By Khalid Hasan A Muslim scholar has warned against what he calls a grave threat to Islams moral centre posed by extremists. Prof Khaled Abou El Fadl, a professor of law at the University of California at Los Angeles, argues in his book The Great Theft that Muslims should wrest control of the discourse on defining what being a Muslim means in the modern world away from extremists. In a commentary on the book, Emran Qureshi, a fellow at the Labour and Worklife Programme of the Harvard Law School, credits the UCLA professor with retelling the tradition of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) as a moderate man who avoided extremes.
Qureshi, writing in the Globe and Mail newspaper from Toronto on Saturday, says, Abou El Fadl traces the rise of Islamic extremism to the rise of the Wahabi state, the precursor of modern Saudi Arabia. By now it has become something of a cliché, but here the authors original contribution is actually to explore the ideas of the sects founder, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahab through his writings, and the dislocations they produced. He calls Wahabis puritans and demarcates their ethos and underlying worldview from the moderate centre of Islam. Some critics may consider this to be too reductive. But one needs to ask: Has this interpretation of Islam influenced modern Muslim understanding of their faith, and if so, how?
According to Qureshi, in his teachings, ibn Abd al-Wahab emphasised a puritanical, punitive and literalist interpretation of Islam. He argued that Muslims had gone astray from the one true Islam. He thus sought to rid Islam of those corruptions that had crept into it: mysticism, rationalism, Shia theology and, essentially, all theological innovations other than those he preferred. In essence, he was waging war against Islamic tradition itself. His Islam is a closed, supremacist, metaphysical system. He points out that the Shia theology was denounced by the Wahabis as a heresy, and all Shias and those that sheltered them were declared heretics.
Abd al-Wahab participated in the sacking of Karbala in 1801, in which thousands of Shia Muslims were massacred. A major factor in sectarian violence is the anti-Shia bias within this puritan strain of Islam, and the growing influence of its intolerant interpretation, the latest example being the destruction of the Al-Askariya shrine, he adds. Qureshi writes that Abou El Fadl asserts that Abd al-Wahab was rabidly hostile toward non-Muslims, and insistent that Muslims should not imitate or befriend them. However his real enemies werent Christians or Jews, but Ottoman Turks, whom he labelled a heretical nation. In spite of Wahabi loathing for the West, the Arabs co-operated with the British in fighting the Ottoman Turks. Thus it was the West that helped give birth to the present Saudi state.
He points out that the diffusion of Wahabi ideology began aggressively in the 1970s after the Shah of Irans overthrow and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He argues that contemporary puritans use religious text to regulate life, and use literalist readings of the Quran and the Hadith to shield themselves from criticism. The new puritans feel disempowered by modernity and react militantly and violently to it. Since many Muslim regimes are ruthlessly authoritarian, they contribute to the puritans feeling of powerlessness.
According to Qureshi, Abou El Fadl emphasises that oppression is a great offence against God, thus making a substantive contribution and positing a more humane interpretation of Islam, one consonant with the modern world. He uses the Islamic concept of haqq, which combines the meanings rights/legal entitlement with truth, and thus ties together the requirements for justice with the basis of religious belief. These rights, he shows, are sacrosanct and cannot be voided by the state. Abou El Fadl shows why sovereignty should rest with the polity, while the puritans insist that sovereignty rests with God and his interpreters on earth. Puritans look to an unsullied Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan under the Taliban for their vision of an Islamic utopia on Earth.
The UCLA academic considers morally abhorrent the Saudis aggressive form of patriarchy in which they respond to feelings of political and social defeatism by engaging in symbolic displays of power that are systematically degrading to women. He is afraid that the authority of the moderate centre in Islam has greatly diminished and apprehends that the puritans will be able to redefine Islam.
Muslims, according to Qureshi, perceive the war on terror as a war on Islam. Islamic radicals pose as defenders of Islam. While Muslims have been outraged by the Danish cartoons, the Saudi state and its religious establishment have been silently and systematically destroying Islamic heritage, especially that associated with the Holy Prophet (pbuh). A new magazine called Islamica has chronicled that destruction. The grave of Amina bin Wahb, the Holy Prophets (pbuh) mother, was bulldozed. Latrines have been built on the birthplace of the Holy Prophets (pbuh) first wife, Khadija. It is said that the house where he was born will soon be levelled and turned into a car park. There have been no protests, no convening of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, not a peep from mainstream North American Muslim organisations.
Abou El Fadl suggests that the moderate voice of Islam has few champions within the diasporic Muslim population of the West or in the Muslim heartland. The puritans are well funded and entrenched. He cites the case of the late Dr Fazlur Rahman, a brilliant and deeply pious Muslim. Forced to leave Pakistan, Rahman taught at the University of Chicago, but his voice has been forgotten. Instead, the writings of Maudoodi, his fundamentalist contemporary and nemesis, are widely disseminated.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/27/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
These "moderate" articles / books are written for the West. In English.
Why? Seeking (publish or perish) tenure? A fresh visa? Taqiya? Sleight of Mouth? "Hey look over here!"
We don't need to hear this, and he's damned late to the party to boot. Gosh, I'm having a crisis of confidence in his sincerity and usefulness. The assholes of Islam who can't tolerate non-Muzzies, who can't co-exist with non-Muzzies, who generally don't read or speak English with enough proficiency to understand WTF he's talking about -- THEY need to hear this, if we are to take him and his like seriously.
Besides, a 10 minute visit by a jihadi would kill his muse, methinks. You can almost picture the "list" of these guys (lol, it'd be a damned short one) kept by the "extremists"... I'll bet the standard question is, "Does he rate a plane ticket?"
#2
Prof Khaled Abou El Fadl, a professor of law at the University of California at Los Angeles, argues in his book The Great Theft that Muslims should wrest control of the discourse on defining what being a Muslim means in the modern world away from extremists.
Less talk. More rock.
The supposed majority of moderate Islam has had 200 years to refute al-Wahab. Instead, either the moderates have lost ground or simply been revealed as not that moderate at all.
So stop talking in English and start acting.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/27/2006 7:24 Comments ||
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#3
Behead this Apostate!!!
Only death and subjugation can further the aims of Islam!!!!!!!!!!
