The Article

To the Westerner, the Islamic world is a lurid hodge-podge of exotic imagery - a myth adapted from 1001 Nights - comprised of huge harems, wild sex orgies, opulent palaces, flying carpets, incredible wealth, fierce warriors, hordes of thieves, shrewd and dishonest traders, cruelty and religious fanaticism.


Take away the flying carpets, and the West could be described in similar terms - but neither description would be accurate.


Not only do we need to consider this distorted Western viewpoint - which by itself, and minus its negative aspects, would be mere ignorance and relatively harmless - but we all must consider that these distorted viewpoints are deliberately being used and often magnified to goad the West into a future criminal war against the Islamic world. These unjust views, already previously held and reinforced since the Gulf War, are now the standard thinking by many Westerners - and are being used to JUSTIFY such wars!


The West has at its disposal tremendous media facilities for the education of the public, but until now, these facilities of information, education and entertainment have been largely used purposely to misinform, to miseducate, and to instill hatred against the Islamic peoples. Just as certainly, this situation has not come about by accident.


The West's mainstream media are controlled by a small group of unscrupulous men who know exactly what they are doing, and who will stop at nothing in order to attain their often criminal and murderous ends. This same group of media manipulators and its predecessors broadcast and published anti-German propaganda in both world wars and included the Japanese as victims and targets of their hate campaigns in the Second World War. These men are brainwashing experts. On their account, millions of Westerners, who had never met a German or Japanese, were inflamed with murderous hatred - sufficiently so that they killed millions of persons who might otherwise have been their customers and friends……


http://www.radioislam.net/zundl/index.htm

Asalamalaykum,


Just wanted to say, I am new here and this looks like a great forum.


Wanted to say a special hello to UmmZachariah.


Alliex :

... <b>The ground will continue to erode beneath the feet of </b>


moderate Muslims, the constituency upon whom the White House placed its best


hopes.


Front Page


Muslim anguish and Western hypocrisy


By Spengler


Muslims who have made their life in Western countries while adhering to


Islam face a frightful dilemma. After the November 2 murder of Dutch


filmmaker Theo van Gogh (The assassin's master sermon, Nov 16), European


authorities have demanded that resident Muslims repudiate violence. Many


mainstream Muslim leaders, though, cannot bring themselves to denounce the


murderer of van Gogh, whose film Submission showed Koranic verses


superimposed on the naked skin of Muslim women.


Smugness oozes from European politicians who demand that Muslims repudiate


violence as a precondition for residence in the West. To repudiate the death


sentence for blasphemy would be the same as abandoning the Islamic order in


traditional society in favor of a Western-style religion of personal


conscience. The West spent centuries of time and rivers of blood to make


such a transition, and carried it off badly. Whether Islam can do so at all


remains doubtful.


As a matter of record, most European Muslim organizations declined to


disavow the murder of van Gogh. During a November 19 radio interview, for


example, Zahid Mukhtar, head of the Islamic Council of Norway, refused to


condemn van Gogh's murder, creating a scandal out of proportion to Norway's


small Muslim population. A Moroccan-born member of the Belgian Senate,


Mimount Bousakla, received death threats after remonstrating with the


umbrella organization of Belgian Muslims for its refusal to denounce the van


Gogh murder. She since has gone into hiding.


In Germany, most of the country's Muslim groups refused to take part in this


past Sunday's Muslim demonstration in Cologne against terrorism and


violence. In fact, the Turkish government organized the 20,000-person


demonstration without support from local Muslim organizations. Its sole


sponsor was DITIB, the Turkish government's Muslim association headed by an


appointee from Ankara. DITIB "already had tried in vain to organize a common


declaration by all German Muslims against Islamist terrorism", noted Der


Spiegel Online on November 19.


Muslim refusal to tolerate blasphemy has nothing to do with rage or


recalcitrance. It is a theological necessity. Executions for blasphemy would


attract no attention in Iran or Saudi Arabia. The trouble is that the


population of Islamic countries has spilled over en masse into the West.


Imams in Europe cannot pronounce differently on such matters than they would


in their home countries, and blasphemy cannot be tolerated by traditional


society.


