Nov 28 2009

Sexual fulfillment for terrorists

Category: Hizbullah,Islam,societyharmonicminer @ 9:16 am

If you want to recruit men to risk their lives repeatedly for relatively minor gain, Hezbollah thinks it knows the secret:

Mohammad, a 40-year old Lebanese Shiite who lives in Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs, was holding forth on the virtues of resistance, loyalty, and sex. “You could create the most loyal army by providing political power, social services and fulfilling the desires of your men — namely, sexual ones,” he declared.

“And Hezbollah has been very successful in this regard,” Mohammad continued.

It is hard to disagree.

Hezbollah liberated South Lebanon from Israeli occupation, expanded the Shiite community’s political power within the country, and has provided social services, such as health care and education, to its constituency since the 1980s. Today, it is also working to fulfill the sexual needs of its supporters, though a practice known as mutaa marriage.

Mutaa is a form of “temporary marriage” only acceptable within Shiite communities, one that allows couples to have religiously sanctioned sex for a limited period of time, without any commitments, and without the obligatory involvement of religious figures.

In conservative Muslim societies known for their strict sense of propriety, mutaa offers an escape clause. The contract is very simple. The woman says: “I marry myself to you for [a specific period of time] and for [a specified dowry]” and the man says: “I accept.” The period can range between one hour and a year, and is subject to renewal.

A Muslim woman can only marry a Muslim man, but a Muslim man can temporarily marry a Muslim, Christian, or Jewish woman, as long as she is a divorcée or a widow. However, those interviewed for this article confirmed that Hezbollah-the “Party of God”-has allowed the practice to spread to virgins or girls who have never married before, as long as the permission of her guardian (father or paternal grandfather) is obtained.

Presumably, if you allow your virgin daughter to engage in a Shiite-sanctioned “temporary marriage,” you aren’t then required to kill her to preserve your family’s honor, which has been a big problem in Lebanon, it seems.


Nov 09 2009

Hypocrisy, plain and simple

Category: Islam,Obama,terrorismamuzikman @ 8:55 am

November 6, 2009. President Obama comments on the tragedy at Fort Hood, Texas in which an army major gunned down dozens of fellow soldiers:

We don’t know all the answers yet. And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.”

July 22, 2009. President Obama comments on the arrest of Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates, arrested in his own home after being mistaken for a burgler:

I don’t know not having been there and not knowing all the facts what role race played in that (incident), but…the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home… There is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, that’s just a fact.

Mr. President, your hypocrisy in the Fort Hood case is glaring.  The way in which you chose to respond to the news of the tragedy was a public disgrace.  And in spite of the efforts of you, your administration and the sycophant press, there will be no denying that yet another mass killing of the helpless has been perpetrated, apparently in the name of Islam.  Our country has a significant history in that respect as well, wouldn’t you agree?


Nov 08 2009

Let’s just call him a terrorist and be done with it

Category: Islam,terrorismharmonicminer @ 9:27 am

it would appear that there is a pretty clear connection between the Fort Hood murderer and a radical imam who was also influential on some of the 9/11 killers:

Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam
said to be a “spiritual adviser” to three of the hijackers who attacked
America on Sept 11, 2001.

Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US
soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in
Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September
11 terrorists
, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother’s funeral was held there in May that year.

The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an
American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting
in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting
attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.

Hasan’s eyes “lit up” when he mentioned his deep respect for
al-Awlaki’s teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort
Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday’s horrific shooting spree.

As investigators look at Hasan’s motives and mindset, his attendance
at the mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki
moved to Dar al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west coast,
and three months later the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and
Hani Hanjour began attending his services. A third hijacker attended
his services in California.

Hasan was praying at Dar al-Hijrah at about the same time, and the
FBI will now want to investigate whether he met the two terrorists.

Charles Allen, a former under-secretary for intelligence at the
Department of Homeland Security, has described al-Awlaki, who now lives
in Yemen, as an “al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to
three of the September 11 hijackers… who targets US Muslims with
radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home
in Yemen”….

