Contract

If my friends do that, I can live with it. If my enemies do that I want to kill them. It's a matter of loyalty, not one of Reason. What happens if we find our loyalty is given to a cynic?

Below we have a short excerpt from wikipedia followed by an introduction to an essay on Chirac's relations with Islam and Arabia. The position here is obvious, so we won't interfere further with editorializing.
***

Plato said that only a man who is just can be loyal, and that loyalty is a condition of genuine philosophy. The philosopher Josiah Royce said it was the supreme moral good, and that one's devotion to an object mattered more than the merits of the object itself. In contrast, philosopher Michael E. Berumen thinks Royce turns morality on its head, and, for example, that a Nazi is not made more moral because of his extreme devotion to Nazism. Berumen contends that loyalty and adherence to duty are often conflated, mistakenly, and that one always ought to perform one's duty, notwithstanding one's feelings of loyalty, which might be directed towards something that is contrary to duty. Berumen maintains that unconditional loyalty is morally forbidden, for it does not recognize moral limits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalty
***

The Chirac Doctrine
Olivier Guitta

Under President Jacques Chirac, French foreign policy has become increasingly assertive - although one French academic recently described its raison d'être as to "oppose just to exist." But such descriptions are not entirely fair. While Chirac inherited a French foreign policy already tilted toward the Arab world, his pursuit of close personal ties to Arab leaders and his outreach to Islamists, rejectionist Arab states, and groups considered terrorists by the U.S. government is part of a broader strategy to increase French influence in the region.

The French approach to the Middle East changed after the Israeli victory in the 1967 Six-Day war. Then-President Charles De Gaulle began to espouse the decidedly pro-Arab policy that still prevails. According to the newsmagazine Le Point, De Gaulle explained, "The Arabs have for themselves their numbers, space, and time." It was a Machiavellian calculation. He pursued what he saw as a long-term strategy: sacrificing good ties with Israel in order to win the good will of the more populous and oil-rich Arab world.

Upon assuming the presidency in 1995, Chirac sought even closer ties to the Arab world. Speaking in Cairo in April 1996, he declared, " France's Arab policy must be a dimension of its foreign policy. I wish to give it a new boost." The French government expanded its trade and cultural exchanges with the Arab world. By 2002, France was among the top three trade partners for most Arab countries: first in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Saddam's Iraq, second in Lebanon, and Syria, and third in Egypt.

Chirac won Arab support as he repeatedly juxtaposed his pro-Arab stance with Washington's support for Israel. His popularity has become so great in recent years that a number of Palestinian families have named their sons "Chirac." During Ramadan in 2003, merchants in Cairo named the best quality dates-the traditional food with which Arabs break the sunrise to sunset fast- "Chiracs" to honor the French president. A May 2004 Zogby survey conducted in six Arab countries, found Chirac at the top of the list of world leaders in Egypt, Lebanon, and Morocco, and third in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. In contrast, the same polls found U.S. President George W. Bush the least favorite world leader after only Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Chirac has formed close personal relationships with a number of Arab leaders, including not only Arafat and the late prime minister of Lebanon, Rafik al-Hariri, but also with the late Syrian president Hafez al-Assad, his son and successor Bashar, as well as former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. These personal relationships have become the backbone of French Middle East policy.

Perhaps Chirac's deepest friendship has been with Saddam Hussein. The two first met in December 1974 when then-Prime Minister Chirac visited Baghdad to negotiate trade agreements, including the delivery of a nuclear reactor later destroyed by an Israeli air raid in 1981. When Hussein visited France the following September-his only visit to a Western country-Chirac said, "I welcome you as my personal friend. I assure you of my esteem, my consideration, and my affection."
http://www.techcentralstation.com/092205A.html

Richard Darre, Greens, Men, Chickens

We are approaching our topics of concern here in a piece-meal fashion, the over-all theme being the history of Counter-Enlightenment influence on Left dhimmi fascism.

This installment looks very briefly at Darre, one of the founders of modern environmentalism. Many readers, other than those who know already, who are committed Greens, for example, will protest that the Green movement and environmentalism generally is not the product of incipient fascism. Well, yes it is.

We are not suggesting that modern environmentalists and Greenpeace donors are Nazis. We do, and will in depth later, argue fully that envirnmentalism is fascism. For this post we leave it to the reader to mull over the barest facts below. This post will remain in the archives here, and in time we'll make reference to it in part two of this essay.

For those who wish to argue against Darre's fascism and his seminal influence on environmentalism currently please feel free to do so. We will come back to this topic and Darre when possible. For today it's all yours.
***

Richard Darré, the son of German parents, was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 14th July, 1895. Educated in Germany and England, Darré joined the German Army and fought as an artillery officer on the Western Front during the First World War.

After the war he joined the Freikorps in Berlin. He then finished his studies and qualified as a agronomist in 1922. A close friend of Heinrich Himmler he joined the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP).

Books that he wrote at this time reflected the influence of Nazi views on race: Das Bauerntum als Lebensquell der Nordischen Rasse (1928), Um Blut und Boden (1929) and Neuadel aus Blut and Boden (1930). In his books Darré claimed it was the Nordic race that had been the true creators of European culture. He advocated the creation of what he called a "Germanic aristocracy of the soil" as a new ruling class.

Darré became the main figure in the Nazi Party interested in agriculture and was very successful in recruiting farmers into the party. When Adolf Hitler gained power in 1933 he appointed Darré as Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture. He was also head of the organization of German farmers established by the Nazis.

In 1933 he was elected to the Reichstag and became President of the German Agricultural Society. A member of the Schutz Staffeinel (SS) he became Chief of the Central Office for Race and Resettlement. In this role he wrote a series of books on racial topics that illustrated his anti-semitism.

His attempts to protect the German farmer from international capitalism brought him into conflict with the free-market views of Hjalmar Schacht. As Schacht was able to bring in large financial contributions from Germany's industrialists Darré lost his influence with Adolf Hitler.

During the Second World War Hitler passed control of agricultural issues in occupied territories to Heinrich Himmler. After failing to maintain food supplies in Nazi Germany Darré was dismissed from office in May 1942.

Darré was captured in 1945 and was eventually sentenced to five years imprisonment after being found guilty of confiscating the property of Polish and Jewish farmers during the war. Richard Darré died in Munich on 8th September, 1953.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERdarre.htm

Robert Spencer, Public Intellectual

Who is missing from the list of public intellectuals at the link below? Robert Spencer . We urge you to add his name to the list offered in the hope that others who might not know of him will be curious enough to look at his books, consider his blog, and start to know the man himself.

The Prospect/Foreign Policy

http://prospectmagazine.co.uk/intellectuals/index.php

(You might have to copy and paste the link above.)

