An Open Question to Osama Bin Laden — or Any Other Islamist
Now while most Muslims may not go around evoking Islam’s dichotomized worldview which pits Islam against the rest of the world — many may not even be aware of it — bin Laden, the “man of grievances,” has. (This, of course, has long been an al-Qaeda tactic: convince the West, which is generally ignorant of Islam’s bellicose doctrines, that jihad is a byproduct of foreign policy, while inciting Muslims to the jihad by stressing its obligatory nature.)
Back to bin Laden and his communiqués. For all his talk of Israel being the heart of the problem, he exposed his true position in the following excerpt, which he directed to fellow Arabic-speaking Muslims not long after the 9/11 strikes:
Our talks with the infidel West and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue — one that demands our total support, with power and determination, with one voice — and it is: Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually?
So much for bin Laden’s insistence that Israel is the “reason for our conflict with you.” Now we see that the conflict ultimately revolves around whether Islam is obligated to dominate the world by force. Well, is it? Bin Laden continues:
Yes. There are only three choices in Islam: [1] either willing submission [conversion]; [2] or payment of the jizya, through physical, though not spiritual, submission to the authority of Islam; [3] or the sword — for it is not right to let him [an infidel] live. The matter is summed up for every person alive: Either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die. (The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 42)
This threefold choice, then — conversion, subjugation, or the sword — is the ultimate source of problems. All Islamist talk of jihad being a product of U.S. foreign policy is, therefore, false. When bin Laden asserted in this last message that it is the “neocons” who “impose the wars upon you — not the mujahideen [i.e., jihadis],” he lied. Islamic law, as he himself delineated, imposed war between Muslims and non-Muslims well over a millennium before the “neocons” — let alone the state of Israel — came into being.
Thus to all of bin Laden’s grievances and questions, there is but one counter-question — one that, in the words of bin Laden, “demands our total support, with power and determination, with one voice” — and it is: even if all your grievances against Israel and America’s support for it were true, why come to us — your natural-born enemies, according to your own worldview — looking for any concessions?
To better appreciate this position, consider the following analogy: Say your weaker neighbor has a border dispute with you. At the same time, however, you know for a fact that he sees you as his “eternal” enemy for nothing less than your beliefs/lifestyle, and nothing short of your total acquiescence to his beliefs/lifestyle will change that. Finally, you know that the day he grows sufficiently strong, he will undoubtedly attack you in order to make you live according to his beliefs/lifestyle.
Surely in this context, whether his border dispute with you is legitimate or not, making concessions to him while knowing his hostility for you will never subside — but rather become more emboldened and augmented with contempt — is sheer suicide. Yet this is precisely what happens whenever the U.S. makes any concessions to Islamists.
In sum, we, the “infidels” — Americans and Israelis alike — are de facto enemies. It is in this context that the question of U.S. support for Israel should be examined. Being hated and deemed the enemy for temporal grievances of a political nature must be viewed as peripheral to being hated for fundamental differences of an existential nature.
When the latter, much more important issue is redressed, then — and only then — should the veracity of the former be open to debate or even consideration. In the meantime, all “political” complaints must be seen as absolutely moot. It’s a simple matter of priorities.





After all the blood and billions of dollars that we infidels have poured and continue to pour into the Muslim world have we ever receieved one ounce of gratitude in return? The answer is NO, and we never will. The obvious reason is that Islam never ever sees any reason to thank those it plans to subdue or kill. We must extricate ourselves from this insanity ASAP and begin a comprehensive education program so that every U.S. citizen has a basic working knowledge of Islam, its history, goals and attitudes toward the non-Muslim world. Let that education program begin on Capitol Hill and in the Pentagon.
Ibrahim makes a valid point and one that should concern us all. If you study the Koran, Hadith, and Islamic history you will realize that what Ibrahim says is true. We need to alert people of this. U.S. energy and immigration policy plays right into the hands of the Islamists, and that is no accident. And they contributed millions for the election of a U.S. President who thinks he can sweet talk them into peace. Be concerned and be educated, Americans.
Thank you for exposing (along with Robert Spencer) the overt and “stealth” Jihad that is upon us. We can’t possibly defeat the Jihadist threat if we don’t understand the nature of the enemy to begin with. Most will ignore your warning to thier own detriment. (good luck on getting the apologists on the left to listen)
Great article!
What I like best about it, is that it points out the obvious, what the PC crowd does NOT like to acknowledge. There is no moderate Islam and Radical Islam. There is one Islam and it teaches JIHAD!
Forget this lesson at your own peril.
As strange as it may sound, I actually “knew” a hardcore islamist through an online car forum that I used to visit a lot when I was into local street racing. I had a huge number of very heated debates and arguments with him for a period of about 3 weeks on a wide range of issues related to islam, religion, geopolitics, etc. I had a very strong suspicion that he was a terrorist supporter even though he tried extremely hard to hide it and come off as someone who was simply opposed to American and Israeli foreign policy. He sounded exactly like an islamic American liberal for most of our correspondence basically. He atteneded college in America and was now living in Dubai doing God knows what for a living.
He very often quoted and referenced prominent leftist Western intellectuals and organizations like Chomsky, leftist anti-Israel Jewish groups, the huffington post, daily kos, the new york times, etc. So if you think Western leftists don’t offer aid, support, incitement and justification to our enemies you’re completely wrong. Overly-self-critical leftist rhetoric clearly serves islamist propaganda efforts not only in muslim majority areas but in the developed world as well – usually to brainwash other Westerners. People and organizations like Chomsky and the huffington post are just as influential on islamists as their local radical imams are – I kid you not.
What I also took away from his backstory was that the idea of inviting 3rd world islamists to our universities to recieve an advanced education (or even inviting them to immigrate here permanently) in order to “civilize” or “enlighten” or to somehow persuade them into moderating their ignorant extremist views by them developing close personal relationships with Americans (which will make them more friendly to America or to even take back their new enlightened Western values to their native countries I guess the theory goes) in order to liberalize their own societies is complete and utter naive nonsense. In fact I concluded that the exact opposite seems to have happened to him.
It seems his experiences at multi-culturalist “Israel, the West and America is evil and islam is a really an amazing religion of peace worthy of our admiration” Western universities only increased his warped islamist world view. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where he got his crazy islamofacist world view from after my experiences at college. He also made it quite clear that all those mean things “evil conservatives” say about islam are 100% true. Islam does indeed command muslims to use conventional military force when capable to slaughter and enslave “infidels” and to force strict sharia law on them. He wasn’t shy about acknowledging it. That is indeed what mainstream interpretation of islamic scripture teaches he said.
But he sickly qualifed that admission by saying nobody should worry about that though since muslims are much too weak right now to do that and besides islam was mainly spread through trade and convincing people to convert through speech he claimed (not true). But he also admitted that if muslims ever become powerful enough to invade infidel lands in order to further the dominance of sharia law then they have to do so in order to stay in line with islamic scripture (which, let me tell you, not surprisingly made me seriously worry about all the oil money and foreign aid we send to muslim majority countries – time to change that ASAP).
He also admitted to other embarrassing barbaric muslim beliefs like the acceptance of pedophilia, polygamy, complete and total subjugation of non-believers, attempts to ban all criticism of islam, etc. He essentially brushed it off saying such taboos are irrelevent since under muslim law girls are legally allowed to be “married” (aka raped) once they reach sexual maturity and that muslims trying to ban all criticism of their religion (aka free speech) is a sign that they care more about their religion than Christians care about theirs. He later admitted that he was planning to join the “jihad” (aka the taliban I’m guessing since he started quoting official taliban reports near the end of our correspondence) in Afghanistan as soon as he saved enough money which was going to be pretty soon he claimed.
But here’s the kicker: In the last few posts before he left – when he started to openly admit that he was an islamist – he clearly stated that his main motivation was forcing strict sharia law over the citizens of Afghanistan and Pakistan through violent jihad. He even quoted the relevant koran and hadith scriptures commanding all good faithful muslims to do exactly that as if it was a suicide note. So basically islamists are what the leftists often accuse us of being – foreign violent imperialists. And what should be worse yet in the minds of anti-Christian leftists – they were violent religious imperialists. But where’s the outrage from the leftists?
Instead of venomously condemning them as they would Western Christian Crusaders they readily defend them, make excuses for them and lionize them. No wonder the large majority of Afghan citizens hate the taliban and support foreign troops being in their country. Only 6% of Afghans want the taliban to win and something like 80% support foreign troops according to polls – the exact opposite of the situation in Iraq (and something even code pink is starting to realize appartently). Anyway, the oppurtunity to enforce strict sharia law over a defenseless and helpless people with a weak central government above all else was his main motivation for going to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
And that’s what these islamofacists look for. Not foreign troops, not Soviets, not Americans, not Jews, but the craphole places of the world where they can force sharia over defenseless simple people and use guerrilla warfare tactics and terrorism to fight off and intimidate any attempts by the weak central government to kick these foreign jihadists out. And you see them doing exactly literally throughout the entire world. This kind of evil islamofacist crap isn’t just limited to Afghanistan and Pakistan. You see it in the Philipines, in Russia, in Afric, etc. It’s truely a global war against islamism. I wouldn’t even call it a clash of civilizations. It’s decent humanity vs 8th century islamist barbarism.
And the same thing is also happening in the Western world but in a more underhanded passive aggressive way since our governments and socities are much more powerful and advanced than the 3rd world. They mass immigrate here and create their own mini sharia states which they use to spread sharia over the “infidels” not with swords, guns and bombs but with slow generational demographics like they did in Lebanon and are doing in countries like France and others. They take advantage of our openness, our liberalism, our tolerance, our values of multiculturalism and exploit them. It’s safe to say that I got a whole new appreciation of just how dedicated and deceptive these islamists are.
That candid correspondence with an islamist opened my eyes to their truely global and evil agenda. By the way, they think all the innocent people they kill are “martyrs”. Yes, even fellow muslims. I have to say this problem is much larger than just a handful of “criminal thugs” llke Michael Moore called them…
This article points out something profound;
Islam cannot coexist with any other culture! Either Islam will destroy all other cultures, or Islam will be destroyed. There is NO middle ground!
Islam has gone to war with the rest of the world. From the world trade center to China; from Chechnaya to Mindinao; all over the world there are conflicts, instability, violence and murder caused by Islam. No one lives in peace with Islam until they have beaten the Islamists down to the point they decide to wait for better circumstances, or they have been subjugated and enslaved.
Islam has gone to war with us; it is time we went to war with Islam! You cannot ignore the dog gnawing at your ankles forever, especially when the dog keeps getting bigger! If you ignore him too long, before you know it he will be too big to kill and instead of gnawing at your ankle he will be tearing out your throat!
Careful, Mr. Ibrahim! Citing actual facts and verifiable history like that, right out in front of God and everybody, could get you a reputation.
