.
The real reason Iran can't be trusted
By Mamoun Fandy
London – In the run-up to talks with Iran last month [October 2009], many in Europe and the United States asked whether Iran would, or even could, come clean on its nuclear activities.
Should the West trust Iranian promises? The short answer is "no." But the underlying question is "Why not?"
The answer lies in Iranian belief systems – notably the doctrine of taqiyya, a difficult concept for many non-Muslims to grasp. Taqiyya is the Shiite religious rationale for concealment or dissimulation in political or worldly affairs. At one level it means that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his regime can tell themselves that they are obliged by their faith not to tell the truth.
This doctrine has not been discussed much in the West, but it should be. How should the world deal with taqiyya in Shiite Islam in the context of Iran's nuclear file?
Can Iran be trusted?
In Iran, the teachings of Shiite Islam govern all aspects of society. And taqiyya – dissimulation and concealment – is one of the key elements of the Shiite faith. While many outsiders are surprised by Iran's concealment of its nuclear installations, those who study the Shiite faith and recognize the signs of taqiyya are not.
Many governments lie about strategic secrets, especially secrets about nuclear weapons. Witness Israel's concealment of its nuclear capabilities. And former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping counseled his country to "hide its brightness" – for strategic reasons.
Iran's approach to its nuclear ambitions, however, is a different form of deception and denial. Certainly states do not need a religious edict to lie or obfuscate. But it helps if a state has one already in place.
What can the West do?
Western negotiators must be mindful, not only of the technical side of Iran's nuclear program, but the historical evolution of taqiyya. Such context sheds critical light on the insecurities of the Iranian regime and that of the Shiite community at large.
Taqiyya doesn't mean the West should give up all negotiations with Iran, or that Iran can never be trusted. Tehran's concealment is a means to an end: It wants nuclear weapons to provide security for the clerical regime and the Shiite community. So long as Iran feels threatened, it will deceive. But if the West can ease Tehran's anxiety with strong assurances, then negotiations will be more truthful.
How a doctrine of deceit developed
Taqiyya requires the faithful to be deceitful at times of weakness. The history of Shiites in their conflict with Sunnis is a history of the downtrodden. They have been the underdogs in Islamic history, and have had to protect both their communities and their faith from being overrun by the more numerous Sunnis. Taqiyya emerged as a response.
Taqiyya offers a license to violate the strict rules of the faith in cases of extreme pressure or threat of extinction – something not unusual in Sunni-Shiite history. The doctrine allows dissimulation in the service of self-preservation, practiced by the faithful.
The teachings of Jafar al-Sadiq, the sixth Shiite imam, emphasise taqiyya as a political tool. "Befriend people on the surface, and keep your grudges and intentions hidden," he advised. He also defined the relationship between the Shiite and other Muslims: "[B]eing double-faced with one's own takes one outside the bounds of faith, but with others [with non-Shiites] is a form of worship."
The words of Shiite imams are viewed as having the authority of the prophet Muhammad, and they entail obligations. Taqiyya is one component of the faith, and the Shiites are instructed to practice it until the time the Mahdi returns. The Mahdi is the figure who, like the Messiah in Christianity, will return and spread justice on earth.
Until that moment occurs, the Shiite faithful are obliged to practice taqiyya in their dealings with other Muslims, as well as with non-Muslims.
Opposing value systems
While the policies of the West and of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are driven by the concept of transparency as a key doctrine of modernity and modern states, those who are negotiating with Iran must question the extent to which the Shiite regime in Tehran is driven by the concept of concealment. There are two different value systems at work here, making common ground exceedingly difficult to find.
Today the West may rightly be obsessed with nuclear installations in Iran, or the number of centrifuges it has, or even uranium-enrichment levels.
Last month, Iranian officials allowed IAEA officials to inspect a nuclear facility near the city of Qom. But they won't reveal everything: that would violate their faith. Shiites are obliged by their religious teachings to protect both the faith and the community until the return of the Mahdi. From Tehran's perspective, "nuclear" taqiyya is a must, because strategic nuclear weapons are the only means to protect the Shiite community in these modern times.
The West must understand that Iran's nuclear guile is a function of regime insecurities. And its insecurity is rooted in reality: Iran feels squeezed by the tens of thousands of US troops who brought regime change to its west, in Iraq, and to its east, in Afghanistan.
If Washington wants a breakthrough in its negotiations with Iran, it should make fewer threats and more assurances. Only when the Iranian regime feels safe will it negotiate in good faith.
Mamoun Fandy is the director of the Middle East program at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. He's also the author of the forthcoming book, "The Shia-Sunni Divide and the Coming Middle Eastern Cold War."
[Fri Nov 20, 4:00 am ET]
[ALSO SEE Can Moslems Be Trusted? "Understanding Taqiyya ― Islamic Principle of Lying for the Sake of Allah"
and
Islamic concept of Al-Taqiyah to infiltrate and destroy kafir countries]
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
NOW . . .
If you have read this far, do you believe this quote from the foregoing Mahmoun Fandy article represents the way things are with Iran?
"If Washington wants a breakthrough in its negotiations with Iran, it should make fewer threats and more assurances. Only when the Iranian regime feels safe will it negotiate in good faith."
There is no sign of Iran "negotiating in good faith," given Obama's weakness in facing its nuclear ambitions.
How much "feeling safe" does the Iraninian regime need? Allowing it to go ahead with perfecting the nuclear weapons it desires so that it can nuke Israel off the face of the Earth?
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
KNOW YOUR ENEMY - PART ONE
Fitna and the Kafir: Part One
By Kenneth Roberts
December 1, 2009
Why do cartoons constitute a capital crime in Islam? Why did writing 'The Satanic Verses' bring a death sentence and bounty upon Sir Salman Rushdie? Why does a military psychiatrist fire more than 100 rounds into an unarmed crowd he was trained to heal? Why do Muslims express violent anger concerning differences of religious opinion? The one-word answer to these questions is 'FITNA'.
Fitna is one of the most important concepts in Islam, but it is a totally alien concept to Western philosophy. The concept of fitna totally abnegates our notions of free expression or logical discourse. The concept of fitna subjugates all thought to the method of Mohammed.
Fitna is spotted by the mullahs who also pick the Islamic response to it. In response to the Danish cartoons, they instructed Muslims to riot. Grand Imam Sayyed Tantawi, the paramount authority in Islam, demanded the closing of Jyllands Posten to prevent further fitna. Muslims studiously avoid the word fitna when talking to infidels.
What is fitna then?
The definition is surprisingly simple: Fitna is any disagreement with Mohammed. More precisely, Fitna is any islamicly-incorrect thought which is communicated to others in the public domain.
This definition fits all the confusing facts and makes sense of all the Islamic dualisms. Fitna is a thought crime. Fitna is a dualistic cocktail of blasphemy and treason.
As with almost everything in Islam, fitna is very hard to explain, because it is couched in Islamic dualism. Even Muslims have trouble explaining it, but they can identify it when they see it. And when they see it, they react violently.
There are two distinctly different classes of fitna: inter-Islamic fitna and infidel fitna. In relation to the evil infidels, fitna means 'tempting', 'enticing' or 'luring' another to disagree with Mohammed. Fitna comes from an old Arabic word that means removing the dross from pure metal. Pure Islam is held in check by fitna, so it must be purged.
In modern Islamic usage, fitna is used to describe ideas that cause controversy, testing, fragmentation, scandal, chaos, or discord, disturbing social peace and order within the Muslim community, …such things as openly disagreeing with the head of state of Egypt or Iran or with something found in Sharia law. When a professor at an Arab university quotes original research on the primary sources of Islam, he is immediately accused of fitna and his life is simultaneously threatened. Inter-Islamic fitna is what most Muslims understand when they think of the word 'fitna'.
Muslims cast a veil over 'kafir fitna'…the politically incorrect free speech of wicked infidels that justifies jihad and brings Allah's just punishment upon them.
Mohammed discovered a brilliant way to criminalize differences of opinion with himself. He called his invention 'fitna' and made it the worst crime in his new religion. Any utterance that tests Mohammed's method is a chargeable offence and a capital crime if it persists. The religious charge of blasphemy veils the serious political charge of treason against Mohammed.
Mohammed is Allah's vice-regent on earth. Not only does Mohammed define the truth, but he has a right to punish those who disagree. Moreover, Mohammed is both the constitution and the Islamic state. By disagreeing with Mohammed, you are calling him wrong, in error or worse yet a liar. That is slander and character assassination, but it is also the crime of treason against the Islamic Nation.
The Koran likes to say infidels are accusing Mohammed of being a liar, since that sounds more dramatic and culpable. The Koran commands the punishment of fitna after making it sound reprehensible. Anyone disagreeing with Mohammed in any way has become an enemy of the state who should be treated severely and with violence.
Private disagreements with Mohammed are acceptable, as long as they do not reach the eyes or ears of Muslims. However, public disagreement demands public Islamic punishment. 'Punishment' euphemistically means the death penalty, normatively by beheading.
In the Islamic religion, Mohammed is the only one who speaks for God. Disputing Mohammed's religious monopoly in public means disagreeing with God Himself…thus putting Allah to the test before Muslims. If Allah has lost face in public, his honor and control of the situation can only be restored by violence. To disagree publicly with Mohammed is to call Mohammed and Allah liars. Koran 29:63 - "Who does more harm than he who tells a lie against Allah?" No one! Anyone who suggests Allah or Mohammed are fakes is the worst criminal.
The Koran tells us that words disputing Mohammed/Allah are more criminal than the deed of murder. This does not make sense.
Obviously, something else is going on under the blanket of religion. That something is a political doctrine called 'supremacism'.
In art, an object is sometimes defined, not by positive use of color, but by negative space and the use of shadow. Fitna reveals Islam's key doctrine of Mohammed's supremacy veiled in shadow. Undermining Mohammed's authority does more harm than anything!
As far as Muslims are concerned, the fact that infidels have wrong thoughts in private is bad enough. The divine plan is for the whole world to agree openly that Mohammed is right. In the meantime, it is good for the infidels to be under Islamic control.
In normative Islam, the public utterance of disagreement with Mohammed is worthy of death. Practically, why is this so?
The death sentence is required for the sake of the political harm done to the Islamic chain of command and the readiness of Muslims as a solid fighting force (Koran 61:4).
Basically, all Muslims constitute one army of which Mohammed is the head. First and foremost, every Muslim male is a potential soldier…a holy warrior…a jihadist. If Islam is to go forward, the Muslim male needs to be emotionally, psychologically and mentally ready for jihad and the Islamic community needs to enthusiastically support jihad.
Jihad is Mohammed's method, the way Islam grows. Mohammed is the only expert on Islam. Anything that stands in the way of jihad is evil, satanic and treasonous! Satan and his followers need to be weakened and destroyed or at a minimum brought under the coercive control of the Islamic state. The Islamic army will be ready only if there is an absence of fitna, so fitna control means information control. Information control precedes jihad.
The tactic of information control was first demonstrated by Mohammed by assassinating his vocal critics, usually at night. Mohammed also gave his complete support to freelance assassins who murdered family members who criticized Mohammed at home…also usually at night. Disagreeing with Mohammed is not permissible if a Muslim is present or becomes aware of it. Mohammed used violence to stamp out the utterance of disagreement and he approved of others who did the same on their own initiative. Mohammed is the role model for all Muslims to emulate.
Assassination is the normative punishment for the crime of fitna. Killing a critic of Islam is a good deed, since it restores the honor of Allah/Mohammed and removes the threat of fitna from the community. Any Muslim is free to carry out the death sentence in the matter of fitna. In Sharia-dominated countries, no punishment will be given and the killer will be a hero. As well, the assassin is guaranteed entry to the highest rank in paradise.
Grand Imam Sayyed Tantawi, the leading cleric of the four Sunni sects declared, 'Muslims are allowed to fight against them (critics), but only to the extent of making them aware that they should not become enemies of Islam.' Here we have the foremost Muslim in the world stating publicly that infidels should be 'fought' (treated violently) if they disagree with Mohammed. Since Tantawi speaks for 90% of Muslims, violence against critics of Islam remains an official dogma of mainstream Sunni Islam. Sunnis number almost one billion.
