Case study India. From a recent commentary on the Sachar report from the Indian media:

The problem of Muslim backwardness and under representation in public services is a fact but this is not a problem of independent India. In 1878 Sir Syed had said that “Muslims had derived least benefit from European sciences and literature” and in 1882 appearing before the Education Commission of the Central Legislative Council presented voluminous evidence to show almost negligible Muslim presence among the graduates of Calcutta University. According to his memo there was no Muslim among 6 Doctors of Law and 4 Honors in Law. Among the Bachelors and Licentiates of Law there were 8 out of 705 and 5 out 235 respectively. Likewise in Engineering and Medicine there was not a single Muslim graduate. In MA there were 5 Muslims out of 326 and in BA there were only 30 out of 1343. The memo pointed out that based on the population covered by Calcutta University the number of Muslim graduates should have been 1262 whereas they actually were just 57. On the basis of these figures Sir Syed pleaded not for job reservation but government help in initiating programs for their educational betterment. It is worth noting that this memorandum was presented just 24 years after the formal collapse of uninterrupted Muslim rule for almost 800 years.

Before presenting these figures to the commission it was pointed out that “in 1824 when Government decided to start a Sanskrit College in Calcutta, the Hindu leaders met under the leadership of Raja Ram Mohan Roy and demanded that they did not want Sanskrit College to be established by Government but wanted that it should start English colleges as far as possible. On the other hand in 1835, after 11 years when the Mohammedans came to know that Government intends to start English teaching in all schools, they submitted an application signed by 8000 Moulvis of Calcutta to stop it. Muslims vehemently opposed the new system of education believing that the philosophy and logic taught in English was at variance with the tenets of Islam. They looked upon the study of English as little less than embracing of Christianity.”

Later at the time of starting Committee for diffusion of knowledge among Muslims Sir Syed said “it was a matter of deep regret that Muslims considered their religion which was so great and enlightened, weak enough to be endangered by the study of western literature and science.”

The problem is one of bigotry, not weakness.

The following observations on the topic are from a book by Abdullah Dougan, a New Zealander, who converted to Islam and was made a Shaikh of the Naqshibandi Sufi Order, by its leader in the late 60s (note the Wikipedia entry does not distinguish between Shaikh – teacher and Sheikh – leader). The book is called “40 Days: An Account of a Discipline” and recounts Abdullah’s undertaking of a 40 day fast on water alone in India and Afghanistan in 1974, accompanied by two of his students, Zaid and Abdul, also from New Zealand. The second half of the book follows his Hajj journey to Saudi Arabia, that immediately followed the fast:

Q [Abdul]: Why is that so many Muslims we have met are so bigoted?
A [Abdullah Dougan]: Islam was a rallying cry for the people of the desert to give up their evil ways of drunkenness and idolatry. The Holy Prophet had a very illeterate rabble to deal with and the strongest weapon he could use was fear, reward and punishment, so this is what he concentrated on. As can be seen from history it was very effective, for in less that a hundred years Isam was challenging the known world of the day. Because of the Law of Seven [TOD: an esoteric concept governing the atrophy of processes devoid of conscious guidance], anything based on fear, reward and punishment must contain the seeds of its own destruction, and that is what you are seeing with those who persist in talking about the religion on the surface instead of seeing deeper to the truth within.”

And his observations while in Afghanistan:

As in all Muslims countries the boys are completely spoiled, so they have inculcated into them the idea of male superiority and selfishness, a combination which produces generally completely unbalanced, egotistical men. The brothers [TOD: refers to Abdullah and his companions] found them always talking down, quoting parrot-fashion from the Koran to prove any point, leaving out any alternative statements which may have contradicted their conditioning. This lack of real intellect on the part of the Muslims generally gives them no discernment to enable them to bring the wonderful ideas of the Holy Prophet into the correct perspective. Like the Christian, Buddhist or any other religion, Islam has contained in it great truths and gives a way for its adherents to follow.

What is every religion trying to do for its followers? The main objective must be to lead to a complete understanding of and relationship with God, by whatever name they call Him. The great majority of Muslims are bigots, believing there is no way except theirs, and that the Holy Prophet is the last for all time. If anybody reflects on this assertion they will become aware of the colossal vanity and egotism involved. This goes for most religions; but I believe, as the Taoists, that though there are many and tortuous ways, they all lead to God.

I will post most more from Abdullah and his students shortly.

Now, back to India and the present and we see that not much has changed in over a century (via Judith Apter Klinghoffer), as the above mentioned Sachar report found:

“Compared to the national average of 43% of people not having land in rural areas, that of Muslims is 60.2%. Only 2.1% of Muslim farmers have tractors, while just 1% own hand pumps. Educationally, 54.6% of Muslims in villages and 60% in urban areas have never been to schools. The national average for this is 40.8% in rural areas and 19.9% in urban. In rural areas, only 0.8% of Muslims are graduates, while in urban areas despite 40% of the Muslims receiving modern education only 3.1% are graduates. Only 1.2% of Muslims are post-graduates in urban areas.”

And yet the bigotry lives on, thrives even, assisted by its own blindness. The following is from Subramanian Swamy, a Hindu politician and former Union Law Minister:

“Thanks to Shri Vedantamji of the VHP, I had visited Thondi and Rasathipuram Municipalities of Ramanathapuram and Vellore districts respectively, and was truly shocked by what I saw. Both these municipalities are in Muslim-majority areas, and the local bodies election had empowered the Muslims with their capture of the municipalities.

The Muslim-ruled municipalities have thereafter converted these areas into mini Dar-ul-Islams, in a Hindustan of 83 per cent Hindus! The minority Hindu areas of the municipality were thus denied civic amenities, funds for schools, garbage clearing etc., and sent notices in Urdu. Hindus were bluntly told convert to Islam if they wanted civic facilities.

I could not believe that in South India this was possible where Hindus are actually above national average at 90 per cent of the population. I know that in Kashmir Valley, Muslims who are in majority have actively or passively connived in driving out half a million Hindus out of their homes and made them refugees in their own country. Temples have been demolished in the Valley on a daily basis. The world could not care less. An American had once told me: “Why should we care? Indian democracy is led by the majority who are Hindus and you want us to talk about the human rights of the community of rulers?”

Such atrocities are happening not only in Kashmir, but in other parts of India as well in pockets wherever Muslims are in majority, e.g., Mau and Meerut. In pocket boroughs of India, thus, Dar-ul-Islam has today returned to India after two centuries. Considering that a demographic re-structuring is slowly but surely taking place, with Hindu majority shrinking everywhere, Dar-ul-Islam in pockets might indeed, like amoeba, proliferate, coalesce, and jell into a frightening national reality—unless we Hindus wake up and take corrective action now, actions for which we shall of course not get a Nobel Peace Prize.

Swamy then makes a blunt and honest summation of the situation in India (in contrast to the delusional Indian elites):

[..] Secular order in India thus is possible only when Muslims are not in power. Thondi, Rasathipuram and other places prove that the Muslim mind suffers from a dangerous duality—of seeking secularism when out of power and imposing a brutal demeaning theocracy for non-Muslims when in power.”

It is understandable that the Indians are worried, as Hugh Fitzgerald wrote yesterday:

Everywhere Islam has conquered, those conquered have emerged, when left with their lives, to live lives that are far more impoverished in every important way — either as non-Muslim dhimmis, or as converts to Islam. Islam limits artistic expression, stifles the free and skeptical inquiry without which real science is impossible, and cripples the lives of women. Islam stunts mental growth. We need make no apologies to others or to ourselves for coming to this melancholy conclusion, so much at odds with the official ideology that we have been subjected to — that everyone is the same, that all religions and peoples are equal in every way, that no one must ever ever challenge the self-evident truth of any of this.

Victor Davis Hanson in the National Review, Nov 3: “Before Iraq: The assumptions of a forgetful chattering class are badly off the mark” (***)

Long forgotten is the inspired campaign that removed a vicious dictator in three weeks. Nor is much credit given to the idealistic efforts to foster democracy rather than just ignoring the chaos that follows war — as we did after the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan, or following our precipitous departure from Lebanon and Somalia. And we do not appreciate anymore that Syria was forced to vacate Lebanon; that Libya gave up its WMD arsenal; that Pakistan came clean about Dr. Khan; and that there have been the faint beginnings of local elections in the Gulf monarchies.