#4
this professor visited Qatar a few years ago and went on TV there to 'debate' a Wahabi iman
Rather than debating him, the Wahabi iman ridiculed him, making jest of Prof El Fadl's clothes, his accent, his University affiliation, his presumed Zionist friends, etc.
It would be better for the Prof to leave Islam than to attempt these feeble tries at reform.
The world has long looked upon the Dutch as the very model of a modern, multicultural society. Open and liberal, the tiny seagoing nation that invented the globalized economy in the 1600s prided itself on a history of taking in all comers, be they Indonesian or Turkish, African or Chinese.
How different things look today. Dutch borders have been virtually shut. New immigration is down to a trickle. The great cosmopolitan port city of Rotterdam just published a code of conduct requiring Dutch be spoken in public. Parliament recently legislated a countrywide ban on wearing the burqa in public. And listen to a prominent Dutch establishment figure describe the new Dutch Way with immigrants. "We demand a new social contract," says Jan Wolter Wabeke, High Court Judge in The Hague. "We no longer accept that people don't learn our language, we require that they send their daughters to school, and we demand they stop bringing in young brides from the desert and locking them up in third-floor apartments."
What's going on here? Weren't the Dutch supposed to be the nicest people on earth, the most tolerant nation in Europe, a melting pot for minorities and immigrants since the Renaissance? No longer, and in this the Dutch are once again at the forefront of changes in Europe. This time, the Dutch model for Europe is one of multiculturalism besieged, if not plain defunct.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/27/2006 02:55 ||
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The Germans had the best system, because until recently they didn't give 'Guest Workers' citizenship and therefore could send them back to their home country.
#2
"All the burden of change is placed on the immigrant." Damn straight. That's where it always should have been. Why should those who already live someplace have to change their standards and lifestyles to accommodate unwanted interlopers? If what it takes to get this across to the Muslims is deporting most of them from Europe, so be it. That's better than some of the 20th Century's other alternatives.
Posted by: mac ||
02/27/2006 7:37 Comments ||
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#3
Nobody is being forced to immigrate to Europe with a gun to their head. It's a privilege, not a right, and there most certainly should be rules. Same in the US, our biggest advantage is that we don't let them group up like in europe.
Posted by: ed ||
02/27/2006 9:17 Comments ||
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#6
It is a start.
Both HJ and CE have valid points. Some immigrants tend to bunch up when they get over here, since familiarity is wanted. But, unlike Europe, they do get out of the hoods to work and go to school and mix with the general population. Further generations are americanized and move away.
#9
It seems to me ending multiculturalism is the first step to recovery for Europe. It's certainly more than I expected of them, and a step in the right direction.
Immigrants take 3 generations to become Americans. The Euros problem is they don't know how to produce second and third generation immigrants because their nationhood is based on blood not brains as in the U. S.
#12
But make no mistake: they're no longer willing to tolerate a European melting pota broadly multicultural societywhere different cultures live by widely different norms.
#13
Immigrants take 3 generations to become Americans.
Oh really? How do you define "American" then? You gotta be careful about broad generalizations. Some cultures assimilate faster than others. I am an example.
The Germans had the best system, because until recently they didn't give 'Guest Workers' citizenship and therefore could send them back to their home country.
Germans didn't allow dual citizenships (and still don't I would imagine). If you decided to take German citizenship, you had to give up the other one. You'd be surprised how many people chose not to give up their original citizenship because presumably they had too much to lose.
Posted by: Rafael ||
02/27/2006 13:10 Comments ||
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Ending multiculturalism and the immigration problem are only a part of Europe's crisis. A big part, but only part, nontheless.
Before they can be considered to be on the road to recovery, they have to cure themselves of the cradle to grave socialism that infects them. This system - which removes essentially all risk and stress from life for most people and has replaced the family as the essential organizational unit of society - has resulted in birthrates which are effectively suicidal.
The US is partly to blame - by footing the lion's share of the Cold War we enabled Euroland to spend large amounts of their GDP on socialist programs they would NEVER have been able to afford if we had insisted they had spent more what it took to defend themselves from the Soviet Empire.
Now they're addicted (literally so) to a life where as long as you do some minimum in life and don't commit a mojor felony the government does basically everything for you and you have little or no risk in life. Never have to worry about health care, never have to worry about education, take 7 years to get out of college, never (once hired to your 35 hour a week functionary job) have to worry about getting let go, retire at 55 and live 25 more years with a hefty pension and without working so you don't have to depend on your family (and therefore don't need to have one) - these are not things that will be given up without street rioting, as we have seen. But you cannot sustain a society which spend 25 years in its youth travelling and bumming around as a student, 25 years working in a half-assed fashion, and 25 years in old age not working and attempting to be pretend-rich on other people's money. Such a society actively discourages people from breeding.
Dealing with the immigration thing is vitally important to Europe's survival. But if they don't soon jettison a socialist model which goes to absurd lengths to eliminate risk and stress and move to a more capitalist American style one which puts more emphasis onto family and individual effort and incorporates risk as a part of decision making, all of the immigration laws in the world won't stop them from having a demographic collapse with 50-75 years.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
02/27/2006 15:07 Comments ||
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#15
Now they're addicted (literally so) to a life where as long as you do some minimum in life and don't commit a mojor felony the government does basically everything for you and you have little or no risk in life.
If all they're doing is the minimum in life, and with the GDP of western Europe almost equal to that of the US, that sort of tells you something doesn't it?
Posted by: Rafael ||
02/27/2006 15:53 Comments ||
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#23
I have come to think that the sound of crickets is Western-style seething.
Either that or it's the sound of someone desperately cherry-picking links to make an obscure or inane point.
Rafael - initially I meant no overt disrespect, just piqued curiosity - since the number of articles I've read over the last year or so, including from the EU themselves, indicates they are in deep kimchi trouble - and it's getting worse at an accelerating rate - especially the economic anchor of the EU, Germany.
A quick sampling from RB - which means it's only skimming what posters thought would be interesting to the 'Burg:
#24
BTW - I don't want Europe to fail, I want the EU bureaucracy to stop being power-snarfing anti-democratic morons who legislate their member states into poverty via idiotic regressive regs and for the member states to stop their asinine devolution into socialistsic Nana-State oblivion.