I wonder how much coverage this connection will get in US media.

H/T:  Robert Spencer


Sep 08 2009

Honor Killings on the Rise?

Category: Islamharmonicminer @ 8:14 am

Just to clarify, I don’t think Spencer is saying that US judges give light sentences (or none) to “honor killers,” but it is a fact in many Islamic nations.


Sep 07 2009

Crystal ball redux

Category: Islam,media,Obama,societyharmonicminer @ 9:35 am

Someone asked me the other day how my post-election predictions were turning out, regarding press coverage of Obama and other matters.

It’s a bit early to know.  But one thing is becoming apparent:  the electorate is significantly less happy with the reality of Obama than the hope and change they thought they voted for.  So far, the press has not begun to savage Obama in the ways I thought might happen.  But Obama is finally beginning to be criticized for his sheer incompetence, the biggest evidence of which is his mismanagement of the process and the message surrounding his attempted takeover of US healthcare, though his astronomical deficit plans are a close second.  And, of course, the matters are related.  Those enormous deficits are the projections of Obama’s plans if the government takeover of healthcare is NOT passed.   If it is, everything is worse.  Far worse.

To be fair, it was bound to be a hard sell.  Americans are a cantankerous lot when they see (though they are a bit slow) that their freedom is about to be stolen.  But Obama’s twin errors were: 1) leaving it up to Pelosi and Reid to craft a bill and 2) telling obvious lies that could be checked (“You can keep your current health insurance if you like it, even if this plan becomes law.”)  Pelosi and Reid are so far inside the beltway that they simply had no concept of how bad it was going to look to Americans that congress-critters hadn’t read the bill, didn’t understand it, couldn’t defend it based on facts about its contents, but wouldn’t themselves be willing to live under “the public option” as a matter of course.   Obama was foolish to trust them in this.  Of course, Obama’s lack of experience in national politics, and in managing a political situation not in control of a Chicago-like machine, is what really betrayed him.

He compounded it by doubling down on obvious lies.  Nothing in the bill would stop any employer from throwing employees into the “public option,” and plenty in the bill would provide them with motivation to do so.  Americans began to see that the promises were mutually incompatible, which included coverage for the “uninsured,” lower prices, freedom to choose your providers, no tax increase, and no rationing.  It was as if someone tried to convince them that you really CAN have it “good, fast and cheap.”  Americans know better, when they start paying attention.

Many Americans felt robbed by the arbitrariness of “cash for clunkers,” knowing that it was a straight government giveaway for which THEY could not qualify, but would surely pay.  Twinned with this is the planned trillion-dollar-deficits-per-year for the next decade, even if the Obama, Pelosi and Reid are NOT able to extend government’s already partially accomplished takeover of healthcare.  And that’s probably optimistic, based on current projections.  Americans got numb to billions….  but trillions is something else entirely.  And they simply don’t want to pay it.  To be blunt, they’re terrified of it.

Regarding another prediction I made, I continue to believe that if the terrorists want Obama to be president for two terms, they’d be wise to just hold off attacking the US until his second term.  Such an attack, in the face of Obama’s prosecution of those who would protect us, namely the CIA, would surely result in yet more support peeling off from him.  He might try to regain that support by taking some dramatic action… but it would probably be of no more worth than Clinton bombing aspirin factories in the Sudan.

Support is also peeling off on Obama’s left.  In particular, the anti-war types who were seduced by Obama’s Iraq pullout plans have to be disappointed that he is adding troops to Afghanistan, and seems relatively serious about following the advice of his generals….  nearly the only thing Obama has done right so far.  Peaceniks are getting off the bus in droves, apparently having signed up for the wrong tour package.

In the meantime, I think one aspect of my predictions is right.  The press is STILL not seriously criticizing Obama’s policies, but it is starting to criticize Obama the man and president for his failures to carry them out.  As disdain for the puerility of their annointed choice begins to grow, some of that may yet lead to the investigative journalism that should have been done before the elections.

