Pakistan, a country whose stability has been questioned of late, is building two large plutonium reactors unconnected to the electricity grid. Most experts think the Pakistanis are radically increasing their nuclear warhead production capacity. The question is why and what that development portends. MSNBC writes:
Without any public U.S. reproach, Pakistan is building two of the developing world’s largest plutonium production reactors, which experts say could lead to improvements in the quantity and quality of the country’s nuclear arsenal, now estimated at 60 to 80 weapons.
What makes the project even more threatening is that it is unique. “Pakistan is really the only country rapidly building up its nuclear forces,” says a U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the issue, noting that the nations that first developed nuclear weapons are now reducing their arsenals. … the billions in U.S. economic and military aid that have permitted Pakistan’s military to divert resources to nuclear and other weapons projects.
“The addition of the two reactors does two things,” Mian [of the International Panel on Fissile Materials at Princeton University] notes. “It allows them to make a lot more warheads, four or five a year, but it also allows them to make much lighter and more complex weapons for longer-range missiles and cruise missiles. … And triggers for thermonuclear weapons are almost always plutonium-based.” … Moreover, Mian says he believes that Pakistan also is upgrading its uranium centrifuge program at Kahuta, outside Islamabad, which has already given the country its first 70 nuclear weapons.
No. It potentially allows them to do four things. The two mentioned by Dr. Mian and two more. First it gives them the capability to supply warheads to third parties for money and ideology and second, it allows them to “touch” the United States for aid in exchange for promising not to do what it is in their interest to keep doing. One speaker on Pakistan compared the country to a man who made a living by getting people to pay him not to commit suicide or do other nasty things. A man like that never gets off the ledge. But anyway the article continues:
The intelligence community has long had concerns about Khushab’s leadership. As George Tenet recalled in his memoir, “At the Center of the Storm,” the Central Intelligence Agency learned in the fall of 2001 that the former head of Khushab, Sultan Bashirrudan Mahmood, and the former head of the facility where bombs are designed, Chaudri Andul Majeed, had met just weeks before Sept. 11 with al-Qaida’s top leaders.
The MSNBC article doesn’t touch on India’s probable reaction. So far the Indians have publicly been restrained. They did not even retaliate after the Mumbai attack. President Obama has stated that he wants to create a world without nuclear weapons. But if events in Pakistan are any indicator, events in the subcontinent are going the other way.
embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt
Is it real this time? And if so, how will Japan react?
How’s that working out?
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This implies that Taliban, ISI, and upper levels of Pak Government are in fact overlapping at multiple levels.
I suggest:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/aq-khan
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200601/aq-khan
for those who want to be really terrified:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2006/RAND_TR391.pdf
(nuke in San Pedro Harbor, Los Angeles CA)
Have at it
Inland Empire
India is not saying anything, but THEY will not allow Pakistan to get the upper hand in nuclear weapons.
However, I have always had this notion Pakistan was interested in supplying such weapons to Saudi Arabia. In fact, Stan Kurtz sometime ago speculated Saudi Arabia could very well be in the nuclear club noting a report that Richard Armitage, during the Reagan administration, jacked the Saudis up for purchasing Chinese missiles. Those missiles were only oever observed to be nuclear tipped. Now, Kurtz hedges by stating the Sauds were probably conned into buying hte missiles and the US used this to force the Saudis into signing the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. However, with Iran on the brink of joining the nuclear club I bet Saudi Arabia would be very interested in purchasing nuclear bullets.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MmI2ZDg5Y2NmYzZkNzY3YTg5MzA4YTI4NGQ4N2FiOWE=
Follow the money. They will be selling these nukes for cold hard cash.
It was reported that the Saudis paid for some of the nuke development in Pak. I guess they want some payback.
This is a very provocative move. Certainly India, US, Israel would have reason to drop some bombs on these plants. The EU would also have reason to do so but not the intestinal fortitude. I can only guess what the Iranians would think of this.
Awww…what’s another 20-30 nukes among friends?
We’re all friends, right?
The pace of events is accelerating…soon they’ll be moving faster than the Noob can react. “Make hay while the sun shines” ring a bell?
I had heard that due to fear of Iran’s nuclear ambitions that Saudi Arabia was shopping for a nuke weapon. The US obviously was not going to provide that, so the next bet was to shop at the only Muslim country that has some.