Yes, the Middle East is “unstable,” but for the first time in memory, the usual killing, genocide, and terrorism are occurring in a scenario that offers some chance at something better. Long before we arrived in Iraq, the Assads were murdering thousands in Hama, the Husseins were gassing Kurds, and the Lebanese militias were murdering civilians. The violence is not what has changed, but rather the notion that the United States can do nothing about it; the U.S. has shown itself willing to risk much to support freedom in place of tyranny or theocracy in the region.

Instead of recalling any of this, Iraq is seen only in the hindsight of who did what wrong and when. All the great good we accomplished and the high ideals we embraced are drowned out by the present violent insurgency and the sensationalized effort to turn the mayhem into an American Antietam or Yalu River. Blame is never allotted to al Qaeda, the Sadr thugs, or the ex-Baathists, only to the United States, who should have, could have, or would have done better in stopping them, had its leadership read a particular article, fired a certain person, listened to an exceptional general, or studied a key position paper.

Charles Moore in the Telegraph, Nov 4: “From Suez to Iraq: how to weaken the will of the West”

Today, everyone blames the neoconservatives. It reminds me of a remark by Daniel Defoe in the early 18th century that the apprentice boys of London have very little idea of what a Papist is, but thousands of them are more than happy to go out and break his windows. Who in Britain knows that neocons are a phenomenon of the Left and that neither George W. Bush, nor Dick Cheney, nor Donald Rumsfeld has ever been one? Indeed, devilishly clever though neocons may be, they can’t be very good at PR, for they were responsible for about five per cent of the action in Iraq and have attracted about 95 per cent of the blame.

It is not mad ideology that got us into this war – or rather, the madness and the ideology come from our opponents, not from ourselves. If we do pull all our troops out, mock Blair and Bush, and hail some deal with Iran as “peace”, we shall have a few weeks of self-congratulation, but that is all.

The Islamist movements that wait to cheer our withdrawal are not militarily strong, but they are good at what they call “the management of savagery”, and they know that the West’s attention span is much shorter than their own. It is a pity that we seem so determined to prove them right.

Sean M. Maloney on Macleans.ca, Nov 6: “The exit strategy”

Victory in Afghanistan means understanding what we can achieve there, then sticking to it

Any discussion of a Canadian exit strategy for Afghanistan must take into account the reasons we are there in the first place, what we hope to accomplish given the current situation — which has evolved over the course of five years — and how we get there from here. All of this must be balanced against what resources Canada can bring to bear and how those resources are balanced with other national requirements. This is the essence of strategy.

Canada is al-Qaeda’s enemy. We stand for everything they hate, and they cannot be negotiated with — negotiations are neither acceptable nor desired, on either side. The war in Afghanistan is one of several conflicts that fit under the umbrella of the global war against the al-Qaeda movement, what is now referred to as “The Long War.” Afghanistan is but one front: in the Second World War there were operations in Europe, the Atlantic, Pacific, North Africa and so on, but Canada committed mostly to the Atlantic and Europe. In this case, Canada has chosen to focus on Afghanistan and not Iraq, the Philippines, the Horn of Africa, nor the streets of Madrid or London.

[..] A lack of perspective in Canada is a continuing problem. False analogies to the Soviet period (and even Vietnam) even figure in parliamentary committee debate: “the Soviets and the British couldn’t succeed, therefore we can’t,” one MP told me. We are not trying to do what the Soviets were attempting, but let’s look at the numbers anyway. The Soviets killed two million Afghan civilians using indiscriminate firepower and socialist societal transformation techniques. Soviet losses from their illegal intervention in 1979 to their withdrawal in 1989, we now believe, were around 28,000 killed over 10 years, or 2,800 per year. NATO and OEF losses over a five-year period are around 500. We are not employing indiscriminate firepower, there are comparatively few civilian casualties, and we are there in support of a legitimate, elected government. There is no real comparison.

[..]Canada will be walking out the front gate when we feel the job is done, not slink out some dark back window when the going gets rough. After the disasters at Hong Kong and Dieppe during the Second World War, it was difficult if not impossible to see victory three and four years later in 1945. In the dark days of 1995, we never believed that peace could be achieved in Bosnia, yet in 2004 the situation was stable enough for Canada to withdraw. We are in a stronger position in Afghanistan against our enemies now than we were in the Balkans five years in, and during the first years of the Second World War: let’s not throw it away and say it was all in vain because of ignorance and fear.

Nibras Kazimi in the NY Sun, Nov 6: “Something Is Changing”

Lately, I’ve been hearing worrisome things about the Iraq Study Group. James Baker, the co-chairman of this congressionally mandated bipartisan body, reportedly is going to recommend some radical strategic changes in America’s Iraq policy. But my worries were laid to rest last week when President Bush made it very clear that he is indeed staying the course, even though he put some rhetorical distance between himself and the loaded catchphrase.

According to multiple sources, the Baker report, to be released late November, will counsel burying the “democracy as stability” doctrine for the Middle East and also recommend opening lines of communication with Iraqi insurgents and their cheerleaders in Iran and Syria. Furthermore, the Saudis will be brought in to “fix” Iraq — just as they were asked to step in and fix Lebanon in the early 1990s.

The report, arriving at a politically melodramatic moment for Mr. Bush’s political opponents at home, will likely find favor among foreign opponents to Mr. Bush’s vision for the Middle East. But Mr. Bush, whose instincts are commonsensical, is likely to send the report back with some pertinent questions scribbled in the margins:
[..]
But Jim, there is one thing I’d like to know and that is why did Lieutenant Mohammad Hikmet al-Badrani, a young Iraqi Sunni from Mosul, keep firing his weapon when attacked by the insurgents two weeks ago, and why did he give up his life for a new Iraq?

It is easy for journalists to ride the ” Iraq is failing” wave and churn out the safe stories that tell us that all is bad. It is much harder for them to make sense of why so many Iraqi policemen and soldiers are fighting back when attacked rather than dropping their weapons and cowering for safety. Something is changing in Iraq, and it is happening despite the serial bungling of Mr. Maliki’s government or the incessant predictions of an American withdrawal. It is happening because more and more Iraqis understand what is at stake should those murderous insurgents win.

Would Lieutenant Badrani have cut and run had he been aware of Mr. Baker’s wobbly recommendations? I don’t think so. And I don’t think that Mr. Bush’s resolve on this long course ahead will fail either.

James Q. Wilson in the Wall Street Journal, Nov 6, “The Press at War: What ever happened to patriotic reporters? “

Between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, 2005, nearly 1,400 stories appeared on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening news. More than half focused on the costs and problems of the war, four times as many as those that discussed the successes. About 40% of the stories reported terrorist attacks; scarcely any reported the triumphs of American soldiers and Marines. The few positive stories about progress in Iraq were just a small fraction of all the broadcasts.

When the Center for Media and Public Affairs made a nonpartisan evaluation of network news broadcasts, it found that during the active war against Saddam Hussein, 51% of the reports about the conflict were negative. Six months after the land battle ended, 77% were negative; in the 2004 general election, 89% were negative; by the spring of 2006, 94% were negative. This decline in media support was much faster than during Korea or Vietnam.

Naturally, some of the hostile commentary reflects the nature of reporting. When every news outlet struggles to grab and hold an audience, no one should be surprised that this competition leads journalists to emphasize bloody events. To some degree, the press covers Iraq in much the same way that it covers America: it highlights conflict, shootings, bombings, hurricanes, tornadoes, and corruption.

But the war coverage does not reflect merely an interest in conflict. People who oppose the entire war on terror run much of the national press, and they go to great lengths to make waging it difficult.

