The Real War

Muslim leaders in the West spend a great deal of time trying to convince non-Muslims that Islam is a religion of peace, and not a medieval, anti-Semitic construct. These efforts would be more convincing if groups like CAIR could get some of the world’s senior Muslims leaders to keep their mouths shut.

Case in point: the Grand Mufti Sheikh Dr. 'Ali Gum'a, who is the senior religious cleric in Egypt. Only last year, the Mufti was getting some good press in the West. The year before the Mufti’s infamous fatwa declaring sculpture forbidden, G. Willow Wilson, writing in the Atlantic Monthly, dubbed ‘Ali Gum’a “The Show-Me Sheik,” assuring readers that the grand mufti was “peddling a new kind of radical Islam—traditionalism without the extremism.”

Well, I suppose that depends on what you term “extremism.” Here are a few extracts, (courtesy of MEMRI) from the Grand Mufti’s article published in the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram on 7 August 7 2006.

Greetings to the Lebanese people, to the Lebanese government, and to the Lebanese resistance—to the small and beautiful country that has proved to the world that the ideals of determination, bravery and self-dignity still exist in this era that has been taken over by the blood-sucking murderers. . . .

These lies have exposed the true and hideous face of the blood-suckers who were described by Filmange in his book The Treasure Hidden in the Talmudic Laws [sic], which tells how [the Jews] planned [to prepare] a matzo [unleavened Passover bread] using human blood. If we follow events, the most important thing [that we discover], in my opinion, is that the war going on [today] plants hatred in the next generations, as though one of its goals is to perpetuate the conflict for many years to come.

I understand the Mufti isn’t happy about what happened in Lebanon. And the recent Lebanon war did not gain the Israelis many friends in the Arab world. But aren’t the Mufti’s remarks extreme? Imagine, if you will, what the Arab response would be if the Cardinal heading the most populous archdiocese in the Roman Catholic Church made comparable remarks about Muslims? And when the nominal head of the most populous Arab state in the world makes patently anti-Semitic remarks, how am I supposed to separate his views from those of mainstream Islam? Is CAIR going to tell me that the Egyptian Grand Mufti is some sort of fringe character?

The website of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting agency today published an article casting doubt about Neil Armstrong’s 1969 moonwalk. Now, I am well aware that there are assorted bozos in the United States who think the moon landing was all Hollywood. Wasn’t there actually a movie made back in the ‘70s to that effect? But for the website of an official government news agency to drag up that old story is, in my mind, fairly lame. Maybe they think the Hollywood director was the same guy who made all those bogus holocaust flicks?

My favorite moonwalk story involves the grandmother of the girl I was dating that summer. I was sitting in the family living room waiting for my date when her grandmother, who lived with the family, came into the room and plopped down on a sofa. The conversation went something like this:

Granny: “You a smarta boy. You thinka dey landa ona da moon?”

Me: “Yea, they did.”

Granny, shaking her head: “I noa thinka dey landa ona da moon. I noa believe it. Anda youa noa why?”

Me: “No, why?”

Granny: “Lasta night, ita be a fulla moon, and I look up ata da sky and I don’t seea noa flag.”

I place this latest official Iran news report in the same class with my discussion with an ex-girlfriend’s totally uneducated and not-so-quick (sorry Paula) grandmother. But at least she had an excuse.

We have to get it through our heads that we are dealing with people who inhabit an alternate universe where Jews run the world and Bush toppled the twin towers using his buddy Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization. (If you are new to this blog, see my post of 10 July 2006.) The sad part is that because we are unwilling to see this reality, and face it head-on, we keep egging these poor people on, and in the end they are going to pay the steepest price, just as the Lebanese paid the highest price for Hezbollah’s actions. The leaders of the jihadist movements (both Sunni and Shi’a), Syria, and Iran think that they smell victory. In fact, they smell the fool’s gold of opportunism, the same scent that led the Japanese down the road to Pearl Harbor, and beyond.

Charles Johnson’s “Little Green Footballs” web blog posted (15 August 2006) a link to video of Azzam Timimi addressing a crowd of protestors in the UK.