AQ Khan has been released from house arrest and he had planned to distribute nuclear expertise to other Muslim countries. Guess what these reactors are for. AQ Khan of course. Pakistan can manufacture the warhead and sell those to countries and they buy the missile and launching capacity.
Back in the day when news of Pakistan & Indias respective nuke tests got out I was in the region. I said to a buddy outside of church one Friday afternoon that Saudi now has the bomb. When I told him, (I do not recall hearing that Saudi provided funding on the research) I bet Saudi funded at least part of that project he agreed my speculation on both fronts was likely true.
Various GCC states HAVE been showing an interest in developing nuclear power. While I suppose some of the intent is to hedge against bubbles (no matter what is behind them) like we had last summer (they need to desalinate & run their nations) I am sure quite a bit of it is also to start locking in their own roads to the nuclear club.
If you can not depend on the cop to stop the bad guys before they hit you, you either get hit and wait for the cleanup crew or you learn to hit the bad guys back or first.
How ironic, President Obama’s intention is for a nuclear free world, but he may actually encourage the enlarging of the nuclear club.
I think a more plausible situation would be if the Taliban were about to compromise the Pakistani nuclear force and the Pakistani government moved them to the KSA for save haven. Had the Saudis wanted to buy a nuke, they could easily have done so, anytime over the past 15 years.
The Saudis have repeated said, and in many fora, that they don’t want nukes. They’d like the whole region denuclearized.
The days when Richard Armitage could extract non-proliferation guarantees from the Saudis with a stiff dressing down are gone. At this point, in the wake of a nuclear-capable Iran, we’d need to offer the Gulf states a sophisticated anti-missile system, major conventional weapons capabilities, and serious American defense guarantees, to have any hope of preventing further proliferation. Yet each of these potential solutions to the proliferation problem raises troubling difficulties of its own.
Stanley Kurtz — http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MmI2ZDg5Y2NmYzZkNzY3YTg5MzA4YTI4NGQ4N2FiOWE=
We have or will have a nuclear Mexican standoff in the Middle East. That in addition to the standoff between India & Pakistan itself.
The base assumption would be that the Saudis are honest. Right?
Sure, we’ll let you hide your nukes in Mecca, nobody would ever touch Mecca. Right?
Non -proliferation possible? When the whole world descends into fear, the first move is to give up on national defense, right? Just like when there are a string of burglaries in your neighborhood, you are going to prove your faith in your fellow man by leaving your house unlocked. Right?
The Saudis have a huge asset to protect, their oil fields, and there is no way they are going to let the Shia Iranians dictate policy to them. The oil revenue sustains the House of Saud and finances worldwide proselytizing of the Wahabbist Sunni faith.
The wolf is just across the Straights of Hormuz from the jackal. Who will win?
Up until the mid-late ’70s the Christians of the UAE had conspicuous churches throughout the Emirates. Come the Iranian revolution those churches came down and rebuilt in remoter locales and not so obviously Christian as the old churches.
Read that Kurtz article.
We’ll have to see who wins the Indian elections (we should see soon!), but unless the BJP takes power without being encumbered by significant coalition partners (and that seems unlikely), I wouldn’t anticipate India doing anything. Congress, the head party in the ruling coalition, is way too dependent on the Muslim “vote-bank” to take a tough line vs. Pakistan–see, e.g., the lack of response to the Mumbai attack.
Time is running out for the peace and love foreign policy of the Bamster.
I often get adversarial reactions when I come to the topic of what I’ll simply term “global tough love” There’s a shiny little nugget in this tread that goes far in explaining why we are in the global situation we’re in at the moment. The nugget comes at the end of the third paragraph.
…the billions in U.S. economic and military aid that have permitted Pakistan’s military to divert resources to nuclear and other weapons projects
That nugget is the downstream notice that there’s been a rich vein of pure gold for the world since the end of WWII. Yes, we needed trading partners after the war so we had the Marshall Plan and rebuilt Europe. The colonists helped old Europe regain it’s footing but at the demand for an end to colonialism. Seemed a righteous thing at the time (but only because we had a nasty developing black class in this country) but now three plus score years later and the tribes are still tribes; hacking each other to death with machete’s and necklacing each other. A bit more colonialism may have brought a bit more civilization to our Residents mother continent.
