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tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4525
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 9:29 pm: | 
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This article is fascinating. I trust the Bush Administration was not taken by surprise, but their general disconnect with reality cannot be overlooked.
http://www.meforum.org/article/806 |
J. Crohn
Supporter
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 2579
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 1:02 am: |
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Rather prescient. |
tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4530
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 12:12 pm: |
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With the current outbreak of fighting, NPR has hosted a number of people who have studied the politics of the Middle East. I get the impression from the behavior of the Bush Administration that they have never taken input from these experts. Right now, I have a sinking feeling that Iran and Hizbollah have totally outmaneuvered us on the Middle Eastern chess board. |
joel dranove
Citizen
Username: Jdranove
Post Number: 752
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 12:39 pm: |
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More grist:
Hizballah Activity in North America
By Andrew Cochran
Brian Hecht of The Investigative Project on Terrorism has prepared a quick reference guide to major Hizballah and Hizballah-linked illegal activity in the United States, Canada and Mexico:
Racketeering, Money Laundering, Terrorism Financing:
* U.S.A. v. Mohamad Youssef Hammoud et al., Charlotte, North Carolina: 25 individuals charged in connection with cigarette smuggling, money laundering, credit card fraud, marriage fraud and immigration violations. Four individuals were charged with providing “material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization,” Hizballah, specifically providing “currency, financial services, training, false documentation and identification, communications equipment, explosives, and other physical assets to Hizballah, in order to facilitate its violent attacks.” In 2003, Mohamad Hammoud was sentenced to 155 years in prison, while his brother, Chawki, was sentenced to 51 months.
* U.S.A. v. Elias Mohamad Akhdar et al. (pdf), Dearborn, Michigan: 11 co-defendants charged with racketeering related to the Charlotte, North Carolina scheme. In January, 2004, Akhdar was sentenced to 70 months in prison and was fined over $2,000,000 after having pled guilty in July, 2003.
* U.S.A. v. Imam Mohamad-Musbah Hammoud, et al., Michigan, Canada (Ontario, Quebec), Lebanon: In March, 2006, 19 co-defendants charged with a racketeering scheme involving contraband cigarettes, counterfeit Zig Zag rolling papers and counterfeit Viagra, counterfeit cigarette tax stamps, transporting stolen property, and money laundering. A percentage of the profits derived from the illegal enterprise were given to Hizballah. On July 7, two of the defendants, Imad Majed Hamadeh and Theodore Schenk, 73 pled guilty (pdf). Hamadeh and Schenk face a maximum possible penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.
Weapons and Planning:
* U.S.A.. v. Mahmoud Youssef Kourani (pdf), Dearborn, Michigan: In November, 2003, charged with being a “member, fighter, recruiter, and fundraiser” for Hizballah. In June, 2005, Kourani was sentenced to 4 ½ years in prison.
* U.S.A. v. Naji Antoine Abi Khalil, Montreal, Quebec; New York: Canadian/Lebanese dual citizen conspired with an Israeli, Tomer Grinberg, and charged with attempting to export military night vision goggles and infrared aiming equipment to Hizballah. In February 2006, Khalil was sentenced to 60 months in prison.
* U.S.A. v. Ali Boumelhem, Dearborn, Michigan: Man convicted in September 2001 of attempting to smuggle two shotguns, 750 bullets and assault weapon parts in a conspiracy to aid Hizballah, and 5 weapons violations. He was sentenced to 44 months in jail.
Tax Evasion:
* U.S.A. v. Talal Khalil Chahine et. al, Dearborn, Michigan: Restaurant owner and wife, Elfat El Aouar, in May 2006, charged with four counts of tax evasion and the concealment of more than $16,000,000 of cash from the federal government. The U.S. government, in a written proffer of evidence (in U.S.A. v. Elfat El Aouar, Cr. No. 06-20248, EDMI, 5/22/2006), states that Chahine and his wife attended a fundraising event in Lebanon in August 2002 with Hizballah Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, a Specially Designated Terrorist (see page 8), where the two men were the keynote speakers. The proffer also claims that a search of El Aouar’s residence turned up a “thank you letter” for sponsoring 40 “orphans,” as well as images of Chahine and his family in front of a Hizballah outpost. According to the proffer, “[t]he government is aware that the sponsorship of orphans is a euphemism used by Hizballah to refer to the orphans of martyrs. This is a common public relations and recruitment tool used by Hizballah. Hizballah gains favor with the public in Lebanon by supporting ‘orphans,’ while at the same time recruiting others into the terrorist organization willing to sacrifice their lives in terrorist operations based in part on the promise that Hizballah will take care of their families.” The government has yet to charge Chahine or his wife with any terrorism-related offense.
