Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Would Someone Tell al Qaeda's The Islamic State Of Iraq That Its Just a Civil War

Just as Democrat after Democrat is claiming that Iraq is "just a civil war," the Islamic State of Iraq does their part to overreach and throw that carefully guarded Democratic canard into a bit of flux. The release of this jihadi video coming on the heels of the President's speech, the timing could not be worse for the Democrats - at least if it were to get any play in the MSM. The latest from the jihadis currently fighting the "civil war" in Iraq:

Al Qaeda has a new opening graphic for its propaganda tapes: the U.S. Capitol under "attack."

"The Islamic State of Iraq...March Toward Washington" reads the headline in English superimposed over a digitally created scene of the U.S. Capitol under attack in the introductory sequence of one tape released on the Internet this week.

Another from al Qaeda's "as Sahab" production arm announces "Holocaust of the Americans in the Land of Khorasan" and shows an image of the U.S. Capitol to introduce a short clip of al Qaeda fighters.

"This is a disturbing new trend," says Laura Mansfield, an Arabic expert who monitors jihadi videos on the Internet.

"Recall that in January 2006, Osama Bin Laden said that plans for attacks in the U.S. were in progress," Mansfield told the Blotter on ABCNews.com. "It may be that this new imagery is designed to motivate terrorist activity in the U.S., but it is certainly intended as a recruiting tool and perhaps intended to reassure al Qaeda's jihadi followers they haven't forgotten their goal of an al Qaeda attack on Washington, D.C.," she said.
Read the entire story here. Video screen shot by ABC.

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Bush - We Cannot Lose to Al Qaeda In Iraq

President Bush, making a commencement speech before the Coast Guard Academy, made the tie-ins between al Qaeda in Iraq and the al Qaeda of bin Laden and Zawahiri that is the head of transnational terrorism. According to Bush, we cannot afford to lose in Iraq for that will be handing victory to those who seek the downfall of the West and are quite willing to kill us in our homes to achieve it. Here are a portion of the President's remarks:

. . . There is a reason that bin Laden sent one of his most experienced paramilitary leaders to Iraq: He believes that if al Qaeda can drive us out, they can establish Iraq as a new terrorist sanctuary. Our intelligence community believes that, "al Qaeda leaders see victory in Iraq -- the heart of the caliphate and currently the most active front in their war -- as a religious and strategic imperative." If al Qaeda succeeds in Iraq, they would pursue their stated goals of turning that nation into a base from which to overthrow moderate governments in the region, impose their hateful ideology on millions, and launch new attacks on America and other nations. Victory in Iraq is important for Osama bin Laden -- and victory in Iraq is vital for the United States of America. (Applause.)

I've often warned that if we fail in Iraq, the enemy will follow us home. Many ask: How do you know? Today, I'd like to share some information with you that attests to al Qaeda's intentions. According to our intelligence community, in January 2005, Osama bin Laden tasked the terrorist Zarqawi -- who was then al Qaeda's top leader in Iraq -- with forming a cell to conduct terrorist attacks outside of Iraq. Bin Laden emphasized that America should be Zarqawi's number one priority in terms of foreign attacks. Zarqawi welcomed this direction; he claimed that he had already come up with some good proposals.

To help Zarqawi in these efforts, our intelligence community reports that bin Laden then tasked one of his top terrorist operatives, Hamza Rabia, to send Zarqawi a briefing on al Qaeda's external operations, including information about operations against the American homeland. Our intelligence community reports that a senior al Qaeda leader, Abu Faraj al-Libi, went further and suggested that bin Laden actually send Rabia, himself, to Iraq to help plan external operations. Abu Faraj later speculated that if this effort proved successful, al Qaeda might one day prepare the majority of its external operations from Iraq.

In May of 2005, Abu Faraj was captured and taken into CIA custody. Several months later, in December 2005, Rabia was killed in Pakistan. Several months after that, in June of 2006, the terrorist Zarqawi was killed by American forces in Iraq. Successes like these are blows to al Qaeda. They're a testament to steps we have taken to strengthen our intelligence, work closely with partners overseas, and keep the pressure on the enemy by staying on the offense. (Applause.)

Despite our pressure, despite the setbacks that al Qaeda has suffered, it remains extremely dangerous. As we've surged our forces in Iraq, al Qaeda has responded with a surge of its own. The terrorists' goal in Iraq is to reignite sectarian violence and break support for the war here at home. And they believe they're succeeding. A few weeks ago, al Qaeda's number two, second in command, Zawahiri, issued a video in which he gloated that al Qaeda's "movement of violence" has "forced the Americans to accept a pullout -- about which they only differ in regard to its timing." We can expect al Qaeda to continue its campaign of high profile attacks, including deadly suicide bombings and assassinations. And as they do, our troops will face more fighting and increased risks in the weeks and months ahead.

The fight in Iraq is tough, but my point today to you is the fight is essential to our security -- al Qaeda's leaders inside and outside of Iraq have not given up on their objective of attacking America again. Now, many critics compare the battle in Iraq to the situation we faced in Vietnam. There are many differences between the two conflicts, but one stands out above all: The enemy in Vietnam had neither the intent nor the capability to strike our homeland. The enemy in Iraq does. Nine-eleven taught us that to protect the American people, we must fight the terrorists where they live so that we don't have to fight them where we live. (Applause.)

The question for our elected leaders is: Do we comprehend the danger of an al Qaeda victory in Iraq, and will we do what it takes to stop them? However difficult the fight in Iraq has become, we must win it. Al Qaeda is public enemy number one for Iraq's young democracy, and al Qaeda is public enemy number one for America, as well. And that is why we must support our troops, we must support the Iraqi government, and we must defeat al Qaeda in Iraq. . . .
Read President Bush's full remarks here. It was a bit surprising that President Bush made no mention of Iran's acts of war in Iran, nor raised an equally valid argument that we cannot afford to lose in Iraq to Iran. The President making a speech of this nature is but a first step made well past the eleventh hour. If it is not followed up with similar speeches and op-eds in MSM by all moderates and conservatives between now and September, the far left's meme that Iraq is not but a simple civil war at this point will win out simply by weight of repetition spread ad infinitum by a left wing MSM. Moreover, this was a typical speech by Bush, delivered with workmanlike, coldly communicating numerous factual points, but seeming almost dry. President Bush could do with a speechwriter and a speeking coach. I understand one of the best in the world is about to become available. And the good thing is, Bush and Blair already have a close friendship.

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Pew Poll of Muslims in America

Some of the findings were expected, such as degree of societal integration, while at least one finding, support for suicide bombings among younger Muslims, is very troubling. The findings that one would have reasonably expected from the poll are in fact there - "most Muslim Americans overwhelmingly reject [suicide bombings as a legitimate tactic] and are critical of Islamic extremism and al-Qaida." Further, Muslim integration into the fabric of American society is substantial. The poll found the "mainstream members express nearly as much happiness with their lives and communities as the general public does, show a broad willingness to adopt American customs, and have income and education levels similar to others in the US."

But, the poll "revealed noteworthy pockets of discontent." The most troubling finding is that one in four U.S. Muslims under 30 say suicide bombings are acceptable in some circumstances:

While nearly 80 percent of US Muslims say suicide bombings of civilians to defend Islam can not be justified, 13 percent say they can be, at least rarely.

That sentiment is strongest among those younger than 30. Two percent of them say it can often be justified, 13 percent say sometimes and 11 percent say rarely.

"It is a hair-raising number," said Radwan Masmoudi, president of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, which promotes the compatibility of Islam with democracy.

. . . US Muslims have growing Internet and television access to extreme ideologies, he said, adding: "People, especially younger people, are susceptible to these ideas."

. . . US Muslims are far less accepting of suicide attacks than Muslims in many other nations. In surveys Pew conducted last year, support in some Muslim countries exceeded 50 percent, while it was considered justifiable by about one in four Muslims in Britain and Spain, and one in three in France.

. . . The poll briefly describes the rationales for and against "suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets" and then asks, "Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?"

The question did not specify where a suicide attack might occur, who might carry it out or what was meant by using a bombing to "defend Islam."

Those of all ages who backed at least some suicide attacks were about evenly divided between men and women, with support stronger from those who were born in the United States and less educated and those who attend mosques at least weekly.

In other findings:

Only 5 percent of US Muslims expressed favorable views of the terrorist group al-Qaida, though about a fourth did not express an opinion.

Six in 10 said they are concerned about a rise in Islamic extremism in the US, while three in four expressed similar worries about extremism around the world.

Yet only one in four consider the US struggle against terrorism a sincere attempt to curtail international terror. Only 40 percent said they believe Arab men carried out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

By six to one, they say the US was wrong to invade Iraq, while a third say the same about Afghanistan - far deeper than the opposition expressed by the general US public.

Just over half said it has been harder being a US Muslim since the Sept. 11 attacks, especially the better educated, higher income, more religious and young. Nearly a third of those who flew in the past year say they underwent extra screening because they are Muslim.

Forty-seven percent said they consider themselves Muslim first, rather than American. Forty-two percent of Christians and 62 percent of white evangelical Protestants identified themselves primarily by their religion in earlier surveys.
The survey estimates there are roughly 2.35 million Muslim Americans. It found that among adults, two-thirds are from abroad while a fifth are US-born blacks.
Read the entire story here. You can find the actual poll here.Some questions that should have been asked were not. This includes questions about the sect of Islam practiced and whether there had been an increase in influence of Wahhabi / Salafi Islam in their mosque? Questions also should have been asked about availabity of and exposure to jihadi propoganda, whether through the mosque or other sources.

