Sunday, May 31, 2009

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE RECENT ELECTIONS IN INDIA

from
"KARMA AND THE 09 INDIANS ELECTIONS"
by Francois Gautier
http://francoisgautier1.blogspot.com/2009/05/karma-and-09-indians-elections.html

. . . Sir Aurobindo’s words will echo down the ages: "There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the breath of the Lord is abroad upon the waters of our being; there are others when it retires and men are left to act in the strength or the weakness of their own egoism. The first are the periods when even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny; the second are spaces of time when much labour goes to the making of a little result. It is true that the latter may prepare the former, may be the little smoke of sacrifice going up to heaven which calls down the rain of God’s bounty.

Unhappy is the man or the nation which, when the divine moment arrives, is found sleeping or unprepared to use it, because the lamp has not been kept trimmed for the welcome and the ears are sealed to the call. But thrice woe to them who are strong and ready, yet waste the force or misuse the moment; for them is irreparable loss or a great destruction."
fgautier@rediffmail.com

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Muslim World Today: Pakistani Military And Taliban

Re-Emerging Alliance Between Pakistani Military And Taliban In Pakistan And Afghanistan
By Tufail Ahmad
By MEMRI
http://www.muslimworldtoday.com/memri10.htm

Introduction
In the recent months, an old-new alliance has been re-emerging between the Taliban and Pakistan, aimed at countering the efforts of the U.S. and NATO troops against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Pakistani authorities recently signed two agreements with the Taliban - known as the "Shari'a for Peace deals" - which give the movement full authority to enforce the Shari'a law in the Swat Valley and broader Malakand region of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The Taliban's part of the deal amounts to no more than an unwritten - and largely unfulfilled - promise to stop fighting the government forces in the area.
The deals come in the wake of three operations carried out by the Pakistani military against the Taliban in the last three years - operations in which the military conspicuously refrained from causing the movement significant harm or from killing its leaders.

The apparent capitulation of the Pakistani authorities to the demands of the Taliban is actually a part of a long-standing alliance between them. The Pakistani military - which actually formed the Taliban in the 1990s - has long been using this movement to control Afghanistan and as a tool in its confrontation with the West. The Taliban, for its part, uses the support and protection of Pakistan to consolidate its strength and gain control over increasingly large areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Taliban Takeover of the Swat Valley
The Taliban's enforcement of the Shari'a law in the Swat Valley district did not begin with the signing of the Shari'a for Peace agreements. As a matter of fact, the Taliban in the district, under the command of Maulana Fazlullah, has been consolidating its control and authority over the region for several years and gradually enforcing the Islamic law there. Using violence and intimidation, the movement has bombed girls' schools, banned women from entering markets, forbidden barbers to shave men's beards, and enforced a ban on music and other forms of art and entertainment.

The Taliban's most far-reaching move came on December 24, 2008, when it issued a complete ban on girls' education in the Swat Valley district. Shah Dauran, the Taliban's second-in-command in the Swat district, announced on the movement's illegal radio station that, effective January 15, 2009, all government and private educational institutions would be forbidden to register girls. The decision meant that 84,000 girls enrolled in government schools and 40,000 girls enrolled in private schools would be prevented from continuing their education.

In response to criticism from circles inside and outside Pakistan - including some Islamists groups, which pronounced the decision over-extreme - Fazlullah moderated the prohibition slightly, permitting girls to attend school up to the fourth grade. Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan warned that schools that failed to comply with the new regulations would be bombed, and the threat was indeed carried out against several educational institutions.

Pakistani Military Operations against the Taliban in the Swat Valley District
The Taliban's takeover of the Swat Valley district has met with some resistance on the part of the Pakistani military. In November 2007, the military launched an operation lasting several weeks against the Taliban militants in the region, and managed to recapture most of the territory, driving the Taliban into the mountains. However, with the retreat of the army, the Taliban quickly returned and renewed its violent activities. In 2008, over 200 girls' schools were bombed and nearly 100 activists of the secular Awami National Party (ANP) were killed.

The second military operation, in October 2008, was even less successful, for the Taliban had the upper hand. In the course of the confrontation, it recaptured territory it had previously lost and consolidated its control over the district.

The third operation was launched January 26, 2009 in response to the Taliban's ban on female education, which caused Pakistan to come under international pressure. According to press reports, a key tactic used by the military in this offensive was to announce its attacks in advance by loudspeaker - ostensibly in order to warn the civilian population - thus allowing the Taliban militants to escape. The operation ended abruptly on February 16, 2009, only three weeks after it began, when the NWFP government signed the first Shari'a for Peace deal with the Taliban.

The "Shari'a for Peace" Deals
The first Shari'a for Peace deal was signed February 16, 2009 between the Pakistani authorities and the Taliban "moderates" led by Maulana Fazlullah's father-in-law, Sufi Muhammad. The latter had been incarcerated in a Pakistani prison, but was released in April 2008 precisely for the purpose of facilitating a deal between the authorities and the Taliban.