Robert Tracinski, RealClearPolitics.com, Nov 4: “D” Stands for “Defeat”

As bad as things are now, a Democratic victory is likely to make things much, much worse very soon. The Democratic plan, if it is enacted, would deliver America into a period of retreat, humiliation, and uncertainty that we haven’t seen since the end of the Vietnam War–while giving our enemies a glorious victory that would be seen as a historical vindication of the Islamist cause.

And after such a victory, how long will it be before the Islamists decide that the time has come to strike an even harder blow against America, attacking us again on our own soil?

This is what is at stake next Tuesday.

Clifford D. May in the National Review, Nov 4: “If Democrats Win: How foreign policy might change.”

Now here’s my pessimistic scenario: The congressional Democrats who end up holding the reins are those favored by the left-wing base and blogs, such as Rep. John Murtha — who has said America is “more dangerous to world peace than Iran or North Korea,” and Rep. John Conyers, who has made it clear his agenda will include repealing vital counter-terrorism laws (e.g. the Patriot Act) and initiating impeachment proceedings against the president.

Among those inspiring such Democrats is Lt. Gen. William E. Odom (Ret.) a Yale professor who this week wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times explicitly calling for a policy of “cutting and running” from Iraq. The U.S. also should drop its “resistance to Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” Odom wrote. “This will be as distasteful for U.S. leaders as cutting and running, but it is no less essential.”

[..] Among the outcomes that need to be prevented: al Qaeda in Iraq setting up permanent bases in the Sunni regions of the west; Iran controlling the Shia regions of the south; Saddam Hussein released from his cell and restored to his palaces; the pro-American Kurds coming under attack by hostile neighbors; Militant Islamist terrorists using additional waves of suicide bombings of innocent civilians to drive Americans out of Afghanistan and also to take over Jordan, Bangladesh and other countries. Additionally, despite Odom’s strange delusions, it would be catastrophic if the Militant Islamist, terrorist-sponsoring, oil-rich, and feverishly anti-American regime in Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons.

Mark Steyn in the NY Sun, Nov 6: “My Face Time With Kerry”

Whatever he may or may not have intended (and “I was making a joke about how stupid Bush is but I’m the only condescending liberal in America too stupid to tell a Bush-is-stupid joke without blowing it” must rank as one of the all-time lame excuses) what he said fits what too many upscale Dems believe: that America’s soldiers are only there because they’re too poor and too ill-educated to know any better. That’s what they mean when they say “we support our troops” — they support them as victims, as children, as potential welfare recipients, but they don’t support them as warriors and they don’t support the mission.

So their “support” is objectively worthless. The indignant protest that “of course” “we support our troops” isn’t support, it’s a straddle, and one that emphasizes the Democrats’ frivolousness in the post-9/11 world. A serious party would have seen the jihad as a profound foreign-policy challenge they needed to address credibly. They could have found a Tony Blair — a big mushy-leftie pantywaist on health and education and all the other sissy stuff, but a man at ease with the projection of military force in the national interest. But we saw in Connecticut what happens to Democrats who run as Blairites: you get bounced from the ticket. In the 2004 election, instead of coming to terms with it as a national security question, the Democrats looked at the War on Terror merely as a Bush wedge issue they needed to neutralize. And so they signed up with the weirdly incoherent narrative of John Kerry — a celebrated anti-war activist suddenly “reporting for duty” as a war hero and claiming that, even though the war was a mistake and his comrades were murderers and rapists, his four months in the Mekong rank as the most epic chapter in the annals of the Republic.

This year there have been more suicide attacks in Afghanistan than in all previous years combined – about 85 to date, compared with 17 in 2005. Here are some ways Afghans are being brainwashed into carrying out suicide operations, including being shown videos of “women in the West wearing bikinis while walking in public and going to nightclubs” (from Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor):

Al-Qaeda and their allies in the Taliban have published books for their followers in which they call upon men to join the Taliban, al-Qaeda and Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e-Islami—groups that are based on Sharia law. A series of books in which they argue for the legitimacy of their actions is called “Zad al-Salam,” or the “Muslim Provision.” These books are used in military training centers and give justifications for every military tactic based on statements from the Quran, Hadith and the Sunna. The fourth series of the “Muslim Provision,” titled “Al-Amaliyat al-Istishhadiya Fil Islam Wa Hukm Aawan al-Tawaghiet Wa Junudahum,” specifically focuses on suicide attacks. The 158-page book bases the legitimacy of suicide attacks in Buruj, a chapter of the Quran, which focuses on jihad, bravery and the toleration of difficulties. The author references suicide attacks to a part of Buruj which states that Allah prefers those Muslims who fight against threats to their religion. The author additionally links encouragement for joining jihad to committing suicide attacks. For example, he quotes a story about one of the Prophet Muhammad’s companions who asked the Prophet whether a person would be martyred if he was slain fighting infidels. The Prophet answered, “He would enter Paradise.” In response, his companion went to the scene of the war and fought until his death (Payam-e-Mujahid, September 27).

These factors make clear that there are religious reasons driving the attackers to sacrifice themselves for the “benefits of others.” The majority of Afghans who have attended religious schools in Pakistan or in other Muslim countries are easily indoctrinated by the religious propaganda issued in these madrassas. Unfortunately, many begin their studies at a young age and therefore their knowledge of Islam is confined to the often misguided teachings they receive.

Sociological Landscape of Afghan Suicide Attacks

Motivating an Afghan to perform a suicide attack is no simple task. The leaders of the Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami motivate insurgents in the name of “Afghanistan’s occupation” and the obligation to perform jihad (Terrorism Focus, October 10). The creation of a Sharia-based Islamic government is the motivation that extremists use to rally the support of insurgents. They argue that infidels dominate the secular government of Karzai and are not properly pursuing Sharia (Afghan National Security Intelligence Report, October 4). One such way that insurgent leaders recruit fighters is by saying that the West is decadent and completely opposed to the implementation of Sharia. One Afghan intelligence agent reported that in many madrassas for Afghan students, videotapes are played that show women in the West wearing bikinis while walking in public and going to nightclubs (Azadi Radio, October 4). Students at these seminaries are taught that Afghan girls employed by NGOs are sexual bait for the Western male employees. By pushing these views about the United States and European countries, extremist groups motivate Afghans to engage in conflict against the coalition. Many of the people in the seminaries want to see Sharia implemented, at least outwardly such as in the national dress code (http://www.armans.info, September 29).

What, no lying in graves for a taste of peaceful dead feeling? No “Martyr’s Wedding” to the virgin awaiting the lucky fella in Paradise? No respect for tradition, these new Jihadists.

There is no question that the religious propaganda needs to countered. How are we going to explain the bikinis and nightclubs though?

Mark Steyn talks about his recent meeting with President Bush (in the context of his usual topics of course), Chicago Sun-Times, Oct 29: “Only choice on war is to win or lose it”

I was on C-SPAN the other morning, and a lady called in to complain that ”you are making my blood pressure rise.” Usual reason. The host, Paul Orgel, had asked me what I thought of President Bush and I replied that, whatever my differences with him on this or that, I thought he was one of the most farsighted politicians in Washington. That’s to say, he’s looking down the line to a world in which a radicalized Islam has exported its pathologies to every corner on Earth, Iran and like-minded states have applied nuclear blackmail to any parties within range, and a dozen or more nutcake basket-case jurisdictions have joined Pyongyang and Tehran as a Nukes R Us one-stop shop for all your terrorist needs. In 2020, no one’s going to be worrying about which Congressional page Mark Foley is coming on to. Except Mark Foley, who’ll be getting a bit long in the tooth by then. But if it really is, as Democrats say, ”all about the future of our children,” then our children will want to know why our generation saw what was happening and didn’t do anything about it. They will despise us as we despise the political class of the 1930s. And the fact that we passed a great prescription drug plan will be poor consolation when the entire planet is one almighty headache.