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Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Murtha Continues His Offensive Against Our Military In Support of Shared Al Qaeda & Democratic Goals

GODDAMNIT. SOME SENATORS AND CONGESSMEN WITH BALLS NEED TO GET ON THE SIX O'CLOCK NEWS AND IN THE EDITORIAL PAGES AND START ATTACKING THE PURE BULLSHIT COMING FROM THE FAR LEFT AND THIS WORTHLESS SON OF A BITCH, JACK MURTHA. THAT OR WE NEED TO PREPARE FOR WHAT LIES IN THE FUTURE. LEARN ARABIC.

Todays latest far left obscenity from Murtha:

Looking ahead to a post-veto Iraq spending bill, appropriators are looking at either a two-month or five-month bill, and House Defense Appropriations Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) said Thursday he thinks one can be passed in two weeks.

The Senate passed the Iraq supplemental Thursday on a 51-46 vote, and President Bush is expected to veto the conference version next week.

“We want to assess it again in two months,” Murtha said. “Two months sounds good, but it’s complicated. There was a time when I had confidence in the military, but these guys have lied to us so much. They’re so intimidated by the White House.”
WHAT THE FUCK? "THE MILITARY HAS LIED TO US SO MUCH . . . ?" THE MILITARY IS LIEING TO AMERICA BECAUSE "THEY ARE SO INTIMIDATED BY THE WHITE HOUSE?"

We have young men and women fighting and dieing overseas today and Murtha says that they are being sacrificed for lies? WHAT AN UTTERLY WORTHLESS SON OF A BITCH. BUT THAT IS THE FAR LEFT MEME NOW. MURTHA IS NOT SAYING SOMETHING THAT HE, REID, AND OTHERS HAVE NOT ALREADY SAID BEFORE WITHOUT A SINGLE CHALLENGE.

Bottom line - we as a nation are fucked. The Democrats are cowardly hypocrites that seek power regardless of the cost to America. Indeed, many on the far left will not be happy until the U.S. is beaten into a position of weakness for the many alleged sins that they see. It is absolutely fucking suicidal and cowardly beyond measure. Yet the middle and right in Congress have proven wholly ineffectual in responding to attack after attack. FDR said that just because you constantly repeat a lie does not make it true. FDR never met the politicians of today - either the far left who repeat lies in soundbite form before every microphone they can find, nor the moderates and conservatives who sit on their asses, responding one time in one hundred to the sound bites, and then not calling the far left to account. There is no emotion. There is no outrage. No, FDR did not meet these people.

Bottom line, your grandchildren will need to learn the Koran. The immediate future we face is being written by Murtha and it is a future of Reid and Pelosi domination of Washington in 08. The future that your grandchildren will face is being written by Saudi and Yemeni suicide bombers in Iraq, by al Zawahiri from a madrasa in Pakistan's NWFP, by Mickey the Fucking Terrorist Mouse in Palestine, by Iranian proxies laying EFP's on Iraqi roads, by Saudi Arabia who is spreading the poison of Wahhabism and radical Islam throughout the world, and by Khamenei who is overseeing the development of an Iranian nuclear arsenal. These are people who cannot possibly match our might. These are people who have given nothing of any value to humanity. But, with help from Murtha and his ilk, it is they that are writing our grandchildren's future. And that is a future being written in Arabic.

We have gone from a nation of FDR, Eisenhower and Patton that fully deserved the mantle of super-power in the post World War II era to a nation of weak, narcissicistic pussies who are enjoying the benefits bought and paid for in blood by men and women far more principled then most of us will ever hope to be. Every male member of my family has served in military for as far back as I can trace my family line. And as a first, my daughter is in the Army Reserves today. And most of us have been infantry soldiers. More then a little of my families blood has been spilt in foreign lands, and there are detached limbs of my family probably still feeding the flowers in France. Until today, until I heard Murtha's assault on our military, I was very proud of that service and believed every bit of the sacrifice warranted. Murtha today is the final straw.

It is clear to me now that, with but a few exceptions, the Republicans in Congress are by and large every bit as weak and narcissicistic as the far left and, if the polls are correct, a significant majority of Americans agree with them. There is just nothing left for our military to defend. No one in Congress is listening on the left or the right. No one is beating their chest and taking on the incessant bullshit of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Jack Murtha. Whom do you think will call Murtha to account for this obscenity today? And is there anyone reading this who believes that General Petraeus was lying to us in his last brief to the nation, or that he will lie to us or twist facts in September? Or is the obscenity of Murtha today simply seeding the ground for the Democrat's counterargument in September?

WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE AMERICANS? WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE PEOPLE I AND MY FAMILY HAVE SUPPORTED FOR MORE THEN A CENTURY WITH OUR BLOOD AND SWEAT IN FOREIGN LANDS. WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?

THE ONLY THING THAT I ASK FROM YOU IS TO FIGHT BACK AGAINST MURTHA AND HIS ILK. GET OFF YOUR OWN GODDAMN DEAD ASS AND START MAKING OUR IDIOT REPRESENTATIVES AND SENATORS RESPONSIVE. THAT WILL FULFILL YOUR COMMITTMENT TO PROTECTING YOUR COUNTRY FOR THE BENEFIT OF YOU AND YOUR PROGENY.

I have no problem with reasoned arguments about Iraq and what to do there. But there are no such reasoned arguments in Congress. There are weak kneed republicans maintaining silence. There are Murtha, Pelosi and Reid and a host of Democrats now controlled by the far left of their party who are speaking in sound bites stating just the most outrageous and outlandish untruths - for example, "General Petraeus said that no military solution is possible in Iraq, therefore we need to pull our military out." WHAT PURE UTTER FUCKING BULLSHIT. BUT WHERE IS THE RESPONSE. WHY ARE THE PEOPLE WE ELECTED AS LEADERS SITTING WITH THEIR THUMBS UP THEIR ASSES AND LETTING THIS HAPPEN?

WHY ARE NOT THE FIRST WORDS IN RESPONSE FROM SOME REPULICAN SITTING NEXT TO CHUCKIE SHUMER ON RUSSERT "WHAT PURE BULL. YOU ARE DELIBERATELY LIEING TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FOR POLITICAL GAIN. YOU ARE NOT AN AMERICAN. YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A WOTHLESS POLITICAL ANIMAL."

Ladies and gentlemen, just like al Qaeda in Iraq who is getting their asses handed to them by U.S. and locals in Iraq today, we are down to the end game. The only way we can possibly lose to the likes of Islamic militants is if we choose to do so as a nation. That's it. And I fully agree with Bernard Lewis, the one man in a position to understand all the ramifications of such a loss, that the change it will work in the dynamics of radical Islam and the ramifications for America will be deep and long lasting. If that is acceptable to you, so be it. You are a cowardly fucking idiot not worthy of the freedom that others have bought for you in blood, but so be it. If it is not acceptable to you, yet you sit on your ass not doing anything, then you are a part of the problem. This is it folks. Either get energized and start having come to Jesus meetings with your elected representatives or get fucked and enjoy the next few years at the expense of the future and all that our forefathers have worked to produce. Your call.

I apologize for the use of expletives. I try to refrain from them except on the rare occasion when they are warranted. One occasion is today.

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Murtha & Pelosi Getting Dirtier At The Trough (Update: Add Republicans Too)

More news is coming out that sheds a harsh light on Murtha's antics in the House in regards to the proposed 23 million in pork he wants to keep the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) alive in his district. This is the same earmark over which Murtha threatened Congressman Mike Rogers. See here. And it throws an equally harsh light on the descent of Pelosi's Congress into the muck and mire that she promised to clean up.

The House Intelligence Committee notified all members of a March 23 deadline date for submitting ear mark certification letters proposing additions to the House Intelligence budget request. By House rules, a copy of the certification letter was to be provided both to the Committee Chairman and to the ranking Republican on the Committee, Rep. Pete Hoeksra.

Murtha submitted his earmark certification letter for the NDIC five weeks late on the day prior to Committee hearings on the budget. He failed to provide a copy to the ranking Republican on the Committee. Not surprisingly, these acts of Murtha, coupled with, among other things, Murtha's threats to Rep. Rogers over challenges to this pork barrel project and Pelosi's threat to overturn House rules near two centuries old in order to marginalize the Republican minority, have led the Republicans to call foul. Not only has Pelosi failed to run "the most ethical House in history," as she promised in the 06 campaign, but things have taken a turn for the worse. Earmarks have only become less transparent and accountable, and on top of that, "there is a growing pattern of abuses on the part of Democrats" of the House rules. Its just not getting any print in the MSM.

As to Rep. Rogers and his complaint against threats by Murtha over the NDIC earmark:

[Rogers] introduced a privileged resolution Monday night reprimanding Murtha for the threat, but Democrats postponed a vote on the measure. Democrats have a 48-hour window to decide whether the resolution’s claims are valid, which in turn would allow an hour of debate and a vote. One Democratic source said that a vote could come Tuesday.
Read the entire story here.

Update: While the criticism of Murtha and Pelosi stand, it is also true that Republicans have not given up at the trough either. The Hill is reporting that 8 billion in earmarks have been approved as part of Murtha's Defense Appropriations bill, and that a full 40% of that is going to fund pet pork of Republican legislatiors. Eight billion would fund a lot of boots on the ground in Iraq, alleviating the strain we are putting on our soldiers. It would fund a lot of health care for soldiers missing limbs and suffering brain injuries from concussive force. Not a dime of this 8 billion is being spent appropriately, and beyond that, some of it is clearly being misspent to fund projects that our military does not want:
One of Rep. Duncan Hunter’s (R-Calif.) favorite requests, the Sea-Fighter project (also known as X-Craft), built by L3 Communications Titan Group, made it into the bill. Hunter, the committee’s ranking member, requested $22 million for the project. Last year, Hunter added $25.7 million despite the Navy’s reluctance to spend money on the project, according to a Congress Daily report.
Read the entire sordid story here.