#26
initially I meant no overt disrespect, just piqued curiosity
Well, okay. I'll assume you're being honest here.
My criticism was aimed at no mo uro's analysis. The simple fact is, someone, somewhere, must be doing something productive in Europe, seeing how their GDP is 7/9ths that of the US (that's excluding Switzerland and eastern Europe). If they're doing this while at the same time behaving like no mo uro described, then that actually makes them look good: doing a half-assed job and almost equalling the world's best economy. Either that, or - if I was an anti-American loon - I could claim that it's the US who is well below its potential (to put it nicely).
So you see, criticize Europeans if you want, but do it fairly and backed up by numbers and with a sense of perspective.
Posted by: Rafael ||
02/27/2006 17:35 Comments ||
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#27
That's why it takes three generations. You have to learn how to say what you mean and mean what you say.
Suddenly, a large chunk of 4th generation Americans (and beyond) just lost their American citizenship.
Posted by: Rafael ||
02/27/2006 17:43 Comments ||
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#28
Hey, Rafe!
Does it take more of them over there to make that 7/9ths of U.S. GDP?
Posted by: mac ||
02/27/2006 18:19 Comments ||
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About 60 million more. But they're doing a half-ass job, only working 25 years, remember? That's still pretty good.
Posted by: Rafael ||
02/27/2006 18:47 Comments ||
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#30
Summary stats don't quite capture the reality, Rafael. Our workforce is, proportionally, younger. That means a lower average level of experience (which is somewhat correlated to productivity) but greater projected productivity in the future.
Europe's workforce is overwhelmingly older, nearer retirement and a smaller percentage of what young people they do have are actually well educated and ready to contribute to the future economies there.
#31
One other point, Rafael. You equate lower working hours with leisure. While it is true the Europeans have a lot more vacation time and holidays -- all of which they scrupulously tend to take, based on my experience -- a good deal of that non-working time has been shown to be invested in other daily chores for which Americans often have automation or services. That was one of the conclusions of the famous Timbro study comparing the EU and US economies.
By the way, re: GDP per capita, the Timbro report synopsis states:
If the European Union were a state in the USA it would belong to the poorest group of states. France, Italy, Great Britain and Germany have lower GDP per capita than all but four of the states in the United States. In fact, GDP per capita is lower in the vast majority of the EU-countries (EU 15) than in most of the individual American states. This puts Europeans at a level of prosperity on par with states such as Arkansas, Mississippi and West Virginia. Only the miniscule country of Luxembourg has higher per capita GDP than the average state in the USA. The results of the new study represent a grave critique of European economic policy.
#33
"My criticism was aimed at no mo uro's analysis."
I know - and I thought you were dead wrong on first, second, and third reads, but wasn't sure so I asked. What you're saying is all about nuanced POV, I'd say, and a general slap (ineffectually, IMHO) at the Great Satan Moron US.
The key (IMHO) is that increasingly we have less and less in common with Europe. They are on a fast-track to irrelevancy and implosion - on all fronts - and damned proud of it. We ain't going there. Period. Whatever that takes.
Perhaps Qanucks are beginning to wake up, given the recent elections, perhaps not. Your uber-sensitivity and contrarian posts, something approaching a reflexive habit these days, I'd say, make me wonder. I'll leave it at that.
Per capita private consumption is far higher in the USA than in most European countries. American private consumption is 29 per cent higher than in Luxembourg, the country with the highest private consumption in Europe. Compared with the average (EU 15) the difference in consumption is very great. In the USA the average person spends about 9,700 more on consumption annually, a difference of 77 per cent. The average American, in other words, spends nearly twice as much (77 per cent more) on consumption as the average EU citizen.
This is due to a higher level of GDP but also to taxation policy. Allowance for tax differences would reduce these big differences somewhat, but American consumption would still far outweigh its European counterpart ...
Clearly, then, there are very big differences between the American and European economies. A long period of high growth has made the USA far and away the worlds richest region. For several centuries Europe led the world in terms of prosperity and progress.
As little as a hundred years ago, much of the American continent was virgin wilderness. Today, a hundred years later, the USA has completely overtaken Europe to become the unrivalled leader of the world economy. Most Americans have a standard of living which the majority of Europeans will never come any where near. The really prosperous
American regions have nearly twice the affluence of Europe ...
one often hears it said that, high as the level of the US economy may be, many people there are very poor. As we shall see, however, the poverty concept is a very relative one, and poverty in the USA is associated with a surprisingly high material standard of living.
I won't type in all the figures from the tables, but they are eye-opening.
#36
Factor in our military spending for the rest of the world, too. Our military spending is 335.7 billion. Top ten spenders spend 584.5 billion. Japan is the nearest to us at 46.7 billion. Check out the map HERE
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/27/2006 22:32 Comments ||
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#37
Kinda hard to see where France and Germany are getting value for the numbers.
#38
Immigrants take 3 generations to become Americans.
Not really - many folks come here because the place where they came from sucked. Listen to callers on talk radio - some of the most openly patriotic pro-American callers are first generation immigrants.
#39
What you're saying is all about nuanced POV, I'd say, and a general slap (ineffectually, IMHO) at the Great Satan Moron US.
The slap was at the moronic description provided by no mo uro, disproven by facts no less. You've aligned yourself with him or her, it seems, because, well, as long as it's bashing Europe, it must be okay. Sorry, but I don't subscribe to herd mentality. For the short amount of time I've spent living under communism, I've developed a very sensitive bullshit detector.
As for the study, this statement alone convinced me it's not worth investigating further (well, okay, I might): Most Americans have a standard of living which the majority of Europeans will never come any where near.
Most Americans? Majority of Europeans? Someone's exaggerating just a little bit.
I'd stay away from per capita measurements anyway. Just as an example, I'd venture that there are more women in the American workforce, versus the European workforce. That means that there is a considerable segment of the population not working. But does this mean that the overall standard of living is therefore lower? Not necessarily.
Posted by: Rafael ||
02/27/2006 23:23 Comments ||
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#40
I take back what I said about the Timbro study. Anybody who acknowledges the shortcomings of using GDP as a measure of prosperity, knows what they're talking about. Thanks for the link, lotp.