Most Westerners believed Muslims were angered that Kurt Westergaard (the cartoonist who drew the Mohammed turban-bomb cartoon) called Mohammed, or by extension, that he called all Muslims-violent! Westerners believed their message was: 'Don't say Islam is violent or we'll kill you!'
But Islamic violence is not the issue. Muslims know that Mohammed is violent and that he is their role model. They revel in it. It makes them feel strong and proud.
Jihad is holy violence. Violence is the way Allah removes fitna, removes the dross from pure Islam and removes the infidel scum from the earth which is owned by Mohammed. (Bukhari 4:52:220)
No! Muslims were angered that the Danish cartoonists disagreed with Mohammed, and said so in public. That was political fitna and a crime against honor.
The cartoonists disagreed that Mohammed's violent method is right and made fun of it. The cartoonists removed Mohammed's halo. As a consequence, Allah and Mohammed both lost face. If Allah/Mohammed said violence against the infidels is right… and the infidels laugh at Allah's Divine Command…the infidels obviously need to be taught a lesson. The infidels need to accept that Mohammed owns the earth and their position is one of political inferiority to Muslims. Islamic supremacism is Allah's divine plan and violence is Mohammed's method.
The infidels are to be brought under the control of the Islamic state in thought, word and deed and they are given no choice in submitting to it or not. Allah commanded violence so the infidels will be forced to receive the divine benefit of Islam…'even if the infidels are averse to it!' (Koran 9:33)"
Muslim logic is: The infidels do not understand. They are blinded by Satan. Muslims have to use violence to help the infidels. The infidels should be in terror of Allah and the coercive power of the Islamic Nation. It is for their own good. Allah is great! And has the ability to do all things. And Allah knows best!
That final phrase ends every Islamic verdict and the deeds of jihad follow. Further disagreement is impossible.
Throughout the West, the infidels did not understand! The purpose of the cartoon riots was not to reassert the lost human rights of Muslims under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but to proclaim the political supremacy of Muslims over the infidels and show the willingness of Muslims to support jihad and bring the infidels under their control. Put negatively, the purpose of the cartoon riots was to declare the inferiority of infidels, who should know their place and commit no more 'fitna'. That is…the infidels needed to learn not to disagree with Mohammed in public.
Kenneth Roberts is interested in global affairs, military history and the music of Mozart.
Permalink
copyright (c) CBSX, LLC
politicalislam.com
Use and distribute as you wish; do not edit and give us credit.
By Kenneth Roberts
December 1, 2009
Why do cartoons constitute a capital crime in Islam? Why did writing 'The Satanic Verses' bring a death sentence and bounty upon Sir Salman Rushdie? Why does a military psychiatrist fire more than 100 rounds into an unarmed crowd he was trained to heal? Why do Muslims express violent anger concerning differences of religious opinion? The one-word answer to these questions is 'FITNA'.
Fitna is one of the most important concepts in Islam, but it is a totally alien concept to Western philosophy. The concept of fitna totally abnegates our notions of free expression or logical discourse. The concept of fitna subjugates all thought to the method of Mohammed.
Fitna is spotted by the mullahs who also pick the Islamic response to it. In response to the Danish cartoons, they instructed Muslims to riot. Grand Imam Sayyed Tantawi, the paramount authority in Islam, demanded the closing of Jyllands Posten to prevent further fitna. Muslims studiously avoid the word fitna when talking to infidels.
What is fitna then?
The definition is surprisingly simple: Fitna is any disagreement with Mohammed. More precisely, Fitna is any islamicly-incorrect thought which is communicated to others in the public domain.
This definition fits all the confusing facts and makes sense of all the Islamic dualisms. Fitna is a thought crime. Fitna is a dualistic cocktail of blasphemy and treason.
As with almost everything in Islam, fitna is very hard to explain, because it is couched in Islamic dualism. Even Muslims have trouble explaining it, but they can identify it when they see it. And when they see it, they react violently.
There are two distinctly different classes of fitna: inter-Islamic fitna and infidel fitna. In relation to the evil infidels, fitna means 'tempting', 'enticing' or 'luring' another to disagree with Mohammed. Fitna comes from an old Arabic word that means removing the dross from pure metal. Pure Islam is held in check by fitna, so it must be purged.
In modern Islamic usage, fitna is used to describe ideas that cause controversy, testing, fragmentation, scandal, chaos, or discord, disturbing social peace and order within the Muslim community, …such things as openly disagreeing with the head of state of Egypt or Iran or with something found in Sharia law. When a professor at an Arab university quotes original research on the primary sources of Islam, he is immediately accused of fitna and his life is simultaneously threatened. Inter-Islamic fitna is what most Muslims understand when they think of the word 'fitna'.
Muslims cast a veil over 'kafir fitna'…the politically incorrect free speech of wicked infidels that justifies jihad and brings Allah's just punishment upon them.
Mohammed discovered a brilliant way to criminalize differences of opinion with himself. He called his invention 'fitna' and made it the worst crime in his new religion. Any utterance that tests Mohammed's method is a chargeable offence and a capital crime if it persists. The religious charge of blasphemy veils the serious political charge of treason against Mohammed.
Mohammed is Allah's vice-regent on earth. Not only does Mohammed define the truth, but he has a right to punish those who disagree. Moreover, Mohammed is both the constitution and the Islamic state. By disagreeing with Mohammed, you are calling him wrong, in error or worse yet a liar. That is slander and character assassination, but it is also the crime of treason against the Islamic Nation.
The Koran likes to say infidels are accusing Mohammed of being a liar, since that sounds more dramatic and culpable. The Koran commands the punishment of fitna after making it sound reprehensible. Anyone disagreeing with Mohammed in any way has become an enemy of the state who should be treated severely and with violence.
Private disagreements with Mohammed are acceptable, as long as they do not reach the eyes or ears of Muslims. However, public disagreement demands public Islamic punishment. 'Punishment' euphemistically means the death penalty, normatively by beheading.
In the Islamic religion, Mohammed is the only one who speaks for God. Disputing Mohammed's religious monopoly in public means disagreeing with God Himself…thus putting Allah to the test before Muslims. If Allah has lost face in public, his honor and control of the situation can only be restored by violence. To disagree publicly with Mohammed is to call Mohammed and Allah liars. Koran 29:63 - "Who does more harm than he who tells a lie against Allah?" No one! Anyone who suggests Allah or Mohammed are fakes is the worst criminal.
The Koran tells us that words disputing Mohammed/Allah are more criminal than the deed of murder. This does not make sense.
Obviously, something else is going on under the blanket of religion. That something is a political doctrine called 'supremacism'.
In art, an object is sometimes defined, not by positive use of color, but by negative space and the use of shadow. Fitna reveals Islam's key doctrine of Mohammed's supremacy veiled in shadow. Undermining Mohammed's authority does more harm than anything!
As far as Muslims are concerned, the fact that infidels have wrong thoughts in private is bad enough. The divine plan is for the whole world to agree openly that Mohammed is right. In the meantime, it is good for the infidels to be under Islamic control.
In normative Islam, the public utterance of disagreement with Mohammed is worthy of death. Practically, why is this so?
The death sentence is required for the sake of the political harm done to the Islamic chain of command and the readiness of Muslims as a solid fighting force (Koran 61:4).
Basically, all Muslims constitute one army of which Mohammed is the head. First and foremost, every Muslim male is a potential soldier…a holy warrior…a jihadist. If Islam is to go forward, the Muslim male needs to be emotionally, psychologically and mentally ready for jihad and the Islamic community needs to enthusiastically support jihad.
Jihad is Mohammed's method, the way Islam grows. Mohammed is the only expert on Islam. Anything that stands in the way of jihad is evil, satanic and treasonous! Satan and his followers need to be weakened and destroyed or at a minimum brought under the coercive control of the Islamic state. The Islamic army will be ready only if there is an absence of fitna, so fitna control means information control. Information control precedes jihad.
The tactic of information control was first demonstrated by Mohammed by assassinating his vocal critics, usually at night. Mohammed also gave his complete support to freelance assassins who murdered family members who criticized Mohammed at home…also usually at night. Disagreeing with Mohammed is not permissible if a Muslim is present or becomes aware of it. Mohammed used violence to stamp out the utterance of disagreement and he approved of others who did the same on their own initiative. Mohammed is the role model for all Muslims to emulate.
Assassination is the normative punishment for the crime of fitna. Killing a critic of Islam is a good deed, since it restores the honor of Allah/Mohammed and removes the threat of fitna from the community. Any Muslim is free to carry out the death sentence in the matter of fitna. In Sharia-dominated countries, no punishment will be given and the killer will be a hero. As well, the assassin is guaranteed entry to the highest rank in paradise.
Grand Imam Sayyed Tantawi, the leading cleric of the four Sunni sects declared, 'Muslims are allowed to fight against them (critics), but only to the extent of making them aware that they should not become enemies of Islam.' Here we have the foremost Muslim in the world stating publicly that infidels should be 'fought' (treated violently) if they disagree with Mohammed. Since Tantawi speaks for 90% of Muslims, violence against critics of Islam remains an official dogma of mainstream Sunni Islam. Sunnis number almost one billion.
Most Westerners believed Muslims were angered that Kurt Westergaard (the cartoonist who drew the Mohammed turban-bomb cartoon) called Mohammed, or by extension, that he called all Muslims-violent! Westerners believed their message was: 'Don't say Islam is violent or we'll kill you!'
But Islamic violence is not the issue. Muslims know that Mohammed is violent and that he is their role model. They revel in it. It makes them feel strong and proud.
Jihad is holy violence. Violence is the way Allah removes fitna, removes the dross from pure Islam and removes the infidel scum from the earth which is owned by Mohammed. (Bukhari 4:52:220)
No! Muslims were angered that the Danish cartoonists disagreed with Mohammed, and said so in public. That was political fitna and a crime against honor.
The cartoonists disagreed that Mohammed's violent method is right and made fun of it. The cartoonists removed Mohammed's halo. As a consequence, Allah and Mohammed both lost face. If Allah/Mohammed said violence against the infidels is right… and the infidels laugh at Allah's Divine Command…the infidels obviously need to be taught a lesson. The infidels need to accept that Mohammed owns the earth and their position is one of political inferiority to Muslims. Islamic supremacism is Allah's divine plan and violence is Mohammed's method.
The infidels are to be brought under the control of the Islamic state in thought, word and deed and they are given no choice in submitting to it or not. Allah commanded violence so the infidels will be forced to receive the divine benefit of Islam…'even if the infidels are averse to it!' (Koran 9:33)"
Muslim logic is: The infidels do not understand. They are blinded by Satan. Muslims have to use violence to help the infidels. The infidels should be in terror of Allah and the coercive power of the Islamic Nation. It is for their own good. Allah is great! And has the ability to do all things. And Allah knows best!
That final phrase ends every Islamic verdict and the deeds of jihad follow. Further disagreement is impossible.
Throughout the West, the infidels did not understand! The purpose of the cartoon riots was not to reassert the lost human rights of Muslims under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but to proclaim the political supremacy of Muslims over the infidels and show the willingness of Muslims to support jihad and bring the infidels under their control. Put negatively, the purpose of the cartoon riots was to declare the inferiority of infidels, who should know their place and commit no more 'fitna'. That is…the infidels needed to learn not to disagree with Mohammed in public.
Kenneth Roberts is interested in global affairs, military history and the music of Mozart.
Permalink
copyright (c) CBSX, LLC
politicalislam.com
Use and distribute as you wish; do not edit and give us credit.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
FACTS, FALLACIES AND BIGOTS
by Bill Warner
Bill Warner presents us, in his words, with "an exercise in fact-based rational thought." He quotes a fairly typical, politically correct, fair-minded Rabbi committed to ecumenicism and determined to think well of everyone. Warner quotes the letter that embodies that point of view, then proceeds to demonstrate that this image of Islam doesn't conform to reality. Defusing the hatred in the Koran because the Jewish and Christian Scriptures also -- in the Rabbi's words -- contain "bad material" doesn't anwer why Jews and Christians have moved on, but Muslims still stone people and behead them and cut off hands for trivial offenses.