Serge Trifkovic reviews Robert Spencer’s “The Truth about Muhhamad”, for Human Events, Oct 30: “Truth About Islam’s Founder Revealed”

His [Muhhamad] kinsmen and tribesmen were prone to war by custom and nature, accustomed to living by pillage and the exploitation of settled populations. Theirs was an “expansionism denuded of any concrete objective, brutal, and born of a necessity in its past” (Ibn Warraq), but Muhammad provided a powerful ideological justification for those wars—a justification that was religious in form, global in scope and totalitarian in nature. In the space of a decade, the “warner in the face of a terrific punishment” morphed into a vengeful warlord, slayer of prisoners, murderer of political opponents and exterminator of Jews (chapters 6-9), his every move duly condoned by “revelations” from on high. From Muhammad’s second year in Medina on, Islam combined the dualism of a universal religion and a universal state, and jihad became its instrument for carrying out the faith’s ultimate objective by turning all people into believers. As Spencer explains, Muhammad postulated the fundamental illegitimacy of the existence of non-Islam, and mandates permanent “rejection of the Other” —to use a fashionable term—by every bona fide Muslim as a divine obligation. To a Muslim, Jihad does not necessarily mean permanent fighting, but it does mean a permanent state of war.

Even the cornerstone statement, “there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet,” goes beyond a declaration of monotheism and implies the radical division of the world into two camps. Antagonism toward non-Muslim religions, societies and cultures is certainly not the trait shared by all Muslims, but it is an attitude mandated by Muhammad to all true Muslims and prevalent among most to this day. Thanks to its founder, Islam has emerged as a quasi-religious ideology of cultural and political imperialism that absolutizes the conflict with other than itself, and knows no natural limits to itself.

L. Brent Bozell III, in Pittsburgh Live, Oct 29: “CNN: Terrorists’ sock puppet”

On the Oct. 18 edition of “Anderson Cooper 360,” CNN aired a story by reporter Michael Ware, an Australian correspondent renowned for his contacts with terrorist groups. The story showed video filmed by terrorists calling themselves the Islamic Army of Iraq. From the very start, the viewer sees this for what it is: enemy propaganda. The grainy video shows Islamic terrorist snipers time and again shooting and presumably killing American soldiers. (CNN, bless its heart, cut the footage just before each bullet found its mark, but not before the sound of the rifle fire that launched it.)

Here’s what CNN also aired, without editorial comment of any sort, as “news”: The translator has the terrorists saying they should wait to shoot the American soldier since there are innocent “people” around. Later in the report, the shooter claims to be trying to target an American soldier, not Iraqis. Since when have these murderers cared about killing Iraqi soldiers or civilians? They’ve massacred thousands with remorseless regularity.

The video is sickening. Imagine being the mother or father, sister, brother, wife or child of that American soldier murdered so brutally.

So why did CNN air something that cannot be defended as newsworthy? That video was given to CNN by terrorists in order to demoralize the American people about the hopelessness of Iraq just before midterm elections. And CNN did exactly what the terrorists wanted, and CNN knows it. In his introduction that night, Anderson Cooper said, “Insurgents” — never terrorists, mind you, always “insurgents” — were “delivering a deadly message, aiming for a global audience.” CNN is the terrorists’ messenger service, FedEx for the fanatics who want us dead.

John F. Cullinan in the National Review, Oct 30: “Instead of Burning Effigies”

A group of Muslim scholars composes a noteworthy response to the pope’s Regensburg speech.

An authoritative ad hoc group of Islam’s most senior clerics and scholars has issued a detailed public response to Pope Benedict XVI’s September 12 Regensburg remarks. This remarkable document, dated October 12, has largely escaped notice, at least in the English-speaking world, apart from references this past week by Sandro Magister, the veteran Vatican-watcher, and David Warren, the estimable Canadian columnist.

It is a pity that this document, published in English on the website of Islamica Magazine, a small American quarterly, has received so little attention so far. For it marks a welcome and promising step toward properly focused inter-religious dialogue, as well as an authoritative refutation of some regrettably common views in the Muslim world on such pressing issues as religiously motivated violence and the denial of religious freedom.

Richard Halloran, RealClearPolitics.com, Oct 29th, “Australia Sees U.S. as Its Most Crucial Ally”

In Canberra, Prime Minister John Howard of Australia said something about America recently that is not often heard these days: “None of the security challenges we face can be met without American power and purpose.”

Asserting that Australia’s alliance with the U.S. was the cornerstone of his nation’s defense, the prime minister told the Australian Strategic Policy Institute: “For the foreseeable future, no other country in the world will have the spread of interests or strategic reach of the United States.”

The plain-spoken Australian evidently sought to convince several audiences that his nation’s reliance on the U.S. for security served not only Australia’s national interests but those of other countries in the region.

Durkah Durkah Muhhamed Jihad!

*No tolerance for intolerance*
Youssef Ibrahim in the NY Sun: “A Lack of Tolerance That Is Justified” (via JihadWatch)

This week, the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference decried what it called the “shrinking space” for tolerance toward Muslims in Europe.

“Muslims have noted with concern that the values of tolerance are eroding and there is now shrinking space for others’ religious, social and cultural values in the West,” the Saudi-based OIC, the world’s largest Islamic association, said a statement sent to Reuters.

This lack of tolerance is absolutely as it should be.

If anything, there is still far too much tolerance of European Muslim isolationists and their preachers, whom the OIC and its Saudi patrons train, fund, and influence to promote barricaded communities inside cultural ghettos, waging war against the societies that embrace them.

For decades, these interconnected webs of mosques, Islamic schools, and imported OIC imams have used the same freedom of speech they deny others to introduce the favored OIC concept of repressed societies to the heart of liberal Europe.

Their quest has not been limited to insulating their communities from a sea of democracy. They also have sought to reverse freedoms for Western citizens who want to publish, write, make films, and read. Witness the hounding of the British author Salman Rushdie and his books, the mayhem over the Danish cartoons of Prophet Muhammad, the upheaval over Pope Benedict’s critical comments on Islam, and the far too numerous attempts to ban creative works on Islam.

..

OIC member nations should be told in the bluntest terms that no more mosques will be built in Europe until Saudi Arabia and other states reciprocate by allowing the construction of churches in the heart of Riyadh, Jeddah, and other cities and the lifting of restrictions on Christians and Jews living and working there.

Eight million expatriates live and work in Saudi Arabia, many of them Philippine Catholics, American and British Christians, and Buddhists. They are not only deprived of houses of worship but at risk for punishments, including whipping, if they hold a private service.

By contrast, the Saudi royal family has been allowed to fund the building of hundreds of thousands of mosques and schools in Europe, America, Asia, and Australia, where Muslims are free to worship and be indoctrinated in Wahhabism.

It is high time for equality.

Special treatment for ’special’ people. Why the surprise?
David Davis in the Telegraph: “Do Muslims really want apartheid here?”

At its very least, there is a growing feeling that the Muslim community is excessively sensitive to criticism, unwilling to engage in substantive debate. Much worse is the feeling of some Muslim leaders that as a community they should be protected from criticism, argument, parody, satire and all the other challenges that happen in a society that has free speech as its highest value.

The Cantle Report into the 2001 riots in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham talked about communities living “parallel lives”. These are places where people from different ethnic origins never meet, never talk, never go into each others’ homes. It is by daily contact that we overcome our differences. Habitual contact enables us to fight the underlying problems of poverty, bad housing and lack of opportunity, which blight too many of our cities.

The Government’s attitude to all this has been confused, confusing and counterproductive. Take the Danish cartoons that sparked outrage in the Muslim world. Several months passed between their publication and the backlash. It was not a spontaneous reaction and appeared to have been coordinated by extreme elements. The demonstrations in Britain appeared to incite violence or even murder of “infidels”.

For two days Government ministers dithered over whether anything should be done. It was only after we called for prosecutions that Number 10 got a grip and said that the law would be upheld.

We witnessed similar dithering by the authorities on the prosecution of imams who foment hate and incite violence, most obviously the case of Abu Hamza. It took years before they were eventually embarrassed into bringing a case — which concluded with his conviction on 11 counts!

Moderation and tolerance in Bangladesh. And the Freedom to Screech (for the death of Jews and Christians).
Bret Stephens: “Darkness in Dhaka: A gadfly Bangladeshi journalist runs for his life.”