Posted by: Rafael ||
02/27/2006 23:33 Comments ||
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#41
You disproved nothing - you've just taken a pointless position. As for bashing Euros, I "bash" stupid self-defeating behavior, no more.
I'd certainly like them to succeed - and that can only be accomplished if they rid themselves of failed ideologies and crushing bureaucracy. The EU is a disaster.
I believe TGA was the most eloquent - and knowledgable - on the topic and miss his insights immensely.
#3
Goldwater WAS right. But we elected LBJ and it's been all downhill from there. If any of you doubt the saying that God makes great things happen from small things, I urge you to study the Immigration Reform Act of 1965. People today remember LBJ for the Vietnam War. A generation from now people will remember him far more for that Act and Vietnam will be only a footnote. Intended as a throwaway piece of legislation to mollify a potentially restive piece of Johnson's huge post-1964 majority, it changed the country more than anything since the Great Depression and NONE of its authors had the slightest idea of what their actions were really going to do to the country. If they had they certainly wouldn't have done it. I'm sure Johnson is royally pissed to know that he, a proud Anglo Texan, is almost singlehandedly responsible for making Texas a majority minority state. I've never seen a better example of the law of unintended consequences.
Posted by: mac ||
02/27/2006 17:08 Comments ||
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You're absolutely right about that, mac, except that I believe they did have a good idea of what would happen, at least that it would reverse the old preferences for Europeans in favor of their worlders.
I wrote on this topic in grad school at UT. I did a lot of research at the LBJ Library and knew Walt Rostow, LBJ's NSA, quite well. Neither LBJ nor the people around him who crafted the Act really understood what they were doing. Bobby Kennedy is on record, while Attorney General, as saying that there would probably be only 5,000 Asians come to the U.S. in the first year after which "immigration from that source will dry up." Check the Congressional Record for 1965--it's there in the Senate hearings. This Act was to please the urban ethnic pols--Italians, Poles, Greeks, etc. Nobody--except a right wing group whose brochure I found in the LBJ archives--seemed to have a clue about what would really happen. Johnson certainly didn't. You can read The Vantage Point from cover to cover without ever seeing one word LBJ wrote about the Act. It's listed only on the inside cover along with all the other legislation he passed. Like I said before, I've never seen a clearer example of the law of unintended consequences.
Posted by: mac ||
02/27/2006 17:34 Comments ||
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A posting by psychologist-blogger Pat Santy ("Dr. Sanity"); EFL'd to get to the good part. I think she's nailed it here.
. . . From the beginning (was it only 5 years ago?) the Democrats and the left have been hysterically screaming about quagmires and civil wars with their usual generalized defeatism; and more recently we have heard the growing uneasiness on the part of Republicans and neocons that the Bush policies are moving too slowly.
Both the excessive hysteria and the niggling uneasiness come from the same psychological source -- a need to have everything resolved by the 2006 elections; or at the latest by the 2008 elections. The Democrats would like Bush's policies to unambiguously fail; while the Republicans are hoping for unambiguous success.
Too bad both desires will be frustrated.
The kind of major shift in US foreign policy that Bush has initiated may actually take decades to play out; and the repercussions of what has happened in the last 5 years may ripple for half a century or more. That is to say, there will be no instant gratification and no instant and universal successful outcome or failure --i.e., the kind that can win votes and influence money flow in time for the 2006 elections; nor probably for the 2008 ones either.
We are new parents who uneasily hold the tiny crying infant in our large bumbling hands. As we look at this small creature we have created, we have many thoughts and fears.
We might anxiously wonder what the future will bring for him and for us? Will this child grow up to be a doctor? Or a mass murderer? We have no way of knowing at the moment, and can only commit ourselves to providing the nurture and care necessary for optimal personality development.
Initially, the task is messy and rather smelly; but at some point, that small infant will be fully capable of making his own decisions and going forward on his own. For a human infant, that happy day generally occurs somewhere in the teen years.
I have no idea how long it takes for a liberal democracy; but expecting it to mature in 3-5 years requires a excessive degree of fantasy and self-delusion.
Personally, I think we have done all that it is possible to do for the last few years to give the Middle East a chance to grow in freedom and prosperity. We don't have to be perfect parents in this. Winnicutt's concept of the "good enough" parent is applicable here. We are only human, after all. It is simply not possible to sieze every opportunity and optimize every intervention. We have also done quite a bit to ensure the best possible hope for our own future and the continuation of values and freedoms we hold dear. And, we have done amazingly well no matter what the skeptics say.
Life will certainly be interesting in the next 25 years as we watch what has been set into motion and as we deal with other more immediate treats and situations that arise.
And, if we refrain from the reflex need for instant gratification and the demand that everything be exactly as we wish it right now, this very minute--many of us may live to see a positive transformation in a part of the world that now breeds an implaccable enemy of freedom, individuality and humanity.
Does anyone out there have a better idea?
Posted by: Mike ||
02/27/2006 11:59 ||
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This is a breath of true sanity.
Humans are flawed creatures; all of their creations are also flawed. Conservatives seem to inherently know this much more so than leftists, but even they at times forget.
W said that this would be a long haul with setbacks, and that it might outlast our lifetimes. He put our struggles against Islamofascism into terms that anyone who gets humanity's flawed nature should understand.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
02/27/2006 14:49 Comments ||
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Not that I've heard. Certainly nothing from the Dhimmidonks or Moonbats or LLL that serves the interests of the US or of freedom in general.
This is, indeed, a whisper of sanity in a shitstorm of partisan whoring, Islamofascist spew and Shari'a misogyny, the gurgling cries of beheaded innocents, 10-faced Olde Europe dissembling and duplicity, Russkie and ChiCom pimpery and merc proxy misanthropy, MultiCulti Tranzi carping and scheming and thievery, UN bowing and scraping before tinpot dictators, Paleo Hate Machine diatribe, and that instant of total silence after a boomer detonates - before the screams...
My last request: Hold a séance and let me know how it turns out.
Jim Geraghty, blogging from Turkey, wonders if we're seeing a tipping point in Western attitudes toward Islam. Geraghty collects a lot of quotes, and writes of "my sense that in recent weeks, a large chunk of Americans just decided that they no longer have any faith in the good sense or non-hostile nature of the Muslim world."