"As for heretics, their sin deserves banishment, not only ... by


excommunication, but also from this world by death. To corrupt the faith,


whereby the soul lives, is much graver than to counterfeit money, which


supports temporal life. Since forgers and other malefactors are summarily


condemned to death by the civil authorities, with much more reason may


heretics as soon as they are convicted of heresy be not only excommunicated,


but also justly be put to death." Those are the words of the 13th-century


Catholic authority St Thomas Aquinas, the most influential of all Catholic


thinkers, presented by Catholic writers from Lord Acton to Jacques Maritain


as the antecedent of European democracy.


An apologist for St Thomas, Michael Novak of the American Enterprise


Institute, excused the hard line against heresy on the grounds that tough


times required it:


Thirteenth-century societies were highly fragile. Beyond ties of kinship,


many citizens experienced little to bind them to others. Most were subjects


of a few - and one ruling aristocrat was often overturned by another ...


geographical isolation was often intense, and shifting patterns of warfare,


baronial allegiance, and foreign occupation awakened acute local insecurity.


Under political anarchy, the common people and the poor suffered much. Under


all these uncertainties, the chief consensual bond among people was Catholic


faith and Catholic ritual. Virtually all unifying conceptions of


relationship and social weight, meaning and order, came from that faith. [1]


St Thomas did not merely support a death sentence for individual heretics,


but weighed in vigorously on behalf of the Crusade against the Albigensians,


which laid waste to most of Provence. Does Novak believe that today's Muslim


societies are any less fragile? If he believes that 13th-century conditions


justified the death penalty for heretics in Christian Europe, why should


Muslims not apply the same logic to their own societies?


In fact, the terrestrial power of the Church, along with its authority to


burn heretics, was pried out of her cold, dead fingers. It took the


frightful 30 Years' War to break the political power of the Church in


Europe, and the reunification of Italy to reduce the Vatican to its present


postage-stamp dimensions. The Church in the person of pope Pius IX responded


by excommunicating the entire government of Count Cavour.


Not until the Second Vatican Council of 1965 did the Church reconcile itself


to the role of a religion of conscience without temporal power. But the


disintegration of European Catholic life coincides with Vatican II. Church


attendance in most European countries has fallen to single-digit


percentages, and the lowest fertility rates are found in Spain and Italy,


formerly among the most Catholic. It is unclear whether Catholicism will


survive the transition to religion of individual conscience from temporal


power, and the prognosis is bleak. Even Michael Novak has his doubts:


What is the proper relation of Christian faith to the open society? A


relation that entails the persecution of heretics is clearly repugnant to


Christian faith. The special circumstances of the 13th century remain a


vivid case study in what not to do. But if the profession of Christian faith


is not to be constitutionally required, as certainly it should not be, just


how can Christian faith escape from being merely privatized and relativized?


And how can open societies themselves be saved from giving a posthumous


victory to such relativists as Hitler and Mussolini, who began by stating


that nothing in politics is right or wrong, that only power matters?


Only in one form does Christianity thrive without the policeman's baton in


the back of the shepherd's rod, and that is in its American evangelical


expression. The great monuments of European Catholicism lie exposed like the


bones of extinct mammoths, and in Latin America, the mice of American-style


Protestant denominations are eating the eggs of the Catholic dinosaurs.


Judaism suffered its own transition from a state religion to a private


religion of conscience, bloodily and against its will. The best account


comes from Rabbi Jacob Neusner and Bruce Chilton, an Episcopal priest.


Between the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70 and the


establishment of Christianity as Rome's state religion in the 4th century


under the Emperor Constantine, the two religions traded places. Judaism


ceased to function as the state religion of Israel, and the legal philosophy


preserved in the Mishnah gave way to the theology of the Rabbinical writings


of the Talmud. The private and communal character of early Christianity gave


way to the public and political state religion of Constantine. [2]


The sorry state of today's Judaism should provide moderate Muslims poor


cause for optimism. Not much middle ground separates the Jewish orthodox,


who attempt to live by the medieval interpretation of Jewish scriptures, and


secular Jews, who find themselves everywhere at the cutting-edge of social


experimentation.


With its 139 major denominations, America's protean form of Christianity


might seem least likely to succeed. In reality, its superficial weakness


reveals underlying strength, for American Christians are immune to the


blandishments of mere "Christendom" (Soren Kierkegaard's dismissive term for


social habit), and better prepared to take the leap of faith. American


Christianity is by its nature born-again, evangelical, disruptive, an


unending moment of self-conversion.


