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2007-08-22 Terror Networks
Analysis: Political Islam's problems
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Posted by john frum 2007-08-22 11:08|| || Front Page|| [2 views ]  Top
 File under: Global Jihad 

#1 Workers from poor Muslim countries in these rich states are often treated like slaves and return home with a taste of bitterness that remains with them for the rest of their lives.

Many Indian and Pakistani Muslims have discovered that their Arab hosts consider them second rate Muslims, because they are not Arab. The shock of being at the bottom of the heap, way below kaffir westerners for example, in a place like Saudi Arabia, which Muslims are taught to idiolize, can be overwhelming.
Posted by john frum 2007-08-22 11:17||   2007-08-22 11:17|| Front Page Top

#2 "Many in the Islamic world believe the Taliban and al-Qaida failed in running Afghanistan because they did not know how to run a modern state."

It is irrelevant whether they know how to run a modern state - they do not DESIRE to run a modern state. Their goal is to run a 7th century feudal theocracy.
Posted by Glenmore">Glenmore  2007-08-22 12:55||   2007-08-22 12:55|| Front Page Top

#3 The typical Taliban are incapable of running a public toilet, far less a village, a city or a state.

Posted by john frum 2007-08-22 13:31||   2007-08-22 13:31|| Front Page Top

#4 And since the 1960s, the movement known as political Islam has not produced any major intellectual.

And neither has the US, at least in the MSM's view of "intellectuals." John you hit the nail on the head in #1...that's a weakness that we need to exploit wholesale. Preach from on high the dangers of Islamic Fundamentalism, not only to Western/Free nations, but to the "other" co-religionists. Pakistani/Indian muslims are virtual slaves in the more 'western' Muslim nations (Dubai comes to mind). They (native African Muslims) are getting slaughtered by the janjaweed in Sudan(Darfur). Heck, we had the latest use of chemical weapons in the 80s during the Iran-Iraq war. All of these are internal sect/race wars that we need to play off each other.
Posted by BA 2007-08-22 19:42||   2007-08-22 19:42|| Front Page Top

#5 A veritible goldmine. Where, oh where, to begin:

He said the richest 1 percent of the world earns as much as the bottom 57 percent.

Which is less an indictment of capitalism than it is a blasting of Islamic tribalism.

But Islamic culture itself is a contentious term. Muslims in Iran or South Asia are culturally as different from Arab Muslims as all of them are from Western culture. In fact, all of them have borrowed more from Western culture than they have from one another.

Which stands as irrefutable proof of Western culture’s superiority despite all the mental gymnastics and cognitive dissonance that Islam summons forth to explain this away.

Politically, the Islamic world is even more divided. Perhaps the only common factor in more than 50 Muslim nations is that most of them are run by autocratic rulers.

Which takes us right back to that dreadfully inconvenient 57:1 ratio.

And since the 1960s, the movement known as political Islam has not produced any major intellectual.

Which goes a long way towards explaining why Islam is spread more often at gunpoint than by popular word of mouth.

Most Muslims outside -- and many inside -- Iran blame the religious elite that is running the country for creating more problems than they resolve.

Which serves as the template for political Islam’s leaders everywhere.

How would the rest of the world react to the emergence of a new religious bloc in the world?

High temperature plasma is an answer that readily springs to mind.

Will it lead to a greater jihad against the rest of the world?

Is a frog’s ass watertight?

Within an Islamic caliphate, how much power shall the caliph have and how much freedom should be given to its citizens?

Let’s just say that, in this case, the 57:1 ratio is off by several orders of magnitude.

Will there be a free media? Can women appear on television and cinema screens? Can there be music in an Islamic state? How would people dress? Will the veil be imposed on women living in an Islamic state, whether they like it or not? Will all men be forced to grow beards?

Why does he ask such silly questions?

It is not that political Islamists do not have answers to these questions. They do. The problem is that their answers are not acceptable to an overwhelming majority of Muslims.

Unfortunately, Islam’s clerical elite are in far more general agreement about this and, at day’s end, that is what will finally determine the ummah’s dismal fate.

Muslims have become so used to the modern nation-states, many of them will put up a fight if forced to give up their Pakistani, Afghan, Syrian or Algerian identities in return for a new identity introduced by the likes of bin Laden or Mullah Omar.

This is where wingnuts like Ayatollah Khomeini came up with how patriotism is paganism. Remember what he said at Qom in 1980:
“We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah, for patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world

This is why Islam is doomed. Any true resurgence of it will require so much destruction of Islamic and Western lands alike that none of the major nuclear superpowers will tolerate any such thing.
Posted by Zenster">Zenster  2007-08-22 21:57||   2007-08-22 21:57|| Front Page Top

#6 All of these are internal sect/race wars that we need to play off each other.

BA, sounds callous on the surface, but it's really not. We need to turn Machiavelli mode on. Blowbacks? Maybe, but I suspect it'll be a child's play in comparison if we get stuck in the see-no-evil mode.
Posted by twobyfour 2007-08-22 21:58||   2007-08-22 21:58|| Front Page Top

#7 ROFL, #5 Zen!

Great snark/comments. :-D
Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut  2007-08-22 22:11|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/]  2007-08-22 22:11|| Front Page Top

#8 Agreed, twobyfour.

Better to be judged by 12 (or one if'n you're talkin' bout the 'big guy upstairs') than carried out by 6.
Posted by BA 2007-08-22 22:42||   2007-08-22 22:42|| Front Page Top

23:26 Fred O'Grunion
23:04 GK
22:42 BA
22:41 Zenster
22:40 Zenster
22:37 BA
22:14 Red Dawg
22:12 Zenster
22:11 Barbara Skolaut
22:09 Gary and the Samoyeds
22:07 Zenster
22:04 Zenster
22:02 Frank G
21:58 twobyfour
21:57 Zenster
21:54 Red Dawg
21:51 twobyfour
21:44 SteveS
21:37 Red Dawg
21:33 Red Dawg
21:31 SteveS
21:30 Zenster
21:20 SteveS
21:17 Zenster









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