Islam Triumphant

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htwin/articles/20070417.aspx

April 17, 2007: What if Islamic radical movements won and took over? Actually, we know what would happen. Rebels generally make bad rulers. That's an observation based on the historical record. There are several current examples. The Taliban took over in Afghanistan and ran the place for five years in the 1990s (through 2001). The Taliban made themselves very unpopular, not just because of their attacks on lifestyles they didn't approve of, but because they were incompetent when it came to running a country. Same thing in Iran, where the religious establishment has been running the place since the 1980s. The Iranian clergy won't allow a fair election, and are nervously waiting for the population to get pissed off enough to start another revolution.



They there's Sudan, where hardly anyone noticed the Islamic conservatives taking over in the 1990s. Sudan has several rebellions going on at the moment, but the rulers believe they have God on their side and have no intention of letting anyone else play. In Lebanon, Hizbollah established a separate state within a state in the 1980s, and have survived on handouts from Iran, and a lucrative drug business. But Hizbollah attempts to increase their power have resulted in violent resistance from the rest of the country. Hizbollah may have turned themselves into Islamic folk heroes, but no one trusts their ability to run a country.



Hamas is the poster child of rebels who won an election, and then find themselves unable to govern. Since Hamas got control of the Palestinian government a years ago, the Palestinian economy had gone into the toilet, and crime has skyrocketed. Hamas isn't claiming "God's Will" on this one, and seems unable to figure out what to do now that they are in charge. It was much easier being an outsider, and criticizing the government.



The Taliban in Pakistan are another group that loves to criticize the powers-that-be, but makes a mess of things whenever they try to show how it should be done. The Taliban have allied themselves with Pakistani Islamic conservatives, who already have a lot of political power in the tribal territories. But the preachers have proved notably inept when it comes to solving non-religious problems. Actually, attempts to deal with religious issues has proved disastrous as well. As is often the case, people are willing to talk-the-talk when it comes to righteous living, but more resistant when asked, or forced, to walk-the-walk. Try taking away the videos, music, booze and drugs, and people vote with their feet or, as is the case in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with their guns.



Unlike earlier revolutionary movements, the Islamic radicals have not given much through to what they would do if they won. The attitude seems to be that divine guidance will provide solutions as needed. Inconvenient examples of how that has not worked, are ignored. While all this makes the Islamic radicals easier to handle as enemies, it also eliminates the possibility of negotiated settlements. It truly is a fight to the death, because truth, for the Islamic true believers, is not based on fact, but faith.

CAIRO, Egypt - An insurgent coalition announced a "Cabinet" for its Islamic state in Iraq in a Web video posted on Thursday, naming the head of al-Qaida in Iraq as "minister of war."


The video was issued by the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of insurgent groups including al-Qaida. A man identified as a spokesman for the group appeared, with his face obscured, speaking from behind a desk with a flat-screen computer.

"It is the duty at our present stage to form this Cabinet, the first Islamic Cabinet, which has faith in God," said the spokesman, wearing robes and a red kafiyyah headdress.

He then listed a 10-member "Cabinet," including Abu Hamza al-Muhajer as "war minister."

Al-Muhajer is the name announced as the successor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, who was killed in the summer of 2006


Hmmmm, reckon ol Bin Laden has an honerary seat in the cabinet?

quote:

Originally posted by thegunny:
CAIRO, Egypt - An insurgent coalition announced a "Cabinet" for its Islamic state in Iraq in a Web video posted on Thursday, naming the head of al-Qaida in Iraq as "minister of war."


The video was issued by the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of insurgent groups including al-Qaida. A man identified as a spokesman for the group appeared, with his face obscured, speaking from behind a desk with a flat-screen computer.

"It is the duty at our present stage to form this Cabinet, the first Islamic Cabinet, which has faith in God," said the spokesman, wearing robes and a red kafiyyah headdress.


Hmmmm, reckon ol Bin Laden has an honerary seat in the cabinet?

He then listed a 10-member "Cabinet," including Abu Hamza al-Muhajer as "war minister."

Al-Muhajer is the name announced as the successor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, who was killed in the summer of 2006



These terrorist think that they can offer a better government to the Muslim world. Yet until now they failed to offer concrete solutions to solve the problems of poverty in their country. All they do is criticize & do mayhem.

OBSESSION ISLAMIC JIHAD
A video is worth ten thousands words...War will be coming home soon...

