May 17, 2007
Via National Review: A knowledgeable, thoughtful, and clear-eyed reporter might also consider that local civilians in areas dominated by the Taliban almost always claim that there are no Taliban, and have never been any Taliban, in their area. They make this claim out of either fear or loyalty. During fierce fighting in September in the same Panjwayi area, the local elders also claimed, absurdly, that there were no Taliban around, even though more than 500 of them were killed in pitched battles there and the area is at the center of the movement’s heartland.More important, it is standard operating procedure of the Islamists in Afghanistan — as it is in Lebanon and Gaza and Iraq — to claim that all casualties on their side are civilians. Indeed, the Taliban would be grossly incompetant at asymmetric and information warfare if they didn’t make that claim. (Just as al Qaeda operatives and sympathizers would be foolish if they did not cry “torture†when detained at Gitmo or elsewhere.)...
...You might expect journalists to take some note of these practices and of the propaganda element of the war, and accordingly to exercise a little caution, if not skepticism, before they unquestioningly parrot an allegation of mass civilian deaths. (Surely they must be aware that reports of an atrocity can have enormous real world effects? Surely they have some sense that various Afghan players might lie in order to advance their cause?) Generally, however, they do not. For the most part, Taliban claims are assumed to be true. Statements by Coalition spokesmen, on the other hand, are a different matter. Such officials are said to make “claims,†and they are essentially assumed to be propagandists, if not flat out liars, by many correspondents (who won’t say as much in print, of course, but ask them about it over a drink).
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In other words, the MSM is winning the information war.
Posted by: Jesusland Carlos at May 17, 2007 12:29 PM (8e/V4)
A Pakistani group here in Chicago has been recuiring Black Muslim Terrorists in Illinois Prisons for years:
From our Windy City Terrorists over at http://www.iiie.net/ we get the antithesis of other post on Jihad and the hackneyed Muslim apologies for Terrorist Murders – this group is a pioneer in recruiting in Illinois prisons:
There's a Chicago Connection to Islamberg, the Radical Muslim paramilitary compound flourishes in upper New York state
By Paul L. Williams Ph.D., (author of THE DAY OF ISLAM)
With the able assistance of Douglas Hagmann, Bill Krayer and Michael
Travis
Friday, May 11, 2007
Dr. Paul Williams at the entrance of Islamberg
Situated within a dense forest at the foothills of the Catskill
Mountains on the outskirts of Hancock, New York, Islamberg is not an
ideal place for a summer vacation unless, of course, you are an
exponent of the Jihad or a fan of Osama bin Laden.
Jihad: Interpretation and Exceptionalism
by Asma Barlas
The title of my talk is "On Interpretation and
Exceptionalism" and it deals both with the way in which
most people in the U.S. perceive Islam, and the way in
which Islam-in particular, its scripture, the
Qur'an-deals with the concept of jihad.
As someone who has been asked to speak about Islam only
a couple of times in the ten years I've been at Ithaca
College, it's obvious to me that this new interest in it
is the result not of positive developments but of
people's desire to make sense of the attacks on the U.S.
allegedly by a group of Muslim men, which has left them
fearful, angry, and bewildered.
The irony is that looking to Islam alone may not provide
the answers, or the closure, that people are seeking.
As Robin Wright says, "mining the Quran for incendiary
quotes is essentially pointless. Religions evolve, and
there is usually enough ambiguity in their founding
scriptures to let them evolve in any direction. If Osama
Bin Laden were a Christian, and he still wanted to
destroy the World Trade Center, he would cite Jesus'
rampage against the money-changers. If he didn't want to
destroy the World Trade Center, he could stress the
Sermon on the Mount."
Even if one doesn't agree with this view, the point is
that every religion-or secular ideology, for that
matter-offers the possibility of violence and peace,
oppression and liberation, depending on who is
interpreting it, how, and in what particular contexts.
As I always say, there is little family resemble between
modern liberation theology and the Christianity of the
Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Conquest.
And yet, ignoring that every religion is open to
multiple interpretations, many people are attacking
Muslims for making "it sound like there are two versions
of the Koran floating around out there. If so, what is
the difference between the Koran that the Terrorists are
reading, and the Koran that the rest of the Muslim world
is reading? . . . I need to have the 'real' Islam please
stand up." (This is from an article forwarded to me by a
friend with no title or bye-line).
