“Along the Paris streets the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in the…Guillotine.” – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Do I have to draw you a picture of how Islamism is just pretending to be moderate and plans to fundamentally transform the society in countries like Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Turkey? Well, I’ll let the most respected Muslim Brotherhood theologian, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, do it for me.
Let me underline that when Qaradawi answers a query, millions of people listen. Egyptian military officers and their families watch his show raptly and so do many others. And Qaradawi isn’t just talking for the sake of talking — he is teaching the revolutionary strategy of seizing all power for all time and imposing all of the Sharia on all of the people. Qaradawi is Lenin in a turban, as was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who did a little number on Iranian politics after the same people who are telling us now that the Brotherhood is moderate were telling us then that the Iranian Islamists were moderate.
If only government officials, journalists, and “experts” would read and comprehend things like this, they might understand what’s happening in the Middle East and how their policy is headed for disaster.
Qaradawi explains:
Gradualism is one of the laws of nature that Allah Almighty has created. It is also needed in applying the rulings of the Sharia to make a change in people’s life.
When used by Communists decades ago this approach was called the “salami tactic” — you go step by step to consolidate your power and go all the way. This is precisely what the “Turkish model” means. And, of course, the point of the exercise is to fool the dummy observers into thinking you are just great guys and very moderate. Incidentally, in this case the salami will be halal.
You invite them to dinner, butter them up, and then have them for dinner. If I were a cartoonist, I’d draw a picture of a man standing in front of a crowd, some of whom had their hands up. The caption would be: “Ok, that’s 23 votes for killing all the Jews first, and 17 for destroying America first.”
Qaradawi gives scriptural reasons for the gradualist approach:
The Prophet … stayed in Mecca for thirteen years struggling to shake the false beliefs the Meccan people had adopted. Then, for another ten years, Allah Almighty revealed to him … the laws that the Muslims would live by. Gradualism played an effective role in that regard. That was shown, for example, in prohibiting alcohol, riba (interest), and other vices [only gradually].
Of course, going step by step “does not mean that we are to be sluggish and delay achieving that aim for too long.” You have to maneuver strategically. That’s what the Muslim Brotherhood does so well and the one-track terrorist minds of al-Qaeda are incapable of doing.
Qaradawi explains:
Abolishing slavery then would have led to economic and social uprising, so, it was wise then to deal with such a problem in an indirect way (by, for instance, regarding setting a slave free as a good deed and making it an expiation for some sins). This implied a gradual abolishing of slavery.
So does imposing slavery.
You see, “Muslims have been socially, legislatively, and culturally invaded.” In other words, they have been influenced by Western notions such as nationalism, equality of religions and women, human-made laws, and so on, so they won’t abandon everything but Islamist-interpreted Islam overnight. They will resist. And so they must be lulled to sleep. And the same applies to the “invaders,” that is, the West so it doesn’t cause any trouble either.
And you need to build a mass base:
If we want to establish a real Muslim society, we should not imagine that such an end can be achieved by a mere decision issued to that effect by a king or a president or a council of leaders or a parliament.
To win that mass base the vanguard party — and here I deliberately use Marxist-Leninist terminology because the strategies are parallel — must be “preparing people ideologically, psychologically, morally, and socially to accept and adopt the application of the Sharia in all aspects of life. … Step by step, and through wise planning, organizing and determination, we can reach the last and long-awaited stage of applying all the teachings of Islam heart and soul.”
To get the point across, Qaradawi ends with a story:
Umar ibn Abdul-Aziz’s son, Abdul-Malik, who was a firm pious young man, said to his father one day, “O father! Why you do not implement the rulings firmly and immediately? By Allah, I would not care if all the world would furiously oppose us so long as we seek to establish the right [that Allah Almighty has enjoined].”
But the wise father said to his son, “Do not deal with matters hastily, son. Allah Almighty despised drinking alcohol twice in the Quran and did not declare it forbidden [until] the third time. I am afraid that if I enjoined the right on people at one stroke, they would give it up all at once, which might lead to sedition.” (See Al-Muafaqat by Ash-Shatibi, vol. 2, p. 94.)
Given the history of the Middle East and the facts on the ground, I agree with you, Dr. Rubin, that the immediate future of the Middle East is not at all bright.