READ MORE
Bill Warner presents us, in his words, with "an exercise in fact-based rational thought." He quotes a fairly typical, politically correct, fair-minded Rabbi committed to ecumenicism and determined to think well of everyone. Warner quotes the letter that embodies that point of view, then proceeds to demonstrate that this image of Islam doesn't conform to reality. Defusing the hatred in the Koran because the Jewish and Christian Scriptures also -- in the Rabbi's words -- contain "bad material" doesn't anwer why Jews and Christians have moved on, but Muslims still stone people and behead them and cut off hands for trivial offenses.
READ MORE
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Islamic Terror is not only fought in the battlefields of Afghanistan and the Middle East . . .
from Small Wars Journal :
Major Hasan reintroduces 'Terror and Consent'
Posted by Robert Haddick on November 19, 2009 12:34 PM Permalink Print
The massacre at Fort Hood is a reminder that the War on Terror is not fought just in south Afghanistan or Mosul. It is a global war also fought in an office building inside a military base in Texas. Many counter-terror analysts focus on the Pakistan connection and preventing The Big One that could top 9/11. But the real problem may well be the self-motivated “small ball” players like Major Hasan or a future disciple of DC Sniper John Allen Muhammad. “Small ball” terrorism won’t have the economic, political, or strategic impact that 9/11 did. But if there is enough of it, the public will eventually find political leadership that will provide an adequate response to the problem.
What should be that response? How should Western societies respond to the generalized problem of terrorism, especially the domestic variety? Constitutional law professor and former National Security Council staffer Philip Bobbitt attempted to provide a comprehensive answer in his grandly ambitious book Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-first Century. In a message that ruffled feathers on every point on the political spectrum, Bobbitt argued that in order to defend Western values of liberty and the rule of law, both domestic and international law would need to become more muscular. Bobbitt rejected that there is a trade-off between civil liberties and government power. In a future world of “market-state terrorism” he fears we are headed to, Bobbitt argued that more law authorizing more surveillance and more foreign intervention would be the only way to protect basic liberties.
After an initial flurry of attention, Terror and Consent seems to have been shelved to collect dust. Without another 9/11 or even any small ball terrorism inside the U.S., no one has had any need for Bobbitt’s theories.
Major Hasan’s case may reintroduce us to Terror and Consent. Many want to know why the electronic surveillance over Hasan was not used to stop him in advance of his rampage. A fair question. Are there other Major Hasans who have similarly self-radicalized and are preparing to strike? Or about to self-radicalize even if they don’t know it yet? Is there a government agency responsible for monitoring and preventing this? If so, what should be an acceptable level of false positive identifications and apprehensions?
Bobbitt attempted to address these and other questions in a dense and theoretical way. But maybe it won’t be just theory for much longer.
Posted by Robert Haddick on November 19, 2009 12:34 PM Permalink Print
Comments (6)
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/11/major-hasan-reintroduces-terro/
ALSO see
An Oath Violated
http://www.politicalislam.com/blog/an-oath-violated/
Major Hasan reintroduces 'Terror and Consent'
Posted by Robert Haddick on November 19, 2009 12:34 PM Permalink Print
The massacre at Fort Hood is a reminder that the War on Terror is not fought just in south Afghanistan or Mosul. It is a global war also fought in an office building inside a military base in Texas. Many counter-terror analysts focus on the Pakistan connection and preventing The Big One that could top 9/11. But the real problem may well be the self-motivated “small ball” players like Major Hasan or a future disciple of DC Sniper John Allen Muhammad. “Small ball” terrorism won’t have the economic, political, or strategic impact that 9/11 did. But if there is enough of it, the public will eventually find political leadership that will provide an adequate response to the problem.
What should be that response? How should Western societies respond to the generalized problem of terrorism, especially the domestic variety? Constitutional law professor and former National Security Council staffer Philip Bobbitt attempted to provide a comprehensive answer in his grandly ambitious book Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-first Century. In a message that ruffled feathers on every point on the political spectrum, Bobbitt argued that in order to defend Western values of liberty and the rule of law, both domestic and international law would need to become more muscular. Bobbitt rejected that there is a trade-off between civil liberties and government power. In a future world of “market-state terrorism” he fears we are headed to, Bobbitt argued that more law authorizing more surveillance and more foreign intervention would be the only way to protect basic liberties.
After an initial flurry of attention, Terror and Consent seems to have been shelved to collect dust. Without another 9/11 or even any small ball terrorism inside the U.S., no one has had any need for Bobbitt’s theories.
Major Hasan’s case may reintroduce us to Terror and Consent. Many want to know why the electronic surveillance over Hasan was not used to stop him in advance of his rampage. A fair question. Are there other Major Hasans who have similarly self-radicalized and are preparing to strike? Or about to self-radicalize even if they don’t know it yet? Is there a government agency responsible for monitoring and preventing this? If so, what should be an acceptable level of false positive identifications and apprehensions?
Bobbitt attempted to address these and other questions in a dense and theoretical way. But maybe it won’t be just theory for much longer.
Posted by Robert Haddick on November 19, 2009 12:34 PM Permalink Print
Comments (6)
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/11/major-hasan-reintroduces-terro/
ALSO see
An Oath Violated
http://www.politicalislam.com/blog/an-oath-violated/
Friday, November 6, 2009
‘Islam not responsible’ for Fort Hood massacre: US imam
Why?
because Islam means peace. That's what they claim. But . . .
An islamic miniature (one of many) that portrays muhamhead at a beheading. So if their guy is at killings, what is the big deal with associating islam with violence.
It's because it is TOO CLOSE TO THE TRUTH.
because Islam means peace. That's what they claim. But . . .
An islamic miniature (one of many) that portrays muhamhead at a beheading. So if their guy is at killings, what is the big deal with associating islam with violence.
It's because it is TOO CLOSE TO THE TRUTH.
www.practicalturkish.com/miniature-siyer-i-nebi--beheading.jpg
It shows Ali bin Abu Taleb beheading Nasr bin al-Hareth in the presence of the Prophet Mohamhead and his companions.
In 1995, this miniature (measuring just 7 by 9 inches approximately) fetched £ 42,000 at Sotheby's in London. the devil hates to be discovered for what the deceiver is.
http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/modern_satires/
above from http://www.finalcrusade.com/4.html
‘Islam not responsible’ for Fort Hood massacre: US imam
by sheikyermami on November 7, 2009
At last! Not a moment too soon: denial is a river in Egypt, but the kuffar-media is desperate to lap it up.
Debbie Schlussel:
Nidal Malik Hasan was just a "stressed out victim of Islamophobia."
King Kong Schlong: Its Islam, Stupid! Spare us the "Sudden ‘Camel Jockey’ Allahu Akbar Derangement Syndrome… Fake ’Dr’ Phil spouts this same BS line about stress and trauma being the reason, not that Islam actually was the reason.
Breitbart.com
Islam is "not responsible" for the bloodbath at an army base in Texas where Muslim-American army Major Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly gunned down 13 people, the prayer leader at the mosque where the officer regularly worshipped said Friday.
"We offer our condolences and prayers to the families that have a person who died," said Imam Mohammed Abdullahi over loud-speakers that carried the weekly Muslim prayer to several hundred worshippers gathered at the mosque.
"Islam is not responsible," he stressed.
http://sheikyermami.com/2009/11/07/islam-not-responsible-for-fort-hood-massacre-us-imam/
Former JAG Officer on CNN Tells Dr. Phil to Quit The "Psychobabble" & Deal With The Islamic Factor at Ft. Hood....
Lefties are working overtime to spin this one so Islam isn't the motive (he's mentally ill, Islamophobia drove him to do it, Bush's fault etc). The facts: Hasan's a Muslim and he killed infidels to please Allah. Deal with it.
http://www.weaselzippers.net/blog/2009/11/video-gold-former-jag-officer-on-cnn-tells-dr-phil-to-quit-the-psychobabble-deal-with-the-islamic-fa.html
Islam breeds hate, intolerance and great confusion about the human condition. It is necessary that one day it be nothing more than a testimonial relic of man's capacity for misdirection. I look forward to that day, though I may not live long enough to see it. It had better come, though, or a new dark age will descend upon mankind, courtesy of Islam.
Yes, the situation is this dire. Islam is incapable of reform but very capable of creating repression, misery and death. Its theological blueprint is a menace to liberty as much as Marxism and Nazism were. And I'm running out of patience for those who blindly persist in not seeing this.
Wellington November 6, 2009 4:15 PM
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/11/when-nidal-hasan-came-calling.html
How many centuries has this been going on and we still reject that Islam is anything but peaceful? There has never been a time, anywhere in the world, that Islam was not the aggressor. No, not every Muslim is radical, but can anyone show me one instance, even within the Military, where Muslims personally want to put an end to Islam's threat to infidels?
We do not know the details of each and every Muslim serving alongside our Military. That's the problem. What are we asking Muslims to do when deployed to a war zone fighting the war on terror. We are asking Muslims to kill Muslims, knowing that their "faith" teachs that only Muslims can, and should, survive. I know many Muslims are serving this country, but, really, I ask again, will they tell you they want to put an end to Islam's threat to infidels? Will they?
http://findalismonkeyinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2009/11/cair-defends-islam-fort-hood-shooter.html
Cartoon thanks to http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/left-wing-political-correctness-killed-those-soldiers-at-fort-hood/
When you hear someone shout "allahu akbar!" shoot the bastard! http://islamicdangerstill.blogspot.com/2007/12/when-you-hear-someone-shout-allahu.html
Thursday, November 5, 2009
THE TRIUMPH OF ISLAM - HOW TRIBALISM TRUMPS RATIONALISM AND CIVILISATION.
by najistani
Viewed rationally, Islam is a non-starter. Its 'Holy' Book consists of half-digested fragments of Judeo-Christian theology, mixed with the bile of hatred, and spewed into the fair face of Christendom from the putrifying guts of a violent, deceitful, plundering pedophile. The Koran is full of historical, scientific and logical errors and even contradicts itself on numerous occasions. Not exactly the work of a Supreme Intellect!
And yet Muslims claim that these demented ramblings and rantings are the literal word of God Almighty, to be treated with utmost respect. They throw enormous tantrums when Korans are left in toilets or returned to libraries with bacon-rashers as bookmarks. In the Islamic paradise of Pakistan, damaging a Koran or insulting The Pedophile are punishable by death.
To understand Islam we need to look at the most primitive organisational state of mankind - Tribalism.
If we regard the Ummah as a tribe, and the Koran, the Pedophile and the Black Meteorite as the tribe's three main totems, we begin to get a better understanding of Islam. A tribe derives its identity and unity by displays of reverence towards supernatural totems, and feels insecure and threatened whenever the power of its totems is weakened, for example by the totems being 'humiliated' or 'polluted' . One of the surest ways of demoralising a tribe has always been to desecrate its totems.
This explains the rage at the Motoons, and the 'hate crime' of the Koran down the toilet. It also explains why the Saudi authorities made such a fuss when they found a Christian in Mecca. The precincts of the Holy Meteorite had been defiled by a najis kaffir.
Tribal culture and psychology are difficult for civilised people to understand. Most parts of Western Europe have not been organised tribally since the Dark Ages, so it's difficult to get inside Muslim mind and understand just how primitive and benighted are the psychological processes that go on there. For example:
- A tribe regards itself as perpetually at war with all other tribes - hence the Muslim worldview of Dar a-Harb in conflict with Dar al-Islam, and Ummah in conflict with Kaffir.
- The property and women of other tribes are there for the taking. Might is right - hence the Jizya, Razzia, white slaving etc which are all justified by the Koran. Tribalism also explains the chants of 'We will take your wives for booty' at the London Motoons demonstration - this is the typical behavior of the stone age savage.
- The ethics of reciprocity (do as you would be done by) only apply within the tribe. Hence the lack of any Golden Rule in Islam. The nearest you get to the Golden Rule in the Koran is desiring for your brother Muslim ('kin-selection') what you desire for yourself - in other words share out the booty equally.