Here’s a partial transcript of Timimi’s rant (bolding is mine):

. . . anybody in the world, with faith or without faith, must come together in order to eradicate this cancer [Israel] from the body of humanity. [Crowd: Allah –u-Akbar] We are ever grateful to the late Imam Khomeini for starting this occasion. Because the world . . . must never forget al-Quds, must never forget Jerusalem. For us Muslims, Jerusalem is the mother of faith. Al-Quds is in our [argita?], Al-Quds is in our [rebota?] Al-Quds is the . . . cornerstone to our umma. Those who are prepared to sell al-Quds do not represent us, do not speak for us. Those who resist, those who fight, those who . . . jihad . . . against [?], against Zionism are the true representatives of the Palestinians, and all the Muslims regarding the Palestinian issue.

Do you know why Tony Blair, George Bush, and all the members of this camp are so worried? They are worried because they know the world can see clearly today that Israel is a menace, is a threat to humanity. They can no longer fool anybody and they are worried that this spoiled baby of theirs is about to be thrown out of this human body of ours. [Crowd: Allah –u-Akbar]

It is just a matter of time. You count my words and you remember these words. It is a matter of time, as they were removed from south Lebanon because of the great jihad of Hezbollah. [Crowd: Allah–u-Akbar] And as they are removed from Gaza because of the great jihad of Hamas and Islamic jihad. [Crowd: Allah –u-Akbar] This black chapter in the history of humanity will eventually come to an end and we say, we say we are willing to bring it to an end peacefully. But if they don’t want peace, we have another language, we have another language, and we have every right to use that language and time will tell and history will tell. [Timimi and the crowd: Allah –u-Akbar]

So what? Just another Muslim guy calling for the destruction of Israel? Well, as Johnson points out, Timimi is a “go to guy” for the AP, which likes to quote him as an expert. But there’s another point of interest. Timimi is the director of the Institute for Islamic Political Thought. The US member of the organization’s board of advisors is Professor John Esposito of Georgetown University, one of the most prominent American scholars of Islam. I have to wonder if Timimi’s rousing speech was reflective of the kind of “Islamic political thought” being developed at the Institute?

If I was on the Institute’s board of advisors and I saw this video, I’d resign. I wonder what Esposito will do?

Satire Alert!

Washington, DC, August 15, 1943 (Reuters): The largest Italian-American organization in the United States today published an open letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt protesting the continued ground war and the bombing of Italian villages throughout Sicily. “The Italian people never wanted this conflict,” Umberto Ciambrello, chairman of CAIR (Council on American-Italian Relations) reminded the president. “It was only [Benito] Mussolini and the Germans who desired war; not the Italian people.” In the letter Ciambrello acknowledged that it was “justifiable for the so-called Coalition forces to strike at German troops in Sicily,” but that the “United States and its British ally ought not to attack Italian civilians or blockade Italian ports.”

The letter also accuses the Roosevelt administration of leading the United States into an “unjust and unnecessary war.” Ciambrello asks: “Why is it that the United States, struck by the Japanese, had to go to war with Italy on the other side of the globe?” The letter notes: “Were there any Italian pilots in those planes at Pearl Harbor,” Ciambrello demands to know. “Isn’t it true,” the CAIR chairman inquires, “that the United States had a secret ‘Europe-First’ policy, and maneuvered Japan into the attack of December 7, 1941?” “No less an authority than the eminent American historian, Professor Charles Beard (in his book Backdoor to War: President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War), has shown that the Pearl Harbor strike was forced on Japan by the higher-ups in the administration,” Ciambrello notes. “American foreign policy,” Ciambrello writes, ought to serve the interests of the American people, and not “a group of neo-progressives, many of whom are of Jewish ancestry.” “There are millions of German, Japanese, and Italians in the United States,” Ciambrello points out, “but only a handful of Jews.” “Why do they have so much influence?” he asks; “wouldn’t it have been far better to have relied on the League of Nations to resolve these disputes?”

Simultaneously, the Young Italians of the United Kingdom (YIUK) published an open letter to “The Prime Minister and American Poodle Winston Churchill.” The YIUK letter issued a veiled threat to Churchill, warning that “if the British government continues to pursue belligerent and anti-Italian policies, kills more innocent Italian civilians, and ignores the wishes of its own Italian community, no one should expect people with surnames that end with vowels living in the UK to sit idly by and take no action.”

Both letters also called for the release of all Italian soldiers captured thus far by the Allies. “Some of these poor men have been held for years in detention camps, without warrants and without being brought to trial.”

Many people, especially Muslims, are outraged by George Bush’s use of the term “Islamic Fascist” in reference to the foiled plot in the UK to bomb trans-Atlantic airliners. Personally, I consider the outrage misplaced. Let’s be honest: the plot to kill thousands of passengers on airliners did far more to injure the public image of Islam than anything the president said.