Then we bathed Europe in enough money via a myriad of agencies to allow socialism to really root itself deeply into Europes cultures. Our trillions in defense spending provided all the umbrella they needed after George Keenans “Long Telegram” outling containment of the expansionist Soviets.
We coddled the world, asked them not to defend themselves but to join a faux NATO where we did ALL the lifting and they went to the pub ,mall, or pastry shop. But we all know their defenses were just a sidebar joke.
Now Pakistan ostensibly will be the next GIANT beneficiary of our wiping, fanny powdering, and diapering a nation into a menace, not a responsible nation.
Well, for my part I never believed in a war you begin with the thought of winning hearts and minds. I believe you kick ass and dictate, as we did in Japan, what and how things will be done going forward. We’ve lost all that. It’s now always the dessert before the chores are done. Trouble is the counter parties never do their chores and we end up with a pail of dirty diapers. Not a good way to conduct policy. Have them fear you first..then they can fake the orgasm later if they want to so they can get another lollipop.
I cling to the belief that his election was aided by massive vote fraud and foreign money. Partly that is to ameliorate the pain of knowing that many if not most Americans voted for this alien idiot. He is either a traitor, an invader, or the biggest fool in human history. Millions may die to prove there is no Holiday from History with Obama.
Obama could not, as Glen Reynolds noted, do anything more deliberate to weaken the US’s defense if he was actively trying.
It’s a pretty good bet he’s actively trying. We all know the guy is a Muslim, hates the US, hates Whites in particular, and wants the US to be weak and defeated. He’s got visions of himself as the new Age Marshal Petain. Complete with Vichy America.
Now his backers would love that as well, but the wild cards are how most Americans react to the nuking, say, of NYC. Most men and married women would react with horror, and anger, others would react to it by demanding surrender.
Goldsworthy had a podcast on NRO, where he noted that Rome was remarkably stable for several centuries under the Emperor system, until the Emperors and the elites and military people around them cared more about their positions than the good of Rome.
I think if the US was nuked, most of Obama’s backers would care about themselves and their own power rather than the good of America. A quick surrender lacking any nuclear weapons that “work” would be in the cards. Petainism would certainly benefit the current ruling class — they all know the problem that J. G. Ballard pointed out in the “Empire of the Sun” … great changes in society forced by war makes innate ability to survive important, not past status and power.
Obama was known to have been in Pakistan during one Summer between Junior and Senior years in Columbia. Perhaps he was there for the girls and surfing. Or jihad. The latter more likely.
“Rome was remarkably stable for several centuries under the Emperor system, until the Emperors and the elites and military people around them cared more about their positions than the good of Rome.”
And here I’d always thought Rome’s downfall was the embrace of Abrahamic religion v.2.0 (Islam being v.3.0)–embrace your “pagan” roots, people!
(I kid!)
Come Mr. Talleyman, tally me banana
Is now Come Mr. Taliban let me show you this
Nice little thing we’ve got here’n Pashtunanana
For the right price we are sure you cannot miss
Think of the joy you can bring to Muslim masses
Think of the laughter the Arab street will find
Think of the tears as you kick those Yankee asses
Think of the fears you will raise in Kaffir’s mind
Don’t think of price for we know you can afford it
We know you’ve got resources out the old kazoo
Just sign your name here and then we can record it
Then after that you’ll just have to holler boo
Everyone knows that you never show no mercy
Everyone knows that you mean just what you say
One little bomb could take out all of New Jercy
Two little bombs and you own the USA
Come Mr. Taliban to Pashtunanana
Come Mr. Taliban cross my palm with gold
Come Mr. Taliban tally me banana
Soon everyone will be doing as he’s told
Walt!
“…It potentially allows them to do four things. The two mentioned by Dr. Mian and two more. First it gives them the capability to supply warheads to third parties for money and ideology and second, it allows them to “touch” the United States for aid in exchange for promising not to do what it is in their interest to keep doing…” –Wretchard
Why not? It’s a perfect opportunity.
The world has seen the weakest US President in 30 years – no make it 100 years. It’s a great time to screw Bambi and become a nuclear supermarket.
This horrifying development fills me with dread. I agree with posters above that Saudi Arabia’s trillions are behind this in every way. Their undeserved oil bonanza proves to be an ineluctable flrce in slreading the disease of Islam and indermining global systels. We seem to be in a terrifying unstoppable spiral, refusing or incapable of doing what is necessary, or even contemplating what may be necessary to arrest our slide into nightmare. Our complete failure to recognize the centrality of Islam, Jihad, the trillions of dollars which have poured into Muslim coffers over the decades, and the cancerous instabilities Muslims cause across the globe will be our undoing.