One of the worst of all our self-delusions is that dar al-Islam can be mollified by anything less than the total subjugation of the world under the black flag of Islam. Muslims pledge fealty to the concept when they accept Islam; they’re not permitted to dispute the Qur’an, which Islamic dotrine claims is the immutable and eternal word of Allah. Why imagine that any Muslim would dispute the command to jihad if compelled to answer honestly, in the presence of his militant co-religionists, just because only a fraction of them act on its mandates?
We are locked in a permanent struggle with an enemy who will accept nothing except our destruction. The alternatives are horrifying — quarantine or genocide — but that doesn’t make them any the less absolute. There is no way out.
And oh yeah, they definitely don’t want peace with Israel. The only “peace” they’ll accept is the complete dhimmification (aka submission and oppression) of Israeli Jews, the death of all Israeli Jews, or their complete conversion to Islam. Yep, you read that last part right. All the hatred of Israel would end immediately if the Jews all converted to islam. So much for this being a struggle over refugees and lost land aye? It’s all 100% about islamic intolerance for other religions. Osama has invited us all to islam as well. If we convert to islam then they won’t have a problem with us anymore either. This is about islamic religious imperialism plain and simple. Not grievances or historical injustices. That’s absolutely clear when reading their private letters, phone transcripts, internet postings, etc. They just use historical and political grievances for propaganda purposes to gain legitimacy and sympathy for their actions and cause – and Western leftists fall for it hook line and sinker (and so does the far right like Ron Paul to be fair). Make no mistake that their real motivation is 100% theological. They are TRUE believers. They really think that spreading sharia through violent jihad is allah’s will and that those 72 virgins are waiting for them.
from exdem “After all the blood and billions of dollars that we infidels have poured and continue to pour into the Muslim world have we ever receieved one ounce of gratitude in return? ”
Gratitude does not exist in Islam. If you are compelled to help someone or do someone a favor, then you did so because you are weak. And you are weak because Allah has made you weak. The Islamic response to any aid, help or kind act is to demand even more concessions and hold the person giving help in contempt.
If Christianity were substituted for Islam
in the 3rd world, the result would be
priests crying “Jesus Christ and no quarter”
as they blessed their suicide bombers.
Read History. Get a clue:
Prosperity denatures religion, rendering it
harmless.
Now the question is: how do we convince The One to act like the Christian he says he is! We have a right to defend ourselves and, more importantly, our government has a Constitutionally-mandated OBLIGATION to defend our citizenry. Next thing they’ll do is take our guns away so we can’t defend ourselves. Wake up, America!
Radical Islam is essentially borne of a need to deflect blame for their problems, namely poverty, onto non-Muslims. As time passes, it becomes harder and harder to argue that the west is to blame for all of their ills, and so their methods become more radical and desperate. The nagging question for bin Laden and his contemporaries has to be: How much longer can we continue to convince our followers that the west, and only the west, holds the key to our futures? Eventually the Arab world will tire of the outlook that they have no control over their own destinies, given of course that we have the resolve to defeat their captors.
M. Report., does someone pay you to be that stupid, or is this just public service on your part?
Let’s take a peek at the third world, shall we?
Philippines: Christian North – certainly poor, but relatively peaceful & certainly NOT extremist. Muslim South – rampant jihadist bombings, torture, kidnapping, and rape.
Sudan: Muslim North – open slave trade (in non-Muslims), genocide and mass rape. Christain South – A tortured population, raped and murdered on an industrial scale, and yet somehow manages to NOT embrace extremism? Why is that?
Thailan: Bhuddist North – generally prosperous for the 3rd world, certainly there is crime and ethnic rivaliries, but somehow no “Bhuddist extremists”, if such people even exist. Muslim South – routine beheadings for non-Muslims, kidnapping, suicide bombings and assassinations.
South America is largely Christian. Yet there is no secular extremism. Europe is nominally Christain; where’s the secular extremism? Asia is a mix of Bhuddists, Taoists, animists and others, yet strangely, where ever you don’t find Islam in Asia, there’s no secular extremism. How is that?
But basically, anywhere you encounter Islam on Earth, you’ll also find significant extreme violence, intolerance, bigotry & oppression. Those are things one might expect a liberal apologist like yourself to actively oppose.
But you don’t. Why is that?
Islamic fundamentalists share the same basic worldview that Christian fundamentalists adhere to. They believe their religion is the one true way, and that there is a better world awaiting them after death. This is, and always has been, a recipe for disaster.
There is no factual basis to the claim that Islam is a particularly violent religion – ostensibly Christian nations have a bloodier history by far. The solution to this problem is not to dig in for trench warfare – it is to educate people so they don’t fall prey to religious indoctrination. The problem is not unique to the Middle East – we have our own religious extremists in the USA who are also quite dangerous.
Reducing religious conflict can only be achieved by education, which renders the mullahs and ministers mute – an intelligent person does not blindly follow their priest.
Peace.
DS
Aren’t whacked out religious believers such fun to watch. I am an infidel, I wear that title proudly.
@ SDDD: Islam induces evil
Touched a nerve, did I ?
All the examples you give were something else,
before they acquired their current religions.
IF parts of the same culture were perverted
by Islam, or saved by Christianity, you have
a point; If they were wolves or sheep already,
not so much.
@Blackwater, #5 and #8.
Thank you for your testimony.
A very few and very courageous muslims manage to extricate themselves from the grips of Islam, which is punishable by death according to Shariah law. Aayan Hirsi Ali, who needs bodyguards protection, used the term “defection” in her well written account of her epic escape.
With great sacrifice and heroism, we defeated the Nazis and the Soviets, but we still maintain painful and costly accomodations with the Chinese communists, and still maintain a perversely innocent view of Islam, at our peril.
The only reasonable way to deal with Islam is to defeat their military initiatives (which we have finally started to do) and offer a better world view, which we are lucky to have: Christianity! What has happened in Iraq is truly remarkable: We invaded by force, and ultimately created conditions for the development of personal choice and personal responsibility, values unprecedented in Arab lands, except perhaps in Lebanon, when it was still a mostly Christian nation, which has since been reclaimed by Islam.
Nobody wants to use the word “crusade”, because it has long served as a potent rethorical weapon for those who profess the illegitimacy and the obsolescence of Chistianity, but what has in fact happened is the implantation of Christian values, not in theory, but in practice, in Iraq. There is no assurance that it will hold, but so far the signs are encouraging. Personal freedom is a Judeo-Christian notion, not an Islamic one. This is almost never acknowledged, except perhaps in Fouad Ajami’s brilliant book “The foreigner’s gift”.
The best seller in China today is the Bible. In spite of its theoretical claims, the institution of communism produces an aristocratic system. The notion of being equal before God is appealing to the Chinese because they are oppressed by their power center. We read a lot about the extraordinary rate of prosperity increase in China, but we forget that 90% of the Chinese are still dirt poor with very few prospects for improvement in the short term.
Islam was created in reaction to Judaism (at least 3000 years older) and Christianity (roughly 1400 years older), and in clearly stated opposition to both. The territorial expansion of Islam has been nothing short of dramatic. Even the Persian Empire became islamic, by force, not by civil debate. Spain and Portugal were under Islamic rule for roughly 7 centuries, before the Christian reconquista, and the Ottoman Empire finally fractured after World War One.
So what to do? Two things: Keep the military pressure against Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and others, and educate ourselves about Islam, which can be started by browsing websites such as Jihad Watch and many others. Most westerners assume that Islam is innocuous. At the same time most muslims assume that we are scheming to steal their oil. Both of these errors are good examples of psychological projection: Christians of narrow education tend to see other religions as probably as tolerant as their own, and at the same time it is quite logical for a Muslim of narrow education to see us a hellbent on conquest, mirroring the teachings of their own sacred books.
Expecting peace with the so-called palestinians as the result of Israeli concession is not reasonable. On the other hand, the precariousness of the Teheran regime could well be a response to the political tectonics of Iraq, next door. Such trends could eventually create good opportunities for young Arabs, enough for them to degrade the destruction of Israel a couple of notches down their priority chain.
This could be wishful, but not more so than expecting Israeli concessions to magically turn into Palestinian rational choices.
Whoops! Broken arithmetic: Christianity predates Islam by 7 centuries, not 14!
David S.
I can tell you that Catholicism, for at least the last twenty years, does NOT condemn non-believers to hell–let alone advocate killing them if they don’t convert.
And as far as Christian nations being bloodier by far, in many cases that’s attributing ideological conflict to religious beliefs.
What makes Christianity different from Islam is that Christianity is a religion that can not only accommodate peace but thrive in it.
And by the way, I’m not Christian.
“Touched a nerve, did I ?”
Yes. Willfull ignorance does that to me.
Re: #1
There is no gratitude from them because they feel it is only their due. They see our money and goods as jizya or whatever the hell their call their tolerance tax which all non-Muslims are obligated to pay to Muslims who the rightful rulers of the world. They see themselves like an unrightfully deposed King and our aid as tribute. No need for gratitude. We are their slaves and their subjects even if we don’t know it yet.
“There is no factual basis to the claim that Islam is a particularly violent religion – ”
Have you been living in a cave? Islam is factually, demonstrably extremely violent in its scripture, history, and practice.
“ostensibly Christian nations have a bloodier history by far.”
Highly debatable historically and downright laughable in the modern day in the context of /religiously-motivated/ violence under discussion here. It has been hundreds of years since ‘ostensibly Christian’ nation engaged in a holy war. Even at the individual level, with the exception of a handful of anti-choice nutbars, you don’t find Christians practicing (or even threatening) violence in the name of their faith. Contrast that with the apocalyptically messianic belligerence of Iran, the religious bigotry of the Arab states and the Palestinian Arabs, the scores of Muslim terrorist groups, etc. Contrast that with the Muslim honor killings, the Muslim genital mutilation of women, the Muslim riots over /cartoons/, the Muslim calls to ‘behead those who insult Islam,’ the list just goes on and on.
Factually, with its intrinsic concepts of jihad and dar-el-harb, Islam is an inherently violent religion. Where any sort of large-scale (or even medium scale) Christianity-driven violence* is far in the past, it has been a constant state of affairs for the entire existence of Islam.
*(Northern Ireland is a political conflict, not a religious one.)
…it is a historic fact that Islamic hostility for and aggression against non-Muslims transcends any and all temporal “grievances.” In short, Islam, according to the classical — not “radical” — schools of jurisprudence, is obligated to subjugate the world.
Seems right. I’ll stop calling it radical Islam and call it classical Islam.
Many in the Islamist movement have added on supposed concrete “grievances” (e.g., the existence of Israel) as rationales or excuses along the road of jihad.
…al-Qaeda tactic: convince the West, which is generally ignorant of Islam’s bellicose doctrines, that jihad is a byproduct of foreign policy, while inciting Muslims to the jihad by stressing its obligatory nature.
Many in “the west” (see current US President) seem willing to accept the “jihad as byproduct of foreign policy” idea.