Jews and Christians had centuries to accomplish the transition from public


and political religion to private and communal religion, whereas


circumstances press moderate Muslims to do this on the spot. The two older


religions did so under duress, chaotically, and with limited success.


Whether Islam can make such a transition at all remains doubtful. There is


an element of truth in Michael Novak's attempt to portray St Thomas Aquinas


as a democrat. Human freedom flows from the Judeo-Christian concept of


divine love, as Aquinas wrote:


Divine providence extends to all things. Yet a special rule applies where


intelligent creatures are involved. For they excel all others in the


perfection of their nature and the dignity of their end; they are masters of


their activity and act freely, while others are more acted on than acting.


They react to their destiny by their own proper activity, that is by knowing


and loving God, whereas other creatures show only some traces of this


likeness ... To begin with, rational creatures are governed for their own


benefit, whereas other creatures are governed for the sake of men. Men are


principals, not merely instruments. [3]


No such concept of divine love and the ensuing sovereignty of the individual


can be found in Islam. Love constrains the Judeo-Christian God, but not


Allah. "The God of Mohammed," wrote Franz Rosenzweig, "is a creator who well


might not have bothered to create. He displays his power like an Oriental


potentate who rules by violence, not by acting according to necessity, not


by authorizing the enactment of the law, but rather in his freedom to act


arbitrarily" (see Oil on the flames of civilizational war, Dec 2, 2003).


It is not clear where the present crisis will lead. A few European


politicians are demanding harsh measures to suppress Islamist radicalism.


The German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg's cultural minister, Annette Schavan,


proposes that a law to compel Muslim clergy to preach exclusively in German,


while the interior minister of Brandenburg, Joerg Schoenbohm, wants to take


away the citizenship of "hate preachers".


On the other hand, the Netherlands' justice minister, Piet Hein Donner, has


proposed to enforce a 1932 law against blasphemy to prevent future insults


to Islam. The proposal is astounding, for no Christian country has penalized


blasphemy of the most extreme variety in two generations. Would the


anti-blasphemy rule apply to scholarly demonstrations that alternative


variants exist of the Koran, or to linguistic arguments that the Koran has


been mistranslated (eg, Professor Christoph Luxenberg's claim that the


"seventy-two virgins" awaiting martyrs in Paradise really are white


raisins)?


The tragedy will continue to unfold, and at a faster pace. Jews and


Christians have learned to accept humiliation. God's love for the individual


soul remains valid despite worldly reverses, and failure in the temporal


realm provides cause for self-evaluation. Humiliation is intolerable to


Islam; Allah sets the spin of every electron around every nucleus by a


discrete act of will, and reverses in the temporal world challenge Islam's


promise of success.


The logic of events offers nothing to Muslims but humiliation. The


re-elected administration of US President George W Bush has put into action


a two-pronged attack, destroying the Sunni resistance in Fallujah and


neighboring cities, while holding a gun to the head of Iran in order to


forestall the emergence of a greater Shi'ite opposition, just as I predicted


(Bush, Marshal Foch, and Iran, Sept 21). Not a whimper of protest arose from


the Europeans, whose undivided attention was focused on the van Gogh affair


and its implications. The ground will continue to erode beneath the feet of


moderate Muslims, the constituency upon whom the White House placed its best


hopes.

TROUBLE IN THE HOLY LAND


Pollard: Israel groomed


jailed terrorist to head PA


'They want to trade me for a murderer,' says Israeli spy of Sharon government


Posted: November 20, 2004


10:54 p.m. Eastern


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=41570


By Aaron Klein


© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com


Israel has been grooming convicted killer Marwan Barghouti to become the next Palestinian Authority leader, holding a series of clandestine meetings with him, incarcerated Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, who media reports claim may be part of a prisoner exchange involving Barghouti, told WorldNetDaily.


Israeli officials said last week they may release several jailed Palestinians as a "goodwill gesture" toward the future PA leadership. There have been a few reports that Barghouti, who was recently sentenced in Israel to five life terms for planning gun ambushes and a suicide bombing, may be considered for release, but Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is said to have rejected the idea. Reports list Barghouti as the widely favored candidate for PA president.