Drug Running:
* U.S.A. v. Mohammad Shabib, Cleveland, Ohio: Federal prosecutors charged Mohammad Shabib with hiding his role in a drug ring which profits were funneled to Hizballah. Shabib, a gas station owner, had $8,000,000 in a Chicago bank account, which authorities say Shabib amassed by shipping roughly 3 tons of pseudoephedrine from Canada to California, which he would sell to Mexican gangs who would use the drugs to produce methamphetamine. (See: Amanda Garrett, “Terrorists’ Money Takes Convoluted Path in U.S.,” The Cleveland Dealer, January 18, 2004).
Mexico: Human Trafficking:
* Mexico v. Salim Boughader Mucharrafille, Tijuana, Mexico: Boughader, proprietor of a Lebanese restaurant in Mexico, ran a smuggling ring into the U.S. Before he was arrested in December 2002, Boughader had trafficked roughly 200 Lebanese nationals, including Hizballah-linked individuals, across the border and into the U.S. Boughader admitted transporting a former employee of al-Manar television, which is owned and operated by Hizballah and currently designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist entity. Boughder is quoted as saying, “[f]or us, Hezbollah are not terrorists."
Other:
* U.S.A. v. Nemr Ali-Rahal et. al. (pdf), Dearborn, Michigan: Husband and wife pled guilty in January 2006 to credit card and bank fraud worth more than $500,000. Ali-Rahal was sentenced to 33 months in prison (see right side text box). While he was not charged with any terrorism related offenses, when FBI agents arrested Ali-Rahal, they discovered, in his home, Hizballah-related materials including a videotape of a 2002 Hizballah rally in Lebanon at which Rahal was present in Lebanon, as well as a collection of books, posters and videos including one titled “A Martyr Speaks About Martyrs” and a photo showing Rahal burning an American flag.
* Hizballah-linked Counterfeit Goods Ring in Los Angeles (pdf), Los Angeles, CA: Testimony of Lieutenant John C. Stedman, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, May 25, 2005: “There are also indicators that some associates of terrorist groups may be involved in (Intellectual Property Right/)IPR crime. During the course of our investigations, we have encountered suspects who have shown great affinity for Hezbollah and its leadership. The following are just two examples: during the search of a residence pursuant to an IPR related search warrant, I saw small Hezbollah flags displayed in the suspect’s bedroom. Next to the flags was a photograph of Hassan Nasrallah whom I recognized as the leader of Hezbollah. The suspect’s wife asked me if I knew the subject of the photograph. I identified Nasrallah and the wife said, ‘We love him because he protects us from the Jews’. Also in the home were dozens of audio tapes of Nasrallah’s speeches. During the search, one of my detectives also found a locket which contained a picture of the male suspect on one side and Sheik Nasrallah on the other. In 2004, detectives served an IPR search warrant at a clothing store in Los Angeles County. During the course of the search, thousands of dollars in counterfeit clothing was recovered as were two unregistered firearms. During the booking process, the suspect was found to have a tattoo of the Hezbollah flag on his arm.”
* In 2003, Hizballah’s website carried a page on Hajj with Hizbollah, complete with contact information for regions around the world. The page listed a Canadian phone number soliciting Muslims interested in going on the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Other phone numbers included Beirut; Conakry, Guinea; Sweden; Switzerland; Ivory Coast; Denmark; Sierra Leone; Togo; Ghana and Gambia for people interested living in those places.
