("Prejudices").

My empirical experience is that Islam is not fit for society in what I consider my civilization, for a variety of reasons. The "idea" that institutions can damage individuals beyond repair (again, in terms of their ability to survive in a modern liberal economic and political system) is itself based on empirical study via anthropology and sociology, it's not based on a "prejudice", so I'm not violating any Cartesian commandment here. I've never held an a priori view that Islam isn't capable of sustaining a modern liberal economic and political system, I came to that conclusion via deduction from the available universe of Muslim ideology and practice, i.e. what I see every day from the Muslim world. That methodology completely squares with what Enlightenment is about. I'm taking the next step and saying there isn't enough money and time in the world that will bring the Muslims "up to speed", so complete separation and arm's length transactions for oil are the best way to go.

If multiculturalism is anti-intellectual, the most common explanation I've heard is that it puts "prejudice" against the West over reality.

That is one way it is anti-intellectual. Essentially, it makes either no analysis of the West and simply declares it "bad" or it makes a superficial comparative analysis and declares it "equivalent" to other cultures. Correct analysis would show that the West is superior, precisely because, at its best, the West has as its highest value that with is most valuable, human freedom.

But you urge people to have "confidence" in their own culture. When does confidence shade into anti-intellectualism?

I've just posited that the highest value is human freedom. I have absolute confidence in that. Were I to substitute another ideal in the place of human freedom and proclaim my absolute confidence in that, I would be being anti-intellectual because there is no way to intellectually defend any highest value other than freedom, but values other than freedom, e.g. equality, in the case of the socialist or multiculturalist, or submission to Allah, in the case of the Muslim, can be defended through rhetoric or force.

Posted by: venividivici at January 16, 2008 8:23 PM

"Since Islamists have managed to attack 0.01% of American citizens, I guess we'll have to abdicate the last four centuries of Western thought. That way, we'll "hurt" the Islamists by compounding their damage across the other 99.9% of the population."

Posted by: Shlomo_Michael

...0.01%? The Islamist have managed to attack a much larger percentage than 0.01%....They are attacking Americans physically, financially, ideologically, (their current preferred method of attacking is of the slow jihad method....attack from within)...They attack as cabbies refusing services to those who are not Muslims, they attack us as store clerks refusing to ring up products deemed objectionable in Islam, they attack us in schools as professors silently teaching the tenets of Islam to the mushbrained students, they attack us in ways such as refusing to have photo IDs made sans veil/burkas...they attack us by succeeding to get altered history books taught in our public schools, they attack us by encouraging rampant drug sales, they attack us by slowly taking over neighborhood by neighborhood (inch by inch) effectively removing the Christians from the land (just as they have in the Middle East), they attack us by joining the military and police forces and waiting for the time they can seized some sensitive infor to pass on to the fast jihadists or even to kill real American soldiers/sailors/airmen, they attack by building up large voting blocs to elect politicians favorable to their demands....they attack in many other ways...and your claim of 0.01% just does not hold water....

Muslims hate the truth ...especially when the Infidels know the truth about Islam....

Muslim attacks go far beyond the much more publicized suicide attacks or the honor killings or the elimination of Christians in Muslim dominated lands....They are now attacking here...from within...like a creeping deadly form of cancer....

...Ban Muslim Immigration.

Posted by: exsgtbrown at January 17, 2008 6:47 AM