It shows in Barack Obama’s speech about a week after September 11, 2001, a mindset little changed to this day, where it is reflected in his Apology Tour speeches and obeisance towards the Muslim world.
(“hey, if I just say Moose-lum enough and sing the praises of Izz-LAM, and talk about my middle name and my 2 Moose-lum dads, they’ll start to love us all!”)
Those who can’t seem to get the whole picture should, at the very least, read and reflect upon the opening paragraph of bin laden’s infamous 1998 fatwa:
“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)”
Gratitude does not exist in Islam. – Posted by Aaron Byrnes.
Kurt Westergaard, who drew the mahound turban-bomb cartoon, said the following on the subject (and on mahoundians settling in Denmark) in a recent interview:
“I am merely a cartoonist,” he added. “I express myself with simple images and ideas. As I see it, many of the immigrants who came to Denmark, they had nothing. We gave them everything – money, apartments, their own schools, free university, health care. In return, we asked one thing – respect for democratic values, including free speech. Do they agree? This is my simple test.”
And the results of Mr. Westergaad’s test is obviously a big no. There is no gratitude in mahoundianism indeed. Any favors done to a practicing mahoundian by an infidel is viewed as payment of jizyah, which is supposed to be an obligation for the “second-class human beings” known as dhimmis to their “superior” mahoundian masters, according to Mein Qurampf/the glory-ass quran 9:29.
Islamic fundamentalists share the same basic worldview that Christian fundamentalists adhere to. They believe their religion is the one true way, and that there is a better world awaiting them after death. This is, and always has been, a recipe for disaster.
Ok, let us agree that Christianity, Islam, Marxism, and Global Warming are the only religions that aim at converting everyone. Yet that does not make them all the same; don’t you see that it is rather mindless to seek no further differentiations among them, just because you can find a common basis to resent them?
It seems to me that Christianity is distinctive in how it attempts to separate church and state, Caesar and God, law and morality, social order and personhood. This means that Christian missionaries are not, on the whole, political missionaries. What Christianity does lead to is a vision of a world not ruled by a single imperial leader (like a Caliph) but rather a world of nation-states where the Bible is translated into the local vernaculars as the starting point for distinctive high cultures and languages. Now it is true that CHristian nations have a history of violence. But so too does every other form of human social organization. There is no Utopia; the only sane forms of political thinking entail thinking about how to choose the less bad, the least violent ideas, and to refuse the irresponsibility of always pointing to victims in order to affirm one’s self-righteousness (irresponsible since no responsible exercise of power is without some kind of violence). On that basis if you are not going to compare two quite different visions of order… 1) a world order of nation-states, which has actually existed to a degree that we can have some sense of its pros and cons, its pragmatic possibilities; and 2) the fantasy of overcoming conflict through making the whole world bow down to a unified rule of Sharia and Caliphate… well then you aren’t really thinking.
In some sense the Islamic world, for now, is less capable (though not more restrained in its passions) of bloodshed than the nations that have leveraged freer people, science, etc. into modern technological states. But serious thinking requires making moral judgments about how many will one day have to die in attempts to realize the vision of the Koran, and then comparing this to the Christian vision of nation-states. For starters, how would a Sharia-ruled economy and science feed anywhere near the present population of the world?
They mass immigrate here and create their own mini sharia states which they use to spread sharia over the “infidels” not with swords, guns and bombs but with slow generational demographics like they did in Lebanon and are doing in countries like France and others. They take advantage of our openness, our liberalism, our tolerance, our values of multiculturalism and exploit them. It’s safe to say that I got a whole new appreciation of just how dedicated and deceptive these islamists are.
You mean like this, from the IKHWAN handbook, 1991:
4- Understanding the role of the Muslim Brother in North America:
The process of settlement is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim’s destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose to slack. But, would the slackers and the Mujahedeen be
equal.
Its complicated. But hopefully, the entire understanding will shift. I just pray that one day we will develop alternatives to our insatiable lust for foreign oil, thus, reducing one of the root causes for such a global calamity this commodity, and the greed behind it, has created. And please dont tell me that the folks in Afganistan are not related to the folks in pakistan, iraq and saudi arabia cuz they are. These folks hate us and a very well orgaized elememt hate what we have made their lands into. And, the way they get their message across is not acceptable. They dont even like their own people. Hence, they are evil, and must be dealt with .. for a very long time. Will we succeed? who knows…
I’ve heard the enumeration of choices given to non-Muslims before, but it’s interesting. If you look at the list of choices given infidels historically, and compare it with the one currently given, it’s obvious that even Muslims are vulnerable to political correctness. The historical lists, the ones used hundreds of years ago, include an extra option: in some instances, infidels were enslaved. Girls and young women would often be enslaved, with the understanding that they would be used as concubines. Men would often be enslaved for use as laborers.
Nowadays, though, slavery isn’t mentioned any more. It probably would be part of what they imposed on the rest of the world, if they ever did have the chance. I’m convinced that most Muslim men fantasize about enslaving Western women, and owning them for themselves. It’s my belief that this is why our more open society (where women are empowered and walk around with their faces, to say nothing of other parts, uncovered) doesn’t absorb Muslim men into it as readily as other groups. The Muslim men, walking through our cities and meeting lots of women, are essentially shopping, choosing which slavegirls will be in their harem once they overwhelm the west and impose Sharia on the infidels. They refuse to deal with women as individuals, often, because they prefer to think of them as objects, ones they will collect once they’re in charge.
Nevertheless, slavery isn’t mentioned in their communiques any more. I seriously believe that this is because they imagine that if they couch their argument correctly, the West will accept their argument. They probably imagine that most of the West would choose the jizya in the short term, and that most middle-American housewives and their idiot husbands could be convinced to abandon Israel, and let the Jews be conquered by surrounding Muslim countries. Of course, Americans aren’t quite that callous, to say nothing of the fact that a tax paid to someone overseas isn’t a particularly popular idea either. Osama’s ignorant enough not to know that, though, and I’m sure he thinks if he leaves out the slavery part, the options don’t look that threatening to the average American household.
It seems that we “infidels” (according to the vile lie of Islam, at least), could and should be taking advantage of the innumerable schisms within Islam to cause harm to Islam’s supremacist genocidal cause. Instead we forward a ludicrous notion that we in the “infidel” world are best served by smoothing over Muslims’ murderous minefields with schemes of democratization and “peace” between the warring tribes. The Turks hate the Arabs. The Arabs hate the Persians. The brown Muslims hate the black Muslims. The only people Muslims hate more than each other, is everybody else — so why not take advantage of this tremendous gift?
We shed our treasure and our blood to “win their hearts and minds” but, as Muslims, Islam fills their hearts and minds with hatred rage and contempt against us.
We spend trillions over every few years to buy Islam’s only valuable commodity (oil) and they turn that revenue against us by spending a mere few billions every year to fund Islamic beach heads and infiltrate our societies with massive emigration.
Also with our complicity, through our medical and agricultural technologies, things the Muslims could never invent themselves, Muslims birth more Muslim babies (harnessing those medical and agricultural technologies) to produce more Jihad minions.
Muslims also exploit other Western technologies and turn them into weapons to subvert and destroy us: think of cell phone detonators, planes turned into missiles, internet for terror research, propaganda, interconnectivity between seditious operations…
Muslims subvert us and advance the Islamic cause by turning our hard-won rights to overturn those same rights: think how freedom of speech in Muslim hands becomes a writ to spread Islam without interference and to impose anti-free speech codes into our legal system. The Obama administration’s support for “Hate Speech” legislation in the UN is only one recent and very chilling example — this will never be used to stop Islamic genocidal incitement or calls for Islam to dominate the planet — it will only be used to muzzle free people speaking out about Islamic fascism. Muslims also subvert our freedom of religion to build more Mosque which call for the gradual imposition of Sharia laws. These Mosques are little more than protected indoctrination centers enjoying the protections that Islam seeks to destroy for others. Who can practice their religion freely in Islam-dominated lands?
So it would be easy to divide the malignant House of Islam against itself and foment those fracture lines which lie throughout the Islamic colony. But rather than profiting by pitting Muslim against Muslim, THAT would be evil!, we spend our blood sweat and tears futilely trying to fix their abominable ‘civilization’ while they plot and act towards our subjugation/annihilation. What e a false peace we are buying!.
We watch in vain for our messianic mission to bring peace prosperity and democracy to these savage monsters but it’s all doomed to fail. Worse, we abet the Muslim enemy in his quest for our destruction in the process.
The jihadis and the lefties, are as unlikely a pair of bedfellows as you’re ever likely to find. Why are they in bed together? They must share the same end results. Sharia and Mao’s little red book, Mo and Marx? All lead to the same place. Whodathunkit?
What the heck. Islam takes over and it is a man’s world once again. Think about it. Pelosi in a burka, on her knees scrubbing your floor.
Christianity let the fellas down when it was liberalized and gave woman equal footing. Wife gets old and Pelosi looking? Dude, you get three more! Throw rocks at the old one and get yourself another one. Take woman out of the work force and there are twice as many jobs for the guys to choose from. Sweet! It could be that way again guys; all you have to do is submit.
Why do conservatives fight this? Where are the liberal voices in the Muslim world? Don’t exist! Where is Barney Frank’s equivalent over there? In the closet! Think about it, boys.
I kid . . .
Or do I?
if America converted to Islam, would the USA be allowed to lead the world Caliphate? or would it have to defer to Osama as the big world government czar in charge? but in the mean time i don’t care for our government trying to tell me how to act much less some tall idiot from overseas.
Ding, if “we” are going to get four wives, that means three guys get none. In other words, a lot of guys are going to live outside the town walls with other men and will be used occasionally for politcal violence/war and not much else. If you survive to middle age, you might get a wife or two, but you’ll be long past your sexual prime and you’ll be raising your kids as an unattractive old man. Your sure to be loved. What’s more, a Sharia-ruled economy would surely have to contract significantly, maybe leading us back to, say, a circa 1850 world population of one billion, and that’s if the Dhimmis keep working. Do you really think there’s any serious question about taking those odds?
Hey Ding, I never really thought about it that way before, ya know, I think you may be on to something.
“Islamic fundamentalists share the same basic worldview that Christian fundamentalists adhere to. They believe their religion is the one true way, and that there is a better world awaiting them after death. This is, and always has been, a recipe for disaster.”
Believing in a better world (or reward) after death is no more a recipe for disaster than believing there is no such thing. David, I honestly hope you’ll learn to think a little bit more before offering knee jerk responses clouded by cultural relativism.
I don’t particularly agree with the author’s generic characterization of Muslim belief either. There are non-fundamentalist Muslims who are pious selfless people who abhor violence. Scholars can argue that such interpretations of Islam are inconsistent with the Quran, but that doesn’t mean much to a free man or woman who can quite frankly believe whatever the hell they want.
I agree with David’s point that a solution to radical Islam is to deflate it through education, but in a multiple choice exam I wouldn’t consider that to be the ‘best’ answer (the correct answer is D: Religious freedom).