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Former Sen. Bob Kerry On Democrats & The Iraq War

Former Democratic Senator from Nebraska and Medal of Honor recipient Bob Kerry has authored an article in today's Wall St. Journal taking his party to task for their unrealistic position on Iraq:

. . . Let me restate the case for this Iraq war from the U.S. point of view. The U.S. led an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein because Iraq was rightly seen as a threat following Sept. 11, 2001. For two decades we had suffered attacks by radical Islamic groups but were lulled into a false sense of complacency because all previous attacks were "over there." It was our nation and our people who had been identified by Osama bin Laden as the "head of the snake." But suddenly Middle Eastern radicals had demonstrated extraordinary capacity to reach our shores.

. . . No matter how incompetent the Bush administration and no matter how poorly they chose their words to describe themselves and their political opponents, Iraq was a larger national security risk after Sept. 11 than it was before. And no matter how much we might want to turn the clock back and either avoid the invasion itself or the blunders that followed, we cannot. The war to overthrow Saddam Hussein is over. What remains is a war to overthrow the government of Iraq.

. . . The critics who bother me the most are those who ordinarily would not be on the side of supporting dictatorships, who are arguing today that only military intervention can prevent the genocide of Darfur, or who argued yesterday for military intervention in Bosnia, Somalia and Rwanda to ease the sectarian violence that was tearing those places apart.

Suppose we had not invaded Iraq and Hussein had been overthrown by Shiite and Kurdish insurgents. Suppose al Qaeda then undermined their new democracy and inflamed sectarian tensions to the same level of violence we are seeing today. Wouldn't you expect the same people who are urging a unilateral and immediate withdrawal to be urging military intervention to end this carnage? I would.

American liberals need to face these truths: The demand for self-government was and remains strong in Iraq despite all our mistakes and the violent efforts of al Qaeda, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias to disrupt it. Al Qaeda in particular has targeted for abduction and murder those who are essential to a functioning democracy: school teachers, aid workers, private contractors working to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, police officers and anyone who cooperates with the Iraqi government. Much of Iraq's middle class has fled the country in fear.

With these facts on the scales, what does your conscience tell you to do? If the answer is nothing, that it is not our responsibility or that this is all about oil, then no wonder today we Democrats are not trusted with the reins of power. American lawmakers who are watching public opinion tell them to move away from Iraq as quickly as possible should remember this: Concessions will not work with either al Qaeda or other foreign fighters who will not rest until they have killed or driven into exile the last remaining Iraqi who favors democracy.

The key question for Congress is whether or not Iraq has become the primary battleground against the same radical Islamists who declared war on the U.S. in the 1990s and who have carried out a series of terrorist operations including 9/11. The answer is emphatically "yes."

This does not mean that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11; he was not. Nor does it mean that the war to overthrow him was justified--though I believe it was. It only means that a unilateral withdrawal from Iraq would hand Osama bin Laden a substantial psychological victory.

Those who argue that radical Islamic terrorism has arrived in Iraq because of the U.S.-led invasion are right. But they are right because radical Islam opposes democracy in Iraq. If our purpose had been to substitute a dictator who was more cooperative and supportive of the West, these groups wouldn't have lasted a week.

Finally, Jim Webb said something during his campaign for the Senate that should be emblazoned on the desks of all 535 members of Congress: You do not have to occupy a country in order to fight the terrorists who are inside it. Upon that truth I believe it is possible to build what doesn't exist today in Washington: a bipartisan strategy to deal with the long-term threat of terrorism.

The American people will need that consensus regardless of when, and under what circumstances, we withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq. We must not allow terrorist sanctuaries to develop any place on earth. Whether these fighters are finding refuge in Syria, Iran, Pakistan or elsewhere, we cannot afford diplomatic or political excuses to prevent us from using military force to eliminate them.
Read the entire article here. I agree with Senator Kerry to a point. Certainly we cannot abandon Iraq. But as to Jim Webb's philosophy, how we deny a safe haven to al Qaeda without boots on the ground in a foreign country offering such safe haven is simply mystifying. What Jim Webb and Senator Kerry promise us in that regard is a mirage with which we can ill afford the time to experiment. With nuclear proliferation in the awning, the penalty for pursuing ineffectual and half hearted policies simply to cater to the far left of this country is potentially suicidal. And it is likely to lead to much greater loss of life when we are left with no choice but to use overwhelming force in self defense. I think the warning of Bernard Lewis, made but a few days ago, is quite appropriate to restate here:
More recent developments, and notably the public discourse inside the U.S., are persuading increasing numbers of Islamist radicals that their first assessment [that the U.S. does not have the will to successfully contest the Islamists] was correct after all, and that they need only to press a little harder to achieve final victory. It is not yet clear whether they are right or wrong in this view. If they are right, the consequences--both for Islam and for America--will be deep, wide and lasting.


(H/T Steve Halter)

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Summer "Reid Pelosi" Offensive Expected By Al Qaeda & Iran

No surprises here. The Guardian is reporting that U.S. intelligence sources believe Iran is significantly increasing its ties with al Qaeda and is priming its own proxy forces in Iraq for major operations this summer designed to kill as many innocent civilians and U.S. forces as possible. The purpose of course is to give Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic presidential candidates the grist they need to be able to force the long threatened retreat of U.S. forces from Iraq:

Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say.

"Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq and it's a very dangerous course for them to be following. They are already committing daily acts of war against US and British forces," a senior US official in Baghdad warned. "They [Iran] are behind a lot of high-profile attacks meant to undermine US will and British will, such as the rocket attacks on Basra palace and the Green Zone [in Baghdad]. The attacks are directed by the Revolutionary Guard who are connected right to the top [of the Iranian government.

The official said US commanders were bracing for a nationwide, Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive, linking al-Qaida and Sunni insurgents to Tehran's Shia militia allies, that Iran hoped would trigger a political mutiny in Washington and a US retreat. "We expect that al-Qaida and Iran will both attempt to increase the propaganda and increase the violence prior to Petraeus's report in September [when the US commander General David Petraeus will report to Congress on President George Bush's controversial, six-month security "surge" of 30,000 troop reinforcements]," the official said.

"Certainly it [the violence] is going to pick up from their side. There is significant latent capability in Iraq, especially Iranian-sponsored capability. They can turn it up whenever they want. You can see that from the pre-positioning that's been going on and the huge stockpiles of Iranian weapons that we've turned up in the last couple of months. The relationships between Iran and groups like al-Qaida are very fluid," the official said.

"It often comes down to individuals, and people constantly move around. For instance, the Sunni Arab so-called resistance groups use Salafi jihadist ideology for their own purposes. But the whole Iran- al-Qaida linkup is very sinister."

Iran has maintained close links to Iraq's Shia political parties and militias but has previously eschewed collaboration with al-Qaida and Sunni insurgents.

US officials now say they have firm evidence that Tehran has switched tack as it senses a chance of victory in Iraq. In a parallel development, they say they also have proof that Iran has reversed its previous policy in Afghanistan and is now supporting and supplying the Taliban's campaign against US, British and other Nato forces.

Tehran's strategy to discredit the US surge and foment a decisive congressional revolt against Mr Bush is national in scope and not confined to the Shia south, its traditional sphere of influence, the senior official in Baghdad said. It included stepped-up coordination with Shia militias such as Moqtada al-Sadr's Jaish al-Mahdi as well as Syrian-backed Sunni Arab groups and al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, he added. Iran was also expanding contacts across the board with paramilitary forces and political groups, including Kurdish parties such as the PUK, a US ally.

"Their strategy takes into account all these various parties. Iran is playing all these different factions to maximise its future control and maximise US and British difficulties. Their co-conspirator is Syria which is allowing the takfirists [fundamentalist Salafi jihadis] to come across the border," the official said.

Any US decision to retaliate against Iran on its own territory could be taken only at the highest political level in Washington, the official said. But he indicated that American patience was wearing thin.

Warning that the US was "absolutely determined" to hit back hard wherever it was challenged by Iranian proxies or agents inside Iraq, he cited the case of five alleged members of the Revolutionary Guard's al-Quds force detained in Irbil in January. Despite strenuous protests from Tehran, which claims the men are diplomats, they have still not been released.

"Tehran is behaving like a racecourse gambler. They're betting on all the horses in the race, even on people they fundamentally don't trust," a senior administration official in Washington said. "They don't know what the outcome will be in Iraq. So they're hedging their bets."

The administration official also claimed that notwithstanding recent US and British overtures, Syria was still collaborating closely with Iran's strategy in Iraq.

"80% to 90%" of the foreign jihadis entering Iraq were doing so from Syrian territory, he said.

Despite recent diplomatic contacts, and an agreement to hold bilateral talks at ambassadorial level in Baghdad next week, US officials say there has been no let-up in hostile Iranian activities, including continuing support for violence, weapons smuggling and training.

"Iran is perpetuating the cycle of sectarian violence through support for extra-judicial killing and murder cells. They bring Iraqi militia members and insurgent groups into Iran for training and then help infiltrate them back into the country. We have plenty of evidence from a variety of sources. There's no argument about that. That's just a fact," the senior official in Baghdad said.

In trying to force an American retreat, Iran's hardline leadership also hoped to bring about a humiliating political and diplomatic defeat for the US that would reduce Washington's regional influence while increasing Tehran's own.