Even with Jerusalem officially dismissing the possibility of releasing Barghouti, Israeli Interior Minister Avraham Poraz speculated last week, "We are looking for a partner for the Gaza withdrawal. It seems that this will have to include releasing prisoners ... [perhaps even] including Barghouti."


Israel's Army Radio also quoted unnamed Israeli officials speculating Barghouti could be released.


Barghouti is serving multiple life terms for his role in the killings of four Israelis and a Greek monk. Israeli security sources also tell WorldNetDaily Barghouti was one of the architects of the current intifada, the terrorist war waged on Israel after Arafat, at Camp David in 2000, turned down an offer of a Palestinian State in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.


Pollard's name has been publicly mentioned as a possible "American gesture" in a three-way prisoner exchange that would release Barghouti, allowing him to run in PA elections, and could also involve Egypt releasing imprisoned Israeli textile engineer Azzam Azzam.


But in an explosive development, Pollard, who today begins his 20th year of incarceration at the U.S. federal prison in Butner, N.C., for spying for Israel, has composed a speech to be delivered on his behalf in Jerusalem at a demonstration rally planned for later today. It states Israel has held clandestine meetings with Barghouti throughout the Palestinian leader's imprisonment, and has been grooming Barghouti as a candidate to succeed the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat.


In the speech, obtained in advance exclusively by WorldNetDaily, Pollard claims, "Officially Israel insists it will never free Marwan Bargouhti. He is a murderer sentenced to multiple life sentences. Freeing him, they claim, would undermine the rule of law. Unofficially, sources, including one very close to the prime minister, admit that Israel has been grooming Barghouti in prison to be the next leader of the Palestinian people."


Pollard says that "when news of the proposed three-way deal broke, my close contacts began to investigate, and learned important things from reliable sources in the U.S. and Israel."


"It is an open secret in Israel that top officials have been secretly meeting with Barghouti throughout his incarceration. He is taken out of his prison cell and brought to clandestine locations for these meetings, to enlist his help in promoting various initiatives with the Palestinians, such as cease fires. These secret sessions are part of the 'grooming' process," says Pollard.


Pollard says sources told his contacts that Israel, not the PA or Barghouti's military Tanzim, leaked the story last week about Pollard and the talks aimed at putting together the three-way swap for Barghouti's release.


"Officially, Israel reviles Barghouti and dismisses any possibility of releasing him. Unofficially, Sharon’s Government and his closest people believe Barghouti is someone that they can work with, someone who can control the Palestinian street. They see him as someone who can unite the warring factions among the Palestinian militias and hold them in check."


Pollard says sources told him Israel has been supplying positive material to the media about Barghouti.


"More than just whitewashing Barghouti, Israel is seeking to create the impression that there is such popular support amongst the Palestinian people for Barghouti that it cannot be resisted or denied. This is an attempt to create an atmosphere where the U.S. feels it must step in and direct events. The Americans can then 'force' Israel to release Barghouti, and Israel can do so with 'clean hands,'" says Pollard.


Pollard says Arab public opinion prevents Israel from releasing Barghouti outright, and has resulted in Israeli officials seeking Pollard's release.


"Israel must make it appear that it is being forced to free Barghouti, and that a high price has been paid for his release. Unless Israel gains something very valuable in return for Barghouti, the Palestinian 'street' will consider him a traitor, a collaborator, an Israeli stooge; his credibility will be zero and his life in danger," says Pollard.


"There are not many high-priced bargaining chips left, and fewer yet, of great value that won’t cost the Palestinians anything. They want to use my release as that chip."


Pollard says he is "completely opposed" to the possibility of being released from prison in a deal that would also release Barghouti, whom he refers to as "a mass murderer of Jews."


"I have always been opposed to gaining my freedom in exchange for the release of murderers and terrorists. My position has not changed. I deserve to be released because my sentence is unjust and because the U.S. has promised my release on more than one occasion, including a commitment by the president of the United States at the Wye Summit in 1998."


"Unfortunately, nothing I say about my own unwillingness to have any part in such a morally degenerate scheme will make any difference. The government will do whatever it must, to get what it wants, regardless of what I or anyone else may say or do."


Barghouti has been arrested several times, including a four-year stint that began in 1978 for planning terror attacks against Israelis. He was arrested again in 1985 before being deported to Jordan in 1987, where Israel says he played a key role in starting the first Palestinian intifada.