There is such a thing as a need to survive.  As the public distrust for Obama grows, if the press continues to support him and/or his policies unrealistically, its credibility gap will only grow.  At some point, the people who own the newspapers and networks that are hemorrhaging readers and viewers will start to count the cost.

When and if major media outlets start reporting on how other outlets sat on stories that would have damaged Obama during the election season, you’ll know the world has shifted.  There are probably a lot more of these than we know.  The dynamic will be simple: reporters share info over drinks.  One lets slip that his editor sat on something damaging to Obama.  The other reporter, desperate to salvage a sinking career and job prospects (and there are a LOT of people in that situation), talks his similarly desperate editor into publishing or broadcasting.  And the feeding frenzy begins.  There’s a LOT of that stuff out there.

I wonder how many more job losses NBC and MSNBC will have to have, how many more major newspapers will have to cut jobs or worse, before simple survival instinct sets in.  It’s a toss up… are they just loopy, or are they lemmings?

But no one believes them anymore.


Sep 02 2009

Muslim denunciations of terrorism: how should we evaluate them?

Category: Islam,media,terrorism,theologyharmonicminer @ 9:02 am

It has become common for Muslim apologists, responding to the criticism that Muslims don’t condemn terrorism, to quote this imam or that, saying something that seems like a criticism.  Most of us in the west have little ability to determine the worth of these “criticisms.”  Is this something being said one way to the west, when the media are listening, and another way to the Muslim audience?  Is it a carefully worded “sympathy for the families of the dead” or is it a full-throated condemnation of the terrorist act as unIslamic and immoral, without equivocation or ambivalence?  After all, we give sympathy to the families of justly executed murderers.  Such sympathy hardly constitutes condemnation of the judge, the jury, the law or the executioners.

Another response is to say that the west is just as morally ambivalent about its own failings.  This article compares Muslim reluctance to condemn clear moral failure on the part of other Muslims to the tendency by modern Americans (including in the North) to whitewash the Confederate role in the Civil War, to call great generals of the South “heroes,” etc., when in fact they were fighting for a “state’s right” to protect the chattel ownership of human beings.  Of course, that war ended 145 years ago… there was less tendency in the North to be ambivalent about it at the time.  And this highlights another tendency of Muslim apologists, to point at western history, because there isn’t much they can point to now that compares to bombing African embassies, 9/11, the London Tube bombings, the Spanish train bombings,  the incredible carnage wrought in Iraq by Al Qaeda, the BATH killers, the Shia killers, the Indonesian Islamist killers, the Pakistani killers in Mumbai, etc., etc., etc., ad endless nauseam.

Occasionally something like this appears: Indian Muslims under pressure in Mumbai aftermath

“We strongly believe terrorists have no religion and they do not deserve a burial,” said Maulana Zaheer Abbas Rizvi of the All India Shia Personal Law Board, a body for framing Muslim laws.

This is good, but it’s in the same league as the pastor of a large church in Oklahoma condemning Timothy McVeigh, with perhaps tepid support from his denomination, but not much from a national umbrella church organization like the National Council of Churches or the National Association of Evangelicals, let alone wider Christendom.   The Shia are a distinct minority in India at about 10% of the approximately 100 million Muslims.

It’s tempting to put all Muslim denunciations of terrorism in the same category, but it’s a mistake.  It is not unusual for (especially) moderate Muslims to denounce the murder of other Muslims by Islamists.   How many of those same people say anything about rocketing Israeli civilians?