But if Iran succeeded in "prematurely" driving US and British forces out of Iraq, the likely result would be a "colossal humanitarian disaster" and possible regional war drawing in the Sunni Arab Gulf states, Syria and Turkey, he said.

Despite such concerns, or because of them, the US welcomed the chance to talk to Iran, the senior administration official said. "Our agenda starts with force protection in Iraq," he said. But there were many other Iraq-related issues to be discussed. Recent pressure had shown that Iran's behaviour could be modified, the official claimed: "Last winter they were literally getting away with murder."

But tougher action by security forces in Iraq against Iranian agents and networks, the dispatch of an additional aircraft carrier group to the Gulf and UN security council resolutions imposing sanctions had given Tehran pause, he said.

Washington analysts and commentators predict that Gen Petraeus's report to the White House and Congress in early September will be a pivotal moment in the history of the four-and-a-half-year war - and a decision to begin a troop drawdown or continue with the surge policy will hinge on the outcome. Most Democrats and many Republicans in Congress believe Iraq is in the grip of a civil war and that there is little that a continuing military presence can achieve. "Political will has already failed. It's over," a former Bush administration official said.

A senior adviser to Gen Petraeus reported this month that the surge had reduced violence, especially sectarian killings, in the Baghdad area and Sunni-dominated Anbar province. But the adviser admitted that much of the trouble had merely moved elsewhere, "resulting in spikes of activity in Diyala [to the north] and some areas to the south of the capital". "Overall violence is at about the same level [as when the surge began in February]."

Iranian officials flatly deny US and British allegations of involvement in internal violence in Iraq or in attacks on coalition forces. Interviewed in Tehran recently, Mohammad Reza Bagheri, deputy foreign minister for Arab affairs with primary responsibility for Iran's policy in Iraq, said: "We believe it would be to the benefit of both the occupiers and the Iraqi people that they [the coalition forces] withdraw immediately."

Read the entire story here. This leads to several issues:

1. Where is our leadership and why are we not hearing and being prepared for this through formal speeches?

2. Where is the MSM on this issue? Why is this not the centerpiece of questioning for Democratic political leaders and Democratic Presidential candidates? This makes a mockery of any claims that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war. Why are Reid and Pelosi not being challenged on this?

3. What plans do we have to make life so painful for Ahmedinejad and Khamenei that they rethink their plans. It seems fairly clear that their have been daily acts of war by Iran ongoing for some time now in Iraq. Why is much more not being done to hold Iran responsible or to respond in kind? That is a complete failure of leadership, not to mention a suicidal invitation to increasing acts of terrorism and sabotage by Iran. Why are they not losing assets - civilian and otherwise - on a massive scale in Iraq? Why are commanders of the Revolutionary Guard not dropping dead of mysterious causes in Iran? Why are their ships not disappearing after leaving port?

I sincerely hope that the talks that are soon to occur between the U.S. and Iran on security in Iraq are much more of the "read the riot act" variety rather then going, hat in hand to Khaemei and asking for support. I fear the latter.

As to the above suggestion that Iran is taking a chance by driving the U.S. from Iraq too soon, I do not believe that to be an accurate projection of Iranian strategy. Turkish involvement is only threatened in Kurdistan. Possible Saudi involvement would be limited to majority to Sunni areas. It would seem to me that Iran would be more then happy to see the Shia sections of Iraq seperated from the whole and come under Iranian dominance. In this light, their strategy to take advantage of the opening provided by the Democrats and led by Reid and Pelosi makes complete sense.

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Monday, May 21, 2007

The Incredible Morphing Hillary

From a Boudica-like pose as the Senate's warrior queen morphing into a "long time" far left anti-war dove, Hillary Clinton is rewriting history :


In a 1939 radio address, Franklin Roosevelt declared, "Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth." When it comes to Iraq, Hillary Clinton is doing everything in her power to prove him wrong -- repeatedly trying to rewrite history and belatedly catch up with public opinion against the war.

She did it during the first Democratic presidential debate, and she was at it again this morning on the Today show.

The issue was former president Bill Clinton's campaign trail complaints that it's unfair for Barack Obama to be characterized as more antiwar than his wife since they hold essentially the same position on the war.

Matt Lauer quoted Obama's retort that that was true "if you leave out the fact that she authorized and supported the war there and I said it was a bad idea" and played a clip of him saying "I think it is fair to say that we had a fundamentally different opinion on the wisdom of this war. And I don't think we can revise history when it comes to that."

Lauer then asked Hillary, "Was there a fundamental difference in 2002 between you and him?"

Instead of honestly explaining her transformation from pro-war supporter to cheerleader of the war's progress to tentative opponent of the war to her current incarnation as long-term opponent of the war, Hillary skipped right over the unpleasant past and tried to talk only about the future: "Well, you know, Matt, I think the important thing is for the Democrats to be united in trying to either persuade or require this president to change this direction now -- that's what all of us in the Senate are trying to do." Sure, why answer the question when you can divert attention and blur the differences between you and your opponents?

Hillary also dutifully hit her talking point that she's been "saying for a number of years" that we should bring our troops home -- trying to rhetorically paper-over the fact that for most of those years she was actually trying to have it both ways on Iraq: dipping her toe in the rising anti-war tide by voting for a phased redeployment of troops while steadfastly arguing against setting any kind of deadline for bringing our troops home (for instance, less than a year ago, in June 2006, she said she did not "think it is smart strategy to set a date certain. I do not agree that that is in the best interest of our troops or our country").

. . . Hillary obviously was paying attention during Bill Clinton's master class on rewriting history. Take his claim, made on a fundraising call with Hillary supporters in March, about the unfairness of the contrasting depiction of Hillary and Obama on the war: "To characterize Hillary and Obama's positions on the war as polar opposite is ludicrous. This dichotomy that's been set up to allow him to become the raging hero of the anti-war crowd on the Internet is just factually inaccurate."

Read the entire post here. These things do happen when your ambition far outstrips any principles you may have. Not only do you rewrite history, but your positions are determined by polls of 1,000 Americans rather then common sense and a belief in what is best for America. Isin't it at least nice to watch the far left anti-war crowd eat their own.

(h/t Instapundit)

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Fine Art . . . & Duck - Its Not Just a Mascot For Aflack

Here are the latest videos out of MNF-Iraq.






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Freddy T & Ali G - a Tale of Two Tennesseans

The Washington Post has a good article and a conversation transcript on its site touching on both Fred and Al. Well, good for Fred Thompson, not quite so complimentary of the other Tennessean, Al Gore who grew up recognizing Tennessee mostly from pictures viewed safely from the confines of private Washington D.C. schools. The Post captures the comparison:

Unlike his Democratic native-son counterpart Gore, who was picked apart like so much Tennessee roadkill in 2000 for his campaign-consultant-directed wardrobe transformation from dark suits to warmer tones, Thompson was rewarded for his makeover from slick silk-stocking lawyer to accomplished hayseed. In 1996, when he won election to his first full term, more Tennesseans voted for Thompson than for any other politician in state history.

Thompson never came off looking like a cardboard cutout -- the way Gore did as a presidential candidate -- because there was a kernel of truth to the image. Who could imagine a teenage Gore driving a pickup along Massachusetts Avenue on his way to the privileged academic bastion of St. Albans? But young Freddie Thompson probably did kick back in a Chevy, drinking a beer with his buds, after a Lawrence County High School football game. As Tennessee columnist Frank Cagle once put it, Thompson fit that truck in a way that Michael Dukakis never fit the tank.

Course, Thompson also tends to catch some slack because, at 6 feet 6 inches and with a charm and sense of humor that can crack even the most tightly clenched among us, he's someone men want to be and women want to be with. He's the John Wayne to Gore's professor. Gore was the prep-school son of a U.S. senator from Carthage, Tenn., spending most of his formative years not in the green hills of the Volunteer State but in the monument-dotted confines of Washington. Thompson was the son of a used-car salesman from Lawrenceburg, Tenn., who, like Thompson's mother, never graduated from high school.

Gore was always destined for the academic stratosphere, attending Harvard after his private-school grooming. Thompson was such a class clown and scholastic underachiever at Lawrence County High that a group of teachers got together to protest his being named "Most Athletic" by his classmates because they didn't want to reward the kid for being a goof-off.
And in other snippets:
A case in point about Thompson's undeniable allure: At an April 18 gathering of about 60 members of Congress, organized by Rep. Zach Wamp, a Tennessee Republican, Thompson was asked about his dating history during the nearly two decades between his two marriages. In response, the one-time beau of country music singer Lorrie Morgan offered an honest assessment of his romantic history. "I was single for a long time, and, yep, I chased a lot of women," he said. "And a lot of women chased me. And those that chased me tended to catch me."

It was vintage Thompson, and there's more where that came from. Shortly after I wrote in 2000 that Thompson bears a striking resemblance to the Klingon "Star Trek" character Worf -- high forehead, wide nose and a hairline that exposes a bald top (Google it) -- a package from the then-unmarried senator arrived in the mail. It was a picture of Worf that Thompson had signed with this message: "In the immortal words of Sawyer Brown, some girls don't like boys like me. Ah, but some girls do."

You'd never catch Al Gore or Bill Frist quoting Sawyer Brown.
There is also a transcript of a conversation with the article's author that makes for a very good read. The money quote:
But what he has going for him with moderate conservatives and independents is that he can't be labeled a GOP stooge. He backed John McCain's campaign finance reform efforts. He targeted his own party when he was investigating campaign finance irregularities from the 1996 election. In that case, he so angered the likes of Trent Lott that the Republicans capped his investigation at a single year, effectively neutering his efforts.