It is almost a certainty that repressive and brutal radical Islamic regimes are going to run the Egyptian and probably the Libyan governments and try to inflict their hard line Sharia law on those countries and ultimately the rest of the Middle East Arab Islamic nations.
But there is always the chance that these regimes will run into serious and effective secular opposition. Moreover, these Islamic regimes will have to address the real problems afflicting their peoples, the price of food, unemployment, poverty, and lack of education.
I don’t think they will be able to, nor do I believe that they can arrest enough, torture enough, exile enough, imprison enough, or even execute enough to hold on to power if they fail to govern productively.
Or maybe they can.
Please, the serious and effective liberal opposition is the Western Nations funding the IMF and the World Bank, that are going to fund the peaceful transition to Fundamentalist Shariah Autocracies….instead of actually opposing them and standing in the way of their ascendancy by refusing them handouts.
Money we dont have ourselves and will be saddling our children with that debt.
Insanity!
You can’t “oppose” people from being themselves, you can only cut off their immigration into the West. The idea that there is a Thomas Jefferson inside every Muslim is the problem, Muslims have never stopped being Muslims, we just started looking at them differently due to political correctness.
The British had a great disdain, generally speaking, for Islam in their colonial era but you can’t show that anymore, even if it’s merited and if you stop showing it enough, following generations start to believe ot on faith as if this new equality is true and this becomes their world view, no matter how depraved the society.
“Moreover, these Islamic regimes will have to address the real problems afflicting their peoples, the price of food, unemployment, poverty, and lack of education.”
There is an time tested answer for that. “THEM!” The outsider. The ‘Different. First comes the secularists and Christians who are inside the tent. Then comes the non-compliant Arab/Islamic nations. Then Israel. And Finally the West. They can distract their people for quite a while with enough blood shed.
I would posit that the left wing liberal elite in the West admire the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists precisely because those groups aim to practice the absolute power to which the Western “progressive” elite aspires. Encomiums to Lenin abound in the left wing literature in every country in Europe and the Western Hemisphere.
The Arab world has never known democracy as that term is used and practiced in the West. All of the “democracies” in the Arab/Islamic world use or used a very repressive police force/internal intelligence service to keep opposition to a minimum.
Re: your…..”The Arab world has never known democracy as that term is used and practiced in the West. All of the “democracies” in the Arab/Islamic world use or used a very repressive police force/internal intelligence service to keep opposition to a minimum…..”
I agree completely.
We Americans (and anyone else who wants to come around…) are wasting our time/money thinking that “Democracy” as we have come to pratice it, is, in Arab hands, anything but a mere facade for the Arab status quo ante.
They have mastered the use of English as a medium for their taqiyya, and we English speakers must develope more vocal Arabic speakers to translate, publish and expose this Arab chicanery for what it is.
Raymond Ibrahim and Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes are the role models here…..but they cannot do this job alone.
There will come a tipping point where we American will find ourselves on the downward slope towards the very same dhimmitude as the Britanistan, Paris-istan, and Amsrterdam-istan wide eyed citizens have lapsed into so unwittingly.
“Unwittingly” is the key word here, and it is manacled and chained intimately with that insidious “political correctness” malignancy.
We Americans must, right now, face the fact that being “in a state of war” does not mean that “a state of war” has to be “declared” by our enemy…which is Islam. The continual adherence to this anacronistic chimera of Geneva Conventions and Rules of Warfare makes us Americans the objects of smirking ridicule by Muslims/Islamists everywhere.
We simply must come around and recognize this as an operationg premise of the insidious infiltration of Islam. We must recognize that the “cells” for this new infiltration are …no surprise…the Muslim madrassas and mosques right now well established in our midst.
These well trained and well positioned working facilities must be recognized by us Americans for exactly what they are…..culture media inside these Petri dishes containing and nourising embryonic Islamic blasytocysts.
No pun intended, but a pretty good metaphor, all things considered.
A great posting by Charlie Griffith, thank you.
Thanks, Paul R….
These are the times that I want to take our Congress by their collective neck and shake them…hard. This current “administration”, of course, is beyond hope until it is completely replaced.