Most ominous to me in this formula: by the time the West recognizes how dire our predicament is it will be too late to do much about it. I think the Muslims have already figured this out. Very soon after 9/11 I determined that they could win. Nearly nine years after 9/11, I’m convinced they ARE winning. If we fail to stop Iran in its tracks, I despair and think it’s impossible for conclude anything but that they will win.
I’m agnostic, but Islam makes me think that Satan must be real.
It has become quite clear that the US won’t stop Iran from getting the bomb, and they won’t allow/will prevent Israel from doing anything about it. So actors in the region are doing what they feel necessary to match the Iranian threat.
What is funny about this is that these are marginally allies of the US. Allies of the US are feeling insecure under the umbrella of an unpredictable superpower.
A hypothetical question. If current allies of the US acquire military means to feel secure, will they remain allies? The Saudis are troublesome at best, but they need the US and the US needs them. What happens when they don’t?
Remember when Copernicus discovered that the universe didn’t revolve around the powers in Rome? Washington isn’t the center of the universe either. Unless they use their power to make themselves so.
Derek
“Now Pakistan ostensibly will be the next GIANT beneficiary of our wiping, fanny powdering, and diapering a nation into a menace, not a responsible nation.”
Habu – I had forgotten about these consequences of the US “safety umbrella” allowing Pakistan and others to divert money into areas that they otherwise could not afford, such as building nuclear weapons.
This is a extremely scary development. Israel vs. Iran or India vs. Pakistan. Which will come first? Probably Israel attacking the Iranian nuclear sites, despite the US trying to stop them. When you very survival is on the line, you do what you have to do.
The tip jar is not working. It brings you to the PJM front page.
Oh this is easy, send Pakistan a note via Hillary stating: “Any nuclear warhead from what ever country that hits American forces, interest or the states will instantly trigger an assured destruction by American forces up to and including similar weapons on Pakistan.”
Now if the Paki’s hit India then we will stand by and deal with whomever survives the reposte along with humanitarian aid for those that wish it if any do survive.
Time to take the gloves off Bubba’s!
I’ve fixed the tipjar.
Thanks!
I was recently a participant in a “wargame” similar to the old game of Diplomacy. The organizer had rewritten it to reflect his veiw of the current situation in the Mid-East/South Asia.
The situation was that Iran was on the brink of testing an atomic weapon when word leaked out (assumed date; 2010ish). We were given our national situation and overall objectives and then turned loose.
The Israeli player, seeing the decline of support from the US, UN and EU decided that his best interests lay with China/India. Technology exchanges and areas of interest were agreed upon.
This coalition lead to Saudi Arabia joining hands with Pakistan and Iraq, shouting about the Jewish-Buddhist Alliance but eyeing the Iranian-Syrian axis.
The Iranians-Syrians caused a great deal of trouble with their proxies and managed to neuter Turkey (it fell into a civil-war situation between the Islamists and the Army) and Egypt.
Finally the Israeli-Chinese-Indians said enough was enough and struck a deal wherein they would eliminate Iranian and Pakistani nuke capability, India would take over portions of the dismembered Pakistan, China would move into Iran to “oversee relief efforts and ensure civil peace”. The Saudi-Paki-Iraqi alliance was broken when the ICI coalition threatened to destroy Mecca but promised no harm to the other members if they sat quietly by while peace was imposed.
The US was entirely marginalized by the lack of political will and the tangled web of commitments. The UN and EU made unhappy sounds but did nothing.
Israel and China destroyed (via conventional and nuclear assets) the Iranian nukes, Israel and India took Pakistan’s. China moved into Iran to provide “humanitarian relief”, India moved into the NWT to impose law and a new Baluchistam was made from areas sliced away from Pakistan and Iran. Syria was “reduced” with portion given to a newly cleansed Lebanon and other bits tossed to Iraq and Turkey to keep them on board.
I (I was Turkey) spent most of my time trying to regain control of my country and found in the end that Kurdistan had appeared on my eastern flank. I was forced to recognize them.
It was entirely plausible and not a little frightening. I hope somebody in DC is doing the same thing and thinking carefully about outcomes.