He's pro-gun, pro-life, pro-tax cuts, but when he disagrees with his party, he doesn't hesitate to say so. I think that's part of what makes him attractive
Intellectual honesty and operating off principal are the two critical elements for a good President. Compare Thompson's honesty with the careful wordsmithing of Hillary Clinton on the Iraq War issue. Its the vast difference between principle and ambition.

And anyone who can go after Trent Lott has gone up in my estimation by leaps and bounds. Trent Lott is the poster child for all that went wrong with GOP since about 1998.

Good article. Good transcript. Read them both.

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Sadr The Enigma; Sadr City The Conundrum

Pronouncements on Sadr's influence and power in Iraq run the gambit from the New York Times who portray him as a pivotal figure of immense power to others, such as one U.S. officer who said the other day that support among the Shia for Sadr is "a mile wide and an inch deep."  And there are questions about the control Sadr has over the Mahdi Army, as well as the degree to which he and his movement are influenced by Iran. Answers to all of these are becoming of immense importance as the U.S. now looks to the next step in its counter-insurgency operation - how to fully occupy Sadr City and end the threat of the Mahdi Army?

Sadr is the son of a very popular and populist Ayatollah murdered by Saddam. Despite a lack of religous and academic credentials and seriously lacking in oratory skills, Sadr nonetheless inherited his father's mantle. There is no question that he was a powerful figure in Iraq through 2005 and well into 2006. He led a massive uprising against U.S. forces that ended with the decimation of his Mahdi Army in Najaf in 2004. His goal, then and now, was to evict U.S. forces from Iraq and see the installation of a Shia led Islamic government.

Following the Najaf defeat, the Mahdi Army reconstituted with arms and funding from Iran. It arose again as a significant force as 2005 progressed, engaging in numerous firefights with Iraqi Army and police forces. In 2006, following al Qaeda in Iraq's bombing of the Mosque of the Golden Dome, Sadr was clearly losing control of his forces, with the first signs of the reconstituted Mahdi Army splintering into separate militias and cells. It was largely from these splinter elements that arose the death squads responsible for a significant amount of the sectarian violence against Sunnis that continued well into 2006.

Sadr himself opted to enter into the political process. His party eventually won 30 seats in the 245 member Parliament, forming a significant bloc of the 145 member ruling coalition of Prime Minister Maliki. Sadr's party was also assigned six ministries. None of those ministries were run functionally, and at least one, the Ministry of Health, was infamous for corruption and bloodshed. There is no question that Sadr exerted signficant influence over Maliki through the fall of 2005, inducing Maliki to limit U.S. operations against Sadr's interests.

After the sectarian violence of the Mahdi Army climaxed in October, 2006, events came politically to a head shortly thereafter. There were loud rumblings in the U.S. government over unhappiness with Maliki, and the other major Iraqi Shia party reached across the aisle to both Kurd and Sunni legislators with offers to form a new ruling coalition. Maliki had a catharsis and broke with Sadr, announcing his support for the Operation Imposing Law - in U.S. terms the surge - that was to target all combatants, including the Mahdi Army. Further, Maliki announced his intention to strip Sadr of the six ministries. Shortly before Operation Imposing Law began in February, 2007, Sadr fled to Iran and has not been seen in Iraq since. Publicly, he ordered his militia to lay down their arms and refrain from hostilities prior to fleeing.

In March, U.S. and Iraqi forces entered into the southern section of Sadr City and set up a permanent base. They have used that base to target militia commanders and death squads in Sadr City, significantly degrading these elements. In April, Sadr called for a massive demonstration in Najaf against the continued "occupation" of Iraq by U.S. forces. The demonstration, which Sadr and his supporters expected to draw hundreds of thousands and up to as many as a million people, ended up drawing less then 10,000 demonstrators and probably as few as 5,000 to 7,000. Shortly thereafter, Sadr withdrew his six ministers from the government but kept his legislators in Parliament and still as part of the ruling coalition.

Sadr and his movement seem both highly vulnerable, yet still quite capable of coallescing in response to some huge mistake upon which Sadr could capitalize to stem his waning influence. The clear splintering of his militia, the dreadful attendance at his rally, the isolation of Sadr's block in Parliament, and Maliki's turn against Sadr all strongly suggest that Sadr's influence is now at its nadir. That said, Sadr can hardly be ignored. According to the Washington Post, he is attempting to remake himself in the manner of a Robert Byrd who went from Ku Klux Klansmen to a Democrat committed to racial equality. He is reaching across to Sunni and to Sunni insurgeant groups in the hopes of building an anti-U.S. nationalist coalition.

This will not likely work. Robert Byrd left the Klan without any ties to racist organizations and with no history of violence. Sadr, on the other hand, is clearly tied to Iran and he has a history written in the blood of countless Sunnis. If he is successful in remaking himself, it will be far down the road.

While Sadr still remains enigmatic and we are left to draw many suppositions, the stage seems set for the U.S. to make a big push into Sadr City and an equally big push to pacify the splintered elements of the Sadr militia, whether by the gun or by the peace offering. If, as seems likely, the support for Sadr since 2003 was mostly predicated on security and stability the Mahdi Army offered for the Shia, then an increasing powerful U.S. and Iraqi presence in Sadr City ought to be able to supplant Sadr as confidence grows in the government.

As an excellent Washington Post article makes clear today, that task will involve negotiations, confidence building measures, and a velvet glove over the iron fist:

The U.S. military is engaged in delicate negotiations inside Sadr City to clear the way for a gradual push in coming weeks by more American and Iraqi forces into the volatile Shiite enclave of more than 2 million people, one of the most daunting challenges of the campaign to stabilize Baghdad.

So sensitive is the problem of the sprawling slum -- heavily controlled by militiamen loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr -- that Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, personally approves all targets for raids inside the Baghdad district, military officers said.

Lacking sufficient troops so far to move deeper into Sadr City, the military has cautiously edged into the southern part, conducting searches and patrols, handing out supplies and using offers of economic aid to try to overcome resistance. Meanwhile, U.S. Special Operations forces and other U.S. and Iraqi troops have detained militia leaders in an effort to weaken their organization.

As additional U.S. forces flow into Baghdad this month and next, the plan is to step up the presence of U.S. and Iraqi troops in Sadr City, U.S. commanders said in interviews over the past three weeks. "More U.S. forces are needed in Sadr City to establish greater control, with Iraqi forces. We have to be matched," Col. Billy Don Farris, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade and senior U.S. officer for the area.

Commanders say they intend to use political negotiations to gain peaceful entry into the district, bringing with them Iraqi forces and reconstruction projects. U.S. officials hope "to take Sadr City without a shot fired," said Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., the senior U.S. general overseeing Baghdad.

. . . If political avenues are exhausted, the U.S. military has formulated other options, including plans for a wholesale clearing operation in Sadr City that would require a much larger force, but commanders stress that this is a last resort.

"A second Fallujah plan exists, but we don't want to execute it," a military officer in Baghdad said, referring to the U.S. military offensive in November 2004 to retake the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah in Iraq's western Anbar province. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with reporters.

. . . Negotiations with local officials by U.S. officers, stalled off and on by assassination attempts and other threats, this month achieved incremental progress with a project to put protective barriers around a main Sadr City market. Iraqi police and contractors are now carrying out the project, which will take about three weeks to complete, said Lt. Col. David Oclander of the 82nd Airborne.

Commanders stress that the "soft" approach to Sadr City does not apply to violent militia cells, which are targeted throughout the area by U.S. Special Operations troops and other forces.

"More often than not, we're successful," said Staff Sgt. Dan Moss, of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Stryker Brigade, as he returned from a recent night raid in which his team broke into a house and captured an Iraqi suspected of bombing the security station in Sadr City.

In the absence of Sadr and other leaders of his movement, who left Baghdad early this year before the new security plan began, the raids have weakened some militia factions, U.S. officers said. U.S. forces "pretty much wiped out a whole layer of middle people," said Capt. Douglas Hess, who helps advise Iraqi national police in Sadr City.

There is now "a degree of chaos," in Sadr's movement, said a senior military official in Baghdad. Sadr's aides insist that the cleric still has control over his movement and that his militia has lain low in Sadr City in deference to his orders.

Attacks on the U.S.-Iraqi security station in Sadr City are a reminder that the entrenched Shiite militia is a force to contend with. . .

American officers readily acknowledge militia infiltration of the police. "Everyone is affiliated" with the Mahdi Army in Sadr City, said Capt. Frank Fisher, who runs an operations center with Iraqi police.

Brig. Gen. Ali Ibrahim Daboun, the senior Iraqi commander in the area, and many of his policemen come from Sadr City and therefore are "left more open to coercion and intimidation by the militia," said Hess. "General Ali can only do so much," he said.

U.S. commanders suggest that rather than shun the militia members in the police with whom they live, U.S. troops should try to win them over. "They can be the best spokesmen," Kim said.

National police Staff Sgt. Ali Mahid Mohammed, 27, said some elements of the Mahdi Army are "good, religious people" who help residents, while others "like to kill and kidnap and steal."

Col. Hamoud, a police liaison who has lived in Sadr City for 19 years and spoke on condition his full name not be used, said residents welcome aid from the United States brought peacefully, but warned that if U.S. troops use force, they will meet opposition.

"If they put their boots on people's heads," he said, referring to a highly insulting gesture in Iraqi culture, "there will be fighting."
Thus the next phase of the counter-insurgency campaign begins. And if General Petraeus can skillfully pull off the pacification of Sadr City and the co-opting where possible, destruction where not, of Sadr's militia, it will be an event every bit as significant as what is happening today in Anbar Province.