Background on Feuerbach

http://www.goethe.de/kug/ges/phi/prt/en137054.htm

Homo Homini Deus – Ludwig Feuerbach, Philosopher and Critic of Religion

Ludwig Feuerbach was the first to express a point of view that is now widespread - that man can no longer be observed in isolation from nature and that all truth, even religious truth, can always only be truth for man.

Karl Löwith says that he has become "the position of the times where we all stand – consciously or unconsciously". 2004 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of the pioneer of modernism.

Ludwig Feuerbach was born in Landshut on 28 July 1804. He grew up in a liberal family environment, which was permeated by Enlightenment ideas. His father, for example, was a respected lawyer who wrote Germany's first criminal code, taking into account the modern jurisdiction brought into being by the French Revolution. The brothers of the future pioneer of so-called materialism were both involved in secret student fraternities opposed to the authority of the state and the church.

Thus, Ludwig Feuerbach grew up surrounded by the spirit of the Enlightenment, and it was to guide his philosophical work. In the early 19th century, however, everyday life by no means yet reflected Enlightenment thought; quite the reverse was the case. After the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, the German states aimed to nip any revolutionary ideas in the bud, in order to prevent upheavals of the kind that had taken place in France. In 1819, the "Karlsbad Decrees" were passed, suppressing liberal movements in Germany through strict control of the universities and press censorship.

From religion to idealism to sensuous anthropology

In this age of political and theological reactionism, Ludwig Feuerbach took up studies of Protestant theology in Heidelberg in 1832, although he had been baptised a Catholic. He soon became weary of religion, however. A year later, he gave up studying theology and went to Berlin, where he attended lectures by Friedrich Schleiermacher and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

Feuerbach accepted the philosophy of the absolute intellect, but left Berlin a year later to study botany, anatomy and physiology in Erlangen. Although he was beginning to detach himself from Hegel, whose absolutist idealism increasingly seemed to him to be a theology in disguise, his doctoral thesis of 1828 was still very much written in the spirit of idealism. He became a university lecturer in Erlangen at the age of 25 and lived a reclusive life in Nuremberg. In a letter of this period, Feuerbach wrote: "A quiet apartment, surrounded by nature, such as my present one, with a glass of water in the morning, a moderate meal at noon, a tankard of ale in the evening and if anything, a radish: were I always to have all these things, I would never wish more from the earth or on it."

Things were not to remain so quiet, however. In 1830, his Thoughts on Death and Immortality was published anonymously, and was immediately banned by the authorities. Feuerbach was soon identified as the author, in spite of all his precautions. In this work, he denied the immortality of the soul and attempted to disprove the Christian hope that the soul was immortal. "It is rumoured that I am an abominable free spirit, an atheist, yes, more, the anti-Christ incarnate," he wrote in a letter to his sister. The book cost him his university career.

In the next few years, Ludwig Feuerbach was forced to take jobs of all kinds to keep his head above water. He became a grammar school teacher, Master of the Household, librarian, editor and freelance writer, before falling in love with the daughter of a porcelain manufacturer, Berta Löw, whom he married in 1837. He moved to Bruckberg Castle near Ansbach with his wife. Thanks to her wealth, he was able to assume the life of an independent scholar for a number of years. He wrote his magnum opus, which was to make him famous, The Essence of Christianity, which was published in 1841.

Homo Homini Deus – Man's God is man

In this work, Feuerbach shows that God is no more than a mere projection of man. Thus, religion is no more than the self-worship of human beings who create God in line with their own wishes, projecting human qualities onto him. "Knowledge about God is man's knowledge of himself, of his own essence." Feuerbach by no means attempted to abolish religion, but simply to detach it from its relation to God. Religion as a human attitude remains a service to higher values. Of course, these are no longer of a theological, but of an anthropological nature. Man as a species takes the place of a divinity, and education takes the place of ritual. Instead of worrying about the hereafter, one should rather devote thought to the future of humanity.

Thus, philosophy no longer depends on a divine principle or an absolute being, but on man. Man is not primarily an animal endowed with reason, as philosophical tradition would have it; reason tends towards unholy speculation, something Hegel had shown him. Rather, what primarily distinguishes man is his sensuousness, which becomes the place of truth. Man's experience as a heteronomous being is what makes him act again and again beyond the reality defined by the senses. Feuerbach considered it to be incorrect to give a religious interpretation to this sense of dependence, however. Man does not depend on God, but on nature, and is subject to nature's laws.

A pioneer of materialism

For many of Ludwig Feuerbach's contemporaries, his writings had an incredibly liberating effect. The later so-called materialists in particular received Feuerbach's main work, The Essence of Christianity with great enthusiasm. Friedrich Engels, for example wrote retrospectively, "... then came Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity. With one blow, it pulverised the contradiction, in that without circumlocutions, it placed materialism on the throne again. Nature exists independently of all philosophy. It is the foundation upon which we human beings, ourselves products of nature, have grown up.... The spell was broken; the 'system' was exploded and cast aside.... One must oneself have experienced the liberating effect of this book to get an idea of it." Feuerbach not only had a pioneering role in the rise of materialism, but may also be regarded as a ground-breaker for Nietzsche and – in the field of literature – for naturalism.

Ludwig Feuerbach did not live to see the success of his thought. Although many people came to visit him up at the castle following publication of The Essence of Christianity, and some even wanted to make him the leader of a revolutionary movement – revolution broke out in Germany, too, in 1849 - Feuerbach was not made for public life. He preferred to remain a private scholar in his castle. The political situation also led to the bankruptcy of the porcelain company in which Feuerbach had invested all his money. In the end, Feuerbach had to struggle to survive on assistance from foundations, public collections and donations from friends. He died in 1872, impoverished and forgotten.

The Proper Study of Man

"The urkas...played cards for each other's eyes...."*

What happens to the atheist mind and the man thereof? What is the objective value of a man in an objective universe? In other words, what difference does it make if we kill people? What the hell are they worth if all people are is more stuff? What makes a man objectively more valuable than a chicken, the latter being edible? For a system, man is important in relation to other men if his labour value contributes to the economic system, and in Marxist terms of reference to Capital, if he contributes a surplus value to the owner of the means of production, i.e. if he provides a profit to his employer. This is also true in terms of his social life, to his family, and even to himself: if he makes cash, he's OK. If he makes lots of cash, he's really OK. If he's a bum, he's not worth the paper his soul is printed on.

We today in the West are caught in the middle of a post-Marxist Left socialism that recognizes men as worth something objectively economically, and also with the Romantic idea, the pre-Marxist idea that man is worth something in himself, as a man even if he's a bum. But, of course, there are problems with these points.