As a Canadian and Israeli, it is nonetheless perfectly clear to me that Israel is at war with Hamas and Associates in Gaza as well as in the Westbank. Israel is also at war with Hezbollah. That there are few incursions into Israel on their part recently does not mean that there is any lasting truce nor is that meant to be. It is simply a pause. Given that we (Israel) are enduring these wars (not subtle in the case of Hamas), it makes sense that our internal politics must reflect this fact. In other words, the liberties available during peacetime are often suspended, with good reason, during wartime. In Israel, there is a very strong faction of voters which wants NGOs put to heel, or at least to become transparent in their (normally) leftwing funding and to, at the very least, to pay taxes on their foreign funding. The rightwing (of which I am a member) is attacked as being “undemocratic” not only by the Israeli left but by the American left as well (see Hillary Clinton’s uninspired critiques). In the end, however, if Israel is to survive, it must recognize that it remains in a state of war. That may mean a full attack in Gaza again but this time going all the way and eviscerating the enemy, the Hamas leaders and infrastructure. It’s better for Israel if it makes it apparent now that we are in a wartime situation.
Now, as for the USA, Canada and the western European democracies, the same concerns hold. It appears too late for the latter, however, but not for the USA and Canada. In other words, let’s recognize that Muslim violence and strategy are directed towards our respective demise and, upon recognition, defend ourselves against the enemy.
It’s amazing to me to see people who want to filter the world’s problems in this regard through a population smaller than greater Chicago but yet when others filter it through a much larger population consisting of hundreds of millions of people they’re portrayed as provincial.
Gazans don’t hate Americans, they hate Israel. I can be on your side but please don’t act as if it IS your side.
If the Gzans don’t Hate us why did they celebrate on 9-11?
What percentage of Gazans celebrated this event? You just revealed what you want to believe and next to nothing about reality.
What do you really know about Gazans, Jerry. Your reply suggests you are disingenuous to the third degree. You’re engaged in what Freud long ago termed “displacement”. Incidentally, you might check out the MEMRI website, Jerry, since you appear to have no firsthand knowledge of your own. Not only does the Gazan population despise Israel, the people despise Jews. I suppose it’s too much to ask if you ever viewed the “celebration” in Gaza City while Gilad Schalit was under Hamas cover. One-hundred thousand turned out to watch the mockery of Schalit, his mother and father. Of course, you did view how they danced on rooftops in celebration of 9/11? You didn’t? Well, I’m just shocked, Jerry. And here you portray yourself as a knowledgeable man all to ready to instruct us.
Absolutely great point on the necessity of more Westerners understanding what’s really going on in the Arab world.
I’ll add my 2 cents: http://www.memri.org/ is an excellent source for English speakers to “go through the looking glass”. They also put a ton of videos on YouTube, translated / captioned excerpts from Arabic media.
Liberals don’t know anything about Islam. All they know and care about is that Muslims occupy the right side of the class/race struggle and that is automatic membership. If you were gay, Muslim, black and a woman, better. If you come from a place where they still sell cassettes you get a door prize and asylum too.
“If you were gay, Muslim, black and a woman, better.”
Only here in the “unenlightened, non-mystical” West. In an Islamic country, the “you” in question would more likely be dead.
It isn’t just that Western “progressives” are in love with Islamism because they see it as a useful tool for destroying the civilization they hate (ours). It’s also that they resolutely refuse to see that Islam violates all the tenets they believe in, as well.
Of course, in the 1930s, Walter Duranty & Friends were busy simultaneously worshiping “the proletariat” and covering up for Stalin’s purges in Russia, so it’s not like they’re not used to this particular sort of schizoid behavior.
The true genius (or insanity) of modern-day “liberalism” is its ability to hold two or more diametrically-opposed and mutually-exclusive opinions simultaneously, while insisting that (a) both are absolutely, undeniably true and (b) that they are not contradictory.
The progressive love affair with Islamism, while insisting that its atrocities against what they otherwise regard as “protected classes” do not exist, is a case in point.
As Orwell observed, how do you argue with someone who is more intelligent that you are (according to them), listens to your objections to their actions, and then persists in those actions, even when they are obviously irrational?
The answer is, you don’t. You just keep them away from sharp objects. And especially keep them from having any sort of power over you, political or otherwise.
As Mr. Spock would say, to do anything else would be illogical.
clear ether
eon
In my opinion that “insanity” of modern day liberalism comes about because they have no over arching philosophy though they empatically think they do.