Barghouti was among hundreds of Palestinian deportees allowed to return to the West Bank upon the signature of the Palestinian-Israeli interim Oslo peace accords in 1993. But Israel says he continued to plot several Palestinian attacks, and was instrumental in the founding and supporting of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a terrorist group that carried out several suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.


Denying his involvement with the Aqsa Brigades after his arrest, Barghouti nevertheless praised some of the group's operations that involved attacks on Israeli military targets, but claimed from his prison cell that he opposed suicide bombings against civilians.


In the speech, Pollard quotes a book recently released by former U.S. envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross, who played a key role in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in which Pollard's release was reportedly pledged, as evidence of "the way the U.S. has made me into a high-priced political pawn."


In the book, "The Missing Peace," Ross writes that at the 1998 Wye River Summit President Clinton asked him if freeing Pollard would be important to Israel. "Yes," Ross writes he replied, "because he is considered a soldier for Israel and there is an ethos in Israel that you never leave a soldier behind in the field."


Ross added: "I also said I was in favor of [Pollard's] release, believing that he had received a harsher sentence than others who had committed comparable crimes. I preferred not tying his release to any agreement ..."


But, Pollard says, "no sooner does Ross acknowledge the injustice of my sentence and that I deserve to be freed unconditionally, than he advises the president not to free me. Why? Because of my great value as a political asset and a bargaining chip."


Ross writes he cautioned the president against releasing Pollard until greater concessions from Israel could be secured during final status talks. "[Pollard's release] would be a huge payoff [for Israel]; you don't have many like it in your pocket ... You will need it later, don't use it now," writes Ross.


"By understanding Ross’ attitude towards me as an asset, not a person," says Pollard, "it becomes possible for the first time to understand Prime Minister Sharon's indifference towards me ... He too sees me as a political asset, and not as a human being."


"Sharon is apparently reserving me for a time that my release will be the fig leaf for some very, very dastardly initiative. Perhaps something as dastardly as enabling another mass murderer of Jews to become president of the PA, just as Israel once did for Yasser Arafat," says Pollard.


Pollard, a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, was convicted in 1985 of one count of passing classified information to an ally, Israel, and sentenced to life imprisonment in spite of a plea agreement that was to spare Pollard a life sentence.


Pollard's sentence is considered by many to be disproportionate to the crime for which he was convicted – he is the only person in the history of the United States to receive a life sentence for spying for an ally. The median sentence for this particular offense is two to four years.


Aaron Klein is WorldNetDaily's special Middle East correspondent, whose past interview subjects have included Yasser Arafat, Ehud Barak, Shlomo Ben Ami and leaders of the Taliban.

THE ROVING EYE


The Sunni-Shi'ite power play


By Pepe Escobar


Iraqis are not fighting one another - at least not yet: they are fighting


the occupying power, although with different strategies. After Fallujah,


this situation is about to change.


For the average Iraqi, Sunni or Shi'ite - and Americans underestimate Iraqi


national pride at their peril - there's no question: the current Sunni


resistance morally prevails, because they are Iraqis fighting an


invader/occupier. This means the US occupation in essence lost even before


it began. Defining the resistance as "anti-Iraqi forces" - as the Pentagon


does - is nonsense: they are a legitimate popular resistance movement, while


the US-trained Iraqi police are largely identified for what they are -


collaborationists doing the dirty work of Iraqification, the Mesopotamian


version of failed Vietnamization. Hundreds of these US-trained forces ran


away before the battle even started in Fallujah. No wonder: they were


resistance moles. And most of Mosul's police also defected.


The resistance is now spread out all over the Sunni heartland -


contradicting US marine talk that the assault on Fallujah "broke the back of


the resistance". Added proof that the resistance is indigenous is that of


more than 1,000 men between the ages of 15 and 55 who the Pentagon says were


captured in Fallujah - there's no independent confirmation; only 15 have


been confirmed as "foreign fighters", according to General George Casey, the


top US ground commander. And these "foreigners" are mostly Saudis,


Jordanians or Syrians, described by Iraqis themselves as "our Arab


brothers", members of the large Arab nation. The real "foreign fighters" in


Iraq are the Americans.