- Loyalty to the tribe is of paramount importance - hence the punishment by death for apostates.
- The tribe must not mingle with other tribes or else it may lose its identity - hence the self-imposed ghettoisation and ethnic cleansing of Kaffirs from the periphery of the ghetto as seen in European cities.
- There is a great desire to destroy or humiliate the totems of other tribes, especially where they have phallic significance - hence the attack on the twin towers, and the plans for the MegaMosque whose minarets will be taller than any Christian building.
Muslims in the modern world are living fossils, though like dinosaurs suddenly set down on the streets of London, none the less dangerous for being so primitive. Islam appeals to the lowest and basest instincts of man, and in the absence of a strong, confident modern culture will gradually reduce its host society to a disfunctional state of anarchy where Islam can gain the upper hand.
Tribalism makes it impossible to defeat Islam by reason or appeals to decency. The Koran, the Pedophile and the Meteorite are not capable of being examined rationally or ethically - they are pre-rational symbols of tribal cohesion. And when that tribe is on a roll , and believes itself to be the strongest and fastest growing tribe winning the Jihad against all the rest, no rational argument will persuade its warriors to abandon the winning side.
The Ummah may eventually have an 'Emperor's New Clothes Moment', but it will not come about by reviewing the evidence for a flat earth in the Koran. It is more likely to happen by military defeat in a European Civil War or World War III.
najistani
Tags: islam, Tribalism, Muslims
Viewed rationally, Islam is a non-starter. Its 'Holy' Book consists of half-digested fragments of Judeo-Christian theology, mixed with the bile of hatred, and spewed into the fair face of Christendom from the putrifying guts of a violent, deceitful, plundering pedophile. The Koran is full of historical, scientific and logical errors and even contradicts itself on numerous occasions. Not exactly the work of a Supreme Intellect!
And yet Muslims claim that these demented ramblings and rantings are the literal word of God Almighty, to be treated with utmost respect. They throw enormous tantrums when Korans are left in toilets or returned to libraries with bacon-rashers as bookmarks. In the Islamic paradise of Pakistan, damaging a Koran or insulting The Pedophile are punishable by death.
To understand Islam we need to look at the most primitive organisational state of mankind - Tribalism.
If we regard the Ummah as a tribe, and the Koran, the Pedophile and the Black Meteorite as the tribe's three main totems, we begin to get a better understanding of Islam. A tribe derives its identity and unity by displays of reverence towards supernatural totems, and feels insecure and threatened whenever the power of its totems is weakened, for example by the totems being 'humiliated' or 'polluted' . One of the surest ways of demoralising a tribe has always been to desecrate its totems.
This explains the rage at the Motoons, and the 'hate crime' of the Koran down the toilet. It also explains why the Saudi authorities made such a fuss when they found a Christian in Mecca. The precincts of the Holy Meteorite had been defiled by a najis kaffir.
Tribal culture and psychology are difficult for civilised people to understand. Most parts of Western Europe have not been organised tribally since the Dark Ages, so it's difficult to get inside Muslim mind and understand just how primitive and benighted are the psychological processes that go on there. For example:
- A tribe regards itself as perpetually at war with all other tribes - hence the Muslim worldview of Dar a-Harb in conflict with Dar al-Islam, and Ummah in conflict with Kaffir.
- The property and women of other tribes are there for the taking. Might is right - hence the Jizya, Razzia, white slaving etc which are all justified by the Koran. Tribalism also explains the chants of 'We will take your wives for booty' at the London Motoons demonstration - this is the typical behavior of the stone age savage.
- The ethics of reciprocity (do as you would be done by) only apply within the tribe. Hence the lack of any Golden Rule in Islam. The nearest you get to the Golden Rule in the Koran is desiring for your brother Muslim ('kin-selection') what you desire for yourself - in other words share out the booty equally.
- Loyalty to the tribe is of paramount importance - hence the punishment by death for apostates.
- The tribe must not mingle with other tribes or else it may lose its identity - hence the self-imposed ghettoisation and ethnic cleansing of Kaffirs from the periphery of the ghetto as seen in European cities.
- There is a great desire to destroy or humiliate the totems of other tribes, especially where they have phallic significance - hence the attack on the twin towers, and the plans for the MegaMosque whose minarets will be taller than any Christian building.
Muslims in the modern world are living fossils, though like dinosaurs suddenly set down on the streets of London, none the less dangerous for being so primitive. Islam appeals to the lowest and basest instincts of man, and in the absence of a strong, confident modern culture will gradually reduce its host society to a disfunctional state of anarchy where Islam can gain the upper hand.
Tribalism makes it impossible to defeat Islam by reason or appeals to decency. The Koran, the Pedophile and the Meteorite are not capable of being examined rationally or ethically - they are pre-rational symbols of tribal cohesion. And when that tribe is on a roll , and believes itself to be the strongest and fastest growing tribe winning the Jihad against all the rest, no rational argument will persuade its warriors to abandon the winning side.
The Ummah may eventually have an 'Emperor's New Clothes Moment', but it will not come about by reviewing the evidence for a flat earth in the Koran. It is more likely to happen by military defeat in a European Civil War or World War III.
najistani
Tags: islam, Tribalism, Muslims
Sunday, October 25, 2009
When will the Arabic-Islamic colonialism end?
by Jugurten
All the Amazighs (Berbers) in Algeria-the Kabylians, Chaouis, Touregs, Chenouis and the Mzabs-have always been and continue to be the victims of Islamist colonialism for 14 centuries, since the death of Dihia ( A Berber Queen who fought against the first Arabic-Islamic hordes which invaded Algeria).
Centuries and centuries of oppression, persecution, exploitation, murders, destruction and falsification have deprived this “redoubtable and numerous” people-as described by Ibn Khaldoun-of its civilisation and its identity to an extent that makes him doubt of himself and fell like he is nothing without being an Arabic Islamic.
Today, we are witnessing and living an Amazigh revival in all Tamazgha (North Africa), and it becomes more and more evident that the changing or even the downfall of North African Islamic regimes is unavoidable. Recently, a Touareg (Berber from South Algeria) told me that if his people weren’t afraid of the Arab government of Algiers which is able to impose a food embargo on them, they would struggle by using any means necessary to gain back their cultural, linguistic, identity and racial rights.
Another Chenouis from Tipaza told me someday: “Azul [Hello], I am sorry, I can’t talk to you in Kabylian language, because as you know this sad situation is due to the criminal Algerian Arabic-Islamic government which has always favoured our extinction, we, the children of Juba (Amazigh King), but one day they (the Arabic-Islamic governors) will pay for all their crimes and our cultural genocide.”
Actually, all the Amazighs feel the same injustice which has lasted too long. The Arabic-Islamic colonists have always kept a permanent watch on the Amazighs for centuries, since they first arrived in the country. After more than 14 centuries of colonisation, the relationships between the Arabic-Islamic colonists and the Amazighs have not known any change at all. We are, until today, still being mistreated, brutalized, imprisoned, persecuted or murdered every time we dare ask individually or collectively for the official recognition our millennium culture and identity. We, Kabylians, must do everything necessary to win our sovereignty (autonomy) because the survival and the salvation of the rest of the Amazigh people in Tamazgha depend on the success of our human initiative. Then, Kabylia will serve as an example and show the right way to follow for our Amazigh sisters and brothers in Tamazgha, caught in a destructive and fascist Arabic-Islamic trap.
JUG
Posted Thu, 09/11/2008 - 00:25 by Jugurten
http://www.kabylia.info/when-will-arabic-islamic-colonialism-end
All the Amazighs (Berbers) in Algeria-the Kabylians, Chaouis, Touregs, Chenouis and the Mzabs-have always been and continue to be the victims of Islamist colonialism for 14 centuries, since the death of Dihia ( A Berber Queen who fought against the first Arabic-Islamic hordes which invaded Algeria).
Centuries and centuries of oppression, persecution, exploitation, murders, destruction and falsification have deprived this “redoubtable and numerous” people-as described by Ibn Khaldoun-of its civilisation and its identity to an extent that makes him doubt of himself and fell like he is nothing without being an Arabic Islamic.
Today, we are witnessing and living an Amazigh revival in all Tamazgha (North Africa), and it becomes more and more evident that the changing or even the downfall of North African Islamic regimes is unavoidable. Recently, a Touareg (Berber from South Algeria) told me that if his people weren’t afraid of the Arab government of Algiers which is able to impose a food embargo on them, they would struggle by using any means necessary to gain back their cultural, linguistic, identity and racial rights.
Another Chenouis from Tipaza told me someday: “Azul [Hello], I am sorry, I can’t talk to you in Kabylian language, because as you know this sad situation is due to the criminal Algerian Arabic-Islamic government which has always favoured our extinction, we, the children of Juba (Amazigh King), but one day they (the Arabic-Islamic governors) will pay for all their crimes and our cultural genocide.”
Actually, all the Amazighs feel the same injustice which has lasted too long. The Arabic-Islamic colonists have always kept a permanent watch on the Amazighs for centuries, since they first arrived in the country. After more than 14 centuries of colonisation, the relationships between the Arabic-Islamic colonists and the Amazighs have not known any change at all. We are, until today, still being mistreated, brutalized, imprisoned, persecuted or murdered every time we dare ask individually or collectively for the official recognition our millennium culture and identity. We, Kabylians, must do everything necessary to win our sovereignty (autonomy) because the survival and the salvation of the rest of the Amazigh people in Tamazgha depend on the success of our human initiative. Then, Kabylia will serve as an example and show the right way to follow for our Amazigh sisters and brothers in Tamazgha, caught in a destructive and fascist Arabic-Islamic trap.
JUG
Posted Thu, 09/11/2008 - 00:25 by Jugurten
http://www.kabylia.info/when-will-arabic-islamic-colonialism-end
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Why Did So Much of India Fall Under Moslem Rule?
[an excerpt from Fjordman]
Muslim scholars did not seriously study other cultures with curiosity and describe them with fairness, the Persian universal scholar al-Biruni’s (973-1048) writings about Hinduism and India being one of very few exceptions to this rule. He had taken the trouble to learn enough Sanskrit to be able to translate in both directions between this language and Arabic (for him also a learned language). As author John Keay writes in his book India: A History, Muslims were viewed by Indians as just another group of foreigners, perhaps annoying but essentially marginal. This was a big mistake:
“There is no evidence of an Indian appreciation of the global threat which they represented; and the peculiar nature of their mission — to impose a new monotheist orthodoxy by military conquest and political dominion — was so alien to Indian tradition that it went uncomprehended. No doubt a certain complacency contributed to this indifference. As al-Biruni (Alberuni), the great Islamic scholar of the eleventh century, would put it, ‘the Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no science like theirs.’…his scientific celebrity in the Arab world would owe much to his mastery of Sanskrit and access to Indian scholarship….Unlike Alexander’s Greeks, Muslim invaders were well aware of India’s immensity, and mightily excited by its resources….Since at least Roman times the subcontinent seems to have enjoyed a favourable balance of payments….The devout Muslim, although ostensibly bent on converting the infidel, would find his zeal handsomely rewarded.”
[excerpt from Fjordman's http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-did-europeans-create-modern-world.html]
Muslim scholars did not seriously study other cultures with curiosity and describe them with fairness, the Persian universal scholar al-Biruni’s (973-1048) writings about Hinduism and India being one of very few exceptions to this rule. He had taken the trouble to learn enough Sanskrit to be able to translate in both directions between this language and Arabic (for him also a learned language). As author John Keay writes in his book India: A History, Muslims were viewed by Indians as just another group of foreigners, perhaps annoying but essentially marginal. This was a big mistake:
“There is no evidence of an Indian appreciation of the global threat which they represented; and the peculiar nature of their mission — to impose a new monotheist orthodoxy by military conquest and political dominion — was so alien to Indian tradition that it went uncomprehended. No doubt a certain complacency contributed to this indifference. As al-Biruni (Alberuni), the great Islamic scholar of the eleventh century, would put it, ‘the Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no science like theirs.’…his scientific celebrity in the Arab world would owe much to his mastery of Sanskrit and access to Indian scholarship….Unlike Alexander’s Greeks, Muslim invaders were well aware of India’s immensity, and mightily excited by its resources….Since at least Roman times the subcontinent seems to have enjoyed a favourable balance of payments….The devout Muslim, although ostensibly bent on converting the infidel, would find his zeal handsomely rewarded.”