I can’t help but think when I read that muslim men wish to enforce STRICT sahria law, it is usually just for women.
The Prophet commended males to drink camel urine. If they want strict, then all muslim men had better start drinking the commanded drink at least once a week.Then the west would know how fair their law is.
Morton D:
“It seems that we “infidels” (according to the vile lie of Islam, at least), could and should be taking advantage of the innumerable schisms within Islam to cause harm to Islam’s supremacist genocidal cause. ”
I advanced just such a course of action a few months ago over on History News Network: http://hnn.us/articles/83742.html
Morton: the top suppliers of petroleum to the US are, in order, Canada (2,639,000 tbpd), Mexico (1,316 tbpd), Saudi Arabia (1,153 tbpd), Venezuela (959 tbpd).
tbpd: thousand barrels per day
Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html
Christians and Muslims believe that their religion is one true way but Christians believe that their Kingdom is not of this world and they separate church and state, Muslims believe their Kingdom is on earth and there is no separation between church and state.
Islam is violent – their prophet was a war leader, and Quran explicitly says that all Muslims should strive for jihad with propaganda, money or deeds and that jihad will end when all earth is Islamic.
(9:29: Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.)
Christian nations did not have bloodier history then umma, the oft-maligned Crusades were answer to Islamic bloody conquest of parts of the Middle East. Millions died during Muslim conquest of India and of south-eastern Europe. During the three centuries of wars with muslim Tatars (aka Mongols) half of the Russian population perished under the Mongol yoke.
But to those who think that religion and religious fundamentalism is fount of all evil – the bloodiest modern history on earth was not history of Christian countries , nor was it history of Muslim umma, it was history of atheist countries: of USSR under Stalin and China under Mao Tze Tung.
Oops, should be Canada (2,639 tbpd)
“Think about it. Pelosi in a burka, on her knees scrubbing your floor…Why do conservatives fight this?”
Are you kidding/em? I wouldn’t let that bitch poop on my lawn.
Mr. Raymond Ibrahim makes some excellent points. One is that ‘radical’ Islam = classical Islam. This could be expanded to note that the transmission of Islam by the written word is classical, radical Islam. The transmission of Islam by word of mouth can sometimes give rise to ‘moderate’ Islam, or ‘the religion of peace’. Of course the classical/radical/written Islam disciplines the rest of Islam. So in the long run it is what Mohammed did, said and wanted that counts.
Mr. Ibrahim is correct and timely in reminding us that Islam is obliged to subdue the world. That is what Mohammed wanted.
The quote from James Lorimer is a reminder that we do not have to surrender to Islam. We do not have to treat as equals those who want to destroy us.
Mr. Ibrahim is right to say that concessions are sheer suicide. The enmity is perpetual. We must resist forever.
Classical Islam is a conspiracy to dominate the world politically by all means possible, including criminal means. Unlettered/moderate Islam is a conspiracy to give Muslim men a licence to commit crimes. That is because even the most moderate of Islamists wants Islamic law wherever he lives.
For a long time we have had moral superiority over Islam, intellectual superiority, economic and demographic superiority, and yet we are losing the struggle. We have offered a better worldview for centuries. We have defeated their military initiatives for centuries. It doesn’t help. We keep surrendering and the Islamists keep demanding more concessions. They are more single-minded than us.
Here are some things we should do:
1) A website dedicated to presenting Islam’s holy writings side by side chronologically, in modern languages. So the Koran, the main Hadiths, the Sirah and Ta’rikh are all collected to show what Mohammed did, thought and said at a certain time. The changes he and his religion went through over time will become clear and the truth will out. The truth will shock both ‘word of mouth’ Moslems and the leftist apologists. The moral poverty of Islam will be clear to all those who can’t read old Arabic but can read their own language.
2) All the criminal acts permitted by Islamic law should be individually defined and declared criminal, and extra penalties imposed for those who commit them with religious motivation. So ‘honor killings’ are separately defined as crimes –they are not just murders, and anyone who says “I did it for reasons of tradition/ religion/culture” gets extra time. We do not attack Sharia law in principle, but we regulate it in practice. The fact that our governments have been regulating everything except Islamic law is a sign of surrender.
3) Positions of responsibility in government should not be given to anyone who practices or promotes any of the criminal acts. Any govt employee who breaks the law to help co-religionists gets extra time.
4) Quarantine – anyone can leave the West to enter Somalia, Afghanistan or Pakistan but they can never come back. We do not need to fight wars in those places if no person is allowed to leave those places.
In general, we must resist in more ways than we do today. Either we resist or our civilization slowly dies. If we believe in Love and the Truth we must resist.
of history have seen but one period of Islamic expansion and success: the initial 200. This military success period is the only one they have known, and are now seeking to emulate. They have no other intellectual point of departure. But one, that is. That one is the period of cultural peak in Andalus (Spain) before the Christian Reconquista. It succeeded because it was a period of Islamic collaboration and cooperation with Jews and Christians without overlordship. This model is now deliberately forgotten. To defeat BinLaden and the Wahhabi-Salafis and the totalitarian Shiya of Iran, we in the west must remind them of this positive intellectual alternative. Perhaps it will resonate with enough Moslems to truly defeat the jihadists, from the inside of their own culture.
It is best not to pin one’s hopes on a myth:
“Andalusia’ Without Camouflage”
Excerpt:
“The Iberian peninsula was conquered in 710—716 C.E. by Arab tribes originating from northern, central and southern Arabia. A classical jihad, the conquest proceeded with enormous pillaging, enslavement, deportation, and massacre. Most churches were converted into mosques. Massive Arab and Berber immigration and colonization ensued. Toledo, which had first submitted to the Arabs in 711 or 712, revolted in 713. The town was punished by pillage and all the notables had their throats cut. In 730, the Cerdagne (in Septimania, near Barcelona) was ravaged and a bishop burned alive. In the regions under stable Islamic control, subjugated non—Muslim dhimmis —Jews and Christians— like elsewhere in other Islamic lands — were prohibited from building new churches or synagogues, or restoring the old ones. Segregated in special quarters, they had to wear discriminatory clothing. Subjected to heavy taxes, the Christian peasantry formed a servile class exploited by the dominant Arab ruling elites; many abandoned their land and fled to the towns. Harsh reprisals with mutilations and crucifixions would sanction the Mozarab (Christian dhimmis) calls for help from the Christian kings. Moreover, if one dhimmi harmed a Muslim, the whole community would lose its status of protection, leaving it open to pillage, enslavement and arbitrary killing.
By the end of the eighth century, the rulers of North Africa and of Andalusia had introduced rigorous Maliki jurisprudence as the predominant school of Muslim law. Thus, as Evariste L�vi—Proven�al, observed, three quarters of a century ago:
‘The Muslim Andalusian state thus appears from its earliest origins as the defender and champion of a jealous orthodoxy, more and more ossified in a blind respect for a rigid doctrine, suspecting and condemning in advance the least effort of rational speculation.’
Charles Emmanuel Dufourcq provides these illustrations of the resulting religious and legal discriminations dhimmis suffered, and the accompanying incentives for them to convert to Islam:
‘…the freedom of the ‘infidels’ was constantly at risk. Non—payment of the head—tax by a dhimmi made him liable to all the Islamic penalties for debtors who did not repay their creditors; the offender could be sold into slavery or even put to death. In addition, non—payment of the poll—tax by one or several dhimmis — especially if it was fraudulent — allowed the Moslem authority, at its discretion, to put an end to the autonomy of the community to which the guilty party or parties belonged. Thus, from one day to the next, all the Christians in a city could lose their status as a protected people through the fault of just one of them. Everything could be called into question, including their personal liberty…Furthermore, non—payment of the legal tribute was not the only reason for abrogating the status of the ‘People of the Book’; another was ‘public outrage against the Islamic faith’, for example, leaving exposed, for Moslems to see, a cross or wine or even pigs.
…by converting [to Islam], one would no longer have to be confined to a given district, or be the victim of discriminatory measures or suffer humiliations…Furthermore, the entire Islamic law tended to favor conversions. When an “infidel” became a Moslem, he immediately benefited from a complete amnesty for all of his earlier crimes, even if he had been sentenced to the death penalty, even if it was for having insulted the Prophet or blasphemed against the Word of God: his conversion acquitted him of all his faults, of all his previous sins. A legal opinion given by a mufti from al—Andalus in the ninth century is very instructive: a Christian dhimmi kidnapped and violated a Moslem woman; when he was arrested and condemned to death, he immediately converted to Islam; he was automatically pardoned, while being constrained to marry the woman and to provide for her a dowry in keeping with her status. The mufti who was consulted about the affair, perhaps by a brother of the woman, found that the court decision was perfectly legal, but specified that if that convert did not become a Moslem in good faith and secretly remained a Christian, he should be flogged, slaughtered and crucified…
Al—Andalus represented the land of jihad par excellence. Every year (or multiple times within a year as ‘seasonal’ razzias [ghazwa]) raiding expeditions were sent to ravage the Christian Spanish kingdoms to the north, the Basque regions, or France and the Rhone valley, bringing back booty and slaves. Andalusian corsairs attacked and invaded along the Sicilian and Italian coasts, even as far as the Aegean Islands, looting and burning as they went. Many thousands of non—Muslim captives were deported to slavery in Andalusia, where the caliph kept a militia of tens of thousand of Christian slaves, brought from all parts of Christian Europe (the Saqaliba), and a harem filled with captured Christian women.
Society was sharply divided along ethnic and religious lines, with the Arab tribes at the top of the hierarchy, followed by the Berbers who were never recognized as equals, despite their Islamization; lower in the scale came the mullawadun converts and, at the very bottom, the dhimmi Christians and Jews. The Andalusian Maliki jurist Ibn Abdun (d. 1134) offered these telling legal opinions regarding Jews and Christians in Seville around 1100 C.E.:
No…Jew or Christian may be allowed to wear the dress of an aristocrat, nor of a jurist, nor of a wealthy individual; on the contrary they must be detested and avoided. It is forbidden to [greet] them with the [expression], ‘Peace be upon you’. In effect, ‘Satan has gained possession of them, and caused them to forget God’s warning. They are the confederates of Satan’s party; Satan’s confederates will surely be the losers!’ (Qur’an 58:19 [modern Dawood translation]). A distinctive sign must be imposed upon them in order that they may be recognized and this will be for them a form of disgrace.
Another prominent Andalusian jurist, Ibn Hazm of Cordoba (d. 1064), wrote that Allah had established the infidels’ ownership of their property merely to provide booty for Muslims.