What's interesting -- and what supports Geraghty's point -- is that Democratic politicians who have generally opposed "racial profiling" are nonetheless opposing the ports deal because, basically, the company involved is an Arab company. It's funny that it's the Bush Administration that has -- not least because it's traditionally been too friendly to the Saudis -- been very careful not to cast the current war as a war against Muslims or Arabs. (It was forever before Bush even admitted that his war against terror was actually a war against fundamentalist Islamic terror.) Obviously, however, the Democrats, and judging by the polls, a lot of other people, feel otherwise.
I think that's unfortunate. Osama and the Islamists want to see an all-out war between Islam and the West. If this happens, Islam will rapidly become a tiny remnant of its current self. You can worry about port security if you want (I did, though I feel better about the port deal now -- though in part because it appears that port security in general is so very bad that this deal can't make much of a difference) but casting this in terms that suggest that we're at war with all Arabs, or all Muslims, just buys into the Islamists' apocalyptic scenario. I don't like to see people in America, by pandering to stereotypes, doing that.
Folks at Rantburg are a lot more informed than the average Joe, so much of this isn't news to us. But I also sense a change here as reflected in the, shall we say, more kinetic nature of comments and the mods increased use of the sink trap indicate. The cartoons episode has shaken a lot of Americans confidence that our current strategy of fighting terrorism while avoiding outright confrontation with Islam can prevail. Comments by the Vatican over the weekend indicate that Benedict has limits on the number of cheeks to be turned also. Perhaps this is a tipping point of sorts on the way to the confrontation the Muslim world sure seems to be asking for.
#1
Comments by the Vatican over the weekend indicate that Benedict has limits on the number of cheeks to be turned also.
Each of us is only born with four apiece and Muslims are amongst the most slap-happy breed on earth. Go figure.
As has been said here before, by myself and others, if the cost of coexisting with Muslims outweighs the cost of exterminating them, guess what happens?
#2
I tend to place a lot of weight on the things they actually say and do, so I was ready to write off the whole stinkin' lot of them right from the git-go. Once you get past thinking that "they can't really mean those hateful things", the logical course of action is pretty clear.
#3
Since I am living and fighting with these guys...this is my opinion. Nobody here is happy with the bombing and I believe this may in the long run be a strategic victory for our side. None of those I work with give a civil war breaking out a chance of happening and if the government can remain committed to being firm and follow the rule of law we may have broken the back of Islamofascism as the President has said. If my folks are any indication of the future we have indeed tipped in our favor
#4
I agree the bombing was a defeat for the terrorists and rejectionist Sunnis. The Shiite riots and destruction of Sunni mosques clearly showed to the Sunnis that they are at the mercy/forbearance of the Shiites, that Sunnis are not the majority and that the "insurgents" can't do jack to protect them from the Shiites. The Sunnis were left naked and they know it.
Posted by: ed ||
02/27/2006 12:49 Comments ||
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#5
the "insurgents" can't do jack to protect them from the Shiites.
Good point, ed. I think Zarq's gang just lost a bunch of street cred.
#6
I've noticed this as well. I said the same the other day. A corner has indeed been turned. It has real potential to turn ugly and I respect George Bush for doing a good job to keep the tensions down as low as possible, while still fighting the war.
As for this port deal - I think too much is being made of the "racist" aspect of this. I think in general, many Americans, like me, just don't think it's a great idea to grant control of our running our ports to foreign countries with a potentially hostile interest; be it Russia, China or an Islamic country. I don't really care if its a good idea or a bad one. I would just feel better if our ports were run by American companies instead. Telling me I'm racist because of it is just a way to stop the discussion without having to really examine what this may or may not mean to our security.
#7
I think that's unfortunate. Osama and the Islamists want to see an all-out war between Islam and the West.
No. They want to continue with the current asymmetric warfare. An all out war, benefits the West.
If this happens, Islam will rapidly become a tiny remnant of its current self.
I can live with that. In fact, I could live with that ever since I did some reading on the history of Islam after my first month of reserve service in Intifada-I.
#8
No. They want to continue with the current asymmetric warfare. An all out war, benefits the West.
More precisely, they want all of Islam fighting while the West continues to sleep.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/27/2006 14:33 Comments ||
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#9
TopMac,
Thanks for the "boots on the ground" intel. Sounds promising and is consistent with some other things I've read.
We still need to deal with the exporters of terror and unrest. These are Iran, Pakistan (territories) and Saudi Arabia (Wahhabism). KSA is key because Wahhabism is at the root of Islamist terror cycle.
#10
For some reason I thought about what would happen if the West used Moabs on selected Mosques during Friday prayers. Better than hitting Mecca or using nukes. Yeah its still a tremendous death toll and would hit innocents as well but when you get down to it, if we could sort out which Mosques were spreading the bile, and the cost of compromise exceeded the cost of extermination.
Well its a bit like Mike Corleoni taking out his enemies at one time. Do we have enough planes though?
When we set up the Alliance of Civilizations last year, we said that it was "intended to respond to the need for a committed effort by the international community â both at the institutional and civil society levels â to bridge divides and overcome prejudice, misconceptions and polarization". We should all be grateful to the Prime Ministers of Spain and Turkey for being prescient in anticipating a vital issue in today's world.
We also said that the Alliance would "aim to address emerging threats emanating from hostile perceptions that foment violence"; and we specifically mentioned "the sense of a widening gap and lack of mutual understanding between Islamic and Western societies".
The passions aroused by the recent publication of insulting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, and the reaction to it, show only too clearly that such threats are real, and that the need for a committed effort by the international community is acute.
by Jay Nordlinger, National Review. EFL & emphasis added.
President Bush had exactly the right words for the blowing up of the Golden Mosque: an "evil act." You could hardly have done anything worse in Iraq. This is taking a match to a tinderbox. The terrorists are sowing hatred, distrust, and, of course, violence.
The terrorists obviously want a civil war. Will Iraqis give it to them? I hope not, and I think not.
I noticed some glee last week, when the country was aflame. (I'm talking about some glee in America.) There are principled critics of the war; then there are those who want it to fail simply because they want it to blow up in George Bush's face, and Tony Blair's, and others'.