July 19, 2006 08:28 PM |
tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4532
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 1:01 pm: |
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I have no doubt that elements of Hizbollah are operating in the U.S. and that some are planning terrorist attacks. However, regardless of how evil we think these people are, we have to be a bit intelligent about how we fight them. My concern is that the Bush Administration has thus far displayed all of the subtlety of a lineman hitting a blocking dummy. We need more than just superior conventional military forces to effectively combat terrorism. |
J. Crohn
Supporter
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 2580
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 1:07 pm: |
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"all of the subtlety of a lineman hitting a blocking dummy."
True. But I fear the depressing fact of the matter is that another course of action might well have produced a similar result.
Special Dispatch-Iran
July 21, 2006
No. 1210
Iranian Parliament Speaker: The Blood of Khomeini Rages in Nasrallah's Veins; The Confrontation is Not Only in Lebanon, But Deep Inside Occupied Palestine and Within the Range of the Lion Cubs of Hizbullah... No Place in Israel Will Be Safe
To view this Special Dispatch in HTML, visit: http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD121006 .
The following are excerpts from a speech given by Iranian Parliament Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad 'Adel, which aired on the Iranian News Channel (IRINN) on July 18, 2006.
TO VIEW THIS CLIP: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1199 .
Gholam-Ali Haddad 'Adel: "England, and then America, wished to have control over the Islamic world, to prevent Muslim unity, and to have control of the oil resources in the Middle East. Therefore, following World War II, they established an artificial, false, and fictitious state called Israel in this region.
"They established a political party, and supported the Zionists, claiming this was support for the Jews of the world. They mobilized the racist Zionists, who are not accepted even by many Jews. They came to Palestine, and under the pretext of wrongs supposedly done to them during World War II, they carried out terrorism, conspiracies, massacres, and bloodshed in this region.
"The indigenous Muslim people of Palestine and the Arabs of the region have been here for over 1,400 years, since the advent of Islam, and have their civilization and culture. They drove them out of this region with massacres. They turned them into refugees and tent dwellers. They made them homeless, dispersed in various countries. The Western governments supported them, exerted influence in the U.N., and created this fictitious state.
"They lied, exaggerated, and fabricated events, in order to present their unjustified deeds as justified. This shows the depth of the animosity and rancor that America, England, and the supporters of Israel harbor towards the Muslims and the Islamic world."
[...]
"America talks about democracy and the rule of the people, and claims that the vote of the people should be respected – but by means of the plundering Zionist regime, it wants to take revenge upon the Palestinian people for voting Hamas in the elections."
[...]
"Today, the peoples have awakened. The Muslims have awakened and are facing you. As you have seen, they are facing you in Lebanon, and so far you have not dared to set foot on Lebanese soil."
[...]
"Today, nobody in the Islamic countries is rolling out the red carpet for you. Today, the land of Palestine is painted red with your contemptible blood."
Crowd: "Allah Akbar.
"Allah Akbar.
"Allah Akbar.
"Khamenei is the leader."
Gholam-Ali Haddad 'Adel: "Today, the confrontation is not only within the borders of Lebanon. It is taking place deep within your land. Today, your flourishing cities in the north of Israel... of occupied Palestine are within the range of fire of the fighters and lion cubs of Hizbullah. Today, Haifa and Tiberias are within Hizbullah's range of fire. No place in Israel will be safe."
Crowd: "Allah Akbar.
"Allah Akbar.
"Allah Akbar.
"Khamenei is the leader.
"Death to those who oppose the rule of the jurisprudent.
"Death to America.
"Death to England..."
Gholam-Ali Haddad 'Adel: "Today is the day you will flee occupied Palestine. You must return to your homes."
Crowd: "Allah Akbar.
"Allah Akbar.
"Allah Akbar.
"Khamenei is the leader."
Gholam-Ali Haddad 'Adel: "Our slogan and the slogan of the Islamic world is: Everyone should return to his own home."
Crowd: "Allah Akbar.
"Allah Akbar.
"Allah Akbar."
Gholam-Ali Haddad 'Adel: "The Palestinian refugees should return to the land of their forefathers, and you, who came to Palestine from other countries, should return to your homes too.
"Today is the day of the liberation of Palestine, and the day of resistance. As said by Hassan Nasrallah, this courageous, vigilant, and informed religious scholar, the war has just begun."
[...]