Take one of the Left’s favorite themes, that “we” came and systematically killed native Americans. There is no “we” went it suits the Left and their weird notions of equality but there IS a “we” when it suits a different argument.
In my world, I see Europeans humans pushing Iroquois humans in one area and Aztec humans pushing out others and the Crow being pushed out by the Sioux and on and on. On the Left, somehow success is okay when it has the right skin color or is one “race” on another but then on another day “race” vanishes and so you do have mutually exclusive ideas in a liberal mindset because they don’t think but knee jerk these issues one way and then another.
I have an awful time understanding how so many can suffer from cognitive dissonance, but they do. Perhaps liberals truly are nuts and that is depressing all in itself.
Brother it don’t take much to instruct a man who writes “we (Israel)” and lives in Canada. If you’re so gung-ho go live in Israel. It’s called putting your money where your mouth is.
And don’t forget to drop a line about what percentage of Gazans celebrated 9/11. Heck, anything. 98% 2%, what? For a guy addicted to worthless generalizations why stop now?
I think you are right; they want power. they also want to destroy western civ and its religious basis. Why? I don’t quite get it. When you say elite you mean white liberals. The animosity of other groups is another topic. Their position is reasonable in a way, though not liberal. They practice self love and they want to overcome the Other. Western liberals say, overcome me, which is a strange position. What I wonder sometimes is, is this the only alternative to racism or fascism, that you set no value on your heritage. Liberals are angry that a football player prays on the field, but they are really welcoming the Islamist takeover of Egypt, which means the government will impose a harsh religious regime and of course it is terrible news for minorities. The elites are not against religion but only the religion of the west. I struggle to understand the total lack of loyalty or appreciation of one’s ancestors or history. There is no other people who think like this. Must liberalism be this?
“Egyptian military officers and their families watch his show raptly…” Really? Who? How many?
And Qaradawi is not a member of the MB. I agree his “my way or the highway” is a formula for failure and this failure in the past in comparison to the West may even be a stubborn badge of honor. Certainly such thoughts were on the mind of Sayd Qutb, the MB hung by Nasser for his writing.
But you have to qualify failure and look at this culture through their own eyes. Egyptians would like to have the chicken in every pot and 2 cars in the garage but at what price?
Look at America and see what it is they fear: concerts by such people as Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears only lack ping pong balls flying out of private parts to separate those shows from Bangkok’s Patpong Road prostitution district.
Lesbians across the U.S. have “Pants Off, Dance Off” contests routinely in bars and clubs and one doesn’t have to look on YouTube for more than a few seconds to find video of 12 year old cheerleaders and teen age Prom Dances with simulated sex.
Add in the protected status of tax dollars given to deluded transexuals and parents who want their boy in the Girl Scouts and then multiply this by about a million and add in massive violent crime and then tell me why Muslims enjoy being Muslims. One can make an argument that if the Salafis represent a distorted and overly constrained view of family values, that America represents a wholesale overturning of those values.
Do Muslims feel threatened by this: yes they do. It’s why the Salafis in Egypt are calling for an end to so-called “beach tourism” in Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh. But even average Egyptians are not big fans of blatant sexuality and crime and in fact who is really other than crazy youngsters who need the ante upped a little each generation so much do they suffer from ennui and a disdain for any preceding generation – where does that mathematical spiral lead to?
I’m not saying I agree with any of this but to portray this as strictly religious and political is wrong. Conservatism in Egypt does not derive solely from Islam as Christian Copts and liberals agree on many of the topics I have raised.
And the MB will simply use the natural conservatism of the population to enact stricter and stricter laws to control the population. In the end, it is not about modesty, it is about control and servitude. Ask the Persians how that’s working out for them.
To say it’s about control completely separated from subject matter carries no weight. Muslims and other conservative Egyptians don’t want to just control: what are Christian Copts in Egypt controlling when they are against Gay Pride Parades? This is about a value system and not liking it doesn’t discredit its existence.
“what are Christian Copts in Egypt controlling when they are against Gay Pride Parades? This is about a value system and not liking it doesn’t discredit its existence”
so they prefer annihilation to gay pride parades?
As well they should. Better to die as martyrs for Christ than to assent to wickedness.