In Granada, the Jewish viziers Samuel Ibn Naghrela, and his son Joseph, who protected the Jewish community, were both assassinated between 1056 to 1066, followed by the annihilation of the Jewish population by the local Muslims. It is estimated that up to five thousand Jews perished in the pogrom by Muslims that accompanied the 1066 assassination. This figure equals or exceeds the number of Jews reportedly killed by the Crusaders during their pillage of the Rhineland some thirty years later, at the outset of the First Crusade. The Granada pogrom was likely to have been incited, in part, by the bitter anti—Jewish ode of Abu Ishaq a well known Muslim jurist and poet of the times, who wrote:
Bring them down to their place and Return them to the most abject station. They used to roam around us in tatters Covered with contempt, humiliation, and scorn. They used to rummage amongst the dungheaps for a bit of a filthy rag To serve as a shroud for a man to be buried in…Do not consider that killing them is treachery. Nay, it would be treachery to leave them scoffing.’ [The translator then summarizes: 'The Jews have broken their covenant (i.e., overstepped their station, with reference to the Covenant of Umar) and compunction would be out of place.]
The discriminatory policies of the Berber Muslim Almoravids, who arrived in Spain in 1086, and subsequently those of the even more fanaticized and violent Almohad Berber Muslims (who arrived in Spain in 1146—1147) caused a rapid attrition of the pre—Islamic Iberian Christian (Mozarab) communities, nearly extinguishing them. The Almoravid attitude towards the Mozarabs is well reflected by three successive expulsions of the latter to Morocco: in 1106, 1126, and 1138. The oppressed Mozarabs sent emissaries to the king of Aragon, Alphonso 1st le Batailleur (1104—1134), asking him to come to their rescue and deliver them from the Almoravids. Following the raid that the King of Aragon launched in Andalusia in 1125—1126 in responding to the pleas of Grenada’s Mozarabs, the latter were deported en masse to Morocco in the Fall of 1126.
The Almohads (1130—1232) wrought tremendous destruction upon both the Jewish and Christian populations in Spain and North Africa. This devastation—massacre, captivity, and forced conversion—was described by the Jewish chronicler Abraham Ibn Daud, and the poet Abraham Ibn Ezra. Suspicious of the sincerity of the Jewish converts to Islam, Muslim ‘inquisitors’ (i.e., antedating their Christian Spanish counterparts by three centuries) removed the children from such families, placing them in the care of Muslim educators. Maimonides, the renowned philosopher and physician, experienced the Almohad persecutions, and had to flee Cordoba with his entire family in 1148, temporarily residing in Fez — disguised as a Muslim — before finding asylum in Fatimid Egypt. Indeed, although Maimonides is frequently referred to as a paragon of Jewish achievement facilitated by the enlightened rule of Andalusia, his own words debunk this utopian view of the Islamic treatment of Jews:
..the Arabs have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us…Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they…”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/11/eurabias_morass_elicits_mythic.html
14. David S: Fundamentalists are all the same.
Yes, and the one human personality trait they
have in common is a revulsion for this world,
and all the people in it who do not share their
revulsion. In Islam: “The World is a Carcass.”
Christianity refers to Sodom and Gomorrah.
The Loony Liberal Left worships Gaia, who,
like all Mother Goddesses, requires human
sacrifice: Some, most, or all of Humanity,
(depending on how far Left one goes) must
die to purge the planet.
Let them go to a better place, as long as they
do not expect me to go along, and _especially_
do not try to destroy this world on their way
to the next.
P.S. Anyone who has data on whether the trait is
inborn, or acquired through abuse/indoctrination,
please say so.
XX. Many Commenters: Muslims are all the same,
and should be given the same three choices
they offered to Infidels.
Wow: Progress.
YY. Some Commenters: Christianity
____is the best religion.
Well, yes, if one needs to justify good social policy by an appeal to a Spirit in the Sky; Prosperity in this world trumps Pie in the Sky
when you Die; No Diety need apply.
No offense to the truly religious, who, regardless
of which Name they revere, understand that they are
here not to make the World a better place, but to make themselves better people, which includes acting with Charity toward their _all_ their siblings.
See here for a debate between Raymond Ibrahim and the CIA’s Michael Scheuer (“Anonymous”)about precisely this topic of al Qaida grievances versus their need to uphold religious obligations such as jihad: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/09/raymond-ibrahim-and-michael-scheuer-debate-what-al-qaeda-wants.html
10. M. Report:
”
If Christianity were substituted for Islam
in the 3rd world, the result would be
priests crying “Jesus Christ and no quarter”
as they blessed their suicide bombers.
”
No, for there is no justification in Christianity for such tactics.
While Christianity would have to fight against Arab culture, while Islam works with it, it would certainly not contenance the kind of actions that Jihadi’s perform; indeed it preaches against the whole concept of jihad itself.
Another important point: I believe that it is the The Arab Mind by Raphael Patai that points out that Muslims engage in suicide bombings as a form of Jihad because it is the only way that they can be ensured of entry into heaven. Islam preaches predestination, and a follower may follow all of the precepts and doctrines and still not be assured of acceptance by Allah. Only one who loses his life shedding the blood of the infidel – no matter how perverse or sinful he may otherwise be – is guaranteed entry into Paradise. This is the try reason for the Islamic acceptance of the suicide bomber and is not found in any other religion.
I highly recommend reading through <A HREF="http://www.jihadwatch.org/ Jihad Watch, particularly the sections Islam 101 and Qur’an Commentary.
Number 1 exdem is correct.
Bush and his american heritage “lets make em all like us and they will love us” cabinet eventually realized the bitter truth after it was way too late. Those folks hate us. Listen, .. they hate us. And they do not want “good christian values” and sing alongs. They want us to rebuild their country…water and electricity rebuild their army and their police forces. Then they want us to leave. Just leave. Get out and go home. Which, if we are smart.. we will do as soon as humanly possible, just ask the troops (not the Generals). If we dont? Well then, prepare for your grand kids to go there to join grandpaw on the front. I wish them Luck.
It’s amazing how (willfully and pathetically) ignorant the Davis S.s and M. Reports of the world are. You’re equating a religion whose founder lived a celibate life, cared for and healed the poor, told his followers to “turn the other cheek” and died a horrible death at the hands of his enemie with one whose founder led armies in battles, had 11 wives, ordered the killing of those who opposed him and told his followers that “those who oppose Allah and his messenger should be killed by crucifixion or having their hands and feet cut off on opposite sides.” Even if there WERE passages in the New Testament promoting violence–which there are not–Christian exegetics long ago allowed for a non-literalist reading (which, as I have remarked elsewhere (see above cited article “Sectsploitation,” on History News Network), which is why, for example, the vast majority of Christians are not bound to play with poison snakes to prove their faith, or to go have themselves crucified. However, in Sunni Islam (85% of the world’s Muslims), the expectation is that the Qur’an’s every jot and tittle will be taken at face value AND Muhammad’s example emulated by modern Muslims. We should be thankful that more do not, for the world would be a true hellhole if they did.
As for those who continue to equate Christianity with Islam: there is none so blind as he who will not see.
@ 49. Occidentalist Jihadist: Lots of Certainties
Folks, by his words you shall know him. :>
Or better, by his omissions: The Old Testament,
the New Testament Apocrypha, and Exegetics,
(i.e. “being interpreted” it does not mean
what it clearly states; Trust me.)
The other cheek, the extra mile, and the
coat-and-shirt combo were ways of passively
resisting the Roman Occupiers; They were _not_
exercises in humility or charity.
A Chinese woman political prisoner was asked
if she gained any spiritual insights from
her captivity. She gave the questioner the Look,
and replied:
“Yes, it hurts more to be slapped with the back
of the hand than the front.”
‘As for those who continue to equate Christianity with Islam: there is none so blind as he who will not see.’
And so I pray for you.
@49. Occidentalist Jihadist:
I’m equating two religions which have each caused more bloodshed than all other faiths combined. Jesus and Mohammed are long gone – it is their modern followers that perpetuate the problem. Maybe you have seen the bumper sticker “Oh lord, please save me from your followers”? Seems apropos. Religions are totally harmless – it’s the adherents that are dangerous.
As long as people hold their religious beliefs to be the absolute truth, they will continue to kill and to die for the sake of them. The only solution to this problem is secular education and material development.
Peace.
DS
What David S. is really saying, though I admit he is not consciously saying this, is that he hates people. He hates them because they are inescapably caught up in conflicts, sometimes wars, and do a lot of killing. He has no real alternative, merely offering us an unrealistic account of the human with his rehash of the Utopian “secular” ideas that made the 20th century the bloodiest of them all.
If one is to have real hope and faith in humanity, one has to begin with an understanding of what culture is for. Why did it come into existence in the first place? Did it come into existence to promote further bloodshed, or to restrain it? Implicit in David’s attack on religion is the belief that culture often exists to promote bloodshed. And it is here that he shows the limits of his way of thinking.
Suffice to say, I cannot offer a full argument here, but as Generative Anthropology teaches most convincingly, the purpose of all culture, including all religion, including even Islam, is to defer (not end, in some impossible Utopia) violence.
However, the problem is 1) that no system of deferral lasts forever and any culture needs be continually renewed to maximize its potential for deferral; and 2) the deferral of violence often works by promoting domestic harmony at the cost of re-foccussing internal resentments on external foes. As I say, even Islam should be seen as having provided a superior form of deferring local violence, from the point of view of Arab tribes, in comparison to what those tribes had in pagan times. It provided for a more sophisticated form of imperial organization. But like every system of deferral, it has its limits, and must be judged accordingly.
It seems to me that a fair comparison of the civilizational orders that Islam and the Judeo-Christian West have achieved cannot come to the conclusion that they are equally adept at deferring violence. But to think along these lines, one must be able to handle a little paradox. For example, a culture or civilization that can bring much order and freedom to the world by, say, organizing millions of secular, technological, people to develop nuclear power, can also, of course, use its technology and the political power inherent in that civilizational order against external foes, in devastating ways.
So, ultimately, we have to judge a civilization not only on its domestic order but how that domestic order makes itself transparent and accountable and thus limits its needs or proclivities to bond people against external enemies. So, we come to a test: let’s see how Islam can be accomodated in America and compare that to how Judaism and Christianity are “accomodated” in the Muslim world.
M. Report: despite having a Ph.D. your witty koans just make my teeth hurt, and I can discern precious little substance in them.
David S.: I’m curious as to the data for your claim that Christianity and Islam have caused more bloodshed than all other faiths combined. You may be right, but as a historian (world, African and Islamic history) I know of no empirical study that supports your claim. Can you provide one? I can say, admittedly anecdotally, that a great deal of conquering DONE IN THE NAME OF RELIGION has been done in Muhammad’s name. Yes, a great deal was done in the name of Christianity, too. But I would submit, as a historian of both religious civilizations, that there are two major differences between Christian and Islamic violence: 1) conquest and violence in Jesus’ name violates everything he stood (and died) for, whereas violence in Muhammad’s name is very much in line with his life and beliefs; 2) Christian civilization(s) no longer practice conquest and violence in the name of the faith, whereas violence done in the name of Islam is the major source of bloodshed on the international stage today.