"We say to America, England, and the supporters of Israel in the West: You will not benefit from supporting Israel. You are earning the hostility of 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, under the pretext of supporting a handful of Zionists, whom you brought and stuck, like a dagger, in the hearts of the Muslims in the Middle East."
Crowd: "No more humiliation.
"No more humiliation.
"No more humiliation."
Gholam-Ali Haddad 'Adel: "The Americans should know that as long as this festering growth remains in the body of the Islamic world, with their support, the Muslims will never, under any circumstances, cease to hate and to oppose America."
Crowd: "Allah Akbar.
"Allah Akbar.
"Allah Akbar."
Gholam-Ali Haddad 'Adel: "The Muslims throughout the world say: Stop your support for Israel, or else don't expect any kind of peace or reconciliation with the Islamic world."
Crowd: "Allah Akbar.
"Allah Akbar.
"Allah Akbar."
[...]
Gholam-Ali Haddad 'Adel: "To Hassan Nasrallah we say: Well done. This religious scholar roars like a lion, and the blood of Imam Khomeini rages in his veins."
Crowd: "Allah Akbar.
"Allah Akbar.
"Allah Akbar."
*********************
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East. Copies of articles and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on request.
MEMRI holds copyrights on all translations. Materials may only be used with proper attribution.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)
P.O. Box 27837, Washington, DC 20038-7837
Phone: (202) 955-9070
Fax: (202) 955-9077
E-Mail: memri@memri.org
Search previous MEMRI publications at www.memri.org
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Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 1714
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 2:20 pm: |
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Sounds amazingly like the republican national convention and most Bush public appearances.
You know the translated meaning of Allah Akbar to republican is -
flip-flop flip-flop flip-flop...
Seriously though it is obvious that we have done an extremely poor job of interacting with Arab nations historically. The advent of radical islam did not happen overnight but rather has been steadily growing while America continued to support brutal dictators like the Shah and the Saudi ruling family. The rhetoric is ramped up as high as it can go and the actions taken in the middle east in Iraq and now Lebanon could easily be seen by middle eastern natives as American aggression and imperialism.
Obviously Iran is a nemesis and as such will have no words of support for what is happening either in Iraq or Israel.
Faith based ideas are based on unprovable beliefs and it is only faith based ideas that can cause so many people to react so irrationally. The world would be a much safer place if religions were benign.
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Factvsfiction
Citizen
Username: Factvsfiction
Post Number: 1136
Registered: 4-2006
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 3:54 pm: |
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Hoops-
" We have done an extremely poor job of interacting with arab nations historically" ???????? Huh?
" The advent of radical islam did not happen overnight but rather has been steadily growing while America continued to support brutal dictators like the Shah and the Saudi ruling family"
Oh man. Please don't make people have to embarass you about your ill-educated opinions on these topics. |
Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 1718
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 4:03 pm: |
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fvf - please go ahead and let me know how we have done a good job with arab nations. then please tell me how radical islam was not nurtured in Saudi Arabia and Iran.
What dont you understand about that post?
If you have something to contribute to the conversation by all means go ahead. Otherwise shutthefucup. You think being an •••-hole is funny? |
joel dranove
Citizen
Username: Jdranove
Post Number: 755
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 4:17 pm: |
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Islam is radical.
Radical Islam adherents want to kill us.
jd
PS: Dave: Did Hoops go too far, vulgarity-wise.
My meter topped out in the red range. |
Slim Jim
Citizen
Username: Arrakis
Post Number: 34
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 4:58 pm: |
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Of the 6.5 billion people on this planet, 1.1 billion of them are radical and want to kill us? They must hate us for our freedom... |
joel dranove
Citizen
Username: Jdranove
Post Number: 756
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 5:07 pm: |
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The proof is in the history.
I said the radicals of them want us dead.
What percent are they?
Enough to include 19 well educated males on 9/11.
jd |
Slim Jim
Citizen
Username: Arrakis
Post Number: 35
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 5:28 pm: |
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I think someone said that the religion was radical ("Islam is radical") and that those who follow the rules of the religion want to kill us ("Radical Islam adherents want to kill us.")