The agreement abolishes all non-Shari'a laws in the Swat-Malakand region, and decrees that legal matters will henceforth be decided by a Shari'a court, as reflected in the following key passage:

"With regard to the court system in the Malakand Division… the provincial government has decided that, as of today, all non-Shari'a laws, i.e. those [laws] that contravene the Koran and hadith, are null and void…"

It should be noted that Pakistani President Asif Zardari has not yet ratified the agreement, but Sufi Muhammad has stressed that his consent is not necessary.

In intra-Taliban talks after the signing of the agreement, the movement formulated four more demands, to which the government agreed - namely that all Taliban prisoners be released and all outstanding cases against Taliban militants be closed, that the government compensate all those harmed in the course of the Pakistani operations against the Taliban, and that the Pakistani security forces withdraw from the Swat Valley district.

On March 5, 2009, the Pakistani authorities signed a second agreement with the Taliban, giving it even more power to regulate day-to-day life in the Swat Valley district. The second deal included the following clauses:

o Steps will be taken to end "obscenity" and "vulgarity."
o Music centers and shops selling "obscene CDs" will be closed.
o Shops and markets will be closed during prayer times.
o A campaign will be launched to raise public awareness to "social evils."
o Arrangements will be made for teaching Koran in prisons and for prison reforms.

As a further concession to the Taliban, the Pakistani military vacated Maulana Fazlullah's headquarters, which they had occupied, and handed it over to Sufi Muhammad.

Furthermore, the NWFP government has agreed to upgrade the Imam Dehri madrassa, supervised by Fazlullah, and turn it into an Islamic university equal in importance to Al-Azhar in Cairo. The university will be built at a cost of one billion Pakistani Rupees, and Sufi Muhammad will be its chancellor. It can be safely assumed that the Pakistani authorities will have no say in determining its curriculum.

It should be noted that the truce between the Taliban and the Pakistani authorities is not limited to the NWFP. On February 23, 2009, the Taliban in Bajaur Agency - one of the seven federally-administered tribal areas (FATAs) along the Afghan border - suddenly declared a unilateral ceasefire with the government forces,(14) and the latter accepted the truce on the following day.

The Taliban's Continued Violence against the Pakistani Forces in the Swat Valley District.
It is noteworthy that both the February 16 agreement and the March 5 agreement are unilateral in that they specify what the Taliban gets in the deal (namely a free hand to impose Shari'a law in the Swat-Malakand region), but do not explicitly obligate this movement to maintain the peace. In return for the February 16 deal, the Taliban did no more than give an unwritten promise that "the Taliban [forces] in Swat will be disarmed within a week," as Sufi Muhammad stated on February 17, 2009.

As a matter of fact, while the Pakistani army has been removing checkpoints in the Swat Valley in compliance with the Taliban demand, the Taliban itself has continued its violent activities against the government forces and officials in the region. On February 22, 2009, a few days after the signing of the February 16 deal, it kidnapped a top government official and his six body guards, who were subsequently released in exchange for two Taliban detainees.

Then, two days prior to the signing of the March 5 deal, the Taliban killed two Pakistani soldiers in the Swat Valley. The movement has also continued to attack army convoys carrying supplies to the Pakistani troops. The NWFP government has been reduced to pleading with the Taliban militants to refrain from moving about with their weapons slung over their shoulders, in full view.

In explaining the Taliban's continued violence, Maulana Fazlullah stated: "We have taken up arms to implement the Shari'a. Democracy is a system of the infidels."

The Cooperation between the Taliban and the Pakistani Military
The apparent capitulation of the Pakistani authorities to the Taliban demands is due - at least partially - to a long-standing strategic alliance between the Taliban and the Pakistani military. This alliance benefits the Taliban by allowing it to gradually realize its goal of asserting its control and imposing the Shari'a law in expanding areas of Pakistan. This goal has often been articulated by Taliban leaders. Two weeks after his release from prison, Sufi Muhammad vowed that, after the enforcement of the Shari'a in the Swat-Malakand region, Shari'a law would be enforced throughout Pakistan.

On March 23, 2009, he repeated this assertion, saying, "If people help me, I will work to enforce the Islamic Shari'a in every part of [the country]." In fact, some Pakistani officials seem to share the Taliban's goal. On February 24, 2009, Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani proposed to extend the Islamic Shari'a law to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATAs) along the Afghan border.

Pakistan, for its part, regards the Taliban and other jihad organizations as a useful ally in establishing its influence in Afghanistan and in confronting its rivals, including not only the West but also India. An example of the cooperation between them is the recent decision to launch a joint government-Taliban campaign against Indian intelligence agents in the Swat Valley.

The daily Rozmana Jang reported February 17, 2009 that "The [NWFP] administration and Maulana Sufi Muhammad will immediately take steps to clear the [district] of elements and criminals belonging to the Research and Analysis Wing [i.e., India's foreign intelligence agency], for the government has enough evidence of India's involvement in the current lawlessness in Swat."

Moreover, the cooperation of the Pakistani military is not only with the Pakistani Taliban, but with the Taliban as a whole, i.e., also with the Taliban in Afghanistan. This is evident from the recent interactions between the Taliban in Pakistan and Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan. In the beginning of 2009, three Taliban groups in Pakistan's Waziristan district formed a joint organization called Shura Ittihad Al-Mujahideen, under the command of three key figures in Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, namely Baitullah Mehsud, Maulvi Nazir and Maulvi Hafiz Gul Bahadur (the latter two are considered "pro-government").