You’re gliding around the issue: I’ve asked Christian Copts and they are vehemently against anything like a Gay Pride Parade in Tahrir Square. This has nothing to do with a secret plan to control Egypt since Christians comprise 10% of the population; this is their value system and Muslims have their value system and those values don’t always come from religion or secret goals.
In America many pride ourselves on our Judeo-Christian values yet we have no equivalent of Sharia and so it is with some Muslims too and yes, Christians in the Arab world. Many people in this world dislike gays who have never seen a Muslim so there is something else riding alongside the Koran.
You are right, Jerry, at least as far as you go. American style democracy will also bring about the demise of the traditional power structure in Muslim countries in which husbands (and men) hold the reigns of power. This is also a fear. They blame the West for this. One can view this in terms of the Arab/Israeli battles in which Israel has brought the light of a new democracy to the region, breaking the taboos including the failure of the father’s (and men’s) hegemony to continue to rule. Israel is an immediate culprit because it is so geographically close to the Arab world. In fact, even internally this strong divisions between the Tel Avivers and the Charedim and Israeli Arabs causes fissure.
The latitude of self expression on the part of Americans and western peoples is seen by many to be licentious. It is partly. And, at the same time, we’ve embraced many despised minorities whose practices we condemned, and turned in our tracks, and asked… in a democracy, in a just civilization, shouldn’t these people be safe to be different, if they aren’t hurting others? We don’t all endorse all the practices one can find on their fringes, and maybe even more commonly among them. But we can say that we don’t slaughter rape victims— we don’t give licence to the alpha-male abusers— often they have to run for their lives. THAT is how it should be. We have brought out gay living from the closets to a beautiful extent. We have more to do. We have brought women’s rights from the shadows to the mainstream. That is us… and it should make us hoop and holler with pride, even as we recognize that there is more to do. The new puritans can choose for themselves, but no longer contain self expression as they may have in the past, keeping their own extravagances out of view, and insisting that all others cowtow to their proprieties.
I agree Mark: Americans are noted eccentric individualists who also have, generally speaking, a great tolerance for difference in others if not exactly sympathy.
Americans are famous within their own culture for being crazy nuts who hoarde til their house if full, who devote their lives to UFOs, who spend 10,000 dollars to stuff their dead pet, are nuts about comic books and on and on and on and on.
The thing is that I don’t think most Americans understand how rare this is in the Third World and particularly within Islam. They are not great eccentrics. For decades Egyptian film has been a leader in the muslim world and yet they are mostly comedies with some romance and period pieces with virtually no murder mysteries, horror stories, science fiction or any other of the bewildering variety one finds in America and the UK. This is starting to change now but it is copy cat liberalism from the West and is not connecting with Egyptian audiences in a big way though even that is starting to change.
The point is that you cannot change from without but must from within and Islam is a culture that is utterly different from America. They have different ideas about what makes love, marriage, a hero etc. and our ideas are percolating in and confusing Islamic culture somewhat and this is frightening the conservatives, mostly the religious ones. They are not Harry Potter fans but instead, in Saudi Arabia, will execute a witch, something they just did. Yes, very different imperatives and Thomas Jefferson and his notions of the divine right of kings and rights of men are no where to be found in real terms; just a few Westernophiles.
Pasting here a nicely terse gem from Jerry Ghazal nearby….
…”The point is that you cannot change from without but must from within and Islam is a culture that is utterly different from America.”
That short sentence is the essence of why I believe we should not have one more mass application of our young troops on the Islamic controlled landmass of Asia. The “spread of Democracy” there is a mirage. Moreover, this naif, simplistic idea of “outreach” of any sort to Islamic controlled areas is the height of misapplied effort….simply because it must of necessity come from without.
Who can sensibly imagine changing Islam from without? Why waste time attempting to imagine Islam changing of its own accord from within?
Here again, the English Speaking Union must realisticlly begin to circle our culturally allied wagons to preserve our hard earned independence by once again forming a tighter unity; this time against the tyranny of the re-emergence of the Muslim/Islamic Caliphate which remains the ambition of jihadist Islam. This has been festering since about 1920 in varying guises.
That carving up of the Ottoman Empire and creating those artificially mandated countries by the European victors of 1918 was but a pause in the current attempt at a re-application of the Islamist Caliphate.