I guess this all depends on what your defintion of "is" is? |
anon
Supporter
Username: Anon
Post Number: 2876
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 8:40 pm: |
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"Radical Islam" Interesting term. Interesting use of the word "radical". Don't we all mean "Reactionary Islam". Perhaps "Islamofascism" is the better term. |
3ringale
Citizen
Username: Threeringale
Post Number: 310
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 9:37 pm: |
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I think Islamofascism is a term for the faint of heart. The real problem is Islam, period. Theodore Dalrymple explains it well in his review of the latest book by Efraim Karsh:
All or Nothing
The quest for a moderate Islam may be futile.
4 June 2006
Islamic Imperialism: A History, by Efraim Karsh (Yale University Press, 288 pp., $30)
The week following the Muslim protests in London against the Danish cartoons—with marchers carrying signs calling for the beheading of infidels—other Muslims demonstrated to claim that Islam really meant peace and tolerance. While their implicit recognition that peace and tolerance are preferable to strife and bigotry did these Muslims personal honor, the claim regarding Islam was both historically and intellectually preposterous. Only someone ignorant of the most elementary facts could believe such a thing. From the first, Islam was a religion of pillage, violence, and compulsion, which it justified and glorified. And it is certainly not “the evident truth of the doctrine itself,” to quote Gibbon with regard for what, with characteristic irony, he called the primary reason for the rapid spread of Christianity throughout the civilized world, that explains the exponential growth of the Dar-al-Islam in its early history.
It is important, of course, to distinguish between Islam as a doctrine and Muslims as people. Untold numbers of Muslims desire little more than a quiet life; they have the virtues and the vices of the rest of mankind. Their religion gives to their daily lives an ethical and ritual structure and provides the kind of boundaries that only modern Western intellectuals would have the temerity to belittle.
But the fact that many Muslims are not fanatics is not as comforting as some might think. Consider, by way of illustration, Eric Hobsbawm, the famous, much feted, and unrepentantly Marxist historian. No one would feel personally threatened by him at a social gathering, where he would be amusing, polite, charming, and accomplished; if you had him to dinner, you wouldn’t have to count the spoons afterward, even though he theoretically opposes the idea of private wealth. In short, there would be no reason to suspect that he was about to commit a common crime against you. In this sense, he is what one might call a moderate Marxist.
But Hobsbawm has stated quite openly that, had the Soviet Union managed to create a functioning and prosperous socialist society, 20 million deaths would have been a worthwhile price to pay; and since he didn’t recognize, even partially, that the Soviet Union was not in fact on the path to such a society until many years after it had murdered 20 million of its people (if not more), it is fair to assume that, if things had turned out another way in his own country, Hobsbawm would have applauded, justified, and perhaps even instigated the murders of the very people to whom he was now, under the current dispensation, being amusing, charming, and polite. In other words, what saved Hobsbawm from committing utter evil was not his own scruples or ratiocination, and certainly not the doctrine he espoused, but the force of historical circumstance. His current moderation would have counted for nothing if world events had been different.
In his new book, Islamic Imperialism: A History, Professor Efraim Karsh does not mince words about Mohammed’s early and (to all those who do not accept the divinity of his inspiration) unscrupulous resort to robbery and violence, or about Islam’s militaristic aspects, or about the link between Islamic tradition and the current wave of fundamentalist violence in the world. The originality of Karsh’s interpretation is its underlying assumption that Islam was, from the very beginning, a pretext for personal and dynastic political ambition, from the razzias against the Meccan caravans and the expulsion of Jewish tribes from Medina, to the siege of Vienna a millennium later in 1529, and Hamas today.
Contrary to its universalistic pretensions, Karsh argues, Islam has never succeeded in eliminating political power struggles within the Muslim world, where, on the contrary, such struggles have always been murderous. Islamic regimes, many espousing in the beginning the ascetic principles of what one might call desert Islam, invariably degenerate (if it be degeneration) into luxury- and privilege-loving dynasties. Like all other political entities, Islamic regimes seek to preserve and, if possible, extend their power. They have shown no hesitation in compromising with or allying themselves with those whom they regard as infidels. Saladin, a mendaciously simplified version of whose exploits has inflamed hysterical sentiment all over the Middle East, was not above forming alliances with Christian monarchs to achieve his imperial ends; the Ottoman caliphate would not have survived as long as it did had the Sultan not exploited European rivalries and allied himself now with one, now with another Christian power.