[excerpt from Fjordman's http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-did-europeans-create-modern-world.html]
Thursday, October 1, 2009
STOP ISLAMIZING THE WEST!
[S]top referring to Islam as a religion and stop the mass immigration from Muslim countries.
--Geert Wilders
See MORE at . . .
Geert Wilders presents a 10 step plan for stopping the Islamization of the West.
http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/must-see-a-warning-to-america-from-geert-wilders/
--Geert Wilders
See MORE at . . .
Geert Wilders presents a 10 step plan for stopping the Islamization of the West.
http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/must-see-a-warning-to-america-from-geert-wilders/
Saturday, September 26, 2009
The Plot Against America
Review by DEXTER FILKINS
Published: August 6, 2006
Reprinted from http://islamic-danger.blogspot.com/2007/03/plot-against-america-review-by-dexter.html?zx=a44486c44649c66
When Mohamed Atta and his four Saudi confederates commandeered a Boeing 767 and steered it into the north tower of the World Trade Center, they began a story that still consumes us nearly five years on, and one that seems, on bad days, to promise war without end.
But the events of Sept. 11, 2001, were in many ways less the start of a tale than the end of one, or at least the climax of one, begun many years before in many different precincts: in the middle-class suburbs of Cairo, in the mosques of Hamburg, in Jidda, in Islamabad, in the quiet university town of Greeley, Colo.
In its simplest terms, this is the story of how a small group of men, with a frightening mix of delusion and calculation, rose from a tormented civilization to mount a catastrophic assault on the world’s mightiest power, and how another group of men and women, convinced that such an attack was on the way, tried desperately to stop it.
What a story it is. And what a riveting tale Lawrence Wright fashions in this marvelous book. “The Looming Tower*” is not just a detailed, heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11, written with style and verve, and carried along by villains and heroes that only a crime novelist could dream up. It’s an education, too — though you’d never know it — a thoughtful examination of the world that produced the men who brought us 9/11, and of their progeny who bedevil us today. The portrait of John O’Neill, the driven, demon-ridden F.B.I. agent who worked so frantically to stop Osama bin Laden, only to perish in the attack on the World Trade Center, is worth the price of the book alone. “The Looming Tower” is a thriller.
And it’s a tragedy, too.
In the nearly five years since the attacks, we’ve heard oceans of commentary on the whys and how-comes and what-it-means and what’s nexts. Wright, a staff writer for The New Yorker — where portions of this book have appeared — has put his boots on the ground in the hard places, conducted the interviews and done the sleuthing. Others talked, he listened. And so he has unearthed an astonishing amount of detail about Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Muhammad Omar and all the rest of them. They come alive.
Who knew, for instance, that bin Laden, far from being a warrior-stoic fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, was actually a pathetic stick-in-the-mud who would fall ill before battle? That the combat-hardened Afghans, so tired of bin Laden’s behavior, declared him and his Arab associates “useless”? Or that he was a permissive father and indulgent husband? Or that he is only six feet tall?
More important, who knew — I sure didn’t — that bin Laden had left behind such a long trail of words? Wright has found them in books, on film, in audio recordings, in people’s notebooks and memories. This has allowed him to draw an in-depth portrait of bin Laden, and to chart his evolution from a self-conscious step-child growing up in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, to the visionary cave-dwelling madman who mimics the Holy Prophet in his most humdrum daily habits.
Wright takes the title of his book from the fourth sura of the Koran, which bin Laden repeated three times in a speech videotaped just as the hijackers were preparing to fly. The video was found later, on a computer in Hamburg.
“Wherever you are, death will find you, Even in the looming tower.”
There is poetry, too. Here is a particularly chilling bit, found on another videotape, which bin Laden had read aloud at the wedding of his 17-year-old son, Mohammed. The celebration took place not long after a pair of Qaeda suicide bombers, riding in a tiny boat filled with explosives, nearly sank the billion-dollar guided missile destroyer Cole. At least with regard to his abilities as an author, bin Laden was unusually modest: he let someone else write the words. “I am not, as most of our brothers know, a warrior of the word,” he said.
Just as dramatic as the portraits of bin Laden and Zawahiri is Wright’s account of the roots of Islamic militancy — the intellectual, spiritual and material world from which the plotters came. Wright draws a fascinating picture of Sayyid Qutb, the font of modern Islamic fundamentalism, a frail, middle-aged writer who found himself, as a visitor to the United States and a student at Colorado State College of Education in Greeley in the 1940’s, overwhelmed by the unbridled splendor and godlessness of modern America. And by the sex: like so many others who followed him, Qutb seemed simultaneously drawn to and repelled by American women, so free and unselfconscious in their sexuality. The result is a kind of delirium:
“A girl looks at you, appearing as if she were an enchanting nymph or an escaped mermaid,” Qutb wrote, “but as she approaches, you sense only the screaming instinct inside her, and you can smell her burning body, not the scent of perfume, but flesh, only flesh. Tasty flesh, truly, but flesh nonetheless.”
It wasn’t much later that Qutb began writing elaborate rationalizations for killing non-Muslims and waging war against the West. Years later, Atta expressed a similar mix of obsession and disgust for women. Indeed, anyone who has spent time in the Middle East will recognize such tortured emotions.
WRIGHT shows, correctly, that at the root of Islamic militancy — its anger, its antimodernity, its justifications for murder — lies a feeling of intense humiliation. Islam plays a role in this, with its straitjacketed and all-encompassing worldview. But whether the militant hails from a middle-class family or an impoverished one, is intensely religious or a “theological amateur,” as Wright calls bin Laden and his cohort, he springs almost invariably from an ossified society with an autocratic government that is unable to provide any reason to believe in the future. Islam offers dignity, even in — especially in — death. Living in the West, Atta and the others felt these things more acutely, not less. As Wright notes:
“Their motivations varied, but they had in common a belief that Islam — pure and primitive, unmitigated by modernity and uncompromised by politics — would cure the wounds that socialism or Arab nationalism had failed to heal. They were angry but powerless in their own countries. They did not see themselves as terrorists but as revolutionaries who, like all such men throughout history, had been pushed into action by the simple human need for justice. Some had experienced brutal repression; some were simply drawn to bloody chaos. From the beginning of Al Qaeda, there were reformers and there were nihilists. The dynamic between them was irreconcilable and self-destructive, but events were moving so quickly that it was almost impossible to tell the philosophers from the sociopaths. They were glued together by the charismatic personality of Osama bin Laden, which contained both strands, idealism and nihilism, in a potent mix.”
In John O’Neill, bin Laden almost met his match. The supervisor of the F.B.I.’s New York office and of the team assigned to track Al Qaeda in the United States, O’Neill felt, as strongly as anyone in the government, that Al Qaeda was coming to America. He was a relentless investigator, a volcanic personality and sometimes his own worst enemy. In the end he broke himself on a government bureaucracy that could not — and would not — move as quickly as he did. O’Neill and others like him were in a race with Al Qaeda, and although we know how the race ended, it’s astonishing — and heartbreaking — to learn how close it was.
Some of the F.B.I.’s field agents, as we now know, had premonitions of what was coming. When the supervisor of the Minneapolis field office was admonished, in August 2001, for expressing fears that an Islamic radical attending flight school might be planning a suicide attack, he shot back defiantly that he was “trying to keep someone from taking a plane and crashing into the World Trade Center.” Amazing.
The most gut-wrenching scenes are the ones that show F.B.I. agents trying, as 9/11 approached, to pry information from their rivals inside the United States government. The C.I.A., Wright says, knew that high-level Qaeda operatives had held a meeting in Malaysia in January 2000, and, later, that two of them had entered the United States. Both men turned out to be part of the team that hijacked the planes on Sept. 11. The C.I.A. failed to inform agencies like the F.B.I. — which might have been able to locate the men and break up the plot — until late in the summer of 2001.
The fateful struggle between the C.I.A. and F.B.I. in the months leading up to the attacks has been outlined before, but never in such detail. At meetings, C.I.A. analysts dangled photos of two of the eventual hijackers in front of F.B.I. agents, but wouldn’t tell them who they were. The F.B.I. agents could sense that the C.I.A. possessed crucial pieces of evidence about Islamic radicals they were investigating, but couldn’t tell what they were. The tension came to a head at a meeting in New York on June 11, exactly three months before the catastrophe, which ended with F.B.I. and C.I.A. agents shouting at each other across the room.
In one of the most remarkable scenes in the book, Ali Soufan, an F.B.I. agent assigned to Al Qaeda, was taken aside on Sept. 12 and finally shown the names and photos of the men the C.I.A. had known for more than a year and a half were in America. The planes had already struck. Soufan ran to the bathroom and retched.
Great stuff. I just wish Wright had given us something, even a chapter, on the hijackings themselves; as it is, he takes us right up to the moment, and then straight to the burning towers. Perhaps he felt that ground was too well-trodden. My other complaint is more substantive. Through the enormous amount of legwork he has done, tracking down people who worked with bin Laden and Zawahiri over the years, Wright has drawn up verbatim reconstructions of entire conversations, some of which took place more than a decade ago. Many of these conversations are riveting. Still, in some cases, it’s hard to believe that memories are that good.
“The Looming Tower” ends near the Pakistani border, where Zawahiri, or someone who looked like him, rode through a village on horseback and then disappeared into the mountains. It’s not a definitive ending; there is no closure. And that’s the point. For as amazing as the story of Al Qaeda and the road to 9/11 is, it’s not over yet.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/books/review/06filkins.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=0e30be2935673b53&ex=1312516800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rsspagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=0e30be2935673b53&ex=1312516800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rssFirst Chapter: ‘The Looming Tower’ (August 6, 2006)
_________________________________________
*THE LOOMING TOWER
Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. By Lawrence Wright.
Illustrated. 469 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $27.95.
Published: August 6, 2006
Reprinted from http://islamic-danger.blogspot.com/2007/03/plot-against-america-review-by-dexter.html?zx=a44486c44649c66
When Mohamed Atta and his four Saudi confederates commandeered a Boeing 767 and steered it into the north tower of the World Trade Center, they began a story that still consumes us nearly five years on, and one that seems, on bad days, to promise war without end.
But the events of Sept. 11, 2001, were in many ways less the start of a tale than the end of one, or at least the climax of one, begun many years before in many different precincts: in the middle-class suburbs of Cairo, in the mosques of Hamburg, in Jidda, in Islamabad, in the quiet university town of Greeley, Colo.
In its simplest terms, this is the story of how a small group of men, with a frightening mix of delusion and calculation, rose from a tormented civilization to mount a catastrophic assault on the world’s mightiest power, and how another group of men and women, convinced that such an attack was on the way, tried desperately to stop it.
What a story it is. And what a riveting tale Lawrence Wright fashions in this marvelous book. “The Looming Tower*” is not just a detailed, heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11, written with style and verve, and carried along by villains and heroes that only a crime novelist could dream up. It’s an education, too — though you’d never know it — a thoughtful examination of the world that produced the men who brought us 9/11, and of their progeny who bedevil us today. The portrait of John O’Neill, the driven, demon-ridden F.B.I. agent who worked so frantically to stop Osama bin Laden, only to perish in the attack on the World Trade Center, is worth the price of the book alone. “The Looming Tower” is a thriller.
And it’s a tragedy, too.
In the nearly five years since the attacks, we’ve heard oceans of commentary on the whys and how-comes and what-it-means and what’s nexts. Wright, a staff writer for The New Yorker — where portions of this book have appeared — has put his boots on the ground in the hard places, conducted the interviews and done the sleuthing. Others talked, he listened. And so he has unearthed an astonishing amount of detail about Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Muhammad Omar and all the rest of them. They come alive.