The significant point is that, upon its establishment, the group pledged its allegiance to Mullah Omar, stating: "We regard Mullah Omar as our Amir-ul-Mumineen [i.e., Leader of the Faithful]." This refutes the opinion, often expressed by political analysis, that Mullah Omar does not represent the Taliban in Pakistan. Moreover, in a recent letter to the leaders of the Taliban in Waziristan, Mullah Omar ordered them not to attack the Pakistani security forces, because fighting Muslims could not be considered jihad. He added that the attacks on the Pakistani military were harming the Taliban movement, and that, if the Taliban fighters wanted to wage jihad, they should come to Afghanistan. As a matter of fact, the Afghan website www.taand.com reports that the Taliban and its "supporters" - meaning the Pakistani authorities - have reorganized their forces and are intensifying their attacks in Afghanistan.

The interaction between Mullah Omar and the Taliban in Pakistan belies the distinction sometimes made between Taliban-Pakistan and Taliban-Afghanistan. It implies that they constitute a single movement led by Mullah Omar - a movement which is currently inclined to cooperate with the Pakistani authorities.

The re-emergence of the Pakistan-Taliban alliance at this time may be linked to the advent of the Obama administration and to the changing strategic situation in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region. Realizing that Obama means to step up the U.S. campaign against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, the Pakistani military has recalibrated its strategic position and brought the Taliban into its fold, to serve as its proxy in a confrontation with the U.S. forces.

Indian and Afghan Reactions to the Shari'a-for-Peace Deals
India and Afghanistan have expressed considerable concern about the re-emerging Pakistan- Taliban alliance. Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee described the Taliban as a terrorist organization and the deal as danger to civilization, while his deputy, Anand Sharma, warned that the Swat Valley Shari'a-for-Peace deal could threaten India's security.

In Afghanistan, Foreign Ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen and political affairs expert Waheed Mazda described the deal as a threat to peace in the region, and the Afghani daily Kabul Times warned that, with the deal in place, the Pakistani Taliban would be a source of "new threats" to Afghanistan.

An article in the weekly of the Afghani Shi'ite party Eqtedar-e-Melli stated: "The concern felt by Afghanistan [and] by the international community over the [Shari'a for Peace] deal is based on our past experience. In the past - and even in the last seven years, during which Pakistan has officially been supporting Afghanistan's cause in the war against terrorism and the Taliban - [Pakistan's] policy has remained ambiguous, unfriendly and pro-Taliban... Every time a domestic crisis has befallen it, Pakistan has sought to export [its] problems to Afghanistan." Said Fazlullah Wahidi, governor of Afghanistan's Konar province, which borders Pakistan's Bajaur Agency, warned that the ceasefire in Bajaur would undermine the security of Afghanistan, where the Western forces are battling the Taliban.

(Tufail Ahmad is the director of MEMRI's Urdu-Pashtu Media Project.)

http://www.muslimworldtoday.com/memri10.htmSubscribe To Muslim World Today

South Asia Media
Taliban Say Bin Laden Welcome To Set Up Shop
India Probes Dispute Over 'Slumdog' Child Star
Afghanistan's Female Governor Strives To Change Attitudes And Habits
The Holbrooke Payback

Subscribe To Muslim World Today

To Read All These Articles And More

Published Bi-Weekly

http://www.muslimworldtoday.com/sub.htm

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Moslem Terrorists vs. Moslem Terrorist-financing Wahhabists--in India!

Qaeda threat to Saudis in India

from
The Saudi Gazette

Saudi diplomatic missions in New Delhi and Mumbai have issued a warning to Saudis in India after being alerted of an Al-Qaeda threat of attacks, an embassy official said.
Indian intelligence authorities stated that Al-Qaeda was planning attacks on the Saudi Consulate and the Saudi Airlines office in Mumbai, and Saudi Arabian Airlines (SAA) flights arriving in the city, according to the head of the Citizens Affairs Department at the Saudi Embassy in New Delhi.
Mumbai Police, including its Anti-Terrorist Squad, have been told to beef up security at the airport and the Saudi Consulate, the official said.
No change had been made to SAA schedules because of the threat perception, the official said.
The approximately 350 Saudi university students in India have been told to remain indoors and avoid crowded areas.
“We have been told to beef up security and to be on our toes,” a senior police official told DNA newspaper on condition of anonymity. “Just not the Saudi consulate, the cops are also checking Saudi interests in the city to make sure there is no untoward incident.”
The official added that intelligence alerts about terrorist organizations, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harkat-ul-Jehadi-Islami and Jaish-e-Mohammed, were frequently received from intelligence agencies. “We take all these intelligence alerts very seriously. But when it comes to Al-Qaeda, we need to be more vigilant. Their style of functioning is far superior and deadly as compared to other terror organizations. This threat is all the more important as it mentions airlines and airplanes. We all know what Al-Qaeda did on 9/11 in the US,” he said.
Vinay Karegaonkar