Even CAIR “denounces” terrorism, all the while it supports it via the Holy Land Foundation’s funneling of cash to Hamas.  Denunciations of terrorism, lacking specifics of who did what to whom, are cheap.  Ask CAIR to condemn a specific jihadi’s murder of innocents and all you usually get is, “We condemn all terrorism.”  And that’s code for, “We’re not going to name names.  And Israel is a terrorist nation.”   A ringing moral condemnation does not begin with, “Yes, but…”

So regarding Muslim denunciations of bad behavior by Muslims, some discernment is required.  Yes, you can find the occasional scholar or Imam who denounces it (though it often lacks those specifics).  But is it a scholar who is important in the Muslim world, or merely one who is popular with western elites as a “moderate spokesperson”?  It is well documented that many Muslim spokespeople say one thing in English to western media, and something else entirely to their own people, in their own language.  When a “Christian” murders an abortionist (which happens about once every ten years in the USA), virtually EVERY Christian leader speaks out against it instantly, in practical terms, including very conservative anti-abortion activists, both Protestant and Catholic.  You don’t need to look for “moderate Christians,” or “Christian scholars,” or something.  The Jerry Falwells, James Dobsons, Bishop Chaputs, the Popes, Pat Robertsons, Christian leaders of every stripe, Christian academics, the National Council of Churches, the National Association of Evangelicals, virtually every pro-life group and conservative talk-show host will condemn in unison the murder of the abortionist “in the name of Christ.”  And this is the response to only ONE person’s murder “in the name of Christ,” about every ten years.

Is it possible to contend that there is anything even remotely close to this in the Muslim world?  Instead, we see people dancing in the street at the murder of thousands.  We see a “compassionately released” terrorist, reponsible for the deaths of hundreds, greeted as a conquering hero by national leaders and clerics (most recently in Lybia, but it’s a common pattern, isn’t it?).   Imagine if Timothy McVeigh had driven his diesel-laced fertilizer truck up to the Al-Hussein Mosque in Cairo, instead of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and said God told him to do it.  When the Egyptians released him on “compassionate parole” in 30 years (you’re laughing hysterically, right?), do you think his return would be celebrated by the President of the USA, national religious leaders, an adoring press, and public acclaim?

One “out” that is sometimes taken is to say that there is “no recognized single leader” in Islam.  But there isn’t in Christianity, either.  If you consulted with the Pope, the Archibishop of Canterbury, the National Council of Churches, the National Association of Evangelicals, maybe some worldwide Protestant denominations and a few national Orthodox churches, and they all agreed, you could reasonably say “Christianity has spoken.”  And they all condemn the murder of abortionists, even though most are pro-life (with the notable exception of the National Council of Churches organizations, of course, which mostly represent dying denominations).

As I understand it, there are four “schools” of Islamic jurisprudence in Sunni Islam, and two in Shia Islam.  Those schools have well-known leaders, perhaps two or three important ones in each case.  It would be most persuasive if THOSE leaders spoke in unison that the murder of non-Muslims by jihadis is immoral and unIslamic.  But people in the west don’t listen clearly.  Some of these guys have “expressed sympathy” for the families of the killed on 9/11.   That is not the same thing as a ringing condemnation of the acts of the terrorists, and the public assurance to their own people, in their own people’s native languages, that the acts were sin, were unIslamic, would have been condemned by Muhammed, and did not earn the perpetrators a place in paradise.  Has THAT happened?  Or should we accept the PR statements of “moderates” who know that they’re talking to the western media in English or French?  Does Islam even teach that it is a sin to lie to non-Muslims for the sake of protecting the reputation of Islam?   Google “Al-taqiyya.”  (Qur’an 3:28: “Let not the believers take for friends or helpers unbelievers rather than believers. If any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah; except by way of precaution, that ye may guard yourselves from them”.  This verse has been used, it seems, to justify lying to infidels in the defense of Islam.)

Let’s be really clear.  Imagine that 20 “Christians” hijacked four airliners filled with people from Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Iran, and flew them into, say,

1) the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca at full occupancy,

2) the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina during the hadj, and maybe

3) the Haghia Sophia in Istanbul during Friday prayers, along with aiming one at

4) the palace of the Saudi family in Riyadh.