Who knew, for instance, that bin Laden, far from being a warrior-stoic fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, was actually a pathetic stick-in-the-mud who would fall ill before battle? That the combat-hardened Afghans, so tired of bin Laden’s behavior, declared him and his Arab associates “useless”? Or that he was a permissive father and indulgent husband? Or that he is only six feet tall?
More important, who knew — I sure didn’t — that bin Laden had left behind such a long trail of words? Wright has found them in books, on film, in audio recordings, in people’s notebooks and memories. This has allowed him to draw an in-depth portrait of bin Laden, and to chart his evolution from a self-conscious step-child growing up in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, to the visionary cave-dwelling madman who mimics the Holy Prophet in his most humdrum daily habits.
Wright takes the title of his book from the fourth sura of the Koran, which bin Laden repeated three times in a speech videotaped just as the hijackers were preparing to fly. The video was found later, on a computer in Hamburg.
“Wherever you are, death will find you, Even in the looming tower.”
There is poetry, too. Here is a particularly chilling bit, found on another videotape, which bin Laden had read aloud at the wedding of his 17-year-old son, Mohammed. The celebration took place not long after a pair of Qaeda suicide bombers, riding in a tiny boat filled with explosives, nearly sank the billion-dollar guided missile destroyer Cole. At least with regard to his abilities as an author, bin Laden was unusually modest: he let someone else write the words. “I am not, as most of our brothers know, a warrior of the word,” he said.
A destroyer, even the brave might fear,“The Looming Tower” is full of such surprising detail. Al Qaeda’s leaders had all but shelved the 9/11 plot when they realized they lacked foot soldiers who could pass convincingly as westernized Muslims in the United States. At just the right moment Atta appeared in Afghanistan, along with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ziad al-Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi, all Western-educated transplants, offering themselves up for slaughter. The game was on.
She inspires horror in the harbor and the open sea,
She goes into the waves flanked by arrogance, haughtiness and fake might,
To her doom she progresses slowly, clothed in a huge illusion,
Awaiting her is a dinghy, bobbing in the waves.
Just as dramatic as the portraits of bin Laden and Zawahiri is Wright’s account of the roots of Islamic militancy — the intellectual, spiritual and material world from which the plotters came. Wright draws a fascinating picture of Sayyid Qutb, the font of modern Islamic fundamentalism, a frail, middle-aged writer who found himself, as a visitor to the United States and a student at Colorado State College of Education in Greeley in the 1940’s, overwhelmed by the unbridled splendor and godlessness of modern America. And by the sex: like so many others who followed him, Qutb seemed simultaneously drawn to and repelled by American women, so free and unselfconscious in their sexuality. The result is a kind of delirium:
“A girl looks at you, appearing as if she were an enchanting nymph or an escaped mermaid,” Qutb wrote, “but as she approaches, you sense only the screaming instinct inside her, and you can smell her burning body, not the scent of perfume, but flesh, only flesh. Tasty flesh, truly, but flesh nonetheless.”
It wasn’t much later that Qutb began writing elaborate rationalizations for killing non-Muslims and waging war against the West. Years later, Atta expressed a similar mix of obsession and disgust for women. Indeed, anyone who has spent time in the Middle East will recognize such tortured emotions.
WRIGHT shows, correctly, that at the root of Islamic militancy — its anger, its antimodernity, its justifications for murder — lies a feeling of intense humiliation. Islam plays a role in this, with its straitjacketed and all-encompassing worldview. But whether the militant hails from a middle-class family or an impoverished one, is intensely religious or a “theological amateur,” as Wright calls bin Laden and his cohort, he springs almost invariably from an ossified society with an autocratic government that is unable to provide any reason to believe in the future. Islam offers dignity, even in — especially in — death. Living in the West, Atta and the others felt these things more acutely, not less. As Wright notes:
“Their motivations varied, but they had in common a belief that Islam — pure and primitive, unmitigated by modernity and uncompromised by politics — would cure the wounds that socialism or Arab nationalism had failed to heal. They were angry but powerless in their own countries. They did not see themselves as terrorists but as revolutionaries who, like all such men throughout history, had been pushed into action by the simple human need for justice. Some had experienced brutal repression; some were simply drawn to bloody chaos. From the beginning of Al Qaeda, there were reformers and there were nihilists. The dynamic between them was irreconcilable and self-destructive, but events were moving so quickly that it was almost impossible to tell the philosophers from the sociopaths. They were glued together by the charismatic personality of Osama bin Laden, which contained both strands, idealism and nihilism, in a potent mix.”
In John O’Neill, bin Laden almost met his match. The supervisor of the F.B.I.’s New York office and of the team assigned to track Al Qaeda in the United States, O’Neill felt, as strongly as anyone in the government, that Al Qaeda was coming to America. He was a relentless investigator, a volcanic personality and sometimes his own worst enemy. In the end he broke himself on a government bureaucracy that could not — and would not — move as quickly as he did. O’Neill and others like him were in a race with Al Qaeda, and although we know how the race ended, it’s astonishing — and heartbreaking — to learn how close it was.
Some of the F.B.I.’s field agents, as we now know, had premonitions of what was coming. When the supervisor of the Minneapolis field office was admonished, in August 2001, for expressing fears that an Islamic radical attending flight school might be planning a suicide attack, he shot back defiantly that he was “trying to keep someone from taking a plane and crashing into the World Trade Center.” Amazing.
The most gut-wrenching scenes are the ones that show F.B.I. agents trying, as 9/11 approached, to pry information from their rivals inside the United States government. The C.I.A., Wright says, knew that high-level Qaeda operatives had held a meeting in Malaysia in January 2000, and, later, that two of them had entered the United States. Both men turned out to be part of the team that hijacked the planes on Sept. 11. The C.I.A. failed to inform agencies like the F.B.I. — which might have been able to locate the men and break up the plot — until late in the summer of 2001.
The fateful struggle between the C.I.A. and F.B.I. in the months leading up to the attacks has been outlined before, but never in such detail. At meetings, C.I.A. analysts dangled photos of two of the eventual hijackers in front of F.B.I. agents, but wouldn’t tell them who they were. The F.B.I. agents could sense that the C.I.A. possessed crucial pieces of evidence about Islamic radicals they were investigating, but couldn’t tell what they were. The tension came to a head at a meeting in New York on June 11, exactly three months before the catastrophe, which ended with F.B.I. and C.I.A. agents shouting at each other across the room.
In one of the most remarkable scenes in the book, Ali Soufan, an F.B.I. agent assigned to Al Qaeda, was taken aside on Sept. 12 and finally shown the names and photos of the men the C.I.A. had known for more than a year and a half were in America. The planes had already struck. Soufan ran to the bathroom and retched.
Great stuff. I just wish Wright had given us something, even a chapter, on the hijackings themselves; as it is, he takes us right up to the moment, and then straight to the burning towers. Perhaps he felt that ground was too well-trodden. My other complaint is more substantive. Through the enormous amount of legwork he has done, tracking down people who worked with bin Laden and Zawahiri over the years, Wright has drawn up verbatim reconstructions of entire conversations, some of which took place more than a decade ago. Many of these conversations are riveting. Still, in some cases, it’s hard to believe that memories are that good.
“The Looming Tower” ends near the Pakistani border, where Zawahiri, or someone who looked like him, rode through a village on horseback and then disappeared into the mountains. It’s not a definitive ending; there is no closure. And that’s the point. For as amazing as the story of Al Qaeda and the road to 9/11 is, it’s not over yet.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/books/review/06filkins.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=0e30be2935673b53&ex=1312516800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rsspagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=0e30be2935673b53&ex=1312516800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rssFirst Chapter: ‘The Looming Tower’ (August 6, 2006)
_________________________________________
*THE LOOMING TOWER
Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. By Lawrence Wright.
Illustrated. 469 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $27.95.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Al Qaida threatens ugly actions in Germany after elections
translated from LA VANGUARDIA.es - Internacional: Al Qaeda amenaza con atentar en Alemania tras las elecciones
Berlin. German television broadcasts a video of Islamist Bekkay Harrach demanding the withdrawal of German troops in Afghanistan [or face the consequences]
18/09/2009 updated 18: 38 pm Berlin International. (EFE).-
The terrorist organization Al Qaida threatens harmful actions in Germany after the 27 September elections if the government resulting from the elections does not call for the withdrawal of the German troops from Afghanistan.
According to a video accessed by the major German television network (ARD), the organization threatens Germany with a "bitter awakening" if the new Government, after the election, does not put an end to the German mission in Afghanistan.
The network announced that the person who made the threats on behalf of Al-Qaeda is Bekkay Harrach, Germano-Moroccan Islamist sought in Germany for supposed terrorist activity. "If the people decide by their choice of government a continuation of the war, they will have sentenced themselves to what will befall them."
"The general elections are the only opportunity to the people to shape the policy of the country," says Harrach in the video. The alleged terrorist also adds that "When the last German soldier leaves Afghanistan, the last mujahaddeen will leave Germany".
Harrach repeatedly appeared last year on a propaganda video for Al-Qaida, and in this last video, according to ARD, he urges resident Muslims in Germany to stay "away from public places" two weeks after the elections.
The German Federal Prosecutor's Office speculates that Harrach was recruited into the terrorist organisation by the Turkish Islamist Ömer Ö, which is currently being investigated in Koblenz (South Germany) for their alleged membership in Al Qaeda.
Translated from Al Qaeda amenaza con atentar en Alemania tras las elecciones, La Vanguardia.es
Translation of original webpage by Bing.com, edited by Leslie White
Berlin. German television broadcasts a video of Islamist Bekkay Harrach demanding the withdrawal of German troops in Afghanistan [or face the consequences]
18/09/2009 updated 18: 38 pm Berlin International. (EFE).-
The terrorist organization Al Qaida threatens harmful actions in Germany after the 27 September elections if the government resulting from the elections does not call for the withdrawal of the German troops from Afghanistan.
According to a video accessed by the major German television network (ARD), the organization threatens Germany with a "bitter awakening" if the new Government, after the election, does not put an end to the German mission in Afghanistan.
The network announced that the person who made the threats on behalf of Al-Qaeda is Bekkay Harrach, Germano-Moroccan Islamist sought in Germany for supposed terrorist activity. "If the people decide by their choice of government a continuation of the war, they will have sentenced themselves to what will befall them."
"The general elections are the only opportunity to the people to shape the policy of the country," says Harrach in the video. The alleged terrorist also adds that "When the last German soldier leaves Afghanistan, the last mujahaddeen will leave Germany".
Harrach repeatedly appeared last year on a propaganda video for Al-Qaida, and in this last video, according to ARD, he urges resident Muslims in Germany to stay "away from public places" two weeks after the elections.
The German Federal Prosecutor's Office speculates that Harrach was recruited into the terrorist organisation by the Turkish Islamist Ömer Ö, which is currently being investigated in Koblenz (South Germany) for their alleged membership in Al Qaeda.
Translated from Al Qaeda amenaza con atentar en Alemania tras las elecciones, La Vanguardia.es
Translation of original webpage by Bing.com, edited by Leslie White
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Why Al Qaeda Maghreb Will Continue to Strike
The North Africa Journal : It's been a busy period for Al Qaeda Maghreb (AQMI). Its latest [published in April, 2009] targets have been European tourists and two Canadian diplomats still missing, despite the release of their driver. These latest strikes occurred at the eve of regional summit on security and peace in the Sahel region.
And so part of the motivations behind these strikes is to send a message to those who are combating that AQMI can strike any time, anywhere in the region. The latest from the Malian capital Bamako was that the summit has been postponed since unnamed leaders of the represented countries (Mali, Algeria, Niger, Libya, Burkina Faso and Chad) had scheduling conflicts. The reality is that such summit could not have happened after such a coup from Al Qaeda.