Anger in Sunni-dominated Baghdad has reached a fever pitch, as an Iraqi


physician told a radio station he has examined bodies of people who seem to


have died of banned chemical weapons: the bodies are swollen, are yellowish


and have no smell. Asia Times Online sources in Baghdad say that people in


Fallujah believe the Americans may have used chemical weapons in the bombing


of Jolan, ash-Shuhada and al-Jubayl neighborhoods. They also say the


neighborhoods were showered with cluster bombs.


The political war


The Sunni Iraqi resistance is battling a political war. For the mujahideen,


the stakes are clear: under the current US-imposed situation, the Shi'ites


will be in power after elections scheduled for January. Saif al-Deen


al-Baghdadi, a hardcore Sunni Salafi and top member of the resistance in


Mosul, has qualified the Iyad Allawi government as representing "the


fundamentalist right wing of the White House and not the Iraqi people".


Apart from the "clash of fundamentalisms" implicit in this observation, the


fact is that for the resistance, softcore or hardcore, the Shi'ites are


being propelled to power by an alliance of fundamentalists - Washington plus


US-backed Allawi.


The Shi'ites are not doing enough to calm Sunni anger. When Shi'ite leader


Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani spoke out against the Fallujah offensive, it


was too late. In fact, the one who spoke was Sistani's top man in Karbala,


Ahmad al-Safi al-Najafi, who told thousands at the Imam Hussein Mosque that


Sistani viewed the assault on Fallujah as he viewed the assault on Najaf: he


favored a peaceful solution, he called for the withdrawal of "foreign


forces" (the Americans) and he condemned the death of innocent civilians.


The Sunni-Shi'ite divide is not monolithic. The powerful Sunni Association


of Muslim Scholars (AMS) - founded after the fall of Saddam Hussein - is


closely coordinating with the lumpenproletariat -based movement of Shi'ite


cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.


But events in Fallujah have set the political landscape on fire - with the


AMS urging all Iraqis to boycott the January elections. At the lavish


golden-and-marble Umm al-Qura Mosque in Baghdad - built by Saddam and


previously called "Mother of all Battles" - the AMS managed to rally 47


political parties, not only Sunni Islamist but eight Shi'ite parties, one


Christian, the Iraqi Turkmen Front and the Communist Party. Their joint


communique condemns the elections as "imposed by the US-backed interim


government and rejected by a clear majority of political and religious


powers"; stresses that "the US raids against Najaf, Karbala, Samarra, Mosul,


Baghdad and more recently Fallujah represent an obstacle to the political


participation in the occupied country"; and qualifies the attack on Fallujah


as "genocide". The whole idea comes from Sheikh Jawad al-Khalissi, a


Shi'ite, who is a descendent of one of the leaders of the 1920 revolt


against the British colonial power. In Iraq, history does repeat itself in


many ways.


The AMS is making it very clear to all Sunni Iraqis - and to all Iraqis for


that matter - that Fallujah had nothing to do with "stabilizing" the country


before elections, as the Pentagon and Allawi have claimed. And support for


the AMS is increasing fast, especially after the Americans arrested seven of


its leading members. On a parallel front, the Americans also arrested seven


aides to Sheikh al-Hasani, the leader of a splinter group of Muqtada's


movement. The popular response was swift: this past Wednesday more than


3,000 people demonstrated in front of the Green Zone in Baghdad demanding


their release.


To boycott or not to boycott?


What is Muqtada up to? Hashim al-Musawi, one of his top aides, told a crowd


in front of Kufa's mosque this week that they will also boycott the


elections because in Fallujah the Americans "violated all human values


enshrined in the Geneva Convention". This may be a diversionary tactic. Asia


Times Online contacts in Baghdad confirm that Muqtada is frantically


negotiating with Sistani: the crucial point is how many parliament seats


Muqtada will get if he joins a united list of all major Shi'ite parties in


the January elections. The Grand Ayatollah is putting all his efforts to


consolidate this list. And he is adamantly in favor of conducting the


elections on schedule.


The key question is how extensive a Sunni boycott would be. If the absolute


majority of Sunnis - up to 30% of the population - don't vote, plus some


Shi'ite factions, the elections have no legitimacy. The Kurds are also


extremely nervous. With a boycott, most of the 275 seats will be Shi'ite:


the Kurds would get around 30 - with no Sunni Arab allies to counteract what


many in Baghdad are already defining as the tyranny of a Shi'ite majority.