The entire Christian world would rise up in breathless horror.  Can you imagine the SCOPE of the reaction, the revulsion, the utter shame, and the rejection by the Christian world that this had anything to do with Christ or Christianity?  Can you imagine the thousands of recriminations that Christians would direct at each other, the self-examination, the zillions of study sessions to reinforce traditional Christian teaching on murder that would result in churches, christian schools and colleges, etc.?

Would we be willing to settle for a nice statement from the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dayton and an obscure professor of “Christian studies” somewhere that “we’re sorry for the victims’ families”?  Would we immediately put out PR statements hoping that this wouldn’t lead to “Christophobia” and “hate crimes” against innocent Christians?  Would we have to look for cherry picked Christian spokesmen to say “moderate” sounding things to the media?  And let’s be clear:  would Christians in ANY Muslim plurality nation be anywhere near as safe as Muslims have been in the USA after 9/11?

And would even the most conservative Bible Belt town in the South have a spontaneous dance of joy in the public square over the murder of those godless infidels, by right-thinking American boys with scout knives who hijacked airliners full of unbelievers?

I am waiting for an Islamic cleric in a prominent position in one of those six schools of Islamic jurisprudence to say that the killers of 9/11 are most likely in Hell, and belong there under Islamic teaching, as do those who are now emulating them.

And the notion that all six schools’ major representatives will make such a statement?  I suspect the Lord will return first.


Aug 19 2009

The penalty for “honor killing” in Islamic nations: about like that for spitting on the sidewalk

Category: arab,Fatah,Hamas,Islam,Israelharmonicminer @ 9:13 am

The sentences for so called “honor killings” in Islamic nations are so light, when they are imposed at all, as to be an insult to the value of human life. In this case, a Gazan father killed his 27 yr old daughter by beating her to death with a chain over 40 minutes,  for using a cell phone to talk to a man.

In such killings, a woman’s life is taken by male relatives who suspect her of inappropriate conduct. Such killings are still widespread in the Middle East, where a woman’s perceived misconduct can hurt the standing of a family and where tradition says the “stain” can only be removed by shedding her blood.

Traditionally, assailants have received light sentences, but the killing of Najjar shocked even activists used to detailing such crimes.

Mezan and the PCHR said that Najjar’s father used an iron chain to beat her, while also kicking and punching her for about 40 minutes until she died of a fatal blow to the head, said Mezan and the PCHR.

“It’s shocking,” said Samir Zakout of Mezan. “But it’s not surprising because killers know they won’t be punished harshly.”

In the West Bank and Gaza, “honor killing” assailants serve between six months and three years in prison, said Mona Shawa of PCHR.

In Jordan, officials said Wednesday they have set up special tribunals to deal with honor killings, hoping to speed up trials.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch reported Wednesday that the Syrian government abolished a law that waived punishment for some honor killings and now allows judges to sentence perpetrators to at least two years jail.

This is simply beyond sad and horrifying. And it is a measure of how very far the world view of Islam is from that of the West.

However, do not expect “justice week” at your local university to have “honor killing” as a topic.  They’ll be too busy bashing Israel for defending itself.  Or maybe being concerned about global warming or something really important like that. 


Aug 19 2009

Iran raping jailed protesters?

Category: Iran,Islamharmonicminer @ 9:08 am

Under Sharia, a rape victim must produce FOUR MALE MUSLIM WITNESSES who will testify to the rape.  Otherwise, the guilt is assumed to be on the part of the victim.

And now, it appears that Iran’s ruling Mullahs are telling detained protesters of the recent “elections” that if they want to complain of being raped while in jail, they must produce FOUR MALE MUSLIM WITNESSES to prove it, or risk further punishment for sexual misconduct themselves.

If you’re not familiar with the origin of the FOUR MALE MUSLIM WITNESS policy in Sharia, it arose because one of Mohammed’s wives was accused of adultery.  Mohammed happened to like that particular wife, and soon reported that Allah had revealed to him that such cases could only be prosecuted if there were FOUR MALE MUSLIM WITNESSES.  Thus, he saved his favorite wife from punishment, and made it essentially impossible for Muslim women to ever prove rape in an Islamic court.