It is unsure how the abduction of the diplomats occurred. A consensus has emerged that the two men and their driver were first kidnapped by Touareg rebels, who traded them to AQMI. The two Canadian diplomats and the four European tourists were kidnapped in a zone located between the border of Mali and Niger, on the Niger side of the border. An announcement via Al Jazeera TV was made by a spokesperson called Salah Abu Mohammed. The Canadians Robert Fowler, Louis Gay and their Nigerian driver Soumana Moukaila, were actually seen in mid-December 2008 in Western Niamey, Niger’s capital. On December 14, 2008 they went on a private visit to a gold mine in Samira, operated by a Canadian mining company. As for the European tourists, they were officially kidnapped on January 22, 2009 also along the Mali-Niger border.
In reviewing some of the available details, it is worth noting that it is the first time AQMI or a terror organization manages such a daring operation on the Niger territory. Niger is clearly becoming a hotbed of illegal activity. It is also clear that Al Qaeda was seeking to make itself known and acknowledged as the heads of Sahel based governments were preparing to meet to discuss regional security. And while officials in Mali, the summit host country, claim that scheduling conflicts arose, AQMI’s latest strikes are likely the reasons behind the postponement of the conference. The attention of western governments, who also had a stake in participating in the summit, focused on the emerging crisis with their citizens and diplomats in the hands of Al Qaeda, an had little appetite for a forum.
This is not the first time Al Qaeda strikes in the Sahara. The latest such kidnappings happened last year when AQMI militants kidnapped two Austrian tourists in southern Tunisia desert. AQMI managed to elude the Tunisian authorities and escaped to Mali by traveling through the treacherous Algerian desert. After several months of intermittent talks, the Austrian government gave in to the demands of the kidnapers and ended up paying a ransom to free its nationals.
Germany also followed a similar move to free other hostages, a situation that has been a source of contention and displeasure in the region’s capitals, including Algiers. These countries argue that paying ransom money is equivalent to funding terrorism in affected regions. Algeria’s highest ranking officer in the ministry of foreign affairs in charge of Maghreb and African affairs, Abdelkader Messahel is one of the top officials that made statements linking ransom payments to terror financing, while acknowledging the difficulty in controlling or monitoring the vast Sahel region as challenging. With an uncontrolled and vast territory, with growing money from ransoms and an abundance of weapons in the region’s black markets, AQMI is looking to benefit from such environment to establish a strong base from which it can manage its operations up north. The distracting Touareg conflict affecting the Sahara is creating another opportunity for AQMI to benefit from the confusion.
Unless there is a more cohesive regional strategy, involving with the participation of Western governments on issues around kidnapping and ransoms, AQMI will continue to operate in the region unchallenged. The incentives to build a base in the Sahel are more real than elsewhere. In addition to the expected continuation of their kidnapping strategy as a source of funding, coupled with the availability of weapons in that part of Africa, AQMI’s northern presence has been substantially eroded by sustained enforcement and military operations in the populated urban centers and rural areas. As Algeria, Morocco and other countries continue to crack down on insurgents, so it seems logical that the theater of operations would move in scarcely populated areas and in the vast desert. Until a cohesive approach is put in place, strengthened with real resources, technology and man power, AQMI will continue to execute on its plans to terrorize the region.
17 April, 2009
http://www.north-africa.com/social_polics/security_politics/2aprilnine19.html
Thursday, July 9, 2009
American Allies - the ethnic or religious minorities under oppression
Singer-activist Ferhat Mehenni’s campaign for liberal self-government.
Posted Mon, 06/22/2009 - 21:35 by Jugurten
Democracy in Algeria
from http://www.kabylia.info/
On the margins of the Arab world, the United States has some little noticed allies. These are ethnic or religious minorities who have never accepted the inevitability of strongman rule. Some of them have fallen on hard times-the Maronite Christians of Lebanon are scattered and defeated for now; the Copts, in Egypt, have been lying low for decades-but others see their fortunes rising. The Kurds of northern Iraq flourished under the protection of American jets in the last years of Saddam Hussein and are throwing themselves into the rebuilding of their country. Less familiar is the story of the Kabyles of Algeria and the bard-activist Ferhat Mehenni, who is one of their better-known leaders.
Read more
Posted Mon, 06/22/2009 - 21:35 by Jugurten
Democracy in Algeria
from http://www.kabylia.info/
On the margins of the Arab world, the United States has some little noticed allies. These are ethnic or religious minorities who have never accepted the inevitability of strongman rule. Some of them have fallen on hard times-the Maronite Christians of Lebanon are scattered and defeated for now; the Copts, in Egypt, have been lying low for decades-but others see their fortunes rising. The Kurds of northern Iraq flourished under the protection of American jets in the last years of Saddam Hussein and are throwing themselves into the rebuilding of their country. Less familiar is the story of the Kabyles of Algeria and the bard-activist Ferhat Mehenni, who is one of their better-known leaders.
Read more
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Iran and the US -- and the Problem of Afghanistan
Iran and US through Afghanistan
Bahman Aghai Diba, PhD International Law - Persian Journal
Iranian.ws
Iran sees its cooperation in the Afghanistan exactly contrary to the US view. This means, Iran is not interested in helping the West solve its problems in Afghanistan and then go to other problems. It sees the cooperation in Afghanistan as something that comes at the end. When other problems of the USA and Iran are solved, then Iran may help the USA in Afghanistan as an advantage or a concession to the US.
The US Administration, under President Obama, in a major shift in U.S. policy, declared that the United States wanted to invite Iran to a conference on the future of Afghanistan, which was held at the end of March 2009. Iran's government spokesman, Elham, responded that the Islamic Republic would consider such a request, (1) and later Iran actually took part in it. At the same time, Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki said the United States came to Afghanistan aiming to root out extremism, restore security and fight the drugs trade."All indicators in regard to these three areas show that the conditions have deteriorated sharply," he told state television. (2)
However, two things were obvious in Mr. Elham's remarks: First, the US and the West (NATO), were in "need" of help in Afghanistan. Second: They have "asked" Iran for help and Iran was going to consider the possible help because: "it was ready to help Afghanistan as it battles a growing Taliban insurgency".
While Iran and the United States sat at the same table to discuss Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, the Bush administration later called Iran as a member of the Axis of Evil.
Iranian regime felt betrayed. Instead of getting some of the "spoil" in return for its services in war, it was made target of more criticisms. This was a source that put the government of Iran in attack from inside. The extremists that had asked the government not to cooperate in Afghan issues were made bolder and they took the American position in Afghanistan vis a vis Iran as a proof that were right. They ask what are the guarantees that we do not get the same response after helping the Americans in Afghanistan?
Iran and the US both want:
1- The Taliban out of power in Afghanistan and disconnected with Pakistan
2- The stability of state in Afghanistan ( Iran is more concerned about areas close to Iran)
3- The control on narcotic drugs (Iran and US both want this but for their own reasons. Both of them are consumption centers, but Iran is also a transit route. US is worried the drugs get the money for Taliban and Al-Qaida and other terrorists)
4- They both do fear from Sunni terrorism headed by Al-Qaida.
At the same time, they have conflicts
1- The US does not wish to see the dominance of Iran in Afghanistan
2- The US is afraid of Shiite terrorism (3)
3- Iran does not want to see the American or Western plans succeed anywhere.
4- The Iranian regime hates to see the growth of democratic institutions in Afghanistan
5- Iranian regime does not want Afghanistan to be used as a base for Western (US) military operations against Iran.
6- Iran is more afraid of the USA than Taliban.
Kayhan Newspaper, close to the Supreme Leader, in an article (under the title of: "NATO's begging of Iran along with arrogance!") has mentioned: "In a move to take distance from their previous positions based on ignoring the influence of Iran in Afghanistan, the Europe and the USA have been forced to invite Iran to the gathering of the G-8 in the same field, while NATO and the USA confess that they are close to total defeat in Afghanistan and they see Iran as the only way to escape however, the Foreign Minister of Italy has said: this is an opportunity for Iran to get out of isolation (!)." (4)
Also, Aleddin Borojerdi, the Chairman of National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the Iranian Majles have said: "Iran is against stabilization of the presence of [foreign] forces in Afghanistan, the experience in Afghanistan has proved that presence of foreign forces would lead to the deterioration of extremism and terrorism in that region." (5)
A review of these points leavers no doubt about the different ways of Iran and the US in looking at the problems in Afghanistan. Iran and USA have not the same time lines for cooperation in Afghanistan.
In fact what happened in the actual meeting on Afghanistan, indicated to the same fact. Iran not only did not take any step that could be interpreted as cooperating with the USA, but it avoided to let this event be a stage in the developments in the relations of Iran and US through Afghanistan.
There was something of a controversy between Iran and the U.S. regarding whether or not the delegations of the two states met at the Afghanistan conference in the Hague (31 March 2009).
The VOA reported: "Senior U.S. and Iranian leaders met Tuesday on the sidelines of an international conference in the Hague aimed at re-energizing international commitments for war-torn Afghanistan. Participants agreed to boost security and development in the central Asian nation.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the meeting that took place between U.S. special representative Richard Holbrooke and Iran's deputy foreign minister Mehdi Akhundzadeh as brief but cordial. She said the two sides had agreed to stay in touch." (6)
According to a semi-official news agency in Iran, Mehr, the spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran denied any meeting, official or otherwise, between the representatives of Iran and the U.S. in and around the Hague conference.(7)
Shahrzad news reports that Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen claimed on a television talk show that the night before the conference he met the U.S. representative, and Holbrooke expressed an inclination to meet the Iranian representative unofficially. Therefore, Verhagen as the host arranged for the two to sit at the same table during lunch. (8)
Whatever its nature may have been, the two sides had some kind of contact. Based on the exact words of the Iranian side and whatever they may have meant, however, it may be equally possible to say no "contact" between Holbrooke and Akhundadeh took place. For instance, an employee of the Iranian diplomatic mission in The Hague who was not a member of the Iranian delegation to the conference may have represented the Iranian side.
What did Akhundzadeh, the Iranian representative have to say? According to a report on Zamaneh, a Persian web site sponsored by Radio Holland, "The point that the other side is trying to convey that this [i.e. the meeting] occurred, for whatever reason, perhaps indicates to a certain extent that they are in a hurry, or they want to exploit this in a certain way." (9) The fact that each side persists in interpreting this "contact" in its own way (the U.S. calling it a promising move and Iran calling it "nothing") has certain meanings quite independent of the nature of that contact:
1- The U.S. side is eager, perhaps even overeager to elicit a response from the Iranian side towards establishment of bilateral relations.
2- The U.S. expects much from Iran in response to the Nowruz message of President Obama to Iran.
3- Disregarding other possibilities, the U.S. has interpreted Khamenei's response to President Obama as keeping the door open for negotiation and simply looking for a face-saving way.
4- The U.S. is ignoring indications that Khamenei's response was an attempt to throw the ball back into the U.S. court. The supreme leader repeated he is waiting for the change.
5- The Iranian side did not consider its presence in the Hague conference on Afghanistan "as publicly declared time and again before the conference" as a step in the line of U.S.-Iran negotiations. In fact, the delegation criticized the U.S. presence in Afghanistan as an enhanced presence intended to find a military solution for a problem that cannot be solved militarily.
The conclusion is that Iran is not interested in the stability of Afghanistan the way the US sees it. Iran more likely prefers:
1- To see the defeat of US plans for Afghanistan as a yet another indication that the US policies do not work in the region.
2- Iran likes stability in the parts of Afghanistan near to its borders. The rest of Afghanistan is not so important. If the Taliban and Al-Qaida can create problems for the US, it is welcomed and even persuaded. As far the US relations with the regime of Iran are concerned, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
3- Iran may cooperate with the US for the preservation or continuation of "stability", but it will cost the US in other places and cases.
Notes
(1) http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5282VN20090309?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
(2) http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5282VN20090309?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
(3) http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0504/p06s02-wosc.html
(4) http://www.magiran/npview.asp?ID=1815268 ) March 2, 2009, No. 19312, P. 2
(5) http://www5.iran.ir/View/fullstory/Tools/PrintVersion/?NewsId=384684
(6) http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-03-31-voa45.cfm
(7) http://news.gooya.com/politics/archives/2009/04/085771.php
(8) http://www.shahrzadnews.org/news.php5?id=2212
(9) http://www.bitaraf.com/showlink.php?id=1053060
Bahman Aghai Diba, Washington based Iran analyst, is a former Iranian diplomat and currently a consultant to the World Resources Company
http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_29145.shtml
first published Apr 14, 2009
Bahman Aghai Diba, PhD International Law - Persian Journal
Iranian.ws
Iran sees its cooperation in the Afghanistan exactly contrary to the US view. This means, Iran is not interested in helping the West solve its problems in Afghanistan and then go to other problems. It sees the cooperation in Afghanistan as something that comes at the end. When other problems of the USA and Iran are solved, then Iran may help the USA in Afghanistan as an advantage or a concession to the US.