I also noticed some loose talk, as in "the Sunnis blew up the mosque." No, "the Sunnis" didn't. Some Sunnis did. They probably weren't even Iraqi. Hajim Alhasani, the president of the Iraqi National Assembly, didn't blow up that mosque. Neither did millions of other Sunnis.
The problem in Iraq as in other situations around the world is that a few thousand can control the news, control the atmosphere, in a sense control the country. But when something like this happens, we shouldn't forget the millions who want to live decently the millions we saw braving dangers to go to the polls last year. Three times.
Will the terrorists be allowed to steal the country from these millions?
I wish to quote one Abdul-Salam al-Kubaisi, spokesman for the Sunni Clerical Association of Muslim Scholars. He was furious at Shiite leaders for urging demonstrations against the Golden Mosque attack.
He said according to wire services "They are all fully aware that the Iraqi borders are open, and the streets are penetrated with those who want to create strife among Iraqis."
Exactly so. There are cool heads in Iraq Iraqi ones and we must fervently hope that they will prevail.
Years ago, I used to read about sectarian violence in India Muslims killed Hindus, by the hundreds, etc., etc., etc. I didn't see how India could survive, as a country. It seemed too unnatural a country: all those religions, all those ethnicities, all those languages. Two Gandhis were assassinated by ethnic extremists.
Today, India is acknowledged as maybe the great juggernaut of the world. No one questions its legitimacy as a country, or its staying-power.
And for years, I would ask Indians whether they felt Indian or Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, or whatever. Not a single one ever answered anything other than "Indian." Some seemed affronted by the question.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/27/2006 14:33 Comments ||
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#3
Ahmadenijad (spelling?) of Iran blamed it on the Americans and the Zionists right away. We've an article here, somewhere, quoting his latest rantings.
Never has an article made me blink with astonishment as much as when I read in yesterday's New York Times magazine that Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former ambassador-at-large for the Taliban, is now studying at Yale on a U.S. student visa. This is taking the obsession that U.S. universities have with promoting diversity a bit too far.
"In some ways," Mr. Rahmatullah told the New York Times. "I'm the luckiest person in the world. I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale." One of the courses he has taken is called Terrorism-Past, Present and Future.
Many foreign readers of the Times will no doubt snicker at the revelation that naive Yale administrators scrambled to admit Mr. Rahmatullah. The Times reported that Yale "had another foreigner of Rahmatullah's caliber apply for special-student status." Richard Shaw, Yale's dean of undergraduate admissions, told the Times that "we lost him to Harvard," and "I didn't want that to happen again."
There is something to be said for the instinct to reach out to one's former enemies. America's postwar reconciliation with the Japanese and Germans has paid great dividends. But there are limits.
During a trip to Germany I once ran into a relative of Hans Fritsche, the top deputy to Josef Goebbels, whom the Guardian, a British newspaper, once described as "the Nazi Propaganda Minister's leading radio spokesman [whose] commentaries were among the main items of German home and foreign broadcasting." After the war he was tried as a war criminal at Nuremberg, but because he had only given hate-filled speeches, he was acquitted of all charges in 1946. In the early 1950s, he applied for a visa to visit the U.S. and explain his regret at having served an evil regime. He was turned down, to the everlasting regret of the relative with whom I spoke. She noted that Albert Speer, Hitler's former architect, was also turned down for a U.S. visa even after he had completed a 20-year prison sentence and had written a best-selling book detailing Hitler's madness.
I don't believe Mr. Rahmatullah had direct knowledge of the 9/11 plot, and I don't think he has ever killed anyone. I can appreciate that he is trying to rebuild his life. But he willingly and cheerfully served an evil regime in a manner that would have made Goebbels proud. That he was 22 at the time is little of an excuse. There are many poor, bright students--American and foreign alike--who would jump at the opportunity to attend Yale. Why should Mr. Rahmatullah go to the line ahead of all of them? That's a question Yale alumni should ask when their alma mater comes looking for contributions.
President Bush, who already has a well-known disdain for Yale elitism from his student days there, may also have some questions. In the wake of his being blindsided by his own administration over the Dubai port deal, he should be interested in finding out exactly who at the State Department approved Mr. Rahmatullah's application for a student visa.
#1
I presume he'll be going for free. What am I saying? Of course he will. I'll cherish that thought every time a mail a payment on my $40,000 worth of student loans.
#3
The Times reported that Yale "had another foreigner of Rahmatullah's caliber apply for special-student status." Richard Shaw, Yale's dean of undergraduate admissions, told the Times that "we lost him to Harvard," and "I didn't want that to happen again."
Yes, they really do live in their own little world, don't they?
The image of Ariel Sharon lying comatose in an Israeli hospital has a haunting quality.
Especially since Hank and Arik are about the same age.
There is the poignancy of the warrior who fought -- occasionally ruthlessly -- in all of Israel's wars, incapacitated when he was on the verge of proclaiming a dramatic reappraisal of Israel's approach to peace. And, there is the prospect that this combative general has transcended his implacable past to show both sides the sacrifice needed for a serious peace process.
A serious peace process assumes a reciprocal willingness to compromise. But traditional diplomacy works most effectively when there is a general agreement on goals; a minimum condition is that both sides accept each other's legitimacy, that the right of the parties to exist is taken for granted.
Such a reciprocal commitment has been lacking between Israel and the Palestinians. Until the Oslo agreement of 1993, Israel refused to deal with the Palestine Liberation Organization because its charter required the elimination of Israel and its policies included frequent recourse to terrorism. After Oslo, Israel was prepared to negotiate with the PLO, but only over autonomy of the occupied territories, not sovereignty. After Ariel Sharon became prime minister in 2001, he unexpectedly came to accept the emergence of a Palestinian state, first as a necessity, ultimately as an Israeli strategic requirement. At the moment of his illness, he was preparing to create the objective conditions for such an outcome through unilateral Israeli actions, including withdrawals from Gaza and major portions of the West Bank.