In Islamic countries, most women who allege rape are themselves imprisoned for adultery or fornication….  or worse.

Very convenient for the Iranian mullahs who want those protesters to be taught a lesson, both male and female, it seems.

Obama wants to negotiate with these guys without pre-conditions.  Better keep the Secret Service really, really close.


Aug 07 2009

Jihad interrupted

Category: Fatah,Hamas,Islam,Israel,middle east,national security,Palestineharmonicminer @ 9:03 am

One of our very best reporters, Michael Totten, reports that Culture War Replaces Missile War

Hezbollah launched thousands of Katyusha rockets into Northern Israel and forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee south toward Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. South Lebanon was punished much more thoroughly than Northern Israel, but the Palestinians in Gaza nevertheless took Hezbollah’s Baghdad Bob–style boasts of “divine victory” seriously. Hamas ramped up its own rocket war until fed-up Israelis gave Gaza the South Lebanon treatment this past December and January.

Hamas is a bit slower to learn than was Hezbollah, but seven long months after the conclusion of Operation Cast Lead, the rockets out of Gaza have finally stopped. Israelis will no longer put up with indiscriminate attacks on their houses and schools. Many Palestinians in Gaza have likewise had their fill of Hamas’s self-destructive campaign of “resistance.”

The New York Times reports that Hamas has decided to wage a “culture war” instead of a rocket war because, as one leader put it, “the fighters needed a break and the people needed a break.”

Movies, plays, art exhibitions, and poems are Hamas’s new weapons. Hamas supporters, though, aren’t the only Palestinians in Gaza using art as a weapon. Said al-Bettar skewers Hamas every night at Gaza City’s Shawa cultural center in his popular play The Women of Gaza and the Patience of Job. “We were the victims of a big lie,” he says about the doctrine of armed “resistance.”

The Israeli intelligence official I spoke to deserves some credit for predicting the replacement of terrorist war with missile war. Hamas and Islamic Jihad had already fired rockets at Israel, but they hadn’t fired many, and neither the recent Gaza war nor the Second Lebanon War had yet started.

Since then a pattern has emerged that should be obvious to anybody with eyes to see, whether they’re an intelligence official or not. After Israeli soldiers withdraw from occupied territory, Israeli civilians are shot at with rockets from inside that territory. Another pattern has just been made clear. After Israelis shoot back, the rockets stop flying.

It has been years since Hezbollah has dared to fire rockets at Israel or start anything else on the border. Hamas no longer dares to fire rockets at Israel either.

Israelis remain under pressure to withdraw from the West Bank. They almost certainly will withdraw from most of the West Bank eventually. Few, though, are in the mood to do so right now since they were shot at from Gaza and Lebanon after they withdrew from those places. They see the pattern even if others don’t.

It’s possible, of course, that West Bank Palestinians will never fire a significant number of rockets, if any, at Israel. They seem more sensible in general than Gazans. Hamas leaders in Gaza also talk to Hamas leaders in Ramallah, Nablus, and Hebron. I think it’s safe to say that the West Bank isn’t hearing any “divine victory” nonsense from Gaza right now.

Then again, Gazans proved themselves incapable of learning from Hezbollah’s mistakes. And the New York Times says Hamas wants to acquire longer-range missiles. So who knows?

This much, though, is all but certain: if a rocket war erupts between Israel and the West Bank, Israelis will respond as they did in Gaza and Lebanon. The jury is still out on whether the Arab world has learned the recent relevant lessons, but there shouldn’t be any doubt that Israelis have. Rocket war doesn’t work, but the military solution to rocket war does.

This phrase, “The jury is still out on whether the Arab world has learned the recent relevant lessons,” is the core of the matter. Islamic warriors have always had the notion that somehow they were blessed by Allah and absolutely guaranteed to win at some point, as long as they just didn’t give up.  Islamic military teaching allows for “peace treaties,” of a sort, but makes it clear that, when fighting the infidel, they are to be used only to rest, rearm, and get ready to go at it again.