The US Administration, under President Obama, in a major shift in U.S. policy, declared that the United States wanted to invite Iran to a conference on the future of Afghanistan, which was held at the end of March 2009. Iran's government spokesman, Elham, responded that the Islamic Republic would consider such a request, (1) and later Iran actually took part in it. At the same time, Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki said the United States came to Afghanistan aiming to root out extremism, restore security and fight the drugs trade."All indicators in regard to these three areas show that the conditions have deteriorated sharply," he told state television. (2)
However, two things were obvious in Mr. Elham's remarks: First, the US and the West (NATO), were in "need" of help in Afghanistan. Second: They have "asked" Iran for help and Iran was going to consider the possible help because: "it was ready to help Afghanistan as it battles a growing Taliban insurgency".
While Iran and the United States sat at the same table to discuss Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, the Bush administration later called Iran as a member of the Axis of Evil.
Iranian regime felt betrayed. Instead of getting some of the "spoil" in return for its services in war, it was made target of more criticisms. This was a source that put the government of Iran in attack from inside. The extremists that had asked the government not to cooperate in Afghan issues were made bolder and they took the American position in Afghanistan vis a vis Iran as a proof that were right. They ask what are the guarantees that we do not get the same response after helping the Americans in Afghanistan?
Iran and the US both want:
1- The Taliban out of power in Afghanistan and disconnected with Pakistan
2- The stability of state in Afghanistan ( Iran is more concerned about areas close to Iran)
3- The control on narcotic drugs (Iran and US both want this but for their own reasons. Both of them are consumption centers, but Iran is also a transit route. US is worried the drugs get the money for Taliban and Al-Qaida and other terrorists)
4- They both do fear from Sunni terrorism headed by Al-Qaida.
At the same time, they have conflicts
1- The US does not wish to see the dominance of Iran in Afghanistan
2- The US is afraid of Shiite terrorism (3)
3- Iran does not want to see the American or Western plans succeed anywhere.
4- The Iranian regime hates to see the growth of democratic institutions in Afghanistan
5- Iranian regime does not want Afghanistan to be used as a base for Western (US) military operations against Iran.
6- Iran is more afraid of the USA than Taliban.
Kayhan Newspaper, close to the Supreme Leader, in an article (under the title of: "NATO's begging of Iran along with arrogance!") has mentioned: "In a move to take distance from their previous positions based on ignoring the influence of Iran in Afghanistan, the Europe and the USA have been forced to invite Iran to the gathering of the G-8 in the same field, while NATO and the USA confess that they are close to total defeat in Afghanistan and they see Iran as the only way to escape however, the Foreign Minister of Italy has said: this is an opportunity for Iran to get out of isolation (!)." (4)
Also, Aleddin Borojerdi, the Chairman of National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the Iranian Majles have said: "Iran is against stabilization of the presence of [foreign] forces in Afghanistan, the experience in Afghanistan has proved that presence of foreign forces would lead to the deterioration of extremism and terrorism in that region." (5)
A review of these points leavers no doubt about the different ways of Iran and the US in looking at the problems in Afghanistan. Iran and USA have not the same time lines for cooperation in Afghanistan.
In fact what happened in the actual meeting on Afghanistan, indicated to the same fact. Iran not only did not take any step that could be interpreted as cooperating with the USA, but it avoided to let this event be a stage in the developments in the relations of Iran and US through Afghanistan.
There was something of a controversy between Iran and the U.S. regarding whether or not the delegations of the two states met at the Afghanistan conference in the Hague (31 March 2009).
The VOA reported: "Senior U.S. and Iranian leaders met Tuesday on the sidelines of an international conference in the Hague aimed at re-energizing international commitments for war-torn Afghanistan. Participants agreed to boost security and development in the central Asian nation.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the meeting that took place between U.S. special representative Richard Holbrooke and Iran's deputy foreign minister Mehdi Akhundzadeh as brief but cordial. She said the two sides had agreed to stay in touch." (6)
According to a semi-official news agency in Iran, Mehr, the spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran denied any meeting, official or otherwise, between the representatives of Iran and the U.S. in and around the Hague conference.(7)
Shahrzad news reports that Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen claimed on a television talk show that the night before the conference he met the U.S. representative, and Holbrooke expressed an inclination to meet the Iranian representative unofficially. Therefore, Verhagen as the host arranged for the two to sit at the same table during lunch. (8)
Whatever its nature may have been, the two sides had some kind of contact. Based on the exact words of the Iranian side and whatever they may have meant, however, it may be equally possible to say no "contact" between Holbrooke and Akhundadeh took place. For instance, an employee of the Iranian diplomatic mission in The Hague who was not a member of the Iranian delegation to the conference may have represented the Iranian side.
What did Akhundzadeh, the Iranian representative have to say? According to a report on Zamaneh, a Persian web site sponsored by Radio Holland, "The point that the other side is trying to convey that this [i.e. the meeting] occurred, for whatever reason, perhaps indicates to a certain extent that they are in a hurry, or they want to exploit this in a certain way." (9) The fact that each side persists in interpreting this "contact" in its own way (the U.S. calling it a promising move and Iran calling it "nothing") has certain meanings quite independent of the nature of that contact:
1- The U.S. side is eager, perhaps even overeager to elicit a response from the Iranian side towards establishment of bilateral relations.
2- The U.S. expects much from Iran in response to the Nowruz message of President Obama to Iran.
3- Disregarding other possibilities, the U.S. has interpreted Khamenei's response to President Obama as keeping the door open for negotiation and simply looking for a face-saving way.
4- The U.S. is ignoring indications that Khamenei's response was an attempt to throw the ball back into the U.S. court. The supreme leader repeated he is waiting for the change.
5- The Iranian side did not consider its presence in the Hague conference on Afghanistan "as publicly declared time and again before the conference" as a step in the line of U.S.-Iran negotiations. In fact, the delegation criticized the U.S. presence in Afghanistan as an enhanced presence intended to find a military solution for a problem that cannot be solved militarily.
The conclusion is that Iran is not interested in the stability of Afghanistan the way the US sees it. Iran more likely prefers:
1- To see the defeat of US plans for Afghanistan as a yet another indication that the US policies do not work in the region.
2- Iran likes stability in the parts of Afghanistan near to its borders. The rest of Afghanistan is not so important. If the Taliban and Al-Qaida can create problems for the US, it is welcomed and even persuaded. As far the US relations with the regime of Iran are concerned, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
3- Iran may cooperate with the US for the preservation or continuation of "stability", but it will cost the US in other places and cases.
Notes
(1) http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5282VN20090309?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
(2) http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5282VN20090309?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
(3) http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0504/p06s02-wosc.html
(4) http://www.magiran/npview.asp?ID=1815268 ) March 2, 2009, No. 19312, P. 2
(5) http://www5.iran.ir/View/fullstory/Tools/PrintVersion/?NewsId=384684
(6) http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-03-31-voa45.cfm
(7) http://news.gooya.com/politics/archives/2009/04/085771.php
(8) http://www.shahrzadnews.org/news.php5?id=2212
(9) http://www.bitaraf.com/showlink.php?id=1053060
Bahman Aghai Diba, Washington based Iran analyst, is a former Iranian diplomat and currently a consultant to the World Resources Company
http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_29145.shtml
first published Apr 14, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Thinking Dangerous Thoughts . . .
. . . can get one in trouble
or can it?
This past weekend the NY based Islamic Thinkers Society crashed the Israel Day Parade in Manhattan. Keeping with their past track record they spewed nothing but hate while calling for the destruction of Israel.
Thinkers indeed. I think I need to get a gun for the next parade.
The above from Islamic "thinkers" think it's all right to call for the re-opening of Auschwitz
COMMENT by me (Leslie White)
Free Speech for them Musulims, okay, but with what's in the White House, how long can Americans expect to enjoy Free Speech because of the First Amendment?
The administration is rapidly becoming a tyranny of czars and an unbalance of powers in the government with the Executive branch grabbing it all. With the control of the Supreme Court, he's got two thirds and can start re-interpreting the Constitution in his favor. (Who's he? The clown in power.)
COMMENT at barenakedislam:
by fred g
I can think of a few good signs myself
“Anyone who supports Obama is the enemy of America”
“Muslims are child rapists, and Obama is a muslim!”
I could list a few more, but then Id have the newly formed Obama gestapo on my doorestep murdering me for exercising my free speech righs
Comment by barenakedislam on June 7, 2009 12:29 am
Not yet, Fred, we still have free speech but who know for how long? After he shuts down talk radio he’s coming for the bloggers. Next year I’ll be sure to go to that parade and I’ll take a few Marines with me.
And from another site comes this COMMENT:
This country is under attack by people even more sinister and power hungry than Hitler was. Our war is here and now. You and other patriots like us, are the leaders that will take this country back. We have the power, the will and the numbers to do so. If we all do our part, we can rid this republic of the leeches that are killing it.
and in answer to it:
Make NO mistake America, the time is coming, we WILL have open warfare in the streets and fields of this nation, it’s only a matter of time, and sooner or later, we will fight here and win, or we will lose and AMERICA will die!
Foregoing two Comments from What has our *Greatest Generation* become?
June 6th, 2009 . by TexasFred
http://texasfred.net/archives/4308
Want to read more?
OK, here's something to think about:
Overture to Civil War: There's Something Happening Here . . . and it ain't good at all
When the same idea comes from unconnected sources, separated by time and the wall that stands between life and death, it's more than a coincidence.
or can it?
This past weekend the NY based Islamic Thinkers Society crashed the Israel Day Parade in Manhattan. Keeping with their past track record they spewed nothing but hate while calling for the destruction of Israel.
Thinkers indeed. I think I need to get a gun for the next parade.
The above from Islamic "thinkers" think it's all right to call for the re-opening of Auschwitz
COMMENT by me (Leslie White)
Free Speech for them Musulims, okay, but with what's in the White House, how long can Americans expect to enjoy Free Speech because of the First Amendment?
The administration is rapidly becoming a tyranny of czars and an unbalance of powers in the government with the Executive branch grabbing it all. With the control of the Supreme Court, he's got two thirds and can start re-interpreting the Constitution in his favor. (Who's he? The clown in power.)
COMMENT at barenakedislam:
by fred g
I can think of a few good signs myself
“Anyone who supports Obama is the enemy of America”
“Muslims are child rapists, and Obama is a muslim!”
I could list a few more, but then Id have the newly formed Obama gestapo on my doorestep murdering me for exercising my free speech righs
Comment by barenakedislam on June 7, 2009 12:29 am
Not yet, Fred, we still have free speech but who know for how long? After he shuts down talk radio he’s coming for the bloggers. Next year I’ll be sure to go to that parade and I’ll take a few Marines with me.
And from another site comes this COMMENT:
This country is under attack by people even more sinister and power hungry than Hitler was. Our war is here and now. You and other patriots like us, are the leaders that will take this country back. We have the power, the will and the numbers to do so. If we all do our part, we can rid this republic of the leeches that are killing it.
and in answer to it:
Make NO mistake America, the time is coming, we WILL have open warfare in the streets and fields of this nation, it’s only a matter of time, and sooner or later, we will fight here and win, or we will lose and AMERICA will die!
Foregoing two Comments from What has our *Greatest Generation* become?
June 6th, 2009 . by TexasFred
http://texasfred.net/archives/4308
Want to read more?
OK, here's something to think about:
Overture to Civil War: There's Something Happening Here . . . and it ain't good at all
When the same idea comes from unconnected sources, separated by time and the wall that stands between life and death, it's more than a coincidence.
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