We are not fighting islam you moron, we are fighting terrorists Definition of Terrorism: Those who use violence, or the threat of violence to achieve political goals.
Notice the absence of the words "muslim", "islam", or even "arab"?
To SAY we are fighting islam is not only incorrect but counter productive as it alienates many muslims both against terror, and sitting on the fence.

quote:

Originally posted by Hyperion:
We are not fighting islam you moron, we are fighting terrorists Definition of Terrorism: Those who use violence, or the threat of violence to achieve political goals.
Notice the absence of the words "muslim", "islam", or even "arab"?
To SAY we are fighting islam is not only incorrect but counter productive as it alienates many muslims both against terror, and sitting on the fence.

Well said.

quote:

Originally posted by Aufklarer:

quote:

Originally posted by Hyperion:
We are not fighting islam you moron, we are fighting terrorists Definition of Terrorism: Those who use violence, or the threat of violence to achieve political goals.
Notice the absence of the words "muslim", "islam", or even "arab"?
To SAY we are fighting islam is not only incorrect but counter productive as it alienates many muslims both against terror, and sitting on the fence.

Well said.

Thank you very much.

quote:

Originally posted by Hyperion:

quote:

Originally posted by Aufklarer:

quote:

Originally posted by Hyperion:
We are not fighting islam you moron, we are fighting terrorists Definition of Terrorism: Those who use violence, or the threat of violence to achieve political goals.
Notice the absence of the words "muslim", "islam", or even "arab"?
To SAY we are fighting islam is not only incorrect but counter productive as it alienates many muslims both against terror, and sitting on the fence.

Well said.

Thank you very much.

We might not like each other, but that won't stop me from occasionally agreeing with you.

Agreed also as for my previous comment, it's called WINNING THE HEARTS AND MINDS PEOPLE!! Seriously have we like, learned nothing since vietnam! Goddamn next thing we'll be here they've been carrying out zippo raids. Seriously, you win a war with force, but you need to win the peace with understanding and kindness. Oh yeah, saying "We are fighting islam" REALLY doesn't give credence to what the islamic militants are saying. GOD! Serious you don't win over the hearts and minds of a people by declaring war on their effing religon.

quote:

Originally posted by Hyperion:
We are not fighting islam you moron, we are fighting terrorists Definition of Terrorism: Those who use violence, or the threat of violence to achieve political goals.

I don't agree. By that definition every army and police force is a terrorist organization. However I think I agree with the intent of your post.

Actually we're fighting the Salafi-Jihadist. Hyperion (seems to have left the forum), but found issues with the term "Islamo-Fascists"-- as did I. I found this term and quite enjoy the nuance it has. We are not fighting terrorists. This is in many ways a "Clash of Cultures" (Google that phrase for some good reading). But, more than anything, a battle of ideologies.
Read this--

http://www.lowyinstitute.org/Publication.asp?pid=229

Very long read. I had to print this out to actually read through it (it's over 100 pages), but this will define "Salafi-Jihadists" and really make clear who and what the enemy really is in this war.

Wrong wrong. We are fighting a Holy war of which is based on Islam. Be it this form or that form, you'd better get used to it and quit pretending that just cause we suggest it's only a few bad apples does not make it so. Lots of apples trees and plenty or water.

The lowyinstitute.org article’s discussion about the Salafi-Jihadists is nonsense and misleading. I am quite sure that a similar explanation could also be made of the various factions of the German Nazi Party and Italian Fascist Party in the late 1920's and early 1930's as well as the factions within the Bolshevik revolution responsible for overthrowing the Czar in 1917. In EVERY ONE of those cases there were various sub-factions or subgroups of the larger group that differed with each other only in terms of the means and methods to be used to impress their fascists’ ideas on the rest of society. In EVERY ONE of those cases, a small, radical faction who was initially scoffed at or dismissed as politically irrelevant or inconsequential nevertheless succeeded in taking over the reigns of government. Wars occurred after that happened. Millions of people died including millions of innocent members of the society who were not members of the group let alone the subgroup that managed to take over the umbrella party that ruled the country and which engaged in aggressive acts toward its neighbors and ultimately to war.

Let me be clear with this: I (and millions of right thinking Americans like me) really do not give a crap that Muslims, in general, have unfairly been given a bad name because they are being corrupted or misaligned by a subgroup in their midst who are known as the “Salafi-Jihadists.” The fact of the matter is that a large percentage of Muslims actually support or are sympathizers of this and other virulent sub-Muslim groups within the world of Islam. As a result, Islam in general ought to be held accountable for the deaths that will inevitably occur because otherwise good and peaceful Muslims allowed these virulent factions to take over the reigns of their government as a result of their latent support and sympathy or by their indifference.