Islamists say so themselves; and, this time they want to get beyond their earlier frontier at Tours/Poitiers/Vienna…..and 1914……notice solidifying enclaves in Britain….the very source of the English speaking diaspora.
This is the malignant threat that we Americans simply must bestir ourselves from our lethal politically correct inertia to recognize…right now. And, after the 70th Anniversary of the surprise attack of the Japanese attack on Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor……with no Declaration of War ….we Americans see no parallel of that with Islam’s surprise attack against our American commercial and political capitals in 2001, with no Declaration of War.
What will it take to wake us up to the existential threat of jihadist Islam?
I agree but you can’t make a frickin’ move in the West without being called a racist. Even in the face of 17 yr. high unemployment the UK is bringing in immigrants like they’re assembling Noah’s Ark. Wells’s Martians never caused as much damage. And Democrats now want illegal alien voting in the U.S.
Who’s crazier: Salafis or politically correct morons? I honestly can’t tell. Both seem hell bent on suicide.
And the National Socialsits Deutches Arbeit Party was just another leftist labor party in Germany.
You invite them to dinner, butter them up, and then have them for dinner.
Apparently New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof had dinner with the Brotherhood.
On this issue of the MB playing a double game, I think what in fact is happening is what is happening all over the Third World and has for some time: these failed cultures have zeroed in on political correctness like a con man zeroes in on his mark.
The Third World knows the weaknesses of the Western Left, the correct buzz words, the correct victim and racial status to portray and all the rest. They use it to lie their way into the U.S. by using fake asylum/refugee status, they cry “racism” at the drop of a hat and generally game the system. The MB is talking out of one side of their mouth about “Islamophobia” and other issues in the same way Latino and black American activists do.
The MB wishes America was Muslim and Latinos and blacks want their demography to win too and have crowed about it openly on live TV as regards the expected white minority in America in 2050. But woe betide the white European who wants to maintain their demography: they are a racist.
I say end all immigration; end it now. Keep out these morons in their entirety.
As I recall, the good Doctor Guillotine was contracted by the Estates General to devise a more egalitarian execution. Beheading by the sword was a privilege of the nobility at the time, considered more humane than what was reserved for the peons, and so the good Doctor came up with a method so everyone could be executed in the same high status way. Talk about the Age of Reason getting rid of those petty class distinctions! Try and get a modern doctor to participate in an American execution today and they hide behind the Hippocratic oath. Ah, the modern selectivity for ancient Greek traditions; how about if you don’t participate in the killing and dying by the sword (M16 or AK47) as a member of the army, you have no right to participate in a democratic government as an elected or appointed official?
D.D. in answer to #3 above came up with a perfect example..”Ask the Persians how that’s working out for them.”
In 1979 the people rose up against what they saw as a repressive regime in the Shaw. They wanted freedom and democracy. The Islamists backed the peoples revolution and promised to make things right. Khomeini spoke of how bad things were and how beautiful things would be if he were in charge. How he would work for and with the people and listen to their will.
As soon as he was in charge the “change” began. Those that opposed him suddenly disappeared or committed “terrible” crimes against the revolution and wound up in jail. The Jails became torture chambers where the “criminals” were forced to confess. “Free” elections were held and the Islamist party gained more power. Few dared suggest the elections might be rigged. Those that did either disappeared or were jailed. The elections were allowed to continue though the candidates had to be vetted by the Islamist rigged system. When the system screwed up and allowed a reformer to win they quickly joined forces inside the system to render the reformist powerless.
The 2009 election caught the powers that be off guard but they quickly responded and are still in the process of beating the people back into the party line. Why the people of Tunisia and Egypt didn’t see this part of the 2009 demonstrations I don’t know. Obviously they thought it couldn’t happen to them. I mean, look at us, we got free elections and everything. The MB fought by our sides, surely they wouldn’t go back on their word to stand with us. They just want a few minor adjustments to fit in with their beliefs. We can give them that little bit for helping us get our freedom. And so it goes.
You’re wrong: the Shah wasn’t kicked out because he was repressive but too liberal and too fast. He outlawed “purdah” the practice of keeping women hidden in rooms or strictly veiled.