Sounds like there will be plenty of bullets to go round when the Taliban takes over.
what would happen if the entire Pakistani nuke supply went up in one swift attack?
would that be an end to pakistan?
“That nugget is the downstream notice that there’s been a rich vein of pure gold for the world since the end of WWII. Yes, we needed trading partners after the war so we had the Marshall Plan and rebuilt Europe. The colonists helped old Europe regain it’s footing but at the demand for an end to colonialism. Seemed a righteous thing at the time (but only because we had a nasty developing black class in this country) but now three plus score years later and the tribes are still tribes; hacking each other to death with machete’s and necklacing each other. A bit more colonialism may have brought a bit more civilization to our Residents mother continent.”
so right, but you, anglo-saxons, you were eager to we lose our colonies
17/Walt, you are amazing! Douglas Farah says Gretchen Peters’ new book about heroin financing the Taliban (those “resources out the old kazoo”) is a good one. What I really want to get next is Phares’ trilogy, the last of which is coming out in paperback later this month. Just started Leo Marks’ Between Silk and Cyanide which I got at the used bookstore. I’m having to list and look up or guess at the many acronyms he uses.
20/MD: “I’m agnostic, but Islam makes me think that Satan must be real.”
I think the majority of my fellow housewives go through their day far more concerned about getting Jimmy to his piano lesson and Jenny to her soccer practice after school. The best of them might be able to do a country map, but only because of helping the kids with their homework, not because they avidly read all updates to the CIA Factbook. The few who are somewhat aware are more focused on trying to make their mortgage payments after pay cuts/job losses and figure out cheaper college options. Very, very few are looking beyond the home front, and I wonder how much worse it must get for them to realize Satan is breathing down our necks?
It reminds me of when I kept chickens. The best rooster wasn’t a chicken’s chicken, but an outward facing fellow who was always aware of eagles, owls, coyotes, and bears, and would herd the girls back into the hen house at the slightest sign of danger. Ever vigilant…
Habu @ #13: “(but only because we had a nasty developing black class in this country)”
Care to elaborate more on that?
It is about time someone recognizes the Saudi threat. The Saudis have pulled the wool over the eyes of US leadership for far too long. Sure Iran is a problem and its nuclear program makes it an even bigger one. But, the Sunni threat financed by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf dwarfs anything the Iranians can come up with.
The Pakistani nuclear program was almost fully financed by the Saudis, and the Saudi king attended the first test trials, and declared it the Islamic bomb. The Pakistani Government is only slightly less fanatic than the Taliban. The war raging now is one of control and dominance, and is not about whether Pakistan will be fundamentalist or not.
In fact Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the only three countries to recognize Taliban rule in Afghanistan are the main source of support for this movement. Now the Taliban and Al-Qaida are trying to take the throne rather than continue to take orders and that is the cause of the conflict.
Has anybody wondered why the Saudis who make up less than 2% of the Moslem population produce more than half of all terrorists? Pakistan produces most of the rest.
The most extreme Wahhabi Islam rules Saudi Arabia. These are the doctrines of Bin Laden and taught the world over to terrorists.
Saudi Arabia is the most radical of Islamic Governments anywhere. The Iranian rulers are not nice guys by a long shot, but they pale in comparison. Iran has an active opposition in the country albeit not very effective yet. Non-Moslem minorities exist and are allowed to practice their religion, of course with limitations, but churches actually have bells and crosses on the outside. Women are allowed to vote, drive, run for office, walk with their faces showing etc.
I do not wish for anyone to be an Iranian minority, but in Saudi Arabia it is actually a crime to be anything other than Moslem. Yes, OPENLY DECLARING A FAITH OTHER THAN ISLAM IN SAUDI ARABIA IS A CAPITAL CRIME IN SAUDI ARABIA. After years of complaints, the Saudis relented and removed the word “Kafir” (infidel) from the resident documents of non-Moslem foreigners working there. They now only call them non-Moslems, and are denied the most basic of rights. Women are barely considered human. Opposition to the king on even the slightest of issues is considered treason.
The Saudi Government has no constitution or legislative body. It is ruled purely by Islamic law. It is in fact forbidden to create laws. The rulers are limited to interpreting Islamic law.
Yet, these are proclaimed our “friends and allies”. And, we rely on their help and advice to fight Islamic Fundamentalism. This has been the most insane foreign policy ever. How can we rely on the enemy to help us defeat it?