Meet Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury. As these lines are being written, Mr. Choudhury, a gadfly Bangladeshi journalist, is running for his life. Assuming he survives till Thursday, he will face charges of blasphemy, sedition, treason and espionage in a Dhaka courtroom. His crime is to have tried to attend a writers’ conference in Tel Aviv on how the media can foster world peace. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

Welcome to Bangladesh, a country the State Department’s Richard Boucher recently portrayed in congressional testimony as “a traditionally moderate and tolerant country” that shares America’s “commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law.” That’s an interesting way to describe a country that is regularly ranked as the world’s most corrupt by Transparency International and whose governing coalition, in addition to the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, includes two fundamentalist Islamic parties that advocate the imposition of Shariah law. There are an estimated 64,000 madrassas (religious schools) in Bangladesh. The Ministry of Industries is in the hands of Motiur Rahman Nizami, a radical Islamist with a reputation of a violent past. In March the Peace Corps was forced to leave the country for fear of terrorist attacks. Seven other journalists have also been brought up on sedition charges by Ms. Zia’s government, most of them for attempting to document Bangladesh’s repression of religious minorities.

But few stories better illustrate the Islamist tinderbox that Bangladesh has become than Mr. Choudhury’s. “When I began my newspaper [the Weekly Blitz] in 2003 I decided to make an end to the well-orchestrated propaganda campaign against Jews and Christians and especially against Israel,” he says in the first of several telephone interviews in recent days. “In Bangladesh and especially during Friday prayers, the clerics propagate jihad and encourage the killing of Jews and Christians. When I was a child my father told me not to believe those words but to look at the world’s realities.”

Advise for the Useful Idiot Times.
Hugh Fitzgerald absolutely nailing it at Jihad Watch: “What should The Times have been doing?”

What should The Times have been doing, not now, but for years, to cover Islam — in and out of Europe — appropriately?

In the case of Islam in Europe, it ought to have familiarized readers with the views of Oriana Fallaci, Pim Fortuyn, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Jacques Ellul, and all the others who cannot be dismissed as “right-wing” — and not one of whom can be considered a “fundamentalist” Christian or a mad-dog anything.

..

It ought, that Times of New York, that New Duranty Times, to have noted that everywhere, in every Infidel land, there were problems with Muslim immigrants, no matter the political or economic regime, or the background of the local Infidels. It ought to have noted, and not merely noted but attempted to explain to readers, why it was that in places as different as Denmark and Spain, or Italy and Germany, with widely disparate national cultures and expectations, there was always the grim problem of Muslims who viewed their new surroundings not with gratitude, but as a place that as if by right belonged to them. It ought to have noted that when those immigrants repeat, as they do, that “we are here to stay” and “this is our country,” those phrases, which ordinarily might be found stirring, take on an entirely different and sinister meaning.

And The New Duranty Times might have tried to understand why it is that wherever there are Muslim immigrants in sufficient numbers to give them the impression that they need not disguise forever their real attitudes, there have been problems — so that the problem must lie not with the hosts, but with the Muslim guests, and does not depend either on the nature of that host country, or of the place from whence those particular Muslim immigrants came.

..

And then there is the most important thing of all….

Taliboys: Slaves of Allah, toys for Mullah.
The Independent’s Salman Rushdie profile is subscription only, but IRIS blog has a great extract: “Salman Rushdie: His life, his work and his religion “

“If tomorrow the Israel/Palestine issue was resolved to the total happiness of all parties, it would not diminish the amount of terrorism coming out of al-Qaeda by one jot. It’s not what they’re after,” he adds, his foot tapping against mine as he leans forward. “Yes, it’s a recruiting tool, rhetorically. Many people see there’s an injustice there, and it helps them to get people into the gang, but it’s not what they want. What they want is to change the nature of human life on earth into the image of the Taliban. If you want the whole earth to look like Taliban Afghanistan, then you’re on the same side as them. If you don’t want that, you’re not. They do not represent the quest for human justice. That, I think, is one of the great mistakes of the left.”

Within this Talibanist morality, there is room for great slabs of delusion and hypocrisy. In Shalimar the Clown, Rushdie shows sparingly how the jihadi fighters of Afghanistan have sex with adolescent boys, and the next day chop to pieces men they have dubbed “homosexual”. “One of the great untold stories of al-Qaeda is that they are all these men who **** little boys. They all have these disciples who they’re ostensibly training in the way of the warrior, but they’re also enjoying. For a while, then they go off – and they have their wives and families at home. It’s like Classical Greece.” Does he think Osama bin Laden has done it? “I wouldn’t like to say,” he says tactfully. “He’s an Arab, he’s not an Afghan. But Mullah Omar, he’s another story…”

Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture, leftards. Oh wait, you have to actually see it first. Back to the regularly scheduled drooling.
Mark Steyn brings back the perspective in the NY Sun: “An election Foley-equipped with frivolity”

In my new book (out this week, folks: you’ll find it at the back of the store past the 9/11 Conspiracy section and the Christianist Theocrat Takeover of America section and the ceiling-high display of the new Dixie Chicks six-CD box set of songs about how they’re being silenced), I say that some of us looked at September 11th as the sudden revelation of the tip of a vast iceberg, and I try to address the seven-eighths of that iceberg below the surface – the globalization of radical Islam, the freelancing of nuclear technology, the demographic weakness of western democracies. Other folks, however, see the iceberg upside down. The huge weight of history – the big geopolitical forces coursing through society – the vast burden all balancing on the pinhead of the week: in this instance, Mark Foley.

Prison break.
Yitzhak Benhorin on Ynet news profiles Wafa Sultan: “I want to beat Islamic prison” (via HotAir)

WASHINGTON – Dr. Wafa Sultan recently became a legend. Her two interviews with al-Jazeera, in which she censured Islam and the way in which it inflicts ignorance and alienation on its followers, have made her into a phenomenon: an educated Muslim that demands that the Arab world take its head out of the sand.

In a recent interview , the only time I see tears creeping into Dr. Sultan’s eyes is when she speaks of her family in a small village in western Syria, two or three hours from northern Beirut. In their eyes, she is a shameful stain on the family, which includes seven brothers and three sisters.
Her eldest brother claims that she received a million dollars from the Jews in order to denounce Islam. Her mother, age 74, refuses to speak to her on the telephone.

The legacy of Muhammad’s example, “the epitome for religious warriors”.
Andrew Bostom in the Washington Times reviews Robert Spencer’s “The Truth About Muhammad”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former Dutch Parliamentarian and secular Muslim reformer, has courageously identified the taboo discussion which must take place to understand, and defuse, the scourge of modern jihad terrorism:
“In their thinking about radical Muslim terrorism most politicians, journalists, intellectuals, and other commentators have avoided the core issue of the debate, which is Muhammad’s example.”
This taboo is all the more puzzling, and dangerously delusional, given the public pronouncements of Muslim Brotherhood “spiritual” leader, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the most influential contemporary Muslim thinkers.
The immensely popular Qaradawi reaches an audience of tens of millions of Muslim sympathizers across the globe with his regular appearances on Al-Jazeera television. During a June 19, 2001 broadcast, Qaradawi delivered a sermon entitled, “The Prophet Muhammad as a Jihad Model,” proclaiming: ” . . . Allah has . . . made the prophet Muhammad into an epitome for religious warriors [Mujahideen] since he ordered Muhammed to fight for religion . . . “
..
Disregarding murderous threats, and the prospect of social ostracism, the intrepid author Robert Spencer — a serious independent scholar of Islam for the past two decades — has taken up Hirsi Ali’s challenge in his compelling new book, “The Truth About Muhammad.”

The legacy of Muhammad’s example 2: Pax Muhhamedina?
Suzanne Fields on Real Clear Politics.com (Creators Syndicate): “Is Islam the Real Problem?”

Muhammad proselytized with violence and used violence to consolidate conquest. Occupying territory was as important as converting or killing unbelievers. When the Jews of Medina resisted Muhammad in the 7th century, he beheaded the men and sold their women and children into slavery. The prophet, who claimed to derive his power and authority from Allah, was not only head of the captured states but was the single religious authority. “This allowed the prophet to cloak political ambitions with a religious aura,” writes Mr. Karsh, a professor at the University of London, “and to channel Islam’s energies into its instrument of aggressive expansion.” The ultimate goal would be for the world either to embrace Islam or live under its domination.