Yes this is true - unfortunately the most respected Islamic "Scholars", who are regarded as knowing what "Real" Islam is seem to differ:
"Abu Hurayrah, may Allaah be pleased with him, narrated that the Prophet
sallallaahu 'alaihi wa sallam said: "I swear by the One in Whose Hands my soul
is, I wish that I would fight for the sake of Allaah (i.e., Jihaad) and get
martyred, then return and fight again and get martyred, then return and fight
again and get martyred" (Bukhaari & Muslim)
Khomeini stated that the "Quran says: kill,
imprison! Why are you only clinging to the part that talks about mercy? Mercy
is against God"; and, "We need a Khalifa (leader of Islamic state) who would
chop hands, cut throat, stone people."
Pakistani radical Muslim theorist Syed Abul Ala
Maududi declared that "Islam requires the earth - not just a
portion, but the whole planet - not because the sovereignty
over the earth should be wrested from one Nation or several
Nations and vested in one particular Nation, but because the
entire mankind should benefit ... from 'Islam' which is the
programme of well-being for all humanity.
Maududi insisted that non-Muslims, although free to practice
their "false, man-made way," have "absolutely no right to
seize the reins of power in any part of God's earth nor to
direct the collective affairs of human beings according to
their own misconceived doctrines." If they do, "the believers
would be under an obligation to do their utmost to dislodge
them from political power and to make them live in
subservience to the Islamic way of life."
The same author-who says he's a Catholic-also says he
doesn't "want to hear [the] history about the Crusades,
or the U.S. foreign policy crap, or . . . comparisons
[of Islam] to Christianity and Judaism." Thus, while
wanting Muslims to explain which Qur'an we are reading
and which is the real Islam, he himself chooses not to
explain the difference between the bible that the
Crusaders and Conquistadors were reading and the bible
he has been reading, nor to convince others why his
Christianity is the "real" one.
Such a strategy not only lays upon Muslims a burden that
believers in other religions refuse to bear themselves,
but it also obscures the fact that the bloodiest
conflicts, like the two World Wars, have had secular,
not religious roots. Even those conflicts we think of as
religious can be shown to be about power and resources,
not merely ideology. This is no less true of the
Crusades, than it is of the conflict between Catholics
and Protestants in Ireland, or Jews and Muslims in the
Middle East, or even the attacks of September 11th.
We might, therefore, be better served by trying to
understand the political and economic conditions that
engender conflicts and religious extremism; but this
would require us to focus on the nature of our own
foreign policies and also to recognize the complicity of
secularism, capitalism, and liberal democracy in
creating a global division of labor that, in privileging
the few at the expense of the many, has provided the
breeding grounds for much of modern day extremism,
religious or not.
The Crusades again? Sheesh! Can't you do any better than that?
Second, even if we are to refocus attention away from
politics and economics by looking only to religion to
explain the events of 9/11th, I doubt that the
confusion, hostility and fear most people are feeling
these days are conducive to understanding Islam or for
engaging in an honest dialogue with Muslims.
Ironically, even those people who are not necessarily
angry with Islam will find it hard to have such a
dialogue so as long as they continue to assume that
learning about Islam will enable them to make sense of
9/11 inasmuch as this expectation arises in the
assumption that there is a connection between Islam and
terrorism.
It is this assumption that reveals the extent to which
people think of Islam as exceptional and, in so
thinking, do deep epistemic violence to it. Let me
clarify with an example.
Try this one first that easily explains the events of 09/11/2001 -
Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders
World Islamic Front Statement
23 February 1998
Shaykh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Ladin
Ayman al-Zawahiri, amir of the Jihad Group in Egypt
Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, Egyptian Islamic Group
Shaykh Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan
Fazlul Rahman, amir of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh
Praise be to God, who revealed the Book, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in His Book: "But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)"; and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad Bin-'Abdallah, who said: I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but God is worshipped, God who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders.
On that basis, and in compliance with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God."
Terrorism and Islam's Exceptionalism
Modern forms of terrorism were introduced into the
Middle East in the 1940s by Jewish groups in then
British-occupied Palestine. It was the Irgun, the Stern
gang, and the Hagana that began the practice of bombing
"gathering places [and] crowded Arab areas [in an
attempt to] terrorize the Arab community" (Smith, 1992:
19; 140). The Stern gang even attacked Jewish banks,
resulting in "Jewish loss of life" (120). The Irgun, as
we know, "slaughtered about 250 men, women and children
whose mutilated bodies were stuffed down wells" in the
village of Dair Yassin (143).