Atheism leaves us with man as objectively worth nothing more than a chicken, perhaps even less; and Romance leaves man as worth nothing as a living man unless he dies for the greater glory of God, country, and family (family-as-value-in-itself.) So, what is the value of Man? How can we point to Man and say: "Man is of value?" Where's the proof for atheists that man is worth anything at all beyond his use as fertilizer, if that-- objectively even that? And where is the proof to the fascist Romantic that man is worth anything outside the worth of his contribution to the authentic collective?

Prove to me, an atheist, that there is any objective value. If you cannot, then there is no value in Man, and he is only useful to me as a provider for me, if I care. If my attitude is that I don't care even for my own life, then there's not even a use for another in terms of my own existence. Everything is nothing of value, not existence of anything at all. If man is self-justifying, then, fallible in object, man is nothing but self-referential proof of nothing at all. Man has no value, and there is nothing higher to ask for a second, higher opinion. I decide, and within myself I decide man is nothing of worth. So what? You, objective man in an objective universe, have no higher authority than I to argue better. Religious man, taking second place to God, is second at best, nothing of intrinsic worth outside his relation to God, that God being my God, not yours. If my God is inclusive, if I say my God deems everyman worthy-in-himself for the very reason that he is a creature of God, then I still have to prove my argument in opposition to the Islamic God who claims your existence as a non-Muslim is not worthy of continuation. And if I can convince the Muslim that everyman is a valid being in his own right, I still have to argue that his worth is independent of God if I'm to argue that man is innately worthwhile as a thing-in-itself, something I might find hard to do. What is the worth of Man?

Today, in the West, man is worthy of life as a man-in-himself by virtue of positive law. Man is deemed worthy of living his life because man has decided that man is worthy of life. That worth by convention is based on mere attitude. By God, friend, that's a slender thread. What is the worth of Man?

If man is not law-abiding, not employed in something valuable, not strong, rich, or handsom, how do we say that he is of worth in a Godless universe? And if he has a different God, what worth is his life? If God decides his life is not worth-while, what is he worth? What if we simply don't like the way the man is? What if the man doesn't want to live? What worth is man?

Our slight sympathy for fascism tends toward the values of life of Man in himself, but that argument from fascism is too thin to stand on for more than a sentence to two. We need more.

We stand on the conventions of law positive. We try to appeal to law natural, and without success. Man is wotrh less than chicken at dinner time.

In the material world, what worth is Man?

If man is of worth only in relation to another, that other giving him validity as being, then what do we make of man in relation to the man who has no concern for others, not even for himself? The fascist Romantic thesis has to wait. For today we can look at some of the prevailing ideas of our time as we see them handed down by Marx. But what does he claim is the worth of Man? We see the proof of his practice in the works of Stalin. We are left angry:

Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach

1.) The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism – that of Feuerbach included – is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism – which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such.

Feuerbach wants sensuous objects, really distinct from the thought objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as objective activity. Hence, in The Essence of Christianity, he regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, while practice is conceived and fixed only in its dirty-judaical manifestation. Hence he does not grasp the significance of "revolutionary", of "practical-critical", activity.

2) The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth — i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.

3.) The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society.

The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.

4.) Feuerbach starts out from the fact of religious self-alienation, of the duplication of the world into a religious world and a secular one. His work consists in resolving the religious world into its secular basis.

But that the secular basis detaches itself from itself and establishes itself as an independent realm in the clouds can only be explained by the cleavages and self-contradictions within this secular basis. The latter must, therefore, in itself be both understood in its contradiction and revolutionized in practice. Thus, for instance, after the earthly family is discovered to be the secret of the holy family, the former must then itself be destroyed in theory and in practice.

5.)Feuerbach, not satisfied with abstract thinking, wants contemplation; but he does not conceive sensuousness as practical, human-sensuous activity.

6.) Feuerbach resolves the religious essence into the human essence. But the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual.

In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations.

Feuerbach, who does not enter upon a criticism of this real essence, is consequently compelled:

1. To abstract from the historical process and to fix the religious sentiment as something by itself and to presuppose an abstract – isolated – human individual.
2. Essence, therefore, can be comprehended only as "genus", as an internal, dumb generality which naturally unites the many individuals.

7.)Feuerbach, consequently, does not see that the "religious sentiment" is itself a social product, and that the abstract individual whom he analyses belongs to a particular form of society.

8.) All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.

9.) The highest point reached by contemplative materialism, that is, materialism which does not comprehend sensuousness as practical activity, is contemplation of single individuals and of civil society.

10.)The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society, or social humanity.

11.)The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.

---

Written: by Marx in the Spring of 1845, but slightly edited by Engels;
First Published: As an Appendix to Engels' Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, 1886;
Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Volume One, p. 13 – 15;
Publisher: Progress Publishers, Moscow, USSR, 1969 ;
Translated: W. Lough from the German;
Transcription/Markup: Zodiac/Brian Basgen;
Copyleft: Marx/Engels Internet Archive (marxists.org) 1995, 1999, 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the Creative Commons ShareAlike License;
Proofread: by Andy Blunden February 2005
***

For Feuerbach's works on the Internet, please turn to the following link:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/
***

*Martin Amis, Koba the Dread. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf; 2002: p.69.

And what, gentle reader, is the worth of Man?

Fascist Islamic Rant Gets Equal Placement with Fair Reason

The recent debate over the implementation of sharia in Ontario, Canada isn't settled by any means. The fascist Muslim lobby, as below represented by Mohammed Elmasry, is still trying to lie and bully their fascist agenda into law that over-rules the basics of universal human rights in favor of child-molesting, whimmitude, and fascist Islamic exceptionalism.

But far be it from us to keep out opposing views. We include the fascist monster Elmasry's vile slime its place here in the public forum where he can show himself to be the filthy lying scum-bag he is. The entire piece below is whingeing drivel so typical of his disgusting ilk that we include it not only because we still have to fight this particular front-piece but to show the sickening approach to the concocted Islamic reality he and his fascist cohorts take in public. We are, in all things here, nothing if not fair to these idiots and fascist renegade puking weasels.

It is a Racist, Religionist world

by Mohamed Elmasry

(Wednesday September 21 2005)

---

"Self-hating religionists and racists are the worst of a bad lot, as they usually spearhead negative campaigns against their own communities. They are comparable to the often-despised black "house slaves" who would safeguard their comparatively privileged status by defending their racist masters and blaming less-fortunate members of their enslaved people as victims of their own inferiority."

---

Humans are created equal and must be treated equally. This is a basic and familiar teaching of moralists, ethicists and world's religions. Above all, it is a prerequisite concept for sentient and spiritual creatures like ourselves, in order to enjoy personal peace of mind and to uphold peace with justice at the national and global levels.