Nevertheless, Bush’s terminology is inaccurate. He should have called the plotters “Islamist Totalitarians.” Anything involved with Islam can be termed Islamic and his use of the adjective was too broad of a brush stroke. Likewise the word “fascist” has become little more than an overused and near-meaningless insult. If you don’t like how someone does something, you call him or her a fascist.

Moreover, the jihadists are not fascists. Fascism is an approach to government that is, by definition, nationalist. Jihadists are internationalists, more akin to communists than fascists. They are also utopian and anti-Semitic. They are totalitarian because the khalifate they wish to establish would control all aspects of its subjects’ lives, be they Muslims or Dhimmis.

I hope that next time around Bush uses the correct terminology. If anyone can come up with a nifty shorthand for the somewhat cumbersome “Islamist Totalitarian,” akin to “Islamo-Fascist” or “Islamikazi,” please let me know via comments.

I’m not quite sure why some Brits seem so dumbfounded about the fact that some young Muslims, including educated university students, harbor a desire to wage jihad from within Great Britain. All you have to do is go to the website of “Young Muslims of the United Kingdom” and visit their articles page. Scroll down and you’ll find the topic: “Great Muslims of the Twentieth Century—Sayyid Qutb.”

Who was Sayyid Qutb? He was a major mid-century theoretician of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, executed for treason by Nasser in 1966. One of Qutb’s most influential books was Milestones, about which more in a moment. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Qaeda al-Jihad’s number two man, wrote in 2001: “Sayyid Qutb’s call for loyalty to God’s oneness and to acknowledge God’s sole authority and sovereignty was the spark that ignited the Islamic revolution against the enemies of Islam at home and abroad. The bloody chapters of this revolution continue to unfold day after day.” Qutb’s brother, Mohammad, who fled Egypt, later taught at a Saudi university where one of his students was Osama bin Laden.

The fourth chapter of Milestones is entitled “Jihaad in the Cause of God.” Here are some excerpts [bolding is mine].

A fourth aspect is that Islam provides a legal basis for the relationship of the Muslim community with other groups, as is clear from the quotation from Zad al-Mitad. This legal formulation is based on the principle that Islam—that is, submission to God—is a universal Message which the whole of mankind should accept or make peace with. No political system or material power should put hindrances in the way of preaching Islam. It should leave every individual free to accept or reject it, and if someone wants to accept it, it should not prevent him or fight against him. If someone does this, then it is the duty of Islam to fight him until either he is killed or until he declares his submission.

When writers with defeatist and apologetic mentalities write about "Jihaad in Islam," trying to remove this 'blot' from Islam, then they are mixing up two things: first, that this religion forbids the imposition of its belief by force, as is clear from the verse, "There is no compulsion in religion" (2:256), while on the other hand it tries to annihilate all those political and material powers which stand between people and Islam, which force one people to bow before another people and prevent them from accepting the sovereignty of God. These two principles have no relation to one another nor is there room to mix them. In spite of this, these defeatist-type people try to mix the two aspects and want to confine Jihaad to what today is called 'defensive war'. The Islamic Jihaad has no relationship to modern warfare, either in its causes or in the way in which it is conducted. The causes of Islamic Jihaad should be sought in the very nature of Islam and its role in the world, in its high principles, which have been given to it by God and for the implementation of which God appointed the Prophet—peace be on him—as His Messenger and declared him to be the last of all prophets and messengers.

This religion is really a universal declaration of the freedom of man from servitude to other men [i.e., manmade laws, aka democracy and republicanism] and from servitude to his own desires, which is also a form of human servitude; it is a declaration that sovereignty belongs to God alone and that He is the Lord of all the worlds. It means a challenge to all kinds and forms of systems which are based on the concept of the sovereignty of man; in other words, where man has usurped the Divine attribute.
Any system in which the final decisions are referred to human beings, and in which the sources of all authority are human, deifies human beings by designating others than God as lords over men. This declaration means that the usurped authority of God be returned to Him and the usurpers be thrown out-those who by themselves devise laws for others to follow, thus elevating themselves to the status of lords and reducing others to the status of slaves. In short, to proclaim the authority and sovereignty of God means to eliminate all human kingship and to announce the rule of the Sustainer of the universe over the entire earth. In the words of the Qur'an:

"He alone is God in the heavens and in the earth." (43:84)

"The command belongs to God alone. He commands you not to worship anyone except Him. This is the right way of life." (12: 40)

"Say: O People of the Book, come to what is common between us: that we will not worship anyone except God, and will not associate anything with Him, and will not take lords from among ourselves besides God; and if they turn away then tell them to bear witness that we are those who have submitted to God." (2: 64)

The way to establish God’s rule on earth is not that some consecrated people—the priests—be given the authority to rule, as was the case with the rule of the Church, nor that some spokesmen of God become rulers, as is the case in a 'theocracy'. To establish God’s rule means that His laws be enforced and that the final decision in all affairs be according to these laws.

The establishing of the dominion of God on earth, the abolishing of the dominion of man, the taking away of sovereignty from the usurper to revert it to God, and the bringing about of the enforcement of the Divine Law (Shari’ah) and the abolition of man-made laws cannot be achieved only through preaching. Those who have usurped the authority of God and are oppressing God’s creatures are not going to give up their power merely through preaching; if it had been so, the task of establishing God's religion in the world would have been very easy for the Prophets of God! This is contrary to the evidence from the history of the Prophets and the story of the struggle of the true religion, spread over generations.

The “Young Muslims of the United Kingdom” clearly consider Qutb, often dubbed “The Godfather of the Jihadists,” a “Great Muslim of the Twentieth Century.” In fact, he is the only person so ranked under the topic. So why should anyone be surprised that some Muslim students are willing to do whatever it takes to destroy a form of government that stands in the way of the application of Shari’ah in the UK? Why should anyone be surprised that some Muslim students do not accept the fundamental principles upon which British constitutional government is based? Qutb instructs them to challenge “all kinds and forms of systems which are based on the concept of the sovereignty of man.” The concept that sovereignty rests with the people is, of course, the fundamental ideal of Enlightenment—western—political philosophy. We need to understand that some Muslims reject this ideal and intend to destroy that system, by force if necessary.

Here’s an interesting notice I found posted today at the website of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) website.

IRI's [Islamic Republic of Iran] foreign debt stood at dlrs 24.264 billion by the end of the previous Iranian calendar year 1384 (March 20, 2006), the Central Bank of Iran announced Sunday.According to the CBI figures, this included dlrs 13.578 billion of midterm and long-term debts as well as dlrs 10.686 billion of short-term debts. Iran's foreign debt stood at dlrs 16.831 billion in the Iranian year 1383.

I would have thought that with the price of oil so high during the past year that the Iranians would have been running a surplus, whereas their debt actually grew by nearly 50 percent! I wonder what their doing with all that money? The fact that, even with the high price of oil, they are having to borrow suggests that they are not in an ideal position to deal with possible UN sanctions that could impact their oil exports and access to foreign capital.

Here’s a report from The Times (London) on Hezbollah’s refusal to disarm. [Extract]

A senior Lebanese government official told The Times that Hezbollah was refusing to give up any of its weapons or to move out of an agreed “arms-free zone” south of the Litani river. As he spoke, 30,000 Israeli troops waged a fierce ground offensive against Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon and Israeli jets bombed more than 50 towns and villages as well as Beirut.

A scheduled Cabinet meeting in Beirut to finalise plans to deploy 15,000 Lebanese troops to police the UN-mandated buffer zone was postponed after the two Hezbollah ministers in the coalition Government threatened to boycott it.

“Hezbollah changed its position, going back on what was agreed unanimously during Saturday’s Cabinet meeting to support the ceasefire proposals and immediately deploy the Lebanese Army,” the senior Lebanese official said.

Interestingly, no one at The Times appears to be reading the official Iranian statements.

Here is more evidence that we are not going to see Hezbollah comply with Security Council Resolution 1701. The Tehran Times edition for tomorrow, 14 August 2006, carries an editorial by Hassan Hanizadeh—“Resolution 1701, Death Knell for UN?” (You can check out his website here.) In Hanizadeh’s view, Resolution 1701 was the work of the “United States, Britain, and the Zionist lobby.” The “Security Council, which has become a puppet in the hands of the major powers, has proven that it has lost the legitimacy required to resolve major international crises and that its resolutions are not worthy of being implemented.”

And then come the threats, or warnings if you prefer (bolding is mine).

The UN’s actions will cause the current wave of terrorism to swell. Every terrorist group will feel emboldened to take unilateral measures in the absence of the instruments necessary to confront aggressors.