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To Paraphrase Mel Brooks, "Its Good to be the Khan"

Talk about someone being due a lot of Father's Day cards. It seems there were some very earthly advantages to being the greatest conquerer of the last millenium. That would be Ghengis Khan, reputed to have uttered those immortal words, "the greatest thing in life is to scatter your enemy before you and bring to your bosom their wives and daughters." And that was apparently no idle chit chat. According to a recent DNA study, it is estimated that 16,000,000 people alive today are descended from the loins of the great Khan. As one commentor so dryly put it:

If you feel an irrational urge to torch your neighbour's yurt and carry off his daughters, now you'll know why.
Read the entire story here. You know, you wonder how the guy even had time to leave the yurt, let alone conquer most of the known world. I guess he would be what we would call today an effective multi-tasker.

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Iraqi Forces and Al Qaeda In Iraq in Diyala Province

There is an article in today's Wall St. Journal redolent of Michael Yon. It is a report an engagement between Iraqi forces and foreign forces of al Qaeda in Iraq that occurred in Diyala Province, soon to be home to the most bitter fighting seen in Iraq to date. It is also notable for its memorialization that a "civil war" is not a natural or historic state between Iraq's Sunnis and Shias, who have long intermixed, intermingled and intermarried throughout Iraq:

Diyala Province, Iraq--Saturday I witnessed a violent and dramatic illustration of how the Iraqi Army has, in places, begun to work effectively with tribesmen against determined al Qaeda insurgents.

The incident occurred some 50 miles north of Baghdad at a remote dusty village in Diyala province, which is now a kind of frontline between the two sides. We were there in the punishing noonday heat, with a rustic crowd on hand, to witness an emotional meeting between tribal chiefs in long robes and a lone, clean-shaven figure in a suit and tie--Ahmed Chalabi. Mr. Chalabi, the elite Shiite politician and former exile, a controversial figure in the U.S., came to thank the elders for their courage and sacrifice.

Until recently, Sunnis and Shiites had tilled the land together for miles around, intermarried and mutually inhabited a checkerboard of villages. A year ago, al Qaeda had forced its strategy of sectarian hatred on the area, purging the Shiites while executing Sunnis who resisted their authority. It remains one of Iraq's most volatile zones. Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the sanguinary leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, had his headquarters in the area and was ultimately killed less than 20 miles away.

Suddenly hefty explosions shook the ground while automatic gunfire rent the air. We were under attack, and al Qaeda had chosen a perfect moment to ignite disaster. All their local opponents were there, plus Mr. Chalabi, a top Iraqi government figure known around the world. . . . Among Iraqis he is highly respected.

At about 10 a.m. on Saturday, we had taken off across Baghdad in a convoy of a dozen white pickups and SUVs, some with mounted machine guns, on our way to Diyala. We passed through notorious neighborhoods: one infamous for kidnapping, another where street battles have been fought between Shiites and Palestinian gangs. Often there were miles of static cars queuing for gasoline.

. . . We passed some miles of mud-brick dwellings and arrived at a village square encircled by earthen ramparts with a T-55 tank, a cannon and a bunker embedded along it. We had arrived at the front line in the village of Dafaa. Nearby stood a long, low reception hall, and, just in front, a large tent with long tables for the tribal buffet lunch.

Mr. Chalabi entered the building followed by Al-Iraqiyya TV crews. An aging sheik, in black-checkered headdress and sheer ochre robe--said to be the richest landowner--came in and sat beside him. Much of his property lay fallow out in no man's land. He'd lost seven sons and grandsons to the conflict there. "We've had no support from the government since the fighting started," he said, "no one has visited us or asked what we need. We've been on our own fighting al Qaeda which gets money and arms from around the world. Only recently, the Iraqi Army has given us some soldiers and weapons, and that has helped very much, but we need more, much more help, money, arms, provisions. We ask that you pass this on to the government." Above his head hung a moonlit poster of the Shiite martyr Imam Ali on a white horse crossing a river. One sheik after another came in and repeated the same concerns.

Dafaa has perforce become an exclusively Shiite village, an international force of militant Sunnis having occupied the villages roundabout. They are led, according to locals, by Afghans who have forced farmers to give them their daughters in marriage and "made everyone look Afghani like them, with long beards." They decapitate doubters and float them down the river to Dafaa village. "No fish anymore," say the locals.

In wider Diyala province, wedged strategically between Iran and Baghdad, many of the Sunnis were in Saddam's security forces, and for a while the al Qaeda leader was a former Saddam army colonel, according to Mr. Chalabi. They consider themselves a last line of resistance to the Shiite continuum between Iran and Iraqi Shiites to the south, so they accommodate foreign Sunni fighters more readily than, say, the Sunni tribes in Anbar province who feel more secure.

In the last year, al Qaeda rolled up the front until Dafaa village lay exposed like an arrowhead surrounded on three sides. It served as the final redoubt protecting the last bridge open to vital goods from the north directly supplying Baghdad. Finally, some months ago, a small contingent of 15 Iraqi Army troops moved in with high-caliber armor and stabilized the front. "That's all it took," said the young lieutenant in charge as he showed us and the 20-foot earthen ramparts, "because we fight alongside the people." Listening to anecdotes and viewing bullet marks from snipers, we stood outlined on the ridge squinting across empty cracked fields. The nearest village shaded by date trees sat a mere 900 meters away. Our self-exposure proved foolhardy in short order.

. . . As we drove away from the village along the raised earth road, I looked back to see perhaps a hundred SUVs, a mile long, belting along behind carrying the elders. An Iraqi Army Humvee with mounted machine gun charged past us to the front. They'd been helping to guard the last bridge to Baghdad. But now, one felt, the villagers could guard it handily. They no longer felt isolated and forgotten by the world, as the television sets showed this night all over the Mideast.
Read the entire story here.

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Sunday, May 20, 2007

UK's Telegraph Waves the French Flag

I nearly choked on my cornflakes this morning reading the reporting from the UK's Telegraph. This is the conservative paper in Britain. With friendly reporting like this . . . What the hell's wrong with these guys? I could get better reporting on the Iraq war from Britain's far left paper, The Guardian. Hmmm, no, the Guardian is just as bad, it seems. I don't believe this. Blair isin't even out the door yet and the Brits start speaking French?

Ok, ok, I know, I did promise no more ad hominem attacks using parallels to the French propensity to surrender since Sarko was elected. But he has yet to prove himself - and UK was successfully invaded by Normans from France back about 1066. And yes, I know that the Normans were in reality Vikings to whom the French King Charles the Simple had previously surrendered. But it still counts as one of the few French military successes prior to - and since - the Little Corporal. At any rate, I think the parallel is justified today. My apologies to Sarko and France.

This is frustrating to say the least. The first debacle from the Telegraph is a report picked up on Drudge - Bush Get's Ready For Iraq U-Turn By Brown. Read the article - its pure speculation based on a contingency report provided to Bush by a member of Bush's staff and butressed by ramblings from a former deputy minister in Britain who obviously has an anti-war bent worthy of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. By the time you get to the end of the just wild speculation masquerading as an actual news story, you find:

A source close to the Chancellor said last night: "These fears are unfounded. Gordon is a committed Atlanticist who wants to strengthen and deepen our ties with America around our shared values, and who wants to persuade the rest of Europe to work in closer co-operation with America."
The Telegraph just tanked in my estimation as a newspaper with that one. But wait, there is more. Much more. According to this gem of Telegraph reporting, US's Surge is Failing, Says UK's Iraq Envoy. The basis for the envoy's report:
Mr Campbell, whose remarks may cause embarrassment to Downing Street and anger in Washington, said that the casualty figures for April - in which 1,500 civilians are believed to have been killed - provided no "encouraging" evidence.
There is something wrong here. This sounds like it came right from a Murtha speech. Sectarian casualties of the civil war variety are certainly down significantly. Al Qaeda in Iraq has picked up their attacks against soft targets even as they have been driven out of Anbar province and Baghdad. Even then, total civilian casualties are on a downward trend. The surge certainly seems to be making a lot of headway, and as General Petraeus has said, it will be September before long term trends can realistically be evaluated. So what gives with the Telegraph giving space to this envoy sounding the death knell based on a myopic view of the surge long before September?

You have to read to read the next paragraph to learn all that you need to know about the bias of envoy.
Speaking on the record last week to a public audience at Chatham House, the London-based foreign-policy research institute, he said: "The evidence does not suggest that the surge is actually working, if reduction in casualties is a criterion. The figures in April were not encouraging."
This envoy was speaking to Chatham House, the same folks who, a few days ago, released a report that was so one sided and objectively off in its underlying assumptions as to be a joke. In the report, they actually cheer for al Qaeda. Please, do refer to my post here and the link therein to the actual report.

I stand, mouth agape, at these pieces of trash reporting coming out of the Sunday Telegraph. Has the BBC infiltrated the Telegraph? What gives?

Then there is the Guardian. I didn't pick up on this one, but the EU Referendum did. Don't know how I missed it. The Guardian reported the other day, in 'Welcome to Tehran' - how Iran took control of Basra, that the Brits have failed their mission in southern Iraq and that Iranian proxies are both in control of Basra and have heavilly infiltrated the police there. That sounds like very bad news indeed. But there is this commentary from EU Referendum that suggest the real problem may lay in the reporting:

. . . [T]he picture painted here is unremittingly grim – with the strong impression given that the militias have total control, poised to take over at any time of their choosing, leaving the city, effectively, under Iranian occupation.