Today, they try to focus western attention on Iranian nukes and nothing else. These are a looming problem. However there is a more immediate problem that is threatening to become even more problematic. Pakistani Nukes that exist, are growing in numbers and are proliferating throughout the Moslem world.
Stan Kutz’s description of what the Iranians will do in the Gulf does not take into account a very basic fact. As Shiites, who in total make up less that 10% of all Moslems and are considered heretics by Sunnis, the Iranians can never rule the Moslem world. Sunni fanatics can. The Arabian Peninsula is mostly Sunni, even through there is a sizable Shiite minority along the Gulf. Introducing fundamentalist rule in that area will be Sunni, and not a good thing for Iran.
The Iranians are Chess players, which by the way comes from Iran, Their ultimate objective is indirect control over the area, by pressing the Gulf states to abandon US protection in return for military cooperation and mutual protection treaties.
In this, the Iranians will support the fundamentalists to create a threat to the Gulf rulers and present themselves as a savior. They are offering to help the Gulf States in securing themselves from this threat, and arguing that the US presence aggravates fundamentalist sentiments and they would be better off without it.
The Gulf States know that the Iranians are stoking the flames. They also know that the US does aggravate the problem and do not want us there forever. As such, they are working on the Sunni nukes.
They keep us focused on Iran, while they develop their own system of keeping Iran in check.
They are no more our friends than Iran’s rulers. At least the Iranians are honest about it. We know exactly what they think of us.
It is time we learn that Arab rulers do not have any more love for us than the Iranians. And, the reach of Sunni Fundamentalism is much farther than Shiite, and much more dangerous.
Cadmus
Perhaps Cadmus might spend some time looking at what’s actually going on in Saudi Arabia than simply repeating the CW pap?
The Saudis are, in fact, doing a major reform of their legal system, starting with a new Minister of Justice, to infrastructure development, all the way to codifying the laws. At present, individual judges rule as their minds and hearts see fit. That is scheduled to change. Also new to the mix is the introduction of precedence as a legal fixture. The Ulema is being nudged out from the center of law.
Take a look at Saudi Legal Reforms Start, which focuses on an interview the Minister of Justice recently gave to Asharq Alawsat.
Cadmus, this is also the analyse that we make here, but
“It is time we learn that Arab rulers do not have any more love for us than the Iranians”
we know that for a long time, and we had to keep that in mind for deciphering their double language.
Also for people who doubt, they just have to surf on arab blogs
I do not know what CW pap is, so I certainly have not been listening to it.
Infrastructure has nothing to do with any of this. The issue is radical Islam, and the Saudis are in front of everyone. The new Justice Minister is another cousin of the king. What has changed?
The Saudi idea of democracy is appointing councils by the King. Those are usually his family members.
Judges, ruling as their hearts see fit? Only Islamic rule applies. Maybe as they seem to interpret Islam will be more accurate.
Codifying law means setting a specific interpretation of Islam for all to follow.
Ask our troupes who served in Saudi Arabia what happened to their mail during Christmas. It was interrupted for several days to insure they get no Christmas presents or cards. The hold C meetings, even in closed US bases, because it is illegal to hold non-Islamic prayers anywhere in the country.
Please, spare me. The Saudi cultural revolution is visible anywhere Al-Qaida and other terrorists appears.
Are sure your sources are not the same that spoke of Christians in the UAE practicing their faith freely until they began fearing Iran (Marcus Aurelius). There are no Christians in the UAE, except for foreigners working there. And, the first church built was only a few years ago, and was denied any identification marks on the outside. It was only with the decree of the Emir and had a lot of resistance.
Why would they hide their churches from Iran? Iran has its own churches that are functioning now with bells and crosses. I recently watched on American television a prayer service in one of the oldest Assyrian churches around. Yes, those are the same Assyrians that are being annihilated in Iraq, without any Arab country raising a peep.
Heck there are churches everywhere in the world except in Saudi Arabia, where it is illegal to be Christian.
A beacon of tolerance.
Keep on believing.
Cadmus
Read the article below and watch the attached slide show. This will tell you about our “friends” tolerence of Christianity.
Cadmus
Muslim Persecution of Christians
GMT 5-15-2009 17:55:37
Assyrian International News Agency
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Christianity, born in the Middle East, is in danger of losing its two millenia-long presence there. If that notion sounds alarmist to Western ears, it is acknowledged by Middle Easterners as a growing likelihood.