And saying that “religions are totally harmless” is akin to saying that “ideologies are totally harmless”–but I wonder if you would say that about Nazism or Soviet-style Communism or KKK-brand racism? Ideologies, including religions, can be dangerous. And all religions do no teach the same thing. Are you honestly contending that Buddhism promotes or creates as much violence among its adherents are Islam does among its adherents? That is just absurd–but it seems to be your position; that is, unless you just wish to tar Christianity as somehow equally as violent as Islam. Let me ask you a question: I don’t know what faith you are (if any), but I assume you are NOT Muslim. As a non-Muslim, would you rather live in a Christian-majority, or Muslim-majority, society?
And your view of those with strong religious convictions is just cartoonish: I happen, as do over 2 billion other Christians, believe that my religion is the absolute truth and that Jesus Christ died and was resurrected to atone for my sins. I’ve believed such for 30+ years, and belongs to major churches in that time (Southern Baptist, then Lutheran). Neither I, nor any of the thousands of Christians I’ve encountered over the years, has ever expressed the idea that we should kill non-Christians in the name of our faith. NEVER! Do you actually know any Christians, or do you just like to slander them?
Somehow I don’t think you’re really interested in the truth of such matters, but I present you a challenge: get a Qur’an and a New Testament and read them, alternating one chapter of each daily. Then when you’ve finished, please let us know if you still think the absolute truths to which, respectively, Christiand and Muslims adhere are equally violent.
You can contact me on my website
http://www.mahdiwatch.org
But somehow I doubt you will.
“Jesus and Mohammed are long gone – it is their modern followers that perpetuate the problem. ”
REally? What problem do you have with Jesus followers? Have they killed someone lately or initiated a war under the flag of Christianity?
So long as people hold their beliefs to be absolute truth – irregardless whether it is religion or atheism, they will continue to kill and die for the sake of their belief. Fighting atheists are not much different from fundamentalists believing in truth of their religion.
If the rest of the world needs any more evidence of Islam’s true intentions, this is it.
For over 1,300 years, Islam’s leaders ahve waged war against the rest of the world and groups like Al-Qeda are merely the irrgular front-line soldiers in this war.
No other “religion” is so intolreant, so totally obssessed with eradicating the “other” from its sight. No other group has so voilently opposed all in its path as Islam.
It is not a religion as the rest of the world knows religion, it is a total control system bent on world conquest.
I will only accept it as a legitimate religion when there are synagogues, churches and temples freely allowed in Mecca,Tehran and other Muslim cities and countries. I will only accept it as a religion when the terrorists are soundly condemned and stopped by all Muslims everywhere and human rights are established within it. I will only accept it as a religion when its leaders and people stop lying, cheating, hating, destroying and killing in its name.
Until then, I see it as a political, economic and total control system masquerading as a religion.
How can American society tolerate 39,252 deaths associated with automobile collisions in 2005, or 438,000 smoking related deaths in 2008, both instances where we “killed ourselves,” and yet devote more resources and political energy to fighting terrorists, who have killed far fewer US citizens? There is a reason which reflects much about us.
It takes a real idiot (like #57) to equate car accidents and smoking with terrorism.
The problem is that Islam aside, Western democracies have already politically recognized countries whose ideal was to destroy them: The USSR, the PRC and their satellites.
Islam’s apologists will point to the ‘Ummah, say “look at the multiracial unity” and then turn around and say that the ‘Ummah is a race and opposing Islam’s expansionism is racist.
So far, the West is poorly equipped to deal with thinking like that.
A monumental idiot.
The person who equates deaths of people in automobile accidents with deaths of people committing suicide/suicide terrorism (aka “they killed themselves”) should look up the meaning of the word “suicide” and then and only then write his post. He may call himself a logistician, but that does not mean that he is a one.
Osama bin laden and Ayeman Alzawahiri knows when arabic alphabets came into existance but does not know how to use an islamic key of Queen which mother of the and Kind son of the key to unlock padlock in other know more and what their G-d said about iron age.
@54. Occidental Jihadist:
I’m curious as to the data for your claim that Christianity and Islam have caused more bloodshed than all other faiths combined. You may be right, but as a historian (world, African and Islamic history) I know of no empirical study that supports your claim. Can you provide one?
I don’t think there has been a definitive study on the topic. However, the evidence available is pretty strong. Depending on how you elect to assign blame, it seems pretty clear that among the major religions, Christianity and Islam would be at the top of the list for bloodshed.
The fact is that Christians have done great violence in the name of their religion, just as Muslims have. I honestly don’t think it matters to the dead whether their murderers really adhered to all the tenets of their faith. The Bible and Koran can each be used to justify or condemn violence as the faithful see fit. The history of violence is strong in both faiths. Jesus would no doubt be disappointed in his followers – and Muhammad likewise.
And saying that “religions are totally harmless” is akin to saying that “ideologies are totally harmless”–but I wonder if you would say that about Nazism or Soviet-style Communism or KKK-brand racism? Ideologies, including religions, can be dangerous.
Don’t try to quote me out of context, please. “Religions are totally harmless – it’s the adherents that are dangerous.” You only make yourself look silly. Words on a page are not a danger until someone decides to take action. Nazism/Communism/KKK activism – none are a threat without adherents.
And all religions do no teach the same thing.
Very true! But there are some common elements in Christianity and Islam that are very pertinent to the subject of religious violence – specifically “They believe their religion is the one true way, and that there is a better world awaiting them after death.”
Are you honestly contending that Buddhism promotes or creates as much violence among its adherents are Islam does among its adherents? That is just absurd–but it seems to be your position; that is, unless you just wish to tar Christianity as somehow equally as violent as Islam.
I did not mention Buddhism. So far as I am aware, Buddhists do not claim to know the one true way, or that there is a better world awaiting them after death. In fact, most buddhists are believers in reincarnation, so they have a vested interest in improving conditions in this world, rather than an interest in attaining divine favor after death. Buddhism is based on the quest for knowledge, rather than the quest for divine approval.
Let me ask you a question: I don’t know what faith you are (if any), but I assume you are NOT Muslim. As a non-Muslim, would you rather live in a Christian-majority, or Muslim-majority, society?
I am not a Muslim, and I am not a Christian, and I would prefer a society free of both afflictions. Barring that, I am quite happy with whatever majority, so long as my right to a free conscience is respected.
And your view of those with strong religious convictions is just cartoonish: I happen, as do over 2 billion other Christians, believe that my religion is the absolute truth and that Jesus Christ died and was resurrected to atone for my sins. I’ve believed such for 30+ years, and belongs to major churches in that time (Southern Baptist, then Lutheran).
People with strong religious convictions are cartoonish. Believing that a bastardized edition of some ancient poetry is the absolute truth, or that some progressive who was put to death 2000 years ago was resurrected to save your soul is pretty loopy stuff. Roger Rabbit would laugh at this insanity. The fact that you have believed this nonsense for 30+ years, and gathered with like-minded persons to promote your fantastic propositions, doesn’t add weight to your argument. More the opposite.
Neither I, nor any of the thousands of Christians I’ve encountered over the years, has ever expressed the idea that we should kill non-Christians in the name of our faith. NEVER! Do you actually know any Christians, or do you just like to slander them?
I know plenty of Christians, and Muslims as well. None have ever expressed to me a desire to kill me for my lack of faith in their respective fantasies. Although I do recall something in the news recently about a killing in a church related to religious conviction. Dr. Tiller certainly encountered a Christian willing to kill in the name of his faith – even if the victim believed in the same Christ.
Somehow I don’t think you’re really interested in the truth of such matters, but I present you a challenge: get a Qur’an and a New Testament and read them, alternating one chapter of each daily. Then when you’ve finished, please let us know if you still think the absolute truths to which, respectively, Christians and Muslims adhere are equally violent.
That’s not the argument that I have been making. Absolute truth is not violent. Violence is perpetrated by people who have and will continue to use Christian and Muslim beliefs as justification for this violence. The answer to this problem is not a pissing contest between the two religions. It is education, so that people stop believing the nonsensical.
You can contact me on my website
http://www.mahdiwatch.org
But somehow I doubt you will.
You can find me here, or at my blogs – I’ve copied this message to you via your website as well. It’s not the truths expounded by the religious that are the problem – it is the contention that they are absolute. Self righteousness is a dangerous thing.
Peace.
DS
David,
Islam and Christianity are the largest religions in the world. Hence, you might expect that in a study of religious wars (a study which perhaps doesn’t even exist) that the largest contributors might be Christian and Muslim. For example we might be suspicious of any study suggesting that Caodaism has caused the most religious wars.
Also in your criticism of Christians you might want to move into atleast the 20th century, since Christians have done so. Also expand your mind to consider where peace and charity have occurred in the name of religion.
Lastly, what about the religious belief that there is no God? What bloodshed has occurred in the name of communism? Are Islam and Christianity still the greatest perpetrators of religious war?
David S. is a liar.
The word of Allah and the example of Muhammad demonstrate conclusively that Islam is the Religion of Blood. No other major world religion requires the slavery or death of all who refuse conversion:
“the Messenger of Allah . . . would say: ‘Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war. . . . When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. . . . Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them. . . . If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them . . .’” (Muslim Book 19, Number 4294).
“fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war) . . . ” (Qur’an 9:5).
“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Qur’an 9:29).
“The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter . . . ” (Qur’an 5:33). [Ibn Kathir says of this verse: "'Wage war' mentioned here means, oppose and contradict, and it includes disbelief, blocking roads and spreading fear in the fairways. Mischief in the land refers to various types of evil." So, Muhammad requires execution, crucifixion, or cutting off hands and feet from opposite sides for "disbelief."]
“Allah’s Apostle said: ‘I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah’s Apostle . . . ‘” (Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24).
“It is not for any prophet to have captives until he hath made slaughter in the land. Ye desire the lure of this world and Allah desireth (for you) the Hereafter, and Allah is Mighty, Wise” (Qur’an 8:67).
“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been made victorious with terror’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220).
@64. Mike Blackadder:
Islam and Christianity are the largest religions in the world. Hence, you might expect that in a study of religious wars (a study which perhaps doesn’t even exist) that the largest contributors might be Christian and Muslim. For example we might be suspicious of any study suggesting that Caodaism has caused the most religious wars.
No doubt.
Also in your criticism of Christians you might want to move into atleast the 20th century, since Christians have done so. Also expand your mind to consider where peace and charity have occurred in the name of religion.
The topic at hand was religious violence – and Christians are not blameless in this century or the last.
Lastly, what about the religious belief that there is no God?
“The religious belief that there is no God” is shared by a large number of cultures. Polytheism, Buddhism, Atheism, etc. You have to be more specific…
What bloodshed has occurred in the name of communism?
Totalitarian communists share the first major problem that Christianity and Islam suffer from: “They believe their religion is the one true way”. They also make an attempt to idealize those who die for the cause, essentially promising “that there is a better world awaiting them after death”.
But the extent of actual warfare on the basis of any specific “religious belief that there is no God” is inestimably smaller than that on the basis of the opposite. The deification of Stalin and Mao is an indication of the debt that these leaders owe to religious sentiments. Irreligion is not so powerful.