To discriminate among ourselves on the basis of race or religion is an ugly human behaviour which should be instinctively exposed and rejected. Through education and political activism -- especially the latter -- there is still hope in our time to reduce the enormous human suffering caused by both racism and religionism.

Thus, it is not enough for Muslims to continually insist that Islam is a religion of peace. It is not enough to deny religionist accusations that Islam was spread by the sword, or that Muslims are not terrorists, extremists, radicals, or militants, etc.

Instead, through concentrated political activism, and working with fair-minded people of all backgrounds, there is hope that racism and militant religionism can be exposed for what they are and eradicated from our midst.

Self-hating religionists and racists are the worst of a bad lot, as they usually spearhead negative campaigns against their own communities. They are comparable to the often-despised black "house slaves" who would safeguard their comparatively privileged status by defending their racist masters and blaming less-fortunate members of their enslaved people as victims of their own inferiority. There are still plenty of those "house slaves" around in 2005 and today, you definitely do not have to be black to be treated as the historical "field nigger."

Consider the following list:

• 1. The Ontario government guaranteed religious groups certain rights for more than 10 years, including the right of having their faith based arbitrations recognized by the courts. But when Ontario Muslims recently asked to be granted the same rights, Ontario's premier suddenly turned an about-face: No way! implied Dalton McGuinty. We would rather take away the rights of everyone else than give Muslims equal rights with Christians and Jews. Some misguided Muslims cheered the Ontario government and congratulated themselves.

• 2. The Quebec Assembly passed a motion sponsored by a Muslim MLA who did not speak for the majority of her people. Muslims were singled out in a move to reject Islamic mediation and arbitration in Quebec, and even in all of Canada. The motion did not reflect what Quebec Muslims wanted from their government which is nothing -- it reflected only what one individual and her supporters wanted; they proclaimed themselves so loudly, no one else was heard.

  Why is this happening to Canadian Muslims? The answer is, because of they lack political activism. Lack of education is secondary here, since these religionists and their supporters are not interested in knowledge -- they don't care to know, for example, that the application of Sharia (Islamic Law) in family matters is continuously evolving to suit the time and place of modern society, even more so than the Jewish Halakah code.
  

• 3. Why did Jewish settlers, recently evicted from their illegally occupied land in Gaza, receive far more media coverage, political attention and public sympathy than neighbouring Palestinians who have suffered under Israeli restrictions and harassment for close to 40 years? Those Jewish settlers were not pioneers roughing it in a barren land -- they lived at Canadian middle-class standards in beautiful spacious seafront homes, with playgrounds and a sophisticated infrastructure, all the while protected by a modern well-equipped occupation army. Why was so little of the impoverished Palestinians' suffering brought to TV viewers in North America over the past four decades? This is about as ugly and insidious as racism and religionism get.

• 4. What do you say to Iraqis who maintain now that "I was not worse off under Saddam Hussain." Conversely, what do you say to the many more Iraqis who've lost all forms of personal security and do not even know if they will get home dead or alive today? Such questions were clearly absent from the agenda of George W. Bush when he invaded Iraq. Why is it so easy to believe from news reports and White House policies that the lives of Americans (even those sent to be cannon-fodder in a misguided war) are somehow more valuable than those of Iraqis?

• 5. Why have most Western nations thrown away the fruit of their long struggle toward human rights by recently enacting draconian anti-terrorist laws, instead of on relying on existing criminal codes? Why could the British government fight Irish terrorism using its time-honoured criminal code, but suddenly introduce sweeping new anti-terrorist laws following 7/7?

  Why is Britain, the world's oldest continuous democracy, now outlawing "radical" Muslim organizations and deporting "extremist" clerics, after having allowed the free expression of politically dissident voices even during the First and Second World Wars?
  

• 6. Why is Canada adopting -- without judicial approval -- the discriminatory practice of using a no-fly list to target certain Canadians? And why in this instance, as in so many others, are Canadian Muslims not protected by this country's Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

• 7. Why are historical wrongs against people of different races or religions not addressed, admitted and corrected? In the 1800s in Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Belgium, people of all classes were united in welcoming colonial / imperial expansion in Africa and Asia for economic reasons, which included imposing on others the "superiority" of their European race and religion. During the same time period the United States was looking across the Pacific as well as southward to the Caribbean. And in Palestine, Zionists and their supporters were preparing to give a land "without people" (indigenous people didn't count!) to a people who claimed to be without land. Only a few "radical" critics questioned the justice of any of these racist religionist policies.

Again, my answer to all these questions is that these things are happening because Muslims are not politically active enough -- if at all.

Hobbes' Third Law of politics states that there is a direct correspondence between the ruler and the ruled. This means that where a ruler leads, the ruled will fall in step along the same path. But Hobbes' Law also works inversely; whoever is to rule a certain people must rule them as s/he wishes to be ruled. Both parts of this law can be practiced consciously or unconsciously.

Hobbes maintained that the inverse of his law would most likely happen when the "unpolitical stupidity of the ruled" fails to impose limits on how their rulers can influence them. That is why I believe that through political activism first, and education a close second, there is hope to limit the vast scourge of human suffering that results directly from racism and religionism
***

Yes, dear reader, he quotes Hobbes as his authority! Is there more that needs writing here? Yes, indeed there is. Worse, we'll have to meet on the streets to combat this fascist monster and his violence-fueled henchmen, killers of children, terrorists, and panderers and proponents of child-molesting. But we are fair here and welcome his comments above to the public forum.

Shakespeare was a Sufi. Yes, we've heard it all before. Now, for our further education as dhimmis in the multi-culti world of the West we can go to the theatre to watch Hamlet as Ottoman. Dr. Pepper, a writer at http://jihadwatch.org supplies a new and improved version that is sure to supplant that old stuff the cultural imperialists try to shovel down our ears. Personally, we're rather keen to move on to the undiscovered land if Islam encroaches onto the scene much further. But before we go, let's leave a reminder of our presence, a nod and a wink for the ghost of times past.
***

Mohammlet's Soliloquy

To behead, or not to behead -- that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous Infidels
Or to take arms against a sea of Christians
And by opposing end them. To die, to explode --
No more -- and by an explosion to say we end
The humiliation, and the thousand impure shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a Shahada
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to explode --
To explode -- perchance to Paradise: ay, there's no rub,
For in that bomb of death what Paradise may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Cannot give us pause. There's disrespect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of Fitna,
Th'Occupier's wrong, the proud Jew's contumely
The pangs of despised honor, Sharia's delay,
The insolence of Saudis, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a full rucksack? Who would Infidels bear,
To grunt and sweat under an X-Rayed life,
But that the joy of virgins after death,
The undiscovered Caliphate, from whose bourn
No martyr returns, inflames the will,
And makes us insensate of those ills we have
To fly to buildings that we know not of.