I just read a book about Persian Shia Hyderabad in India around 1800. An English doctor had to visit his aristocratic female Shia patient on the other side of a wooden screen, only feeling their hands which was considered quite a thrill by some. ‘Nuff said. This is purdah. Ironically Iran is said to lead the world in nose jobs; no joke. No, they’re not veiled like they used to be but it’s an ongoing issue. I remember reading a few years ago about men being prohibited from working in lingerie shops in Iran.
A former lamb buying customer once told me,”I have a duty and an obligation to lie to you, to cheat you, and to steal from you.” This was in the 1990s. Just another Hadji that no MSM media guy has ever found to interview.
Let’s face it Barry, Western Leftists peddle so many lies as truth themselves, that they couldnt distinguish lies from truth anymore, even if they wanted to. Truth is relative, a personal construct, anyways.
All that matters to them is power, the power to destroy Western Civilization and create their Utopian Visions.
Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Turkey will end up like Iran or Saudi Arabia. The only difference is that in Saudi Arabia you still have a monarchy, whereas in Iran the mullahs have taken the place of the monarchy. It will be interesting, though, to see how soon it will be before they start going after each other’s throats. Saudi Arabia has no love for Iran and will fight them if it comes to that (probably with nuclear weapons). I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at how messed up our foreign policy in this region has become, thanks to Obama and Clinton.
and so, you have described ‘Progressivism’, which is based on the messianic muslim principles of the baha’i.. islamic ideals have been trojan horsed into America using the idea of ‘Abrogation’ (precedent)..
Long have the elite sought to crush Jesus.. the baha’i showed how to bring islamic principles into American Christian culture.. thereby ‘Progressing’ forward away from absolute Christian principles..
don’t believe me? look up the history of Abdul Baha.. the man who spread the word of Progressive Revelation..
Our state dept and bozo in chief promote radical Islam as the most authentic form of Islam. This is why Obozo did not intervene in the Iranian cry for freedom and promoted the fall of Mubarak, when he has done very little against Assad. Both Iran and Syria are more anti-US, so they must be more authentic. A second term Obama will ensure that Iran gets nuclear weapons for the following reasons.1) He feels that Iran needs a nuclear deterrant to keep the US from foreign misadventures 2) A nuclear Iran could put pressure on Israel in a way that the Democratic Party would be unable to
The only thing America cares about in that region is oil and extracting it at a reasonable price. We want things quiet, not necessarily democratic and Israel, for different reasons, wants the same thing. We also want us doing the keeping things quiet and not the Chinese or Indians who also want and need cheap oil to keep their economies growing; we should be charging them policing fees.
Please sirs, can you give us back our RQ170? We seem to have lost it.
The correct definition of a True Liberal is: An elderly, crippled, transsexual, minority person; with an ethnic surname.Those several factors may be physical, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, or self-perceptive. Oprah and Shirley are the ultimate liberals as they perceive themselves to be deity- hence liberated from all constraints.
What an excellent article!
Islam, pragmatically, is Sharia, and Sharia cannot be perceived as “moderate” by any sane, literate person.
If the jihadists succeed in enslaving us it will be because we chose to remain ignorant of their declared designs. Motivated by stupidity, sloth, greed, lust, selfishness, we, as a people, are not fit to rule ourselves.
In the 2012 elections Obama may well win again, when the votes of the ficticious, the dead, the insane, the imprisoned, the government handout leeches and the amoral are counted; sometimes more than once per person.
Whence then? Panama, Costa Rica, Belize?
How about the Moon?
Of course Mr. Rubin is right, its islam. Egypt will go faster than Iran in 1977. There are more muslims!! They will kill who they have to and we will help. When the calls for food for the starving come in we will support the bruthu’s…and we should be ashamed of our selves. and about the soudi beheadings?
The bigger deal is why do we berate the chi-coms more than these barbarians?….OIL!! and we should be ashamed of ourselves. Newt was right about the pali’s- the Jews are right the arabs are wrong. We all know it and we have always known it. Why won’t we say?….OIL!! and we should be ashamed of ourselves. I am an athiest and I just stopped! reading a large part of the Koran. What a joke! Are you kidding me that we give this supremicist totalitarian ideology the time of day, why?….OIL!! and we should be ashamed of ourselves.