Are Islam and Christianity still the greatest perpetrators of religious war?
Yep. Your first sentence above provides the basic reason why. The deeper reason is a fundamental resistance to the notion of mortality. Belief in an afterlife directly contributes to religious violence, because it negates the significance of one’s own death. Belief in God can be used to justify anything, and that pretty much guarantees it will be used to justify something violent.
Peace.
DS
M. REport #10,
“prosperity denatures religion, makes it harmless”…???
Are you saying Christianity would be better if if were more harmful? More thuggish? More barbaric?
Prosperity, actually, accompanies the sincere practice of a religion that IMPROVES HUMAN BEINGS. Humans improved are humans more capable, kind and generous… thus prosperity.
What you’ve said is a sort of mangled attack on the medieval violence of Islam and its relationship to the lack of prosperity in Islamic countries. You said the opposite of what you meant.
There is no one quite so self-righteous as the man who screams “There are no absolutes!” at the top of his lungs — which is what the cultural and moral relativists, especially the militant anti-Christians, do ceaselessly and in every available forum.
Here are the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God and the Redeemer of Mankind, in a convenient, easily digested capsule:
If there’s anyone out there who can find something objectionable in these absolutes, I challenge him to present it here. Don’t cite the divergences of mortals who claimed to be Christians but were acting in contradiction to the Redeemer’s teachings; find something objectionable in the teachings themselves.
Humility always, friends.
Right on, Francis. Self-righteousness is indeed a problem, but it is a bigger problem for those who recognize and defer to no God than for those who do so defer. One needs to admit the possibilty that one is wrong and not only by the lights of one’s own reason. (I should talk…)
“Totalitarian communists share the first major problem that Christianity and Islam suffer from: “They believe their religion is the one true way”. They also make an attempt to idealize those who die for the cause, essentially promising “that there is a better world awaiting them after death”.”
David, you are trying very hard, but Christianity just doesn’t fit with what is being criticized in this article. It is pretty ridiculous to claim that communist violence originates from a belief in the afterlife, or even to infer that there is such a thing as a non-totalitarian communist. It appears you are convinced of some similarity between Christian martyrs, Islamic suicide bombers and communist soldiers who are compelled into battle at gun point. Maybe we’ll just agree to disagree about that one.
I’m not sure why you object to people’s personal beliefs of religious truth which is perfectly ordinary, while not being particularly critical of actual totalitarian regimes and movements under communism and Islam. The authors criticisms of Islam don’t really apply to Christianity, nor should Christians apologize for or be tolerant of totalitarian ideologies.
“But the extent of actual warfare on the basis of any specific “religious belief that there is no God” is inestimably smaller than that on the basis of the opposite. The deification of Stalin and Mao is an indication of the debt that these leaders owe to religious sentiments. Irreligion is not so powerful.”
Interesting point, but the common denominator here is not religious zeal, it is religious oppression or totalitarianism. Liberal education is not the solution, this is just another ideology intolerant to religion (like communism). The better solution is religious freedom and other individual rights.
Ben Laden is not a real Moselem .He and all his followers are far from Islam ,fanatics and terrorists.Ben Laden was raised in Saudi Arabia on the Wahabi Salafi confession which prevailed only in Najed by force of Saudi tribe.The real Islam coexisted 14 centuries with Christianity, Judaism and other confession,while Christian Europe committed genoside against Jews in Germany and Moslems in Spain.. Now Saudis are friends and allies of the US they promoted their fundementalist Wahabist Salafist in Moslem countries using the support of the US ,they created the Mojahedeen(turned to be Al Qaeda) in Afganistan to fight the former Soviet Union and they funded religious schools in Pakistan to promote the terrorist culture and still funding more than 800 schools where terrorists graduate every year and move to Pakistan ,Afganistan and Saudi Arabia where they export them to Iraq and other countries in order to committ terrorist operations.
As long as the US continues allowing the funding of terrorist schools ,the Qaeda will grow stronger and stronger . The US Army fights terrorists in Afganistan and Iraq ,but unfortunately the allies of the US i.e the Saudis still fund, likely with the consent of the Americans,the terrorist schools and if things continue on this path the US will never succeed in eliminating terror and more money will be paid by the US taxpayer for war and….funding terrorist schools!
Jamil. answer us one question. I’ll put it in the simplest words I know:
Is the Qur’an the literal and immutable word of Allah?
Take your time.
67. Dave:
| @ 10. M. Report
| “prosperity denatures religion, makes it | ….harmless”
V
Christianity better if more harmful, thuggish, barbaric ?
Prosperity accompanies sincere practice of religion that IMPROVES HUMAN BEINGS: more capable, kind, and generous, thus prosperity.
What you’ve said is a sort of mangled attack on the medieval violence of Islam and its relationship to the lack of prosperity in Islamic countries. You said the opposite of what you meant.
*
*
*
My Fault: Obsessive oversimplification,
complicated by lack of proper technical terms,
and aggravated by a taste for stirring the Pot.
Prosperity allows a more charitable interpretation
of religious rules regarding “Those Other People”.
The clearest example I know of is an African
Bushman culture which has two sets of rules
for other tribes: Charitable during good times,
Predatory during bad times, both intended to
maximize survival of one’s own tribe;
The _same_individuals_ have no difficulty
switching back and forth between the two
sets of rules.
As to the improvement of humanity by religion:
Yes, if language is a virus, and religion is a
psychological infection, a subtle brainwashing.
No, if adaptation to environment by natural selection results in different “models” of humanity, who adopt,and modify (or generate), religions which reflect their model of humanity.
I say that lack of prosperity, and violence, are
a result of a population overloading the carrying
capacity of its environment, in which case a
work ethic, kindness, and generosity are not
survival characteristics, and will not be
reflected in their religion.
I don’t think David S. is lying; he’s just demonstrating himself to be a fool. He doesn’t see the wisdom in belief in Jesus, because he can’t, just like every other fool. Fools are always wise in their own sight, but anyone with any sense can see their folly.
By the way, David, anything that doesn’t last forever is ultimately worthless. Far from removing meaning from one’s death, belief in an afterlife is the only thing that can give one’s life or death any real meaning, because everything else will eventually fade.
Raymond,
Excellent article.
And though I think everything you say is true, and I agree in all manner and kind that Ben Ladin and al-Qaedanesque tactics are about convincing the West, which is generally ignorant of Islam’s bellicose doctrines; that jihad is a byproduct of foreign policy.
Although I agree with all that, the last nine months of Obama in charge has convinced me of something else.
Something very real and very likely.
Something not spoken of at liberal or conservative uptown New York cocktail parties. Not heard at Town Hall, 123 west 43rd St., or even whispered about during intermissions of Broadway shows. Or, for that matter, even quietly suggested by the Hannities, Becks and Savages of the world.
The truth is, Americans have never before been so all fired angry. Nationally incensed. Itching for a fight. It pains me to say it, it really does, but, as Mr. Paster said in 7th grade honors science: For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction.
My friends and enemies, America is going to react.
React to Obama trying to change this country’s form of government. React to Obama trying to take us down a path which not only is destructive to American ideals and beliefs, and financially ruinous, but is dangerous to the world as waving your hand in front of a rattlesnake.
As Monk on TV says, “Here’s what happened” (how a murder was committed). I, at PJM, and other venues am telling you something akin.
Here’s what’s going to happen.
The next three years and change will fly by with many Obama programs jammed down our throats. Call them socialistic or whatever. These bills and executive orders will be rejected as injurious by all but the radical Obama base who either are socialistic/Marxists or represent the “follow-Obama- right-or-wrong fanatic loggerheads. ObamaCare (with the public option), costed out at six trillion dollars over ten years, (not the bare bones one estimated at 800 billion this week) will be passed through the pernicious process of reconciliation.
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan instead of following his general’s advice, the necessary troops won’t be sent and the war will, for all intents and purposes, be lost. The Jihad will enjoy much success. Farther east, and twelve months later, Russia will take saber rattling to incalculable new heights, openly and brazenly sending thousands more military advisers to various South American countries.
In 2012, Obama will be narrowly defeated by the equivalent of Obama, only a right wing conservative; somebody who talks center, slightly right politics, but with many generalities. After assuming office, though, the new President will take a definite right turn.
Leading a majority of very angry Republicans and conservative/moderate Democrats, he’ll start building a case for the imposition of the Bush Doctrine. (If you don’t know what it is, ask Charlie Gibson.)
He’ll harp on the fact that our Monroe Doctrine has been broken by Russia. Which will be true.
He’ll give a series of “We’re fed up and we’re not going to take it anymore” speeches, whipping up the masses.
The mainstream media will change like a chameleon and help ferment public opinion, and politicians will start talking in terms of “preventive strikes.”
Russia and China will respond in the harshest language to the changing U.S. foreign policy, and unnamed jihadists will light the fuse that this very radical president needs to galvanize total congressional and popular support.
He’ll announce the perfection of the “people killer”, a bomb that leaves property virtually intact, but kills people.(living things)
The jihadist fuse will be the detonation of a filthy nuclear device on the west side of New York, capable of wiping out the little village of Sea Cliff.
The new U.S. President will rightly believe he has carte blanche to write some checks that the American military will be all too ready to cash. The jihad will soon exist only in history books. America will cotton to the seductive scent of victory.
All this and more I fear will come to pass.
Because, boys and girls, “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”
To Mr Poretto
It is like asking :was Hiler a christian?
Moslems believe that Qoran is Gods words the same as christians believe in the bible . We judge on honoring Gods words from practice . 14 centuries of coexistence is a good judgement.
Jamil:
You are either not a Muslim, or you are a terrible liar. Islamic doctrine is and has always been that the Qur’an is the literal and immutable word of Allah, never to be edited nor reinterpreted by men. Ask the imams at Al-Azhar, supposedly the highest authorities in your “religion.” For that matter, ask any imam anywhere. They’d never dare to answer otherwise.
The Bible is a book written by men. Christians believe it to be divinely inspired, but not the actual word of God as Muslims hold the Qur’an to be. Parts of the Bible are universally conceded to be allegorical rather than literal. But according to Muhammad himself, the Archangel Gibril recited the Qur’an to him exactly as he gave it to you.
Of course, a Muslim who admits this core tenet of his “religion” to an “infidel” must then admit that he subscribes to the approximately one hundred exhortations in the Qur’an to spread Islam by the sword. That would scrub the patina of peace off your “religion,” wouldn’t it?
I continue to maintain that no non-Muslim — most especially no Christian or Jew — should ever trust a professing Muslim. Every one of you is either insincere or inclined to violence, and I will have no truck with you.
Oh, by the way, Hitler was not a Christian. He hated Christianity, just as he hated every other potential competitor for his authority. Nor have Muslims ever coexisted peaceably with other faiths; you’ve always desired to subjugate us, and wherever and whenever you achieved political hegemony, you did so. So you have some learning to do…if that’s not forbidden by your “religion.”