Unlike the Fascists of yesteryear whose ideology came from a corporate, regimented view of how people in a society are to be held accountable and to be punished for their transgressions, we have today a “new”kind of fascism that has a religious (instead of a corporate) based ideology which allows for the hatred of the West because its societies permit their women to go to law school and to become doctors and because they do not pray to their Allah. There is NO difference between the classical fascists of yesteryear and the fascists of today whom we now know as the Islamic Radicals.

Anyone who seeks to dismiss (or to explain away as was done in the article mentioned above) the threat poised by the Islamic fascists do so at their peril.

I've said it before...for more knowledge of the issue...at least qoogle these items:


Kuffar jizya dhimmi taqiyya hudna CAIR

I know it looks greek to many but it's really Islam.

Anton:
I (and millions of right thinking Americans like me)

Oh, those without an open mind (that would be right as opposite of left and not correct).

quote:

Unlike the Fascists of yesteryear whose ideology came from a corporate, regimented view of how people in a society are to be held accountable and to be punished for their transgressions, we have today a “new”kind of fascism that has a religious (instead of a corporate) based ideology which allows for the hatred of the West because its societies permit their women to go to law school and to become doctors and because they do not pray to their Allah. There is NO difference between the classical fascists of yesteryear and the fascists of today whom we now know as the Islamic Radicals.

By that thinking we should have annihilated the entire nation of Germany and Japan. Sorry, don't buy it, won't buy it as long as I serve SIDE BY SIDE with Muslims who fight with us.

If Anton is going to damn with faint praise those moderate Muslims who, by their aquiesence and apathy ' allowed ' radicalized elements to rise up and take over government and now drive an agressive agenda..then one could, for the sake of argument, say the same thing about ' moderate ' Americans who have allowed radical
Bushites to rise up and drive the agenda of the west.. How many Us citizens actually took the time to get out and vote last time around? How many more just sat back and watched reruns of Happy Days on the Turner Superchannel and ignored the call?

[ not to sound to high and mighty.. we just had a provincial election in my locale.. less than 50% of the pop got off their butts to cast a ballot - lowest in years - but they'll be the ones complaining wjhen taxes get upped, services cut and other things they' didn't want' happen ]..

don't blame the Muslims a radical, motivated, committed minority are running things..those that care are either hiding in fear or getting out [ just check out the refugee/immigration numbers coming out of Iraq ]..worse, still, it is usually the educated middle class that's abandoning the country...

tail is wagging the dog on Islam and jihadists...

Those who ignore the lessons of history -- particularly the circumstances under which Germany, Italy and Japan's government's were taken over by fascists -- and then fail or refuse to recognize the threat poised by similar radical factions within the Islamic culture are the ones who do not have an open mind.

There is not counter point to the close minded nature of your belief as far as I am concerned but you have every right to express it.

I have known Muslims on and off for about thirty years now and most of them are just like the rest of us which means that we have differences but want to get along in our society. The whole freedom thing includes religion.

Do not be so quick to assume that my description of the radical factions within the Islamic culture as fascists is”close minded” whereas yours is not. Please be open minded to the fact that there were millions of peace loving Germans who voted for and supported the Nazi party in 1932. At least these Germans can be excused for their support of a party and a set of beliefs that ultimately resulted in the death of tens of millions of civilians. But with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we know today that the German society was actually casting its lot with a sick, virulent and demented political regime hell-bent on converting the rest of the world to its perverse values and way of life. By the time these citizens realized what they had done and who they have voted for, it was too late. Hitler was in control of the reigns of government and the path to war became unstoppable. All German civilians became the target of allied bombing (witness Dresden and Hamburg).

Accordingly, while I respect the fact that you may know Muslims who want to get along in “our society,” I disagree when you say that those in the Middle East and in many parts of Europe feel the same by wanting to get along with their society or are just like the rest of us as you suggest.

I know of no other religious group in “our society” that advocates violence as a means of acquiring and expressing political power. I do not read in the papers or see on the news channels mass demonstrations by the Catholics or Baptists in this country demanding that the U.S. government become Christian fundamentalists and that all its laws be revised or be enacted to assure that our society is governed under a strict Christian fundamentalists set of beliefs. In that regard, I note that 30% of the citizens in the United kingdom are Muslims. 60% of these Muslims believe that the UK should be ruled as an Islamic state. Compare this to the catholic church, where about ten years ago, Pope John Paul II ordered that priests not be involved in political office.

So, HarryP, please do not compare the religious groups in this country or in any other country for that matter with mainstream Islam’s tacit if not outright (witness the Islamic fascist regime that took over Iran in 1979) support of the radical Islamics who I say, unequivocally, are the fascists of our times and are to be accorded all the respect and dignity that the Nazi Party would be given if it were a viable political force in our country today.