For my part, I am glad that Hamas is making bad plays instead of bombs, if indeed that is the case.  But what I know is that Islamic war fighters have a LONG memory.  They take the long view.  They are willing to wait a generation or more for the right time to strike.

And there’s this:  “Gazans proved themselves incapable of learning from Hezbollah’s mistakes.”  In Islamic understanding, proof of whether Allah was with you in war is simple, and has nothing whatsoever to do with some kind of Augustinian-style concept of just war.  The proof is if you win.  If you don’t win, Allah was not with you.  Simple.  So Gazans could not learn from Hezbollah’s mistakes for a simple reason: they assumed that Allah was not with Hezbollah (Iranian proxies) but would be with the Gazans.  Think of Sunnis figuring that, of course, Allah would not bless the efforts of those misguided Shiites.

So the Gazans had to find out for themselves, the hard way, that Allah wasn’t blessing their war either.  Not this year, at least.

But two things to remember:

1)  Neither Hezbollah nor Hamas have given up forever.   Their entire world view simply does not make room for permanent peace and adjustment to new conditions.  Jihad is forever.  It’s just delayed, sometimes.  Jihad interrupted.

2)  Iran and other Islamic powers, by virtue of their continued existence, will learn nothing from the defeat of any OTHER Islamic power.  I’m not talking about “secular” Islamic states, which use Islam to mollify a believing populace, but are themselves essentially cynical in their pursuit of power, such as Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, or even Syria.  Syria and Libya can both be seen to have pulled back from the brink of what they perceived as their own possible destruction.  And even Syria is still trying to make trouble occasionally….  but carefully, carefully.  The big problems are Iran, and possibly Pakistan (if the extremists succeed in a takeover…  Pakistan is a really hard one to figure out), as well as Saudi Arabia (which funds more terrorism-at-a-distance than anyone, directly and indirectly).

Do you get from this that the immediate threat is Iran?  If you do, you’re probably right.  And the point:  Iran’s ruling mullahs will learn nothing from the defeat of any other Islamic entity.

The longer term threat, even if we deal successfully with Iran (or Israel does it for us) has to be Pakistan, or, worse yet, an alliance of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.  An axis like that, controlled by Wahabist fundamentalists, would have money and LOTS of nukes.  That means that we MUST win in Afghanistan, defined as removing the pressure on Pakistan from Islamic extremists.  If Pakistan stays controlled by cynical, relatively secular powers, we win.  If Pakistan is taken over by a wave of Islamic extremism (as opposed to the expanding middle class now growing in the cities), we’ll have a huge problem, in the form of as many as 70 nuclear weapons in the hands of whackos with direct terrorist ties.

So stabilizing Afghanistan is our goal, and will be our contribution to Pakistani stability.

Given that Obama has abdicated any responsibility to deal with iran, we’d better hope that Israel does, and soon.  There are, of course, people who disagree.  (Being anti-Israel creates strange bedfellows, doesn’t it?)  I find it likely, however, that Israel’s intelligence estimates on the real state of the Iranian nuclear bomb program are better than anyone else’s.  And they have a stake in the accuracy of those estimates that is shared by no one else.


Aug 04 2009

Making deals with the Devil

Category: Islam,leftharmonicminer @ 8:40 am

Sympathy for America’s Devils Click the link and read it all.  It’s simply brilliant.

For the past decade, the sight of Western liberals gathering in defense of terrorists seeking to impose a medieval patriarchal cult on the rest of the world by force seems incongruously odd. What is there about Islam that is so appealing to the erstwhile defenders of minorities, women and gays– all of whom have next to no rights under Islam?

Looking over tomes by liberal authors that argue that Islam is truly feminist, progressive and shares all their basic values, the rational observer is forced to wonder, “Who exactly are they kidding?” The answer is a complicated one, but the problem is not as new as it seems.


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