This goal was realized in part with the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, which allowed certain other religions to exist but not prosper. Christians who sought domination, on the other hand, never invoked the teachings of Christ to justify violence. Early Christianity made clear the distinction between God and Caesar, spiritual and earthly power, even though such distinctions were not always honored.

“If Christendom was slower than Islam in marrying religious universalism with political imperialism,” says Professor Karsh, “it was faster in shedding both notions.” The imperialistic impulse, rooted in the beginning of Islam, never fully retreated and is crucial today to understanding the shedding of blood now in the name of Allah. Although Muhammad forbade violence against the community of believers, it was easy in the chaos of the Middle East to initiate violence against differing sects with their different interpretations of the Koran.

The interpretation of the Islamist mentality as rooted in Muhammad’s appeal to violence, and the Islamist determination for religious domination of the world, may not tell the whole story today, but it explains why, for millions of Muslims, the image of the warrior trumps the image of a prophet of peace — if, indeed, there ever was one.

Guess this country.

It’s army, under the command of the ruling regime, is engaging in a campaign of genocide against racial and religious minorities, often beheading, raping and torturing its victims, but it is not the Sudan.

Children as young as 12 are being forcefully recruited into this army, but this is not the Taliban in Afghanistan or “Saddam’s Lion Cubs” in Hussein’s Iraq.

The military regime is busily building bunkers in a strongpoint defence matrix, allegedly in anticipation of a US attack, but it is not Iran.

This country is removing any crosses or other Christian symbols from public spaces, bit it is not Algeria.

This country has the world’s largest narcotics-trafficking militia operating on its territory, but it is not Columbia.

This country has a health crisis worse than the poorest areas of Africa, with more children dying before age 5 in some areas, than the Congo, but it is not Afghanistan.

This country has recently agreed to allow Russia to share in exploitation of its oil fields, in exchange for weapons shipments, but it is not Venezuela.

This country, while shunned by the West, counts China as its main political and economic ally, but it is not North Korea.

While the world’s attention is focused on several noisy ideologically and religiously driven nutjob regimes, one old backyard hussler is slowly but surely losing touch with reality, seemingly by way of good old fashioned drug-induced psychosis. That twitchy little battler is Burma.

“The side road the soldiers have blocked off is 15 kilometers (9 miles) north of the city of Pyinmana in the central Burmese plains. The jungle stretches for more than 400 kilometers (249 miles), like some vast, green carpet, toward a line of jagged peaks on the distant horizon marking the Golden Triangle bordering Laos and Thailand. The only destination worth seeing in this rural stretch of Burma is its tropical rainforest research institute.

But Burma’s ruling generals recently declared the region a restricted military zone, making the trip to the institute off-limits to outsiders. The Junta is having its new capital built somewhere at the end of this 20-foot-wide highway. The central government’s officials were already required to move there last November.

..

Burma’s leadership apparently plans to barricade itself into its remote new capital, from which it expects to control the country in the future. The nearest major city, Mandalay, is a 250-kilometer (155-mile) journey away on a deeply potholed road, and the trip to Rangoon takes about eight hours. Naypyidaw, or “Royal Country,” is the name Than Shwe, the junta’s 73-year-old leader, has personally selected for his government’s secretive new headquarters. According to official instructions to be followed in the event of a foreign attack, “Naypyidaw is our war bunker, where we will wait, during an American attack, until the Chinese hurry to our aid.”

Sounds like a brilliant plan. Although, considering the pace of events in Iraq and throwing in some generous estimates for the actions against Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Trans-dnestr my estimated date of invasion is somewhere around hmmm.. how does 2090 sound? By which date you won’t need to wait long for China to help, because you’ll be a part of it.

So what the hell is going here? Well, I did mention drug-induced psychosis, didn’t I?

“Beheadings by troops are common. So too are beatings, the use of forced labour and rape. Growing use of amphetamines among Burma’s 400,000-strong army is fuelling this violence.

A narcotics expert from the Australian National University who is based in Thailand, David Matheson, said researchers had concluded that many troops went into battle high on amphetamines. “When they come across dead Burmese soldiers, they find methamphetamine tablets on most of them if not all of them, particularly in the Shan state.”

The brutality of the attacks is evident in video footage, taken by members of the evangelical Christian missionary group the Free Burma Rangers, of the burning of villages. The video shows young men, armed with AK-47 rifles, setting fire to bamboo homes as residents flee in terror.”

Lets put two and 400,000 together here. “Most if not all” of the military is marching to the rhythm of an ICE binge, and its leadership is barricading itself away from the world in the middle of the jungle, declaring their new place of residence “Royal County”. Add the delusion and paranoia up with the erratic acts of violence, and this is obviously one hell of a tweak out. And it is sure to be followed by one hell of a come down, yet oddly enough “Royal County” just doesn’t sound like a rehab centre to me.

But I propose a solution. Send in the bicycles. That should keep them busy for at least a couple of decades. Heck, maybe after that we can arrange for them to sort through the world’s garbage for recycling, and get on top of that global warming biznit too. Hey, its far more likely to have an effect than another UN Resolution.

In The New Yorker, a must read look at the history of Al Qaeda, encompassing a number of portraits of some of its founders, commanders and idealogues. The most surprising part of the story were the following passages:

It is chilling to read this work [“Al-Zarqawi: The Second Generation of Al Qaeda.”, by Fouad Hussein, a radical Jordanian journalist] and realize how closely recent events seem to be hewing to Al Qaeda’s forecasts. Based on interviews with Zarqawi and Adl, Hussein claims that dragging Iran into conflict with the United States is key to Al Qaeda’s strategy. Expanding the area of conflict in the Middle East will cause the U.S. to overextend its forces. According to Hussein, Al Qaeda believes that Iran expects to be attacked by the U.S., because of its interest in building a nuclear weapon. “Accordingly, Iran is preparing to retaliate for or abort this strike by means of using powerful cards in its hand,” he writes. These tactics include targeting oil installations in the Persian Gulf, which could cut off sixty per cent of the world’s oil supplies, destabilizing Western economies.

In an ominous passage, Hussein notes that “for fifteen years—or since the end of the first Gulf War—Iran has been busy building a secret global army of highly trained personnel and the necessary financial and technological capabilities to carry out any kind of mission.” He is clearly referring to Hezbollah, which has so far focussed its attention on Israel. According to Hussein, “Iran has identified American and Jewish targets around the world. This secret army is led by two professional Lebanese men who have pledged full allegiance to Iran and who hold enough of a grudge against the Americans to qualify them to inflict damage on Jewish and American interests around the world.”

Iran, he continues, has been cultivating good relations with other Palestinian resistance groups, including Hamas. “Iran views these parties as its entrenched wings in occupied Palestine,” Hussein writes, asserting that the peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians at the Egyptian resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh in February, 2005, were secretly aimed at countering Iranian influence on the Palestinian resistance. “Al Qaeda interpreted this as the first step toward launching an attack on Iran,” Hussein claims. Both the U.S. and Israel view Hezbollah, the Islamist group in Lebanon, as a creature of the Iranian state, and are intent on eliminating it. “The military campaign against Iran will begin when the United States and Israel succeed in disarming Hezbollah,” Hussein predicts.

–

And how’s this for Al Qaeda’s 20 year plan?

Al Qaeda’s twenty-year plan began on September 11th, with a stage that Hussein calls “The Awakening.” The ideologues within Al Qaeda believed that “the Islamic nation was in a state of hibernation,” because of repeated catastrophes inflicted upon Muslims by the West. By striking America—“the head of the serpent”—Al Qaeda caused the United States to “lose consciousness and act chaotically against those who attacked it. This entitled the party that hit the serpent to lead the Islamic nation.” This first stage, says Hussein, ended in 2003, when American troops entered Baghdad.