We are LOST as a people and a civilization if we continue much longer; if it is not too late already.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/12/more_deafening_silence_on_saudi_arabias_human_rights_abuses_comments.html#disqus_thread#ixzz1gU0HwbPn
If an Arab had non-stop cynical and disingenuous articles gloating over Israeli and Jewish problems on a non-stop basis, it would be considered anti-Semitism 90 ways from Sunday. But in this world, just disagreeing with an Israeli policy puts kapo hats on Jews and Swastikas on Christians.
Try this on for size: a proportion sandwich and hold the double standard.
Man!
Taqqiya or Islamically sanctioned LYING to protect or to PROMOTE Islam is not only allowed but is encouraged by the Koran for Mohammedans to practice, especially when talking to Jews and Kafirs. You therefore cannot take anything a Mohammedan tells you at face value but must search to find their true, usually nefarious, motives. Over the years I have perfected a fool proof method of detecting when a Mohammedan is lying to you its easy just watch, when his mouth opens and you know he is lying.
I think Taqiyya is overblown. You’re talking about people routinely characterized as depraved but then needing some technical dispensation to lie in this one area of activity? That doesn’t even make sense.
People lie because they lie, not because they went to a Notary Public.
Gradualism, salami – all sounds a lot like what Fatah has for decades refered to as the Stages Plan.
We have a little Spenglerian world-fear in this situation: Islam also opposes democracy on its face.
What no one mentions is that before Islam the area was dynamic and prosperous. The Romans saw the East and Africa as their wealth. Now the region is dead, thanks to Islam.
Why should we care what Egypt does? If foreign aid stops, the place starves. If there is propping to be done let the oilies do it.
People forget that you can’t manage everything, Israel most of all: you can control your actions and that’s it.
“If I were a cartoonist, I’d draw a picture of a man standing in front of a crowd, some of whom had their hands up. The caption would be: “Ok, that’s 23 votes for killing all the Jews first, and 17 for destroying America first.””
Label it “I
“If I were a cartoonist, I’d draw a picture of a man standing in front of a crowd, some of whom had their hands up. The caption would be: “Ok, that’s 23 votes for killing all the Jews first, and 17 for destroying America first.”
Label it ‘ISLAMIC DEMOCRACY IN ACTION’.
We are in need of a new Peter The Hermit to activly preach a modern CRUSADE against Islam.
Or do we bide our time playing the appeasment game while waiting for the Chinese to finally get a belly full of the Islamists and applying the Mongol response to the problem.
In the Considine family we’d say that the massive incompetence within Islam at nearly all levels of human endeavour save complaining is it’s own Crusade. We just have to stop letting them emigrate into the West. Islam will then overwhelm itself by sheer stupidity. Having large families in an area of the world largely de-forested 2 to 5,000 years ago ain’t exactly brainy and one river only has so much water, no matter how many times you march around a meteor.
Voting in Suez now. Sandmonkey reports people arrested for filming Nour (Salafi) Party violations outside schools. In Suez the Revolution seems to have been supported almost entirely by the port workers and the left.
Tweet from Suez: “Its not about the power of what ppl want now, its about those few ppl who have the power to force what they want.”
One of the funniest things I’ve seen is a California LGBT organization speaking out in support of Palestine. Yeah, put on a rainbow bracelet and take a walk through any Palestinian city. See how they’ll treat you. ….f**king idiots, supporting their own death.
You’re right: it’s a perfect example of knee jerk liberals who live by buzzwords and one’s victim/social status rather than an actual philosophy of life. If a gay man walked around in Tahrir Square dressed in a Gay Pride costume and a man with a giant Star of David t-shirt, the gay would be killed outright first and the Jew assaulted, survival problematic.
Rational, intelligent people understand that in the end, radical Islam will destroy Western civilization because their “religion” demands it of them. And, they will accomplish this with the help of the West’s weakness and gullibility.
Or, Western civilization will destroy radical Islam. But, if that destruction is not total and complete, the “beast” will grow again. There is no grey area here. And, unfortunately, there can be no other solution. Deep down iside, we all know this to be true. The question for Western civilization then becomes, do you prefer to win, or lose?
Od dawna szukałem artykułu na temat Rubin Reports » Middle East: We’re Going to Have a Revolution and We Can Do it the Hard Way or the Easy Way . Dzięki
Hi, I read your blogs regularly. Your story-telling style is witty, keep it up!