“I fear the extinction of Christianity in Iraq and the Middle East,” said the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baghdad, Jean Benjamin Sleiman, as Pope Benedict XVI visited that troubled region this week. The Lebanese Christian columnist Sarkis Naoum added: “Unless there is a turn toward secularism in the Arab world, I don’t think there is a future for Christians here.” In 1909, the Middle East was 20 percent Christian; one hundred years later, that percentage has fallen to five percent.
This precipitous decline is chronicled and explained in a detailed historical video entitled Muslim Persecution of Christians, produced by the Terrorism Awareness Project. The video, which is embedded below, recounts contemporary examples of anti-Christian violence, and the Islamic theology that justifies and intensifies it.
As the video demonstrates, the resurgence of the Islamic jihad and Islamic supremacism around the world in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries can be directly correlated with the declining Christian population. As Muslims, influenced by Salafi movements to restore the “purity” of Islamic governance, reassert traditional Islamic legal stipulations mandating and institutionalizing discrimination against and harassment of Christians, Christians all over the Islamic world are feeling the heat.
In Pakistan’s Swat Valley, where the Taliban has been lately implementing Shari’a law, Christians have been forced for their own safety to wear Islamic clothing and grow beards, so as to avoid attracting unwanted attention. Not all have been successful: many Christians have fled the area after the Taliban demanded from them jizya payments so large that they were beyond their means to pay. Jizya is the poll tax mandated in the Qur’an (9:29) that “People of the Book” – that is, primarily Jews and Christians – must pay for the privilege of living in an Islamic state.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s State Council, which advises that country’s Administrative Court, issued a report vilifying Maher El-Gohary, an Egyptian convert from Islam to Christianity, who had requested that his religion as listed on his official identification card be changed to reflect his conversion. The report denounced El-Gohary as an “apostate,” termed Christians “infidels,” and insisted (in line with the Qur’an and traditional Islamic belief) that Jesus was a Muslim prophet. It also skewered the convert’s “audacity” in making his request, which the report said threatened Egypt’s social order. Fr. Matthias Nasr Manqarious, who is helping El-Gohary take on Egypt’s legal system, explained that converts from Islam to Christianity today “can’t live as Christians in broad daylight.”
Converts from Islam to Christianity face similar troubles elsewhere in the Islamic world as well. Recently a Pentecostal pastor in Kenya, Abdi Welli Ahmed, who is also a convert from Islam, attempted to cross from Ethiopia into Somaliland, a breakaway Somali province. Ahmed explains: “I was beaten up for being in possession of Christian materials. They threatened to kill me if I did not renounce my faith, but I refused to their face. They were inhuman.”
Why do converts face such a hard time? Because Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, said, “If anyone changes his religion, kill him” – and the death penalty for apostasy is still mandated by all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Many Muslim countries take this very seriously. Early in May, Libyan police arrested a Coptic Christian from Egypt, Gergis Massoud Hanna, on charges of “Proselytizing Christianity in Libya” – although there are indications that a scheming business partner falsely accused Hanna. Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are likewise used to harass Christians. Around the same time Hanna was arrested, a Pakistani attorney prosecuting blasphemy charges against a Christian, Hector Aleem, came out for vigilantism: “If the judge does not punish Aleem according to the law, then [we] will kill him ourselves.”
Pakistan, Egypt, and Somalia have one thing in common: a resurgence of Islamic supremacism and reassertion of elements of Islamic law have not been enforced in those countries by their Western-influenced governments in the recent past. The momentum everywhere in the Islamic world lies with these Salafi movements – and Christians, as well as other non-Muslims, bear the brunt of this reassertion. Muslim persecution of Christians, built as it is into the foundations of Islamic theology and law, is not going to go away – and if movements of Islamic purity continue to gain ground in the Islamic world, it will only increase. It is long past time for human rights organizations and all free people to take notice, and say, “No more.”
strong>Watch Muslim Persecution of Christians
The Terrorism Awareness Project, like FrontPage Magazine and Jihad Watch, is a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com
Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of eight books, eleven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book, Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs, is available now from Regnery Publishing.
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Here is the link to the slide show. The hyperlink did not come through the post.
http://media1.terrorismawareness.org/files/MPAC.swf