The Palestinians have yet to make a comparable adjustment. Even relatively conciliatory Arab statements, such as the Beirut summit declaration of 2003, reject Israel's legitimacy as inherent in its sovereignty; they require the fulfillment of certain prior conditions. Almost all official and semi-official Arab and Palestinian media and schoolbooks present Israel as an illegitimate, imperialist interloper in the region. The emergence of Hamas as the dominant faction in Palestine should not be treated as a radical departure. Hamas represents the mind-set that prevented the full recognition of Israel's legitimacy by the PLO for all these decades, kept Yasser Arafat from accepting partition of Palestine at Camp David in 2000, produced two intifadas and consistently supported terrorism. Far too much of the debate within the Palestinian camp has been over whether Israel should be destroyed immediately by permanent confrontation or in stages in which occasional negotiations serve as periodic armistices. The reaction of the PLO's Fatah to the Hamas electoral victory has been an attempt to outflank Hamas on the radical side. Only a small number of moderates have accepted genuine and permanent coexistence.
This is why, heretofore, even seeming compromises were attainable only by verbal gymnastics using adjectives that kept the content capable of incompatible interpretations. The treatment of the refugee issue in the "road map" is a good example. It calls for an "agreed, just, fair, and realistic solution." To the Palestinians, "fair and just" signifies a return of refugees to all parts of former Palestine, including the current territory of Israel, thereby swamping it. To the Israelis, the phrase implies that returning refugees should settle on Palestinian territory only. Peace through superior wordsmithing.
The advent of Hamas brings us to a point where the peace process must be brought into some conformity with conditions on the ground. The old game plan that Palestinian elections would produce a moderate secular partner cannot be implemented with Hamas in the near future. What would be needed from Hamas is an evolution comparable to Sharon's. The magnitude of that change is rarely adequately recognized. For most of his career, Sharon's strategic goal was the incorporation of the West Bank into Israel by a settlement policy designed to prevent Palestinian self-government over significant contiguous territory. In his indefatigable pursuit of this objective, Sharon became a familiar figure on his frequent visits to America, with maps of his strategic concept rolled up under his arms to brief his interlocutors.
Late in life, Sharon, together with a growing number of his compatriots, concluded that ruling the West Bank would deform Israel's historic objective. Instead of creating a Jewish homeland, the Jewish population would, in time, become a minority. The coexistence of two states in Palestinian territory had become imperative. Under Sharon, Israel seemed prepared to withdraw from close to 95 percent of West Bank territory, to abandon a significant percentage of the settlements -- many of them placed there by Sharon -- involving the movement of tens of thousands of settlers into pre-1967 Israel, and to compensate Palestinians for the retained territory by some equivalent portions of Israeli territory. Significant percentages of Israelis are prepared to add the Arab part of Jerusalem to such a settlement as the possible capital of a Palestinian state.
Progress has been prevented in large measure by the rigid insistence on the 1967 frontiers and the refugee issue -- both unfulfillable preconditions. The 1967 lines were established as demarcation lines of the 1948 cease-fire. Not a single Arab state accepted Israel as legitimate within these lines or was prepared to treat the dividing lines as an international border at that time. A return to the 1967 lines and the abandonment of the settlements near Jerusalem would be such a psychological trauma for Israel as to endanger its survival.
The most logical outcome would be to trade Israeli settlement blocs around Jerusalem -- a demand President Bush has all but endorsed -- for some equivalent territories in present-day Israel with significant Arab populations. The rejection of such an approach, or alternative available concepts, which would contribute greatly to stability and to demographic balance, reflects a determination to keep incendiary issues permanently open.
So far Hamas has left no ambiguity about its intentions, and it will clearly form the next government in the territories. A serious, comprehensive negotiation is therefore impossible unless Hamas crosses the same conceptual Rubicon Sharon did. And, as with Sharon, this may not happen until Hamas is convinced there is no alternative strategy -- a much harder task since the Sharon view is, in its essence, secular, while the Hamas view is fueled by religious conviction.
Hamas may in time accept institutionalized coexistence because Israel is in a position to bring about unilaterally much of the outcome described here. In principle, there would be much to be said for a comprehensive negotiation, especially if the United States plays a leading role and if other members of the "quartet" -- the United Nations, Europe and Russia -- that drafted the road map appreciate the outer limits of flexibility. It requires above all a Palestinian leadership going beyond anything heretofore shown and a willingness by moderate Arabs to face down their radical wing and make themselves responsible for a moderate, secular solution.
The danger of a final-status negotiation is that absent a firm prior agreement among the quartet, it might shade into an incendiary effort to impose terms on Israel incompatible with its long-term security and inconsistent with the parameters established by President Bill Clinton at Camp David and in his speech of January 2001 and by President Bush in his letter to Sharon in April 2004. Final-status negotiations in present conditions would probably founder on the underlying challenge described earlier: Do the parties view this as a step toward coexistence or as a stage toward final victory?
Does this mean the end of all diplomacy? Whatever happens, whoever governs Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the parties will be impelled by their closeness to one another to interact on a range of issues including crossing points, work permits and water usage. These de facto relationships might be shaped into some agreed international framework, in the process testing Hamas's claims of a willingness to discuss a truce. Truce? I thought we understood the "cooexistence or pause on the road to extinction" choice?
A possible outcome of such an effort could be an interim agreement of indefinite duration. A 'pause' of infinite duration? Now that's a concept!
Both sides would suspend some of their most intractable claims on permanent borders, on refugees and perhaps on the final status of the Arab part of Jerusalem. Israel would withdraw to lines based on the various formulas evolved since Camp David and endorsed by American presidents. It would dismantle settlements beyond the established dividing line. The Hamas-controlled government would be obliged to renounce violence. But only after the Jooos do everything else, right? It would also need to agree to adhere to agreements previously reached by the PLO. A security system limiting military forces on the soil of the emerging Palestinian state would be established. State-sponsored propaganda to undermine the adversary would cease.
Such a long-term interim understanding would build on the precedent of the Israeli-Syrian disengagement agreement, which has regulated the deployment of forces in the Golan Heights since 1974 amid disputes on a variety of other issues and Syria's failure to recognize Israel.
Whether Hamas can be brought to such an outcome or any negotiated outcome depends on unity among the quartet oops. Remember, the 'quartet' includes the UN, EU, and Russia
and, crucially, on the moderate Arab world. Sigh. Where are those moderates?