In short, Islamic imperialism, in Karsh’s view, illustrates three transcendent political truths: the Nietzschean drive to power, Michels’ iron law of oligarchy, and Marx’s economic motor of history. Religious feeling, on this reading, is but an epiphenomenon, a mask for what is really going on.
This interpretation raises the difficult and perhaps unanswerable question of what should count in history as a real, and what as merely an apparent, motive for action. When Bernal Diaz del Castillo claims a religious motive for the conquest of Mexico, at least in part, should we just dismiss it as a sanctimonious lie to justify a more rapacious motive? That he ended up a rich man does not decide the question; and Diaz himself would have taken his material success as a sign that God smiled upon his enterprise, just as Muslims have viewed their early conquests as proof of God’s approval and the truth of Mohammed’s doctrine. (On the other hand, failure for Muslims never seems to provide proof of the final withdrawal of God’s favor, much less of his non-existence, but rather shows his dissatisfaction with the current practices of the supposedly faithful, who will return to His favor only by restoring an earlier, purer form of faith.)
Karsh seems to oscillate between believing that Islamic imperialism is just a variant of imperialism in general—imperialism being more or less a permanent manifestation of the human will to power—and believing that there is something sui generis and therefore uniquely dangerous about it.
I hesitate to rush in where so many better-informed people have hesitated to tread, or have trodden before, but I would put it like this. The urge to domination is nearly a constant of human history. The specific (and baleful) contribution of Islam is that, by attributing sovereignty solely to God, and by pretending in a philosophically primitive way that God’s will is knowable independently of human interpretation, and therefore of human interest and desire—in short by allowing nothing to human as against divine nature—it tries to abolish politics. All compromises become mere truces; there is no virtue in compromise in itself. Thus Islam is inherently an unsettling and dangerous factor in world politics, independently of the actual conduct of many Muslims.
Karsh comes close to this conclusion himself, when he writes at the end of the book:
Only when the political elites of the Middle East and the Muslim world reconcile themselves to the reality of state nationalism, forswear pan-Arab and pan-Islamic dreams, and make Islam a matter of private faith rather than a tool of political ambition will the inhabitants of these regions at last be able to look forward to a better future free of would-be Saladins.
The fundamental question is whether Islam as a private faith would still be Islam, or whether such privatization would spell its doom. I think it would spell its doom. In this sense, I am an Islamic fundamentalist. The choice is between all and nothing.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/rev2006-06-04td.html
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J. Crohn
Supporter
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 2582
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 9:58 pm: |
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"Faith based ideas are based on unprovable beliefs and it is only faith based ideas that can cause so many people to react so irrationally. The world would be a much safer place if religions were benign."
Naziism was not a religious ideology, nor is neo-naziism. Stalinism was not a religious ideology. Maoism was not a religious ideology. Pan-Arabism is not a religious ideology.
The twentieth century's most murderous examples of "faith-based ideas" have not been religious. |
J. Crohn
Supporter
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 2583
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 10:08 pm: |
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"The fundamental question is whether Islam as a private faith would still be Islam, or whether such privatization would spell its doom. I think it would spell its doom."
Dalrymple is too pessimistic.
Judaism made the leap. So can Islam. |
Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 1721
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 10:28 pm: |
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Nazis used religion to control the Christian population and scapegoat Jews as Christ killers. Without religious zealotry I believe there would have been no holocaust because there would have been no traditional convenient target for Hitler to unite Germany against. There would have only been political enemies.
I give you Stalin and Mao as examples of totalitarian non-sectarian monsters.
Still religion is the only place where one can believe they get rewarded for dying. The belief in the afterlife is based only on faith not actual fact and as such appeals to a base human instinct not a rational proof. |
J. Crohn
Supporter
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 2586
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 10:45 pm: |
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Hoops, I think perhpas you missed my point. Which was that religion is not the only area in which belief in the unprovable can prevail.
You, for instance, have faith in all sorts of things that you don't even recognize as debatable, let alone unfalsifiable. The fact that the things you have faith in are putatively rational (you have faith that they are rational) doesn't matter much. |
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