What gives the report is apparent authority is that it is written by an Iraq-born journalist with a by-line of Basra. But, as always with reporting from Iraq, appearances can be deceptive. The author is in fact Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. He styles himself as a free-lance journalist, but writes often for The Guardian and other left-wing papers, not least the New York Times.

And, despite the Basra by-line, he is actually based in Lebanon, and reports on issues all over the Middle East. Strangely, he seems to be able to mix freely with Sunni and Shia and trades on his reputation as one of the last unembedded journalists to work in insurgent-held Fallujah before the American assault on that city in April 2004. For that, and other work, he subsequently gained the 2005 Amnesty International Media Award.

As to the report itself, the patina of authenticity is just that – skin deep. It is actually so biased that it would be laughable, if it had not also appeared so superficially plausible. The trouble is that the defects are almost entirely those of omission.

While we can accept, for instance, the dominant role of the militias in Basra, no account is or can be complete without an account of the "third force", not the British and coalition forces, who are holding a very rough sort of equilibrium, but the Iraqi Army and, in particular, the 10th Division, based in Basra but with elements fighting alongside the Americans in Baghdad.

While the Division is still finding its feet, reports of its activities have been remarkably (and surprisingly) favourable, and no one would suggest that it is in any way under the control of the militias. In fact, the impression is that it is loyal to the government and that it has some support amongst the tribal chiefs which hold the balance of power and are by no means happy about what they regard as the interference of Iran. It is generally felt, therefore, that should the militias decide to make a move, the Army – with the support of the coalition forces – would try to hold them off and restore order.

. . . But, while the left-wing Guardian is happy to give its space to one view, we seem drastically short of countervailing reporting from the right. By its silence, it is ceding the battle.
Do read their whole post here. Negative reporting on Iraq from the Guardian, much like the Washington Post or the NYT over here, always has to be examined closely for bias and questionable veracity. But that does not excuse what happened today in the Telegraph. They could have just written a headline "Viva la Surrender." I think maybe the Telegraph ought to start interviewing some of the more intelligent natives, such as Bernard Lewis.

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Lebanon, Syria & The UN Security Council

Of the myriad of issues involving the byantine politics of the Middle East, two of the most immediate are whether political assassinations are to be tolerated as an accepted tool of Middle Eastern politics and whether Syria will be allowed to continue its efforts to dominate Lebanon. Both hinge on how the 2005 assassination of Lebanese politician Rafiq Hariri is addressed by the UN Security Counsel. The matter is now before Counsel. The Counsel should immediately form a tribunal to hear evidence and pass judgment on the assassination of Rafiq Hariri.

Hariri was assasinated in 2005, with all evidence pointing to Syrian intelligence as the culprits. At the time, Hariri was challenging the continued occupation of Lebanon by Syria. As Amir Taheri explains:

[A U.N. investigator] established the motive for the murder as early as the autumn of 2005. He came out with evidence that showed the Syrian leadership, possibly at the highest level, had at one point decided that Hariri was the only Lebanese leader capable of challenging their old ambitions in Lebanon. At the start of 2005, none of the other players in the Lebanese political scene had any particular interest in wishing Hariri out of the way.

But Assad did not count on the ultimate backlash to the assassination of Hariri - a backlash that saw Syria ostensibly driven from Lebanon and a nascent democracy retake power. That did not end Syria's ambition to dominate Lebanon for economic and political reasons. And Assad clearly views preventing any tribunal from passing judgement on the Hariri murder as a mortal threat to that ambition, not to mention the problems such a judgemnt would pose for Syria on almost all levels.

Thus Syria, supported by Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, have done all they can to sidetrack such a tribunal. That has been problematic:
. . . In the general election that followed [Syria's withdraw], the pro-Hariri bloc and its allies won a majority in the parliament and formed a government dedicated to bringing the murderers to justice.

Unable to stop the investigation, Syria (backed by the Islamic Republic in Iran) tried to put Lebanese politics on a trajectory that would marginalize the Hariri case. The Syrians deployed Emile Lahoud - the president they had imposed on the Lebanese for a further three years - to paralyze the Siniora government.
Under Lebanon's Constitution, laws passed by the parliament and senior appointments made by the government must receive presidential assent to take effect. Prompted by the Syrians, Lahoud has been withholding his assent, effectively preventing the government from implementing the program for which it was elected.
Lahoud continues to this day to thwart the democratically elected majority who desire a tribunal. But Syria's meddling has gone far beyond just Lahoud.

There have been several additional murders of anti-Syrian journalists and politicians in the interim. But through it all, Lebanon's nascent democracy has not waivered.

It seems likely that the disastrous war started by Iran's proxy, Hezbollah, was motivated in part by a desire to prevent the Hariri tribunal from being formed. After the Hezbollah-Israel War, Hezbollah tried to bootstrap their claimed "victory" into additional political power. They demanded the Lebanese government grant them a veto power over legislation, clearly aimed at quashing the formation of a Hariri tribunal. When that did not work, they withdrew their ministers from the government and took to the streets, attempting to further intimidate the government with the threat of riots and possibly a renewal of the disastrous civil war that consumed Lebanon for years.

None of this has deterred Lebanon's majority in the government, but with Syrian control of the presidency, there has been deadlock. Lebanon's Prime Minister has written to Ban Ki Moon at the UN, requesting that the Security Council, without formal request of Lebanon, create a formal tribunal to pass judgment on the murder of Hariri. In response, Syria has formulated violence among Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The Palestinians have long been problematic for Lebanon, and are now becoming a serious problem with the growth of al Qaeda linked organizations inside Palestinian holding areas. A Syrian backed Palestinian group has chosen the day Lebanon sent its letters to the UN to begin an unprovoked attack on Lebanese army positions near the Syrian border.

The longer the Security Council refrains from moving on the Lebanese government's request for a tribunal, the greater will be the blood spilled among innocents in Lebanon. A complete failure to act will abandon Lebanon to Syrian control and only ensconce political assassination as a reasonable tool of Middle East foreign policy. Syria must be brought to heel and their foreign policy of assassination and intimidation subject to the bright light of international scrutiny and judgment. The time for the U.N. Security Council to act is now.

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Jasser Asks Us To Fight Islamism Carefully & With Some Nuance

M. Zhudi Jasser, former U.S. Naval Officer and now President of American Islamic Forum For Democracy, has authored an article distinguishing between the wheat and chaff of Islam as well as mapping how Islam will be brought into the 21st century through ijtihad. It is a very nuanced and important piece, with words of warning and advice for those of us who would support and amplify the voice and words of "moderate Muslims" that Mr. Jasser represents:

Most of the attention, scholarship, and punditry in the United States given towards Islam and Muslims since 9-11 have focused upon problems with comparatively little attention toward solutions. Understandably motivated by a need to improve security and understand the enemy, American curiosity about Islam, Islamism, and militant Islamism continues to grow. Yet, comparatively American Muslims have offered few solutions except for the few rare voices of Muslim moderation (anti-Islamism) across America, Canada, and Europe.

At times there is only a binary choice in the public ether between the voices who say that “Islam is the problem” and the tired voices of the Islamists who provide endless apologetics, denial, victimization, and every deflection possible short of responsibility or actual ideological solutions for a counter-jihad and reformation. Certainly, the Islamists, no matter how peaceful, who look at the world through the lens of political Islam are at the core of the ideological problem. They knowingly and unknowingly feed the enemy’s central political construct of society—political Islam. Yet, we so need to separate political Islam (Islamism) from the spiritual faith of Islam as a faith. Is it easier said than done?

An anti-Islamist devout Muslim like myself - and so many others who believe we are in the majority - can only shout in the wilderness for so long, before there becomes a need to begin to address some of the most difficult but central questions, which many Muslims ignore either out of pride, self-righteousness, or impatience. Whether many pious Muslims acknowledge it or not, non-Muslims who believe that ‘the religion of Islam is the problem’ are growing in numbers. I can either dismiss their arguments as “Islamophobic” as so many do, including the Islamists, or I can begin to address some of the central issues raised positively in the spirit of understanding, logic, and most importantly in the spirit of American security.

We need the anti-Islamist Muslims

Most should understand that strategically, identifying ‘Islam as the problem,’ immediately alienates upwards of one quarter of the world’s population and dismisses our most powerful weapon against the militant Islamists—the mantle of religion and the pulpit of moderate Muslims who can retake our faith from the Islamists. The majority voices in the middle, the non-Islamist and anti-Islamist Muslims who understand the problem, have to be on the frontlines. They cannot be on the frontlines in an ideological battle being waged, which demonizes the morality of the faith of Islam and its founder, the Prophet Mohammed. We cannot win this war only on the battlefield. Political Islam has a viral recurrence in the form of an infection which needs a Muslim counter-jihad in order to purge it. Thus, we cannot win this ideological war without the leadership of Muslim anti-Islamists. The radical and political ideologies of Islamism, Wahhabism, Salafism, Al Qaedism, Jihadism, and Caliphism, to name a few, cannot be defeated without anti-Islamist, anti-Wahhabi, anti-Salafist, anti-Al Qaedist, anti-Jihadist, and anti-Caliphist devout Muslims.

So often, attempts by anti-Islamist Muslims to claim that our faith has been hijacked or our faith has been twisted are dismissed by non-Muslims. They simply take common interpretations of Wahhabis and say rather that, ‘it is the anti-Islamist Muslim who is deluded and who is misrepresenting the faith of Islam”. They use the citations of the militants from our Holy Qur’an’s scripture and from many authentic and questionable Hadith (discussions of the Prophet Mohammed) to marginalize moderate Muslims and claim that they have no theological framework from which to claim legitimacy.