As for Prime Minister Allawi, his Iraqi National Accord is a mixed bag of


Sunni and Shi'ite ex-Ba'athists. Allawi does not want to be part of the


Sistani list. This may be a blessing in disguise for Iraqis, because in this


case Allawi may not even be elected to parliament: his little party has


scant popular legitimacy. And his "political capital" after Fallujah is


zero: not only did he authorize the massacre, but he installed martial law,


muzzled the press and exacerbated the inherent contradiction of his position


- how to behave as a strong leader when you depend on an occupying army.


It's important to note that not a single party - and especially the Shi'ite


parties - represented in Allawi's "cabinet" condemned Fallujah. Their


collective game is to blame the whole disaster on Allawi alone. But that may


not be enough to placate Sunni anger.


At the moment, with fighting in Fallujah still raging, and the resistance


hitting all over the heartland, this is how Sunni Iraq is reading what the


Americans say: If you fight us, we will kill you. And if you don't


participate in our elections, you go to jail. No wonder the resistance keeps


growing.


To stay or to go?


Imagine a Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi government next January having to face a


widespread Sunni guerrilla movement with only a ragged bunch of


guerrilla-infiltrated Iraqi security forces. Who're you gonna call? The


marines?


The Sistani-blessed government may ask the Americans to go. The Bush II


administration will obviously say no. The Sistani-blessed government may


launch selected raids against the resistance: not likely to break its back.


Moreover, in the eyes of most Iraqis, the Sistani-blessed government cannot


even afford to not ask the Americans to pack up and go. Sistani knows


Shi'ites are anti-occupation: nobody will tolerate a Sistani-blessed


government "protected" by an occupying army. Not to mention this would prove


the point now stressed by the Sunni resistance: the Shi'ites are allied with


American "fundamentalists".


This leaves an ominous prospect in place: an Iraqi Shi'ite, Sistani-blessed


government fighting a widespread Sunni guerrilla resistance in a bloody


civil war.

Hi. I m looking for Reporter in USA or UK. For real contact. I Prefer Non Muslim Reporter and with camara team....

By definition it means – “A government by the people; for the people.”


However, when we have a close look at how it has been practiced among the greatest proponents of this system – within their own borders – we are surprised to find out that it has never been practiced in its “true sense” – since this term was coined over three centuries ago. We come to the conclusion that it was coined by a minority of Western elites to fool a vast majority of people in the Western world in the beginning and now they are trying to sell this “bogey” to the rest of the world.


Here are the FACTS on the gender and ethnic representation among the so-called “democratic countries”:


United States – Women population has stood between 45-51% with the current Black population of 23% , but none of the 43 Presidents of the US came from those two groups. On the other hand, the Jewish population of the US has never surpassed 3%, but it controls 37-40% of the US Congress and Senate, and 63% representation in Bush’s governments – While the Jews control 70% of the country’s wealth.


France – Women population is 48%, and every sixth French citizen is a Muslim – But none of French Presidents came from these group – And worse, no Muslim has ever been elected to its Parliament.


Germany – Women population is 50% (it jumped to 64% after WW II), but none of its Chancellors represented that gender.


Russia – Women population has always been over 40% and the Jewish populstion never exceeded 1% - But after the Jewish sponsored Red Revolution out of 556 important functionaries of the Bolshevik State, there were in 1918-1919, 17 Russians, 2 Ukrainians, 11 Armenians, 35 Letts, 15 Germans, 1 Hungarian, 10 Georgians, 3 Poles, 3 Finns, 1 Karaim, 457 Jews. However, no woman has ever become President or Prime Minister of that country.


India – Women population varies between 43-47%, and the “Shudhars (Low-Cast)” constitute 20% (over 200 million) – but women has less than 10% representation in the Lok Sabah (Parliament), and none of the President or Prime Minister represented the Low-Cast population since country’s independence on August 15, 1947.


Israel – Women population is nearly 40%, while the occupied Native Muslims and Christians make-up 20% of population of the Zionist entity – But since its creation in 1948, only one woman, Golda Mier, became prime minister, but none of the president was a woman. On the other hand, the Natives are not even allowed to vote for Knesset (Parliament).