It also remains to be seen whether the Israeli government emerging from the March 28 elections will have Sharon's prestige and authority to preserve Sharon's strategy, to which the acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has committed himself. A diplomatic framework is needed within which Israel can carry out those parts of the road map capable of unilateral implementation, and the world community can strive for an international status that ends violence while leaving open the prospect of further progress toward permanent peace. Nice words, Henry. It'll be a long time coming.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/27/2006 07:37 ||
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#1
Everybody knows that's best for Israel better than the Israelis.
For a true definition of martyrdom, she points to the sacrifice of Riyanto, a young man dispatched with other members of the Nahdlatul Ulama youth militia during Christmas several years ago to guard churches threatened with attacks. When he discovered a bomb outside a church, he tried to throw it out of the way of the crowds and was killed when it blew up. Ms. Wahid and others mark the anniversary of his death every year. "We always tell this message: This is the real case of martyrdom. That's the way to defend religion, not by killing others but by defending others' rights to practice their religion."
Think Islamic fanaticism arises from material want? Think again.
by Bruce Thornton
Coming hard upon the heels of the cartoon riots and the election of the Hamas terrorists, the destruction of the Shiite mosque of the Golden Dome in Samarra by Sunni jihadists, and the subsequent Shiite bloody retaliation, should put to rest Western delusions about the true nature of Islam. But dont hold your breath. Such displays of Islams violent intolerance have been coming thick and fast the last few decades, and can be found on every page of history going back to the 7th century, when Islam began its expansion with the blood of several hundred decapitated Jews.
Yet still some Westerners, enthralled to their own materialist assumptions and multicultural we are the world sentimentalism, wave away this evidence and reduce this destructive behavior to any and every cause except the one that counts: spiritual belief. So we hear that the violence is caused by a lack of jobs, or a lack of liberal-democratic institutions, or frustration and insecurity about the dismal backwardness of most Muslim states, or wounded pride in the face of Western success, or resentment of Western imperialist and colonialist sins, or oppressive autocrats, or . . . take your pick. The same therapeutic mentality that thinks destructive behavior in teens results from a lack of self-esteem reduces the religious values of Muslims to mere epiphenomena, as the Marxists see it, symptoms of some underlying condition rooted in material deprivation, political impotence, or psychological trauma.
The problem with Islam, however, is not a lack of self-esteem but too damned much. This is a faith fanatically certain of its truth and righteousness, the culminating vision of Gods relations with humanity, the ultimate meaning of human existence on every level, including the social and political. ...
Meanwhile, all our attempts to bolster Muslim self-esteem, our desperate protestations of respect for their wonderful religion, our groveling apologies for exercising our own rights and values, our donning of the hair-shirt of racist, colonialist, or imperialist guilt, do nothing more than convince the jihadist that his spiritual superiority is justified. He looks at our appeasement, our fear, our rationalizations, our self-doubt, our unwillingness to defend the values we preach to the world, and sees the craven inferiority of the dhimmi, the conquered infidel who must acknowledge by his public actions the superiority of Islam, and who must pay the jizya, the poll tax that purchases his trembling security. Only we call the poll tax foreign aid or welfare payments, and the gestures of submission respect for diversity. We think our submission buys us affection and gratitude and respect for our interests, but in fact it purchases nothing except more contempt for our spiritual bankruptcy, more scorn for our belief that money and material comfort trump spiritual truth.
The true measure of our failure adequately to respect spiritual motives can be taken from the Bush administrations steadfast refusal to put the crisis with Islam in these terms. The materialist left, of course, has been taught by Freud and Marx that religion is an illusion, so obviously we cant expect them to grasp how powerfully spiritual imperatives can move people. But when a self-proclaimed born-again Christian either cant or wont see the clash of spiritual goods underlying the conflict, then we know how thoroughly the materialists have done their work of marginalizing religion in the West. Go and read the whole article.
Posted by: ed ||
02/27/2006 07:45 ||
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#1
The problem with Islam, however, is not a lack of self-esteem but too damned much.
A link between the Mullahs and the NEA. I'm not surprised.
#5
Perhaps the best example of this contempt for our spiritual foundations came when the President apologized for using the word Crusade.
So true. I've been taught from school that the Crusades were 'evil'. Funny there was not a peep of the 'Convert-or-Die' bloody Islamic expansion which preceeded it. I shudder to think what appears in todays history books - if the how 'The Crusades' on the Oh-we-in-the-west-are-so-evil History channel is any indication.
#9
Radical Islam = Leftism-Socialism = the solution for their failed/dying -ism, short of self-reform or power-sharing, is to go GLOBAL, i.e. more Leftism, more Socialism, more Islam, NOT STAY LOCAL OR REGIONAL. MARX, STALIN, and MULLAHS are NOT wrong - its the lazy Capitalist Democratic anti-Regulation anti-OWG Infidel Dogs and future Global Slaves-Peons whom aren't working hard enough, or being worked hard enough, so that Local-National-Regional-Global Gummermint can take more. Remember, its incompetent, dishonest, Rapist Molester Abuser, Robber Baron, Imperialist Male Brute Fascist = Limited Communist
"WASHINGTON WHOM ISN'T GIVING ENOUGH". TO CALIFORNIA, TO FEMA/NOLA, DETROIT, WEST VIRGINIA MINE SAFETY, and .................@now PORT-GATE.
POOR CLINTONIAN AMERIKA, A BLOG POSTER > WE'RE A SOCIALIST NATION-WORLD MOVING TOWARDS COMMUNISM AND THE LEFT DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO STOP IT!?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A Muslim scholar has warned against what he calls a grave threat to Islams moral centre posed by extremists. Prof Khaled Abou El Fadl, a professor of law at the University of California at Los Angeles, argues in his book The Great Theft that Muslims should wrest control of the discourse on defining what being a Muslim means in the modern world away from extremists. In a commentary on the book, Emran Qureshi, a fellow at the Labour and Worklife Programme of the Harvard Law School, credits the UCLA professor with retelling the tradition of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) as a moderate man who avoided extremes.
The image of Ariel Sharon lying comatose in an Israeli hospital has a haunting quality.