Posted by: Dr. Pepper at September 20, 2005 02:58 PM

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/008204.php#comments

To be or Not to Be: This, That, or Alive at All.

Life, according to someone who had us upset for a day or two, is 2 per cent what happens to you and 98 per cent how you take it. Yeah. Most things in life are a matter of attitude, and if one is ready to deal with reality on that basis things go better-- even without coke.

Attitude plays such a large role in life that most people refuse to see it. Attitude is too big and too simple to be loved by intellectuals and social critics. On top of it, most successful people are too deeply invested in their attitudes to be able to afford to give them up: it takes years to develop an attitude, and once one has one it's a thing in itself. And even if that attitude is miserable people are too attached to their own misery to want to give it up for hard work and the self-criticism that might lead to something better. One can have a positive attitude even in times of terror, or in times of plenty one can be a terrorist.

There is the attitude of self-reliance and intellectual independence, an attitude that comes at least partly and very importantly from Baconian induction, and there is insh'allah. There is Modernity, and there is fascist primitivism. Both kinds of mental life, of culture and social life come with attitudes built in. We make a fatal mistake assuming that all people base their lives on compatible attitudes toward the meaning of life itself.

Below we have two glimpses into attitude. Both stories deal with the conflict between modernist Israelis and primitive Muslims, but attitude also divides the whole of mankind between those who want to live and those who want to kill and die. Those latter are the majority, and their death worship, as odd as it is to modern men and women, odd to the point that most Moderns refuse to even listen to its airing by their fellow Moderns, is the norm in the primitive world. As hard as it is to understand that not all people think in the same general way, we must look at the minds of our opponents to see not what we think they think, that they must think at least more or less that they think and feel the same way we do, but what they themselves think. We must, in fairness to ourselves and to our enemies as well as to the very nature of Truth, look at what really is, never mind our assumptions and basic beliefs that everyone is exactly the same as we in all important respects. Stubborn and aggressive ignorance of others based on automatically assumed opinions, based on our investment in ideologies, resting on past practice we might fear to condemn as worthless after having held them for a lifetime, fear of ridicule and social ostracisation, all of those positions lead one to conclude that the person who will not change a wrong opinion and lay aside a worthless attitude, yes, that person is stupid. One must have an attitude toward ones attitude. One cares for the honest pursuit of truth or one doesn't. Those who do not are in the majority, and they are not all fascist primitives. How we approach truth will determine much more in our lives, our attitudes toward life and living with our fellows.

The fascist mind is one clouded by hatred of Modernity, and it is a death worshipping view of life that is prevalent throughout history. It is we who are the revolutionaries, we who have the odd ideas, we who have an attitude that strikes others as arrogant and unseemly. Our attitude toward our own lives and life itself is highly and deeply offensive to the primitives, and nothing we do is going to change their outlooks, their attitudes toward us. We have to change our attitudes toward how we look at our enemies-- if we want to understand them, to deal with them, to find a way to survive them. We have to change our attitude toward of own lives and culture and stop thinking in terms of past opinions that lead to nothing but more attitude based on past attitudes.

We think the way we think, and our attitude is that all men are free and reasonable just like us. How wrong that is. And until we use our cherished reasoning to seek out the truth behind our attitudes toward those entirely unlike us, this chaos of mindless attitude in place of objective truth is going to doom us to constant misinterpretation of others, making our attitudes meaner, our out-looks nastier, our responses harsher, and all because we simply strike up poses that are based not on clear understanding but only on attitude of the wrong kind altogether.
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http://www.defenddemocracy.org