Any “rational” comment?

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The cult of St. Diana incorporates many myths but none so corrosive as the idea that there is a good Establishment media ("the press") and its wicked alter ego, (the "tabloid press").


But how did the tabloid press come into power? Has it not gained its power and influence through the support of the western masses? Should not the people themselves - now fawning and wailing over their "Madonna Diana" - be under attack as the ghouls ultimately responsible for the death of the princess?


Was it only tabloid photographers and journalists who "hounded" our poor saint? No stringers from CNN in that milling mob? No Reuters? No AP? No ABC?


What a laugh. The supposedly, non-tabloid "mainstream press" hound and hunt innocents every day. But they have the wit to craft their stories under a patina of statesman-like concerns and objectives. The goals of the mainstream press are "serious" and self-controlled; like for example their coverage of the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Very dignified.


The truth is, the Establishment media today is "tabloid" to the core - obsessed with sensational themes of sex and death to the exclusion of sustained inquiry and thoughtful analysis. They have made political speeches into sound bites. They pack and congregate and howl like the wolves they are at every criminal trial (their assault on Unabomber defendant Ted Kaczynski at his arraignment was a disgrace to journalism and the Constitutional presumption of innocence).


And who sponsors Hard Copy and those other early evening tabloid TV news shows? Who reaps fortunes from "Geraldo" and the other despicable tabloid chat programs? The big networks and corporations do - the same ones who are just now crying crocodile tears over Diana.


There is another myth, even more glaring. It is the pretense that Lady Di was fundamentally a shy, discrete woman who, in the course of shuttling between Compline at chapel and evenings at the hearth with her sons, was battered and abused by tabloid reporters and the papparazzi.


Lost in the decidedly feminine hysteria which has drenched this tawdry episode, is the fact that Diana did absolutely everything she could to inflame and attract the press. She eagerly pursued a "romance" with the son of a notorious British-Arab tycoon which she knew would electrify the press. Earlier, she had said she wanted a role as roving ambassador for Britain, traveling to the world's hot spots where she would be ogled and photographed and mobbed all the more.


This was a woman who shunned publicity? Yes, it tormented her even as she craved it. But Lady Di was a creature of publicity, a product of the iconography of the age. She had nothing else but her celebrity. She was nothing other than a celebrity.


Diana was a deeply troubled modern woman, a font of confusion. This is her attraction to several hundred million, equally confused modern women who've been sold a bill of goods called feminism, which was supposed to bring them happiness and fulfillment and instead has sent them deeper into despair.


Lady Di had to leave her children to "find herself." She left them to pursue sordid fornication with an Arab playboy, an equally vacuous soul who had once been allied to Hollywood's supreme schlockmeister, Steven Spielberg.


The less that Diana was, the more fanatical her adulation by a huge throng of equally empty people.


The cult of celebrity is the only level at which the people still have some power; their other rights and avenues of expression are being taken from them. But in their frenzied worship of Lady Di, they have been able to compel Queen Elizabeth II out of her cocoon of hubris. The queen herself was forced to grunt and cavort for a more powerful monarch by far, Queen Mob.


So she too must appear "red-eyed in public" and display the whorish poster soul that the mob equates with compassion.


As Western society becomes ever more brutal, pornographic and desensitized, ever more anti-life and heavily policed, the people - once the repository of a semblance of commonsense and morality - emerge as a force for degraded barbarism.


The cult of Lady Diana, who was obviously mentally ill, will surpass the cults of the other mentally ill celebrity-whores of our time, from Judy Garland to Marilyn Monroe.


One wonders what the faithful mothers, who seldom stray from their children's sides, who nurture the future generation, who've gone a bit broad in the middle and whose faithful husbands bear little resemblance to handsome playboys, think of the Diana thanatology?


Are they as enamored of her as the millions of twenty-something, with their abortions and their handbags crammed with toxic birth control chemicals - much the same "tools of the trade" which Diana must have carried?


The goddess Diana of antiquity was the pagan deity of fertility. But her modern namesake is a symbol of death, of the reversal of fertility, of sex without reproduction.


Lady Di is the incarnate expression of the death wish of the white race, of the inversion of which the prophet Isaiah stated, "Woe unto those who put evil for good and darkness for light."


(By: Dr. Michael A. Hoffman II)