(Gee, I hope this isn’t “hate speech.”)
Mr Porretto
Take it easy and do not be nervous. It is not polite to accuse me hastely of being liar.We are exchanging opinions and ideas and not shelling curses.
First of all, you are right that all Moslems consider Qoran the words of God and when I resembled this with the bible I did not mean that the bible is the words of God but it contains quotations from God and Jesus and it is eventually a holy book which leads the spiritual life and the church.
It is written by men as you said.
As for the spread of Islam by sword ,I want to draw your attention that the 2 major battles that spread Islam were Yermok (now in north Jordan)with the Romans who massed their forces against the Moslem army .After their defeat the Roman Emperor withdrew from all Syria that is to Anatolia andthe Moslem army entered Syria without forcing its people to change their religion and they are still today.Khalifa Omar refused to pray inside the church in Jerusalem thus setting a practice for Moslems to respect the other religion.
The second was Qadeseya (on the Iraq- Iran borders where the Fareses were defeated and Moslems entered Persia .
I want to draw your attention that Islam entered Indonesia and south Asia through the Moslem merchants who acted as missionaries with out any bloodshed(they count today roughly 300 mllns).
Yes Hitler was christian and he did not choose another religion even if he hated christians and Jews but all historians admit that he stayed christian even if he did not practice religion .
Yes Islam coexisted with Christianity (10 millions in Egypt, 2 millions in Syria ,1.5 million in Lebanon,1 million in Iraq ,250000 in Jordan a minority of 150000 stillin west bank and Gaza,and 300000 in Iran) are today part of people of that countries,and I hope you will not be surprised as President Bush when he heared in the news about churches in Bagdad!.
Finally this region is the land of Christianity as well as of Islam and Judaesm .
Why do you say that any one of you is either insincere or inclined to violence?did we commit the holocaust against the Jews as the European did?did we throw neuclear bombs over Hirochima and Nagazaki as the Americans did?are we hunting people by drones in Pakistan ,killing women and children and expressing sorrow ?Did we commit genocide against the native Americans?
what about the apartheid regimes in South Africa and Zimbaboy were they the Moslems who persecuted the blacks?
Mr Poeretto I advise you to be impartial in your view ,likely you are a victim of the propaganda ,read more about the questions I raised before, and be opened to other opinions and sure you will change some of your views if not more.
I appreciate your sense of discussion and research but please next time do not say liar to a man who argues you may be he will be fanatic and you spend time exchanging insults with him.
Jamil,
I asked you a simple question with a yes-or-no answer — an answer any Muslim would know — and you evaded it. You followed up with an attempt to equate the Bible, a document both Christians and Jews allow is the work of men, with the Qur’an, which Muslims believe to be the literal words of Allah. That indicts you as either a liar or a non-Muslim. You’ve followed up just above with irrelevancies, tu quoque nonsense, and outright falsehoods. If you’re a Muslim, typical of your co-religionists, then trusting Muslims is literally insane.
Inasmuch as you’ve demonstrated a determination to press falsehoods upon us here, I consider you a conscious, purposeful liar. Incidentally, you’re also a very poor propagandist.
To others here, I commend the website Islam: The religion of peace (and a big stack of dead bodies) for a compendium of Islam’s actual intentions for us “infidels.” When Jamil and other Muslims get around to denouncing and demonstrating against all violence committed in the name of Islam, rather than weasel-wording their way around the matter by condemning “terrorism” and “violence against the innocent,” I’ll grant them a fresh hearing. Until then, professing Muslims had better move slowly and keep their hands where I can see them; I won’t trust them one single inch.
@68. Francis W. Porretto:
If there’s anyone out there who can find something objectionable in these absolutes, I challenge him to present it here.
The objections arise from the unsupportable premises of eternal life and divine being. Jesus’ moral teachings are well regarded – it’s the nonsense about God and eternal life that make possible the justification of acts that would otherwise clearly violate the basic morality he preached.
Humility always, friends.
Humility is great – but every prophet is a failure in this regard.
@74. myth buster:
belief in an afterlife is the only thing that can give one’s life or death any real meaning
This is exactly the problem. There are far too many people in the world who believe this BS. The only meaning your life will have is the one that you give it on earth.
Peace.
DS
Thanks Raymond, it´s nice to hear you say the truth, as usual. The ideology of world domination, and at the same time enslave-women,50%of Humanity. Islam with this in mind will always live in the dark, and the rest of us under the shadow of the sword. One of the biggest reasons I live in Mexico, no mosques or madrasas. Islam is afraid of women,if they gave women rights the entire religion would fade into history. There is nothing more scary, to the male muslim, than a women with a gun ready to protect her rights, not like a brainwashed suicide bomber. Domination of the world and keep women in a closet, What an exciting future. Knowledge sets one free, truthfull knowledge feeds the tree of life. To love death more than life, as Hamas says, there is the problem, and life after death promises negates the present and never faces reality of Now. Each one us needs to read, study, listen, learn, and act accordingly, stand up to Islam, on your knees is no way to live!
Mr Porretto
I am sure that you do not want to open your mind especially on the alliance between the US and the terrorist producing countries as Saudi Arabia and others.you pick phrases which Moslems say a type of “There is no God “which is written in the Qoran but followed by “but the mighty God”.It is an old style of propaganda you are using and I advise you to go back to history on the points I mentioned above ( the coexistence of Christianity and Judesm and other Moslems with Islam , and the genocides committed bu Europeans and the US,the numbers oh Christians still in Mideast countries)this will be much more useful to you than thse quotations that you pick them out from Qoran without completing the text and the idea there are a lot of allegations like this, so do not consider that you discovered something .Again I recommend: Go back to history and civilizations .
One thing I agree with you is that the some Saudis are the only Moslems who share you these quotations and do not complete, and based upon them they raise the Wahabi Salafi qaedi culture which is still funded by consent of the US and turns to apply these quotations in terrorist actions.
It seems that people in the US who still support the Saudis are like you :closed mind ,fanatics and refuse to discuss historical facts .
Do not be sad if I tell you that you think the same way they do , but from the other side.
Jamil, you’re a shameless little liar, aren’t you?
This is coexistence between Jews, Christians, and Muslims, according to Muhammad:
“the Messenger of Allah . . . would say: ‘Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war. . . . When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. . . . Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them. . . . If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them . . .’” (Muslim Book 19, Number 4294).
“fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war) . . . ” (Qur’an 9:5).
“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Qur’an 9:29).
Any “genocides” committed by Europeans or Americans were not done in obedience to Christ’s commands, unlike Islam, under which every non-Muslim, apostate, woman, and little girl butchered and violated pleases Allah.
That any Christians survive under Allah’s tyranny is literally a miracle.
Today’s Dar al-Islam was once Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Hindu, pagan, and animist. How do you think all those formerly non-Muslim lands converted? Love and good deeds? Sweet reason?
It was the sword, just as Muhammad commanded and practiced.
No one has to take anything “out-of-context” to know that Allah and his butcher Muhammad are the source and sustenance of 1400 years of hell on Earth.
As for terrorism, your genocidal, camel-urine-drinking, pedophilic “prophet” stated it plainly:
“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been made victorious with terror’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220).
So, stop lying, Jamil Abu-Jahl. Every day, more and more non-Muslims discover your “religion’s” texts, tenets, and time-lines. Your days are numbered.
To any non-Muslims still willfully-blind, suicidal, or just plain stupid enough to give a propagandist like Jamil any credence: Search the texts for yourself.
Here’s a good place to start:
http://amillennialist.blogspot.com/2004/07/allah-and-his-false-prophet-command.html
Amillianist
Again and again do not quote clauses and build theories on them ,if you are brave and free go ahead and answer the questions in 78 and do not hide behind partial quotations ,it is an old and uncovered trick that researchers never rely on it.
Again are not the christians who committed the genoside against the jews known as holocaust?
Are not the christians who persecuted the blacks in the aparheid regime in South Africa and Zimbaboi?
Are not the christians who committed genoside against the native Americans?
Are not the christians who used nuclear bombs in Heroshima and Nagazaki?
Do not waste your time looking for quotations and answer these questions.
CORRECTION:
Please note that in 84 the last 4 lines the word “the” before Christians should be ommitted because what I mean are “christians” and not “the christians “which means all of them.
Thank you
i totally agree with Jamil Hanna
we need to analyze the situation!
what the heck? Islam historically is the most tolerant of religions. just look at al-andalus. the ONLY civilization in western europe that allowed jews to fully assimilate WITHOUT them having to sacrifice their orthodoxy. its called “People of the Book” and Muslims even applied that mentality to Hindus. Meanwhile in the Christian world christians enjoyed institutions such as the inquisitions that targeted anyone who wasnt christian. During the crusades christians beheaded unarmed muslims while people like Saladin were very tolerant of people of other religions. thats why Saladin was called the gentle conqueror. If you really dont like how SOME muslims hate the west then perhaps your ancestors should have treated them a little nicer. Never shoot a gun at someone without willing to be shot back. and no, dont go with the stuff on how we all should put that in the past if the past still haunts many people today. a lot of the strife in the middle east was caused because of the british empire’s meddling.
no im not muslim. im catholic and yes i have many friends who are muslims AND religous and no they dont go around preaching about how we(catholics, other christians, and jews) should all die or convert. i just understand that some people in the middle east have some resentment towards our ancestors actions. Actions which helped bring us on top while keeping the middle east down and divided(although the british mostly get blamed for this). and then once we got on top, then we start acting all “nice”, on the surface at least since we still have been meddling in the middle east, and disacknowledge that we have ever done anything wrong to them.
Nice bit of historical revisionism, Alex. Muslims would be proud of you for parroting their elevated and sanitized view of their bloody history.
Your capsule summary is utter rubbish. You cite Saladin’s compassion in recapturing Jersulem, implying this was typical during Muslim conquests. It wasn’t. Try reading the story of Mehmet II’s conquest of Constantinople in 1453, where the plundering, rape and murder went on nonstop for three days. This is a more typical account of what happened during Muslim conquests, especially during their sweep up through the Balkans in the 15th Century. And you say they were gentle with Hindus? Gimme a break. Try asking an Indian some time about the 80 million Hindus who were slaughtered over the centuries-long Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent.
Alex, you need to broaden your reading beyond works by Muslim apologists who like to portray Islam as peaceful and a “light unto the world.” It was/is neither. Your post exhibits a superficial knowledge of history, and one that has been heavily influenced by modern multiculturalist and anti-Western propaganda. Try expanding your reading beyond Islamic apologetics to include some written by its critics, especially historians that actually lived during the centuries-long Muslim assault on Europe that was finally stopped at Vienna in 1683. It’s not only the fair thing to do, and it will prevent you from making statements like you did above. A good one to start with would be “The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam” by the historian Bat Ye’or. You can buy it from Amazon. There are many others, too.
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Thanks.