USCB Professor Visits Israel to Study Terrorism and Learn to Cope By Geoff Ziezulewicz The Beaufort Gazette August 9, 2005 In June, Colin Pearce found himself in a prison yard surrounded by 30 Palestinian militants who had been convicted by the Israeli government for acts of terrorism. It was unlike anything the University of South Carolina Beaufort political science professor had ever experienced or expected. Halfway around the world, in the Gilboa Prison in Israel, Pearce heard from men known to some as terrorists and to others as freedom fighters. But regardless of labels, what Pearce saw ran contrary to popular perception. "I didn't know what to expect, but when you think of terrorist acts, you think of extreme violence, of shooting up a car or a suicide bomber," he said. "But these prisoners were incredibly mild and quiet. They milled around us and started explaining their point of view. You wouldn't associate their demeanor with the act which they are accused." Pearce visited Israel with other professors from across the country for 10 days in late May and June as part of a program set up by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan research organization that studies terrorism. The prison visit gave Pearce one of many glimpses into Israeli life, its paradoxes and what parallels exist between that conflict, the war in Iraq and how the West views terrorism and security. "There was a senior prisoner, and the other guys looked so young," he said. "It wasn't in any way scary." Life in Israel is completely unlike any other society on earth, and through an array of lectures and field trips, Pearce saw it all firsthand. He visited a man whose family was gunned down in their car years ago by Palestinian militants. Through a translator, Pearce said the man personified living under such danger. "He was saying how he had to come to terms with the loss of his family, and how since then he has carried on," Pearce said. "It's a tragic story, a tragic life in a way, but he had risen above it and carried on." With the dedicated objectivity of a career academic, Pearce said he saw different ways of living amid such conflict and how a society learns to cope -- all within a mix of modernity, tension and millennia of history that is squeezed together into one tenuous location. "It all conveys an uncanny impression," he said of the Israeli experience. "We were in Jerusalem, a beautiful city on the hill. You ride the bus and then overlook the security wall that Israel is building and over to the West Bank. Then, next to the bus is some guy with goats. It's modernity and ancient times, all side-by-side in a country about the size of the Lowcountry." Israel's status as the only modern democracy in the Middle East furthers those contrasts, he said. "You have a modern, liberal, rule-of-law state with a Western style constitution and economic development," Pearce said. "Parts of Tel Aviv make you think you were in Phoenix or Atlanta." As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues through suicide bombings and military incursions, Pearce said Israeli society does not feel like a country under siege. "It's more of a security-minded society, but it's not a fear state," he said. "It was just normal, people going into bars and clubs and going about their business." Pearce grew pensive when asked what he sees as a solution to the conflict. Solving the dilemma is similar to working toward an end to the Iraq war, which he called an "intifada on steroids." Intifada is a common translation for "uprising" and has been used by the Palestinians to define their struggle against Israeli occupation. "Everything in some ways hinges on the security factor," he said. "It's the same in Iraq. They've got a new government and all types of changes, but the withdrawal of U.S. troops all depends on whether you can have a secure state. Everything else is moot in the absence of those kind of conditions." In terms of terrorism, Pearce said the West should look to Israel for how to live with such threats in light of Sept. 11, 2001, and the London bombings. "Israel has been under these kinds of threats for many years, but they go about their business," he said. "They live under conditions that have certain risks, but they don't let them phase them. There are always risks at any time in any society, but they don't let it get to them." The U.S. reaction to terrorism is different, he said. "The U.S. approach tends to be kind of hyper and panicky," he said. "Here's country with 285 million people, the most powerful in the world, and they've had some incidents, but they seem to get more hysterical about things than Israel, which is a tiny little country surrounded by countries that want to do them harm." Pearce said the perseverance he saw among Israelis is a lesson in which Americans can take comfort. "If terror could never really cause a much smaller state like Israel to vacate the premises, how could it hope to defeat a superpower like the United States?" he asked. *** Over the course of this blog's enquiry to date we have looked at various aspects of fascism as it is a personal outlook on life as held by our fellows throughout the past 5,000 years since the beginnings of the agricultural Revolution up to the time of the American, French, and Industrial Revolutions. We have argued successfully that the world is bifurcating, splitting in two, one stream of Humankind moving into a life of intensifying Modernity and further reason, and the other, greater bulk of people fighting to maintain and even restore the primitive life of the times of most of Human history. How we approach this division, which side we choose to value and fight for, will determine the course of Human history for centuries to come. We argue that many on the Left are dedicated philobarbarists, lovers of barbarians, people who hate Modernity because they are mediocre in themselves and cannot stand the recognition thereof to the point that they wish to destroy the world they cannot excel in. Much of the fascist Left attitude of valuing primitives is based on the classical tenets of Counter-Enlightenment, and it is that which we strive to expose here and combat. Much of what today is thought of as Left and liberal is simply confused and vaguely understood fascism. The attitudes people speak from are attitudes toward Humanity that are completely rooted in fascism, in feudalism, in pre-Modern social organisations of tribalist hierarchy. What most people think of as their deepest and most important convictions are simply ungrasped and unexamined fascism. This conflict between Modernism and fascist primitivism is more clearly obvious in the struggle between Palestinians and Israeli than is any other. How one approaches the conflict, the attitude one has toward this conflict says more about a person than perhaps anything else in ones life. Progressive Modernists side with Israel, fascists, conscious or not of their fascism, take the attitude, not the reasoned response of rational people, that Israel is -- well, whatever the cliches of the day are this day. Those who are irrational, who are philosophical Irrationalists are: "Blinded by ideology" BARRY RUBIN, THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 12, 2005 Those who let ideology and misinformation color their analyses and policies are doomed to failure. This is the Arab world's paradox regarding terrorism and Iraq, as well as Israel and the United States, socioeconomic development, human rights and democracy. For instance, the typical view of terrorism comes from the head of Egypt's al-Azhar mosque-university, Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi. He is a pillar of mainstream, establishment Islam. In general, Tantawi will say nothing Egypt's government dislikes. Tantawi is often called a moderate and, sad to say, in relative terms he is one. But he is also typical of a major trend in which mainstream clerics are increasingly influenced by radical Islamists. A decade ago Tantawi would probably have defined suicide bombing as heretical in Islamic terms. In recent years, though, Tantawi gives a definition, by far the most popular one among Arabs, that justifies the vast majority of terrorist acts originating from the Middle East. There is no excuse, he explains, for any attack in Arab countries aiming to kill Muslims. But it is ok to blow oneself up among: "An enemy who came to kill me, and I have no way of defending myself except for blowing myself up among this enemy who came to kill me and my countrymen, or to attack what is sacred – in such a case, whoever blows himself up is a martyr" (MEMRI translation). In other words, anything is permitted in self-defense. At times he implies this does not include deliberately killing civilians – that is what makes him a relative moderate – but this clause is played down. The three real keys to being a proper martyr are: being under attack, facing an evil enemy, and lacking any alternative. One problem here is that anything can be justified if it can be called self-defense. Yet some deeds are criminal no matter what the rationale. Equally, once the door is opened to terrorism in principle many excuses can be used to justify it. If al-Qaida and other extremists define as legitimate killing anyone they view to be opposing their rule (which they equate with God), the moderates can merely limit the appropriate victims to non-Muslims. BUT THIS is just the beginning of the problem of the acceptance of this approach by the overwhelming majority of the Arab world. The most disturbing aspect is that it fits with the false characterization of Israel, the US, and sometimes the entire West. It becomes necessary to claim that the West is inherently aggressive and is trying to take over the Muslim, or at least Arab, world, leaving the "victims" no alternative to terrorism. In reality, of course, Israel has basically been eager to make a deal to get out of the "occupied" territories for at least 12 years and would have been willing to do so even earlier in exchange for a real peace agreement ending the conflict. Similarly, the US wants to get its forces out of Iraq as soon as the situation is stable enough there to do so. In short, the terrorists are ensuring the continuation of the very situations they claim as grievances, using them to block moderate solutions and to gain power. The charges of foreign aggression and ruthlessness, combined with a lack of alternatives to violence, are false. The Iraq issue cuts to the core of the dominant discussion and politics of the Arab world today. In an al-Ahram article entitled "The end of Arab Iraq," Abdallah al-Ashaal, a former assistant to the Egyptian foreign minister, attributes the new Iraqi constitution to American machinations designed to destroy Iraq by stoking ethnic conflicts there. Here again, critical facts are ignored. The Iraqi constitution is shaped by the demands for decentralization of Kurds and the Shi'ite Arabs – who are, after all, about 80 percent of the population. And that determination is the product of their ill-treatment by the Arab nationalist (and largely Sunni) dictatorships that ruled the country for 45 years. Yet it is impossible for mainstream Arab nationalists (or Sunni Islamists) to admit that fact. They must blame this antagonism on American imperialist conspiracies. Just as in the failure to face terrorism or such problems as the Arab world's political-economic backwardness, a refusal to confront the real issue makes solving the problem impossible. It is "ridding Iraq" of Arab identity which "really motivated the US invasion," al-Ashaal claims, inaccurately implying that Iraq might not even stay in the Arab League. Well, what about the universal Arab state support for the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, the failure of anyone to lift a finger to help the Iraqi dissidents, the Arab world's failure to help post-Saddam Iraq, and its continuing sponsorship and applause for terrorists murdering thousands of Iraqis? On this, not a word. Yet these are the kinds of experiences that make Iraqis want to rid their country of the type of Arab nationalism that subjected them to almost a half-century of dictatorship, war and suffering. In contrast, visitors to the Kurdish north of Iraq describe a prosperous, stable area, with rising living standards. As Nimrod Raphaeli of MEMRI writes, summarizing these reports: "An environment of democracy and freedom appears to prevail across Iraqi Kurdistan." Are people there, or in the Shi'ite south that suffered so greatly under an Arab nationalist regime, so foolish to reject this disastrous system and philosophy? As long as the current ideology of victimization and distortion dominates Arab decision making, the situation will not improve, and could even deteriorate further. http://www.jpost.com *** How we look at ourselves, not so much how we look at our primitive Muslim cousins, will determine the outcome of history for centuries to come. We could, as the Romans did, let things decay to the point the primitives overwhelm and destroy civilization as we know it. How this particular episode of history turns out is a matter of attitude. Ours.