The question remains-- who or what defines Islam, and under what authority? Islam has no clergy and is represented only by a book, the Holy Qur’an (what Muslims believe in Arabic, is the communication from God to Muslims). Islam’s naysayers by accepting radical interpretations of scripture are thus handing the militants the mantle of religion with hardly the benefit of the doubt or patience toward long term opportunities for reform by anti-Islamist Muslims within the general Muslim population.

The process of theological renewal and interpretation in the light of modern day thought—ijtihad—as it is known in Islam is in many ways hundreds of years behind Western enlightenment today arrested around the 15th century. This process can either be facilitated by non-Muslims or hindered by the belief that it is impossible. There is quite a bit to be said for the value of a necessary critical facilitation (nudging) of Muslim reform (as opposed to blind uncritical apologetics). But there is also a fine line between useful criticism of Muslims and especially of political Islam and the less than helpful alienation of all Muslims through criticism of the faith of Islam in general. Most of the same arguments targeting Islam can similarly be made against Muslims and their interpretations while just not blaming Islam as a faith, which needs to be part of the solution.

Too nuanced for practicality? Not necessarily when our most critical allies within the Muslim faith are those that are strong enough to love their faith enough to wake-up and want to take it back from the Islamists and their barbarians like Al Qaeda.

Political Islam (Islamism), not Islam, is incompatible with Americanism and pluralism

Like most believers of any of the major world religions whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, I, as a Muslim believe that Islam carries the same messages of humanitarianism and compassion shared by the religions of the God of Abraham and deserves an equal place at the table of world religions and is not in conflict with our American Constitutional government. Some Muslims may behave, interpret, and express ideologies which are not from God but contrarily evil and from Satan, but they are still Muslim. I cannot deny that. We have no church to excommunicate them.

However, we also should remember that every God-fearing Muslim believes that the religion of Islam as a faith comes from God in the same way as Judaism and Christianity. The identification of ‘Islam as the problem’ is arguable from a pedantic standpoint since it is hard to disagree with the fact that “Islam is as Muslims do and say.” But academically, when dealing with the faith of one-quarter of the world, and with its history, a central morality of individual Islam (the personal character of most Muslims) has generally demonstrated synergy with Judaism and Christianity. It is just that in the past few centuries, political religious movements, which exploit the personal faith for political oppression and often fascism, have controlled the leadership.

It is important to be academic about this assessment and not assume that what appears to be the silence of the majority of Muslims equates to agreement with the Islamist leadership who exerts a stranglehold over the community. We are doing our national counterterrorism efforts and Muslims a disservice if we assume that the ‘lowest hanging fruit,’ which comprise all currently Islamist organizations (CAIR, MPAC, or ISNA - to name a few) and their proportionally limited membership speak for all American Muslims. Their silence on the need for reformation and the need for Muslims to lead an anti-Islamist effort from within our faith community represents their own Islamist agenda of the members and donors but does not represent the general Muslim population.

In debate, it can become easy to lose the focus of the argument when resorting to criticism based on identity rather than on ideology. For example, so many Islamists locally and nationally resort to attempting to demonize me as an individual rather than deal with my anti-Islamist ideas as a Muslim and as an American. Our Islamist enemy dreams about uniting all Muslims under one nation—the transnational Muslim ummah. To declare our ideological battle against Islam is to hand them the easiest tool toward that unification (ummah-tization) strategy for which they dream and to dismiss our most potent weapon against the jihadists—anti-Islamist Muslims who can lead a counter-jihad from within the Islamic community. Only anti-Islamists Muslims can de-ummahtize the Muslim community and articulate an Islam, which inspires morality but leaves national politics to the governments of our nations.

A shared moral tradition

For many non-Muslims engaged in the debate to accept the fact that Islam is not the problem, it stands to reason that they must first feel that Islam as practiced and held by Muslims fits into the predominant moral framework of American spirituality and values of the God of Abraham (a Judeo-Christian-Islamic morality, if you will). This is evidenced by the moral behaviors of the vast majority of Muslims in America and around the world. This morality certainly comes from God and for Muslims the faith of Islam is the source of it no different than Judaism or Christianity is for Jews and Christians.

Now, bring political Islam into this mix, and one is left with many questions. Is Islam compatible with democracy? Can Muslims separate mosque and state? Can Muslims be anti-theocratic? Can Muslim behavior and thought today be consistent with modernity while so many current Muslim legal constructs enacted in the name of sharia law seem not to be? How do Muslims reconcile their history of an empire ruled by a Muslim Caliphate, an empire which had varying rules for its citizens based upon faith with today’s more pluralistic universal laws of American society blind to one faith? How do Muslims reconcile the plight of women’s rights in ‘Muslim’ societies with their faith and the West? Those are just a few of the questions so many thoughtful writers have tried to answer since 9-11.

Before embarking upon a discussion of any of those questions, which can fill texts, a more fundamental question remains concerning the central principles of any Muslim’s faith. Is the foundation of Islam as felt and practiced within each Muslim a moral one?

From a counterterrorism assessment, formulating a threat assessment of the ideologies at play are very necessary. Before blanketing the faith of Islam as a threat to Americanism (religious pluralism), Americans first need to be able to separate Islam from Islamism and Islam from what some Muslims do.

Americans will find that for most Muslims generally - as it is for Jews or Christians or any God fearing individual - the central defining principles of faith are not dictated by the specific interpretations of God’s laws (sharia for Muslims) or to any single one of the interpretations of various passages of the Qur’an peaceful or otherwise. As a Muslim, my faith as I see it and as it has been taught to me in its most devotional expression is simply-- my personal relationship with a moral God—the God of Abraham. The stronger and more personal is that relationship, the more pious an individual may be. Thus piety is not measured by others or by outward actions or expressed beliefs, but rather piety is dependent upon the intensity and purity of that internal relationship with God.

The essence of the nucleus of the primary cell of Islam as an organism of faith is a human being’s manifestations and choices for goodness over evil which includes love, honesty, compassion, empathy, courage, integrity, humility, character, behavior, self-control, creativity, discipline, and gratitude to name a few of the faith defining human principles most faiths share. When our families taught us about faith and God, most of the time was spent on these principles. To most Muslims, the countervailing ‘evil’ choices to these positive human characteristics come from Satan and not from God. The existence of evil and its acts only demonstrates that God has given humanity free will. Without the existence of evil, humans would not have choice or free will. Often evil will exploit religion to defeat that which is good.

It is this inherent human tendency toward good and away from evil, which is the central notion of Islam as it is for Judaism and Christianity. From this then arises a spiritual life with a deep personal relationship and communication with God as seen in all of the faiths recognizing the God of Abraham.

From this spirituality, this goodness, then arises the character, which an individual carries to life and to our theological texts and their derived interpretations. While the body of laws available today may not all contain a modernized interpretation, it can certainly be modernized if the Muslims doing the modernizing are of sound moral conviction and integrity and education. It is the corruption, tribalism, and ignorance of so many in the Muslim world, which has poisoned any moves towards enlightenment. But this conflict between good and evil is one, which will be won by the righteous when pious Muslims who fear God, and respect universal humanitarian principles are empowered to stand up to evil under the moral courage of the inspired principles of the God of Abraham.

My family always taught me that a Muslim will not miraculously find his or her character within the pages of the Qur’an or Hadith. But rather, a Muslim’s interpretation of our holy text is through the lens of one’s established moral character, which is developed on a personal human level from within the soul and conscience not a textual one.

Our own moral compass and its inherent principles are a lens for life which is produced in an early stage of youth and adolescence that sets the tone for how we interpret life and religion. While the details of religion can inspire and direct this compass, life’s core direction toward good is formed and maintained internally between an individual’s soul and God early on. Suicide bombers, jihadists, and other militant Islamists are evil at their core and just turn to the language of Islam found in the Qur’an or the Hadith to justify their barbarism, coercion, and doctrine of the ends justifying the means and of political Islam. Granted, this is much easier to do with the ready availability around the world of radical and medieval interpretations so desperately in need of 21st Century enlightened pluralistic re-interpretations.

Accepting this common Muslim formulation of faith is vital to marginalizing the militancy of current radicalized interpretations most of which are of Salafist derivation and rather expressing a core positively guiding morality for the vast majority of Muslims. It will take Muslims who love their faith to articulate a modern Islam to create an etho, which accepts the radical interpretation as immoral.

Certainly, the ubiquitous jihadist and Caliphist interpretations of Islamic literature and jurisprudence are in need of an overwhelming alternative narrative to the fundamentalist interpretation, which so often dominates the airwaves. We must believe that the predominant Muslim morality as derived from God and exemplified in the life of the Prophet Mohammed and in the vast majority of Muslims is one of good, one of the Golden Rule, of compassion, and of humility.

Once we can accept that most Muslims are moral and believe in a faith with an inviolable moral nucleus, than we can find hope that the seeds of reformation of formal textual interpretations will be planted for freedom and liberty, for free will over coercion, over theocracy and over political Islam.

If most Muslims were immoral, the world would have perished a long time ago. It is Islamism, which deserves our combined energies in critique and ideological deconstruction. Muslims, however, who are anti-Islamist and practicing a modern moral Islam are the key to its defeat.
This is actually the entire article. I could not find a place to cut it because each point Mr. Jasser made was a major one. Do please visit the site, Family Security Matters for its other many fine articles.

I happen to agree with Mr. Jasser's conclusions. It is only when the Koran is reinterpreted to such a degree and by enough scholars of note that a real change in poison we see in Wahhabi Islam will begin to dissapate and its existential threat to the world sent to the pages of history. For my own take on ijtihad and what we as non-muslims need to do to support his efforts, please see here.

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