The second, “Eye-Opening” stage will last until the end of 2006, Hussein writes. Iraq will become the recruiting ground for young men eager to attack America. In this phase, he argues, perhaps wishfully, Al Qaeda will move from being an organization to “a mushrooming invincible and popular trend.” The electronic jihad on the Internet will propagate Al Qaeda’s ideas, and Muslims will be pressed to donate funds to make up for the seizure of terrorist assets by the West. The third stage, “Arising and Standing Up,” will last from 2007 to 2010. Al Qaeda’s focus will be on Syria and Turkey, but it will also begin to directly confront Israel, in order to gain more credibility among the Muslim population.

In the fourth stage, lasting until 2013, Al Qaeda will bring about the demise of Arab governments. “The creeping loss of the regimes’ power will lead to a steady growth in strength within Al Qaeda,” Hussein predicts. Meanwhile, attacks against the Middle East petroleum industry will continue, and America’s power will deteriorate through the constant expansion of the circle of confrontation. “By then, Al Qaeda will have completed its electronic capabilities, and it will be time to use them to launch electronic attacks to undermine the U.S. economy.” Islamists will promote the idea of using gold as the international medium of exchange, leading to the collapse of the dollar.

Then an Islamic caliphate can be declared, inaugurating the fifth stage of Al Qaeda’s grand plan, which will last until 2016. “At this stage, the Western fist in the Arab region will loosen, and Israel will not be able to carry out preëmptive or precautionary strikes,” Hussein writes. “The international balance will change.” Al Qaeda and the Islamist movement will attract powerful new economic allies, such as China, and Europe will fall into disunity.

The sixth phase will be a period of “total confrontation.” The now established caliphate will form an Islamic Army and will instigate a worldwide fight between the “believers” and the “non-believers.” Hussein proclaims, “The world will realize the meaning of real terrorism.” By 2020, “definitive victory” will have been achieved. Victory, according to the Al Qaeda ideologues, means that “falsehood will come to an end. . . . The Islamic state will lead the human race once again to the shore of safety and the oasis of happiness.”

The oasis of happiness, ay? Well, you know what they say. You can lead the human race to the shore of safety and the oasis of happiness, but you can’t make it nappy up its head and waltz knee deep into medieval barbarism. Not that there’d be much waltzing anyway, with music being banned and all. Although the key phrase here is “once again”. I am fairly sure they are talking about Atlantis.

UPDATE: Considering where we are supposedly at, ie, if Fouad Hussein is to be taken at all seriously (and considering that I have it on good authority he smoked a whole lot of crack while writing that book) at the end of the “Eye-Opening” phase, the following survey results are rather interesting. In reply to an Arabic language survey on the Al Jazeera website, answered by 41,260 people 49.9% answered Yes to the question “Do you support Osama bin Laden?” Which, by the way would make him far more popular than the United Nations, with 52% of respondents to a Hudson Insitute poll saying that they see the UN less favourably since 9/11 and 57% saying it should be scrapped all together if it cant be “reformed and made more effective”. I suspect this is because the UN does not have an effective 20 year plan. I mean, does anyone even know when they plan on leading us to the oasis of happiness?
Anyone?

And now a word on Al Jazeera from Tunisian intellectual Dr. Khaled Shawkat:

“Al-Jazeera has been hijacked by the Muslim Brotherhood organization – either at the wish of the channel’s owners as part of a certain political game [played] by the Qatari rulers, or out of the lack of awareness of the Qatari rulers, who think that the situation is under control and that even though they have given the Muslim Brotherhood a chance to control Al-Jazeera, for local, regional, and international considerations, they can get rid of them or restrain them any time they want…

“At [Al-Jazeera, employees are] no longer appointed based on qualifications, but [based on] agreed-upon selections, or [are selected by] one of the [Muslim Brotherhood] leaders. Based on what I was told by a friend inside the station, nearly 80% of the station’s recent appointees – particularly in the production and the editing [departments] – are Muslim Brotherhood members or are close to movements [affiliated with] the Muslim Brotherhood. Appointments based on considerations of loyalty [to the Muslim Brotherhood] are even made in the management bodies of new professional departments which Al-Jazeera has decided to launch in the near future. The appointees have no professional expertise in the [relevant] fields [but are chosen for their affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood].

The irony is that Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood are currently in direct competition and conflict over the methods each uses in the pursuit of their ultimate goals (ie. the “oasis of happiness” for the whole human race).

Across Europe, according to intelligence sources, the international Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al Moslemoon) is competing for recruits, cash and ideological and theological predominance with armed, radicalized Islamist groups operating in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere. This competition is a growing part of the Islamist landscape that intelligence services see as both dangerous and offering potential openings to exploit frictions and divisions.

The competition is not over the short-term goal of the Islamist project: the re-creation of a Muslim caliphate in the areas of the world once ruled by Muslims. Nor is it over the ultimate goal of Islamist groups, the eventual Islamization of Europe, the United States and the entire world. Rather, it appears that the Brotherhood, long able to recruit among the best and brightest Islamists in Europe and the Arab peninsula, is now struggling to make its more staid message of incremental change and political action relevant to those who would join the Islamist movement and attack the West, and Europe in particular.

The Jihadist Mogadisushi Train is now operational. Would you like to wage Jihad here or take away?

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Somalia’s powerful Islamist movement opened a militia training camp on Wednesday with trainers from Eritrea, Afghanistan and Pakistan, witnesses said.

The presence of foreign trainers points to what many fear is a growing internationalization of a crisis that has split the Horn of Africa nation and threatened the slim authority of its interim government.

The Islamists’ hardline leader, Shiekh Hassan Dahir Aweys, attended the opening of the camp for more than 600 Islamist militiamen at Hiilweyne, north of Mogadishu.

“You will study military tactics, because you will defend your country with Islamic morality,” Aweys told the recruits.

Witnesses identified foreign trainers from and Afghanistan at the camp.

Diplomats fear Somalia could become a proxy battleground for Ethiopia and Eritrea, and have said that more players like Libya, Iran and Egypt have quietly entered the fray.

Everyone loves a good spy story, a daring conspiracy, a glimpse of the invisible hands that shape the world, the steadfast men of ideas that direct history from the shadows, manipulating events on the world stage from behind a curtain of intrigue.

One such “man of ideas”, a ruthless wheeler and dealer and a man who certainly left his mark on history, in ways both overt and covert, was the French spychief Count Alexandre de Marenches. The Count was the longest serving head of the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE, France’s version of the CIA), serving as its director from 1970 through to 1981. Below are a couple of tales from Count de Marenches’ large arsenal. But first a little more about the man and his ideas.

In 1992 the Count co-authored with NY Times’ Paris correspondent David A. Andelman, “The Fourth World War: Diplomacy and Espionage in the Age of Terrorism”, a book that has since revealed itself to be ahead of its time, but back in 1992 was snubbed by reviewers for making unfounded claims from an “extremist” viewpoint. The book is perhaps the first instance of the suggestion that the next World War would be against international terrorism and rogue states. In it the Count called for the establishment of a “Decent People’s Club” of countries that would band together to crush the new slippery bad guys. Count de Marenches’ name for this new conflict was the politically incorrect “South-North War”.

Allister Heath wrote of Count de Marenches and his book last week:

When it came to fighting terrorists, Count Alexandre de Marenches, the legendary former head of France’s intelligence services, knew what he was talking about. In a prescient book published just after the end of the Cold War, he was the first to warn that a fourth world war had already begun — a war waged by ‘small, highly deadly units of terrorists’ with ‘the very real prospect of ending civilisation, at least Western civilisation, as we know it’. A lone voice, Marenches was ignored in Britain and America; it was far easier to believe in reassuring theories about the ‘end of history’ and the supposedly inevitable victory of liberal democracy in the great ideological conflicts of the 20th century.

Well, not completely ignored. Eliot A. Cohen wrote the following in Foreign Affairs back in 1992:

“[the author] goes off track … when he looks to the future. He sees the opening skirmishes of a new world war — between South and North — the new enemies being terrorists, drug lords and dictators. ‘Mutual Assured Destruction’ must now be replaced by a doctrine of `Certain Destruction’ of terrorist groups; a ‘Decent People’s Club’ of nations that believe in individual liberty must be created. These extreme views inadvertently cast some doubt on his judgment while running French intelligence.”