Although it is not yet clear if the detention of a number of suspects on charges of plotting to bomb British planes is a plot hatched by Scotland Yard, it still serves as a serious warning for the West.

And no power will be able to quell the danger, because when Muslims feel that international organizations are under the influence of the major powers, they become frustrated, and this frustration will lead to the formation of underground movements bent on taking revenge on the West.

Therefore, if the United Nations fails to take immediate measures to redeem itself and restore its lost credibility, the world will undoubtedly experience grievous incidents in the future that will affect global peace and security more than anytime in history.

The Tehran Times editorial and the IRNA story I referenced in my previous post do not suggest that Hezbollah is going to comply with Resolution 1701.

I actually agree, to a degree and for different reasons, with Hanizadeh. I do think that the Lebanon crisis might spell disaster for the UN. I fear the world body will not enforce the resolution with regard to the establishment of a Lebanese state monopoly on armed force. I likewise agree with the editorialist that there probably will be a growing movement against the West within the Islamic world. Unfortunately, as every school child learns (at least in the West), every action has an equal and opposite reaction. And while it is true that what happens in Lebanon will influence the actions of the world’s Muslims, those reactions in turn (e.g., blowing up civilian trans-Atlantic airliners) will prompt reactions of their own. I also wonder if Hanizadeh and other enemies of Israel have asked themselves: who will restrain Israel in the first post-UN crisis? And if the UK Muslim terrorists had succeeded in their plot, how likely would it have been for the UN to have gone as far as it has to restrain Israel? People who think that the death of 1,000 Lebanese is not only tragic (which it is) but genocidal (see my earlier post) are playing with fire because they do not realize the difference between western weakness and self-restraint. The leaders of Japan and Germany thought that the West was weak and decadent.

The Associated Press has reported that the Lebanese cabinet has “postponed indefinitely” a meeting to work out the details of the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701. The problem, not surprisingly, involves the reservations that Hezbollah has about the agreement. This should come as no surprise since yesterday Hassan Nasrallah stated his intention to keep fighting until Israel withdraws entirely from Lebanon, whereas the sense of the resolution is that the complete Israeli withdrawal will not come until the ceasefire and the move of Lebanese and international troops into the south. Nasrallah and company are unhappy with the implications of the resolution, namely Hezbollah’s responsibility for initiating the fighting and the call for the disarming of the Shi’ite “militia.”

Why would Hezbollah and the Lebanese government suddenly balk? You can find a clue at the website of Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency. I’ve appended a copy of the article. The bolding is mine.

Iran on Sunday said that Friday's UN Security Council Resolution 1701 on Lebanon, was not balanced.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi made the remark while speaking to domestic and foreign reporters at his weekly press conference.

"The Security Council resolution on Lebanon is an issue which relates to Lebanon. It is the Lebanese government which should accept or reject it.

"To Iran, as a country following up the regional developments, the resolution is not balanced," he said.

"But we welcome and are happy with (establishment) of ceasefire although it is very late," he added.

The spokesman stressed, "A one-month delay in adoption of the resolution discredited the United Nations. We expected the Resolution to take the main source of aggression, namely the Zionist regime and its crimes into consideration and put an end to its crimes.

"We believe the Zionist regime is the main loser of this war while the Lebanese people and the resistance are the main winners." Pointing to the issue of disarmament of the Hizbollah, as called for in the resolution, he said, "The Lebanese government and Hizbollah have rejected the issue of disarmament.

"The call to disarm Hizbollah was illegitimate and illogical. We should remember as long as there is occupation, resistance will continue."

Combine this with Hezbollah’s launch of 250 rockets into northern Israel, including the city of Haifa, and the prospects of a true ceasefire early Monday morning Washington-time appear a bit bleak. If the Lebanese government is not committed to its establishment of a “monopoly” of armed force throughout its own country, then UNSC 1701 is as meaningless as the previous UN resolutions and the Taifa agreement, and the fighting will continue. Since the Israeli cabinet today did accept the resolution, unanimously, the onus for the continuation (unless Nasrallah changes his mind) of the fighting should fall on Hezbollah. But, then again, international public opinion and the UN do not always act in a logical fashion.

But if Hezbollah does keep fighting, given the clear IRNA statement, there should be absolutely no question about who controls Hezbollah and what Israel (and by extension the United States, the West, and the UN) is up against.