Writing Tips for Would-Be Pros.

Is Gaza Burning?

Written by Jack Engelhard
Saturday, September 17, 2005

The dictionary defines "looting" as "to rob, steal, pillage." But, in its first reports on Gaza, where Palestinian Arab mobs were, well, looting, the New York Times came up with a nifty twist to avoid the L-word. There was no looting going on, only "looking for usable materials."

Our friends in Print and Broadcasting are having difficulties putting a shine on this Palestinian Arab rampage that's been in progress ever since the Israelis departed. Obviously, we need a new dictionary, or the same dictionary that they're using over there at the Times, the BBC and wherever truth needs to be camouflaged.

CELEBRATION, for example, usually means "to express happiness," but it means something entirely different when describing the total takeover of Gaza by Palestinian Arabs. In this case it means rage and rioting, or, indeed, "looking for usable materials." When the new inhabitants of Gush Katif ransacked the greenhouses left behind by the Israelis, and, like termites, tore down everything that stood, they were celebrating.

HOLY PLACES used to refer to places of worship of all religions. Not so anymore. Holy Places refers only to mosques and other Muslim shrines. Churches, for example, are not Holy Places ever since Arab terrorists invaded the Church of the Nativity (April 2, 2002), used it as a latrine, and hardly anyone complained. They also ripped the place apart, no doubt "looking for usable materials." More recently, like yesterday, the new inhabitants of Total Gaza set fire to about 25 synagogues and this, indeed, is seen by the world as a step toward peace. Torching synagogues can also be found under TO CELEBRATE.

FIRE. What fire? The BBC only showed the smoke and conceded that things were burning, but were careful not to mention the arsonists. Fire happens.

PAIN. Only Muslim Arabs are entitled to pain. Here, for example, is the BBC's Orla Guerin reporting from Gaza: "Palestinians came streaming to the settlements that caused them so much pain… Israel stole 38-years from them; today, many were ready to take back anything they could." The Israelis who were evicted from their homes felt no pain. Is that clear? Also, thanks to Ms. Guerin and the BBC, we know that "Israel stole 38 years from them." This sets a new standard for totally objective and thoroughly unbiased journalism.

SUFFERING. In the old days, suffering used to include everyone who was, well, suffering. That's been changed to Palestinian Arabs only. They have "suffered under Israeli occupation" for so long that they are entitled to grievances beyond the rest of us. Christians, especially Zionist Christians, do not suffer. Hindus do not suffer. Sikhs do not suffer. Jews certainly do not suffer. In the Times, the BBC, and along the remaining network of Print and Broadcast, the word "suffering" is reserved for Muslim (not Christian) Arabs. Christian Arabs, incidentally, are continually harassed and murdered by Muslim Arabs, but since they are Christian, they do not suffer. Such harassment and murder against Christian Arabs takes place in Gaza and in other territories occupied by Muslim Arabs, most recently in Beirut. See OCCUPIED TERRITORY.

OCCUPIED TERRITORY. The above definition is incorrect. Occupied Territory refers only to Jews, or any place a Jewish man or woman sets foot or builds a home. See ARAB LANDS.

ARAB LANDS. Everything. Everywhere.

AL QAEDA. The name for every terrorist attack around the world, but actually a code when we are afraid to mention the real enemy. See TERRORIST.

TERRORIST. There is no such thing.

JIHAD. Some call this a holy war against Western Civilization. This is what it is - "looking for usable materials."

About the Writer: Jack Engelhard is the author of the bestseller "Indecent Proposal," the award-winning "Escape from Mount Moriah," and the novel "The Days of the Bitter End," which is being prepared for movie production. Jack receives e-mail at viewopinion@aol.com.

http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=16840

IDF to Blame for Arab Looting

Those of us who thought Arab looting in Gaza was due to the moon being in Virgo now find that we were sadly mistaken: It's the fault of the Jooos.

When will we ever learn?

Here's a start. Let's see if we can get it right next time.

"Arabs Ransack Homesh, IDF Stays Away"

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu Arab looters overran the demolished Jewish community of Homesh in northern Samaria Saturday. Israel has retained authority for the area, but the government did not send troops to stop the rampage.

Several days earlier, soldiers and police entered Sa-Nur, another former Jewish community, to forcibly evict scores of Jews who had returned. Knesset Member Eliezer Sandberg (Shinui) demanded that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "deal with the Palestinians in Homesh with the same determination with which he dealt with the evacuated settlers."

Hundreds of Arabs brought in tractors and wagons and ripped down electric poles and stole metal, wooden and plastic materials and burned rubble. Several Arabs also looted in Sa-Nur, despite the presence of IDF soldiers who were stationed to prevent Jews from returning to the site.

Israel has allowed the Palestinian Authority (PA) to deploy its police force in the northern Samaria, but both the IDF and the PA have abandoned Homesh, giving local Arabs free and unsupervised access. The IDF said it does not prohibit Arabs from being in the area on condition they do not take control of land or buildings.

Arab officials in nearby cities blamed Israel for the rampage, claiming it was a result of Israel's unilaterally expelling Jewish residents and withdrawing IDF forces. [More]
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/

Birth of a Nation

It takes years for a nation to change its mind. Individuals are often perceptive and attuned to changes, but the national consciousness is a far bulkier thing that takes many years to move from one positon to another, even then reluctantly, and even in the midst of revolution not completely. In revolutions only one third of people support the revolution, while one third oppose it, the final third do nothing.

Those rough figures come from reading Eugene Methvin on riots, among other sources dredged from memory. Empirically one sees that most people do not like change, gradual or otherwise. And America, a dynamic nation in most ways, is still not different in its antipathy toward sudden social change. Regardless of how important it might be to confront the world of Islam as an aggressive enemy that must be dealt with militarily and completely, the rousing of the masses will take more time than most of us are likely to live to witness. Not everyone feels that way, particularly the Muslims of al-Qaeda.

The politics of confrontation, the goading into action by means of violence the opposing forces, and the goal of making conditions too intolerable for the remaining of the staus quo, is the device that seems to have failed for bin Laden and friends. America and the West still don't "get it." They too, our Mulsim cousins, are disgusted. But the rousing of the beast takes time, and the Muslims have run out of patience. No one will accuse them of intelligence, but their frustration with the stupidity of the West is certainly understandable.