Even though many such terror tactics continued until
fairly recent times, people in the U.S. did not put
world Jewry on call by asking Jews to explain what
Judaism has to say about killing innocent civilians.
People may have denounced these terrorist groups-freedom
fighters to many-but they did not call on all Jews to
explain which Torah or Talmud the Jewish terrorists were
reading, or asked the "real" Judaism to "stand up."
Why, then, this assault on Muslims to explain what their
"bible"-as that savant, Larry King, calls the
Qur'an-teaches about violence? (He even badgered Hanan
Ashrawi, assuming that because she's Palestinian, she's
a Muslim, even though she's not.) The same people who
say (like the anonymous author I quoted earlier does)
that they don't give a "rat' ---" about Islam
nonetheless are shrieking for the "real" Islam to stand
up!
In an atmosphere where only Muslims are expected to keep
protesting our humanity and to defend our religion, my
politics dictated that I should not speak at all in any
forum on Islam. But, my religion teaches the jihad of
knowledge and, as a Muslim, this jihad is obligatory for
me. That is why I am here today, to speak to you about
jihad.
Jihad in the Qur'an
The word jihad means "striving" or "struggle," and not
"war". So, the Qur'an speaks of the jihad of the soul,
of the tongue, of the pen, of faith, of morality, and so
on. This is the "greater jihad" and it is what allows us
Muslims to actualize our identity as Muslims.
There is also the jihad of arms whose aim is to struggle
in the cause of God; this is the "smaller jihad" and it
permits fighting as a means of self-protection. There
are a number of verses in the Qur'an about this form of
jihad and I will quote two of the main ones:
"Permission to fight is given to those against whom war
is being wrongfully waged-and verily God has indeed the
power to succor them-those who have been driven from
their homelands against all right for no other reason
than their saying, 'Our Sustainer is God.' For, if God
had not enabled people to defend themselves against one
another, all monasteries and churches and synagogues and
mosques-in all of which God's name is abundantly
extolled-would surely have been destroyed [before] now"
(22: 39-40).
Again the Islamic scholars do not agree on this -
Posted by: George M Weinert V at May 17, 2007 12:47 PM (16B+V)
Posted by: George M Weinert V at May 17, 2007 12:48 PM (16B+V)
Posted by: Randman at May 17, 2007 02:35 PM (Sal3J)
Posted by: Kevin at May 17, 2007 03:00 PM (/ndDU)
The terrorists have no better friends.
Posted by: Muhammad Wasa Fuquad at May 17, 2007 03:13 PM (P6kNY)
USA, all the way!
Posted by: Michael Weaver at May 17, 2007 03:41 PM (2OHpj)
The duplicity of the leftist MSM runs silent, runs deep. All ideologies are driven by two concepts: the Vision and the Grievance. The Vision is a future ideal scenario (e.g., for Socialists, the worker-controlled, levelled society; for Islamists, society as it was with Mohammed). The Grievance is a present-time, frustrating impediment to the Vision (e.g., for socialists, Big Oil profits, for Islamists, the infuriatingly beautiful, diaphanous dresses of the Dubai Film Festival). This Vision-Grievance template works for every movement from neo-nazis to boy scouts. The catastrophe for the left is the near-death of their Vision, the SOCIALIST PARADISE. They ally with Islamists because they will sacrifice anything to thwart Bush.
The values of the MSM are very congruent with Socialism, but not with liberalism. They will do anything to defeat bush and the Reps., they hate them because they are Bourgeoisie. They are not just criticizing them, they are trying to destroy them. They hate that Bush is winning the war, they hate that Bush will take credit for it, they hate that they cannot beat Bush, they hate Reagan because he demolished Socialism. They make alliances with Islamists, and apologize for them because they make common cause with them in defeating Bush.
They are not loyal to America, they are loyal to the Socialist Internationale. They would rather live in a defeated America than a Republican America.
If you dispute this theory, then explain to me why they are obviously conducting a propaganda war against the USA, and the entire West? Canada, Britain, France, everywhere, is full of MSM who are dedicated to defeating liberal democracy. At least in Canada, they admit that they're Socialists, and vote for the Socialist party.
Many posters here seem to think the MSM are dumb, or pig-headed. They're not, they are very smart people. They know exactly what they are doing.
Posted by: DemocracyRules at May 18, 2007 12:06 AM (L/SIz)
Posted by: Michael Weaver at May 18, 2007 12:39 AM (2OHpj)
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