It has now become much clearer whose judgement doubt should perhaps be cast on.

Now to the stories. The first one is short, sweet and unfulfilled. The year before his death in 1995 the Count told Time magazine’s Thomas Sancton the following tale over lunch:

“Shortly after your hostages were taken in Tehran in 1979,” he recalls, “the Americans asked my advice. I told them, ‘When dealing with rug merchants, you need something to trade.’ ” The count’s modest proposal: kidnap the Ayatullah Khomeini and exchange him for the 53 Americans. “After weeks of reconnaissance, my people came up with a detailed plan to land a helicopter near Khomeini’s residence, neutralize his guards and whisk him away. The CIA loved the idea, but Jimmy Carter nixed it. He said, ‘We just can’t do this to an old bishop.’ ”

Naive sentimentality driving Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy decisions?! Shock and horror all round. Perhaps he was using the more colourful meaning of the term “old bishop”? Alas, we’ll never know. I do know that had the Israelis gone and kidnapped that other “old bishop” Hassan Nasrallah to exchange for their soldiers the Middle East would be a whole other ball game just about now. Although Ayatollah Khomenei would have been even better.

Possibly de Marenches’ favourite spy story is the one about “Operation Mosquito”.

Here’s one version of it (questionable source, but you can read the condensed version from Count himself in the same Time magazine article):

Both the colonial French and the theoretically anti-colonial Americans used, and were in turn afflicted by, drugs, during the wars in Indo-China from the 1950s until the 1970s. Memories of this must have been uppermost in the mind of a certain big, burly mustachioed Frenchman. He appeared by appointment at the Los Angeles mansion of President-elect Ronald Reagan’s advisor and friend, Alfred Bloomingdale, one day in December 1990. This was to be the Frenchman’s first meeting with Reagan, whose anti-Communist and anti-Soviet views he fully shared.

The big Frenchman was Count Alexandre de Marenches, head of France’s secret foreign intelligence service, the SDECE (later the DGSE). [..] He had accurately predicted the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Despite some serious problems between the French agency’s men and American drug-enforcement officials, de Marenches had good access to the Washington of the Reagan era. General Vernon Walters, just promoted from his old post as US defense attaché in Paris to become deputy director of the CIA, was one of de Marenches’ oldest friends. He put in a good word for the robust French spy chief. This assured him of a good reception by President-elect Reagan in Los Angeles. The two men sat down to study maps of Afghanistan. Before he left, de Marenches warned Reagan that the rank-and-file staff of the CIA, where a mutual friend, William Casey, would soon take over as chief, was not to be trusted.

“These are not serious people,” de Marenches said. They couldn’t keep secrets, he added. It was too easy to spot their officers and agents. Usually they were under highly transparent cover as diplomats in American missions abroad.

Soon after his inauguration in January 1981, Reagan saw the Frenchman again. This time it was in the Oval Office of the White House. De Marenches had a concrete suggestion for a Franco-American venture to revive the old alliance and counter the Soviet threat in Afghanistan. He called it Operation Moustique or Mosquito. “You know,” he told the President, “how much trouble a mosquito can cause a bear. If you’re not in a position to shoot the bear yourself, you should consider this method.”

De Marenches continued that he was in contact with a bunch of bright young journalists. They could produce a perfect specimen of a convincing but false Red Army newspaper. Other friends could print Bibles in the Cyrillic alphabet, and in languages of the Central Asian Muslim Soviet republics. They could be put around in Red Army barracks and do a lot of damage to spirit and morale. There was another thing: “What,” he asked Reagan, do you do with all the drugs seized by the DEA [the US Drug Enforcement Administration], the Coast Guard, the FBI, the Customs?” Reagan responded that he didn’t know. He supposed they burned them. “That’s a mistake,” the Frenchman said.” Take all those confiscated drugs and do as the Vietcong did with the US Army in Vietnam. Supply them on the sly, to the Russian soldiers.” In a few months, he explained, they would be demoralized and their fighting ability would be gone. De Marenches added, according to his published memoirs, that a few trusted people could do all this at a cost of only about one million dollars, truly a bargain in subversive warfare.

After very short reflection, Reagan, according to his French visitor, replied that this was a great idea. No one had suggested anything like it to him before. He picked up the phone and told William Casey. The two should meet and discuss Operation Mosquito. When de Marenches met Casey two days later and explained the plan, the Frenchman recorded in his memoirs that Casey “… loved it. He leaped from his chair and sliced at the air with his fists.” Although Casey knew there would be problems with Congress, he was eager to go ahead. Would, could, France carry it out if the CIA put up the cash? Yes, de Marenches agreed, but only on condition that no Americans were directly involved. “Your compatriots,” he told Casey, “don’t know how to do this type of work. They’re likely to get a pile-driver to crush a fly, rather than turn a mosquito loose to make life impossible for a bear.”

By the French spymaster’s account, planning then began. Pakistani operatives and Afghans would handle the distribution of the black propaganda material — phoney Russian newspapers with demoralizing articles and exhortations to desert the Red Army; Christian Bibles — and hard and soft drugs for the “Russkies.”

Casey had an afterthought. Wouldn’t Pakistan’s ISI be involved? “We need the Pakis,” he mumbled, with the habitual intelligibility which made him hard to understand. “I’ll take care of that,” said de Marenches. “But I have another condition. This kind of operation is very delicate. I want to be sure that France won’t be mentioned in published articles. I want to be sure that I’ll never see my photo in the New York Times or the Washington Post, along with a little item about what I’m doing.” Sorry, Casey retorted. Washington leaked like a sieve. Casey couldn’t promise anything of the kind.

According to de Marenches, the joint Franco-American project was dropped: in other words, France withdrew, after having provided the idea. However, the fake issues of Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star), the Soviet army newspaper, did appear later in Kabul. [5] So did large quantities of hashish, opium straw (a dried poppy product used in the area to make mildly narcotic “tea”) and packets of heroin, all made easy for the Soviet personnel to buy for nominal prices or “find” as free gifts. There were even small quantities of cocaine, not produced at this early time in the South Asian war boom in drugs, in laboratories in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

Hashshashin warriors the Russkis obviously weren’t.

Of course it took a lot more than hard drugs and some depressing tabloids to get the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Helping out with the gathering and funding of the mujahideen was the House of Saud. The head of Saudi intelligence all through the 80s and 90s, and in fact right up until mid-2001, for a total of 24 years was a close colleague and protege of Count de Marenches, Prince Turki bin Feisal. Here’s a story all about him:

One of Turki’s assets was Osama bin Laden, one of the 56 children of a Yemeni-born construction tycoon who had a monopoly on the building of all royal palaces in the kingdom.

Osama collected tens of millions from wealthy Saudis for the Afghan campaign. He also took under his wing Arab and other Muslim volunteers funded to fight in Afghanistan by Turki and wealthy princes and private sector entrepreneurs.

By the time the defeated Soviets left Afghanistan in February 1989, bin Laden had been elevated to hero status in Saudi Arabia. So when bin Laden asked to see Turki Aug. 2, 1990, the day Saddam Hussein invaded Iraq, he was not kept waiting.

What followed was described by Turki as one of history’s most expensive laughs. Bin Laden told Turki the royals must not invite the U.S. Army to the kingdom to push the Iraqis out of Kuwait. His “Afghan Arab” fighters could do the job. Turki laughed and a furious bin Laden stormed out.

That was a crucial turning point in history. Bin Laden became convinced the royal family was conspiring with Washington to facilitate the occupation of Saudi Arabia and control of its oil production facilities and that Saddam had been entrapped into invading Kuwait to provide a pretext for U.S. occupation. That was when he decided to take on the royal family – a career path that led him to become the world’s most wanted terrorist.

Prince Turki is the current Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington. It seems that since his “expensive laugh” the Prince has acquired a real penchant for missing the mark with his communiques, even if at times it has been somewhat deliberate.