In the following essay we see the response from al-Qaeda, their making the best of this idiot situation. Having failed to rouse the West into counter-action, the confrontation they so dearly wish for, they are now changing the tone of their programme, if not the text.

What can we expect in our futures? More rage and provocation. And how much more will it take to move the West into full-dress battle against the forces of reaction? Probably more than any of us is willing to contemplate.

But is there more to our lethargic response to Islamic imperialism than meets our clouded eye? We suggest that there are two streams of American thought that flow through the history of the nation, and that those two streams flow deeper still through Europe: The first is the stream of manifest destiny; the second is the legacy of feudal conscription of peasants. We'll return to those concepts again, as we have before in these pages. For now let's turn to the essay below to see where our opponents have positioned themselves in this game of revolution and counter-revolution.IN-DEPTH

Al-Qaeda's 'Bowing-Out' Strategy

The recent release of a tape featuring the address by an American al-Qaeda member 'Azam' (thought to be Adam Gadahn, who earlier broadcast a message prior to the 2004 US elections threatening large scale terror attacks) has been evaluated by some analysts as demonstrating a sense of frustration in the movement. In particular the frustration is over the lack of debate in the West about the long-term political aims of al-Qaeda and the jihad.

The mujahideen are equally busy analyzing the latest statements from the al-Qaeda leadership. While the theme of Western incomprehension is present, predictably, the analyses are more positive and optimistic in tone, consistent with the perception of the immutable logic of the jihadi cause. The idea that the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington backfired on al-Qaeda, in that they subsequently lost their base in Afghanistan without exciting a mass pan-Islamic movement against the West, finds no resonance. But with an admixture of fantasy that compensates for a lack of facts, the image of a waning al-Qaeda is given a new twist.

An interesting example is a recent posting on the jihadi forum Risalat al-Umma by the user Sayf Allah. Under the provocative title: "Al-Qaeda organization is now finished," the jihadi analyst speaks of a new phase "which the infidels are unaware of, or do not wish to believe." He claims that al-Qaeda has, and has always had, a specific aim: to galvanize the sleeping corpse of the Islamic Nation and remove the corrosive body of Western influence. To that end, the 9/11 attacks were designed "to force the Western snake to bite the sleeping body, and wake it up;" a strategy which he evaluates as having turned out highly successful. The "end of al-Qaeda" is, therefore, the end of this galvanizing role. Infidels, the analyst explains, "are still fixated on fighting individuals, oblivious to the fact that they are actually fighting an idea, one that has spread across the globe like fire and which is embraced even by those whose faith is a mustard seed." His conclusion is that Western strategies to fight al-Qaeda are therefore illusory (or are a deliberate self-deception) in that al-Qaeda is no longer operative as a strategic body, but rather "the Islamic Nation's men, women and children are all now 'al-Qaeda.'" [www.alommh.net]

This theme of the 'end' was also developed by Sayf Allah Usama and published by the Global Islamic Media Front. Taking as his cue the statement made to the Arabic satellite channel al-Jazeera on the July 7 attacks on London by al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the author defends al-Zawahiri and al-Qaeda from criticism of ideological bankruptcy resulting from the loss of their base. Instead, he suggests that al-Zawahiri was explaining al-Qaeda's strategic program and purpose. The reason for this, he explains, is that he became particularly intrigued by al-Zawahiri's focus on historical matters and his account of al-Qaeda's struggle "an unusual thing for one who speaks constantly of the present and of the future." There can be, he states, only one reason for this: "the [al-Qaeda] organization is about to exit the portal of history, to re-enter in another form, but with different forces, in a grander struggle with the infidel."

Under this interpretation, al-Zawahiri has "signed the exit visa of al-Qaeda, so that it now is to become a page in the history of Muslims "the beginning of a new era." This 'signing off' is part of the original plan; to "revive the [Islamic] Nation and prepare it for a comprehensive confrontation with the Kuffar" on a scale larger than what has been waged up to now against apostate elements in individual countries. The confrontation is the final scene, "to be played by al-Qaeda against world Unbelief: "the smashing of the great idol [the United States of America]." The author then lists some of the aims and achievements of al-Qaeda:

The joining of efforts against the head of Unbelief, America;

Instilling freedom from defeatism among the Muslim youth, through the attacks on New York and Washington;

Drawing the American enemy outside its borders and casting it into the Islamic swamp, so as to expose the truth about the artificial 'truce' between Muslims and the Unbelievers;

Whetting the appetite of the youth to go to Iraq to form a new front, in order to make the U.S. military taste what the Soviets tasted in Afghanistan;

Detaching America from its Crusader roots in Europe and Australia, by punishing rebel states who participated alongside America in its attack on Iraq; thus inducing terror of al-Qaeda and the gradual disassociation from her great enemy [the USA] and withdrawal of their support for it;

Getting Muslim masses used to the idea that al-Qaeda can reach anyone who harms them; ending the assumption that Western victory is assured; and bringing the battle to its climax.

The grand conflict with the great idol, according to the jihadi analyst, is in two stages, each bearing symbolic similarities to the other as a struggle of a weaker party against a stronger. If the first stage of the struggle was one fought in mountains and caves and hideouts, the second and final stage of the struggle is one conducted "with the full economic, military and political force of the Islamic nations." [Oh no, not that. Anything but that!]

According to this analysis, al-Zawahiri's speech comes at a pivotal moment in the great conflict of the Islamic Nation against "the primary forces in the world defending the Cross." It is the "final, legal, call to the arrogant Americans to avoid the dreadful destruction which will befall them, after which al-Qaeda cannot be blamed for its actions against those who do not leave the Islamic Nation alone." For the nations allied to the United States, they too should know that their time is coming, and that they will be picked off one by one, after the stoutest fortress of the Cross is destroyed.

But al-Zawahiri's address also marks the end of the 'al-Qaeda' phase of this great conflict. After it has passed, the analyst concludes, having served its galvanizing purpose, it will metaphorically re-enter the portal of history, but 'in a more resplendent, stronger form, in the guise of the liberated Muslim masses taking vengeance on their servitude to the West and on America, the scourge of their countries.'

Far from frustration at the failure of the al-Qaeda program to galvanize the Nation, Sayf Allah Usama is confident that this has already been achieved. For the jihadist contemplating al-Qaeda's ebb, it should be regarded as "the exit of heroes, and the re-entry of their souls into a new phase of the struggle waged by revived Muslims, rising proud after their humiliation, assured of their victory against the great enemy and the fool of the era, America." [www.alommh.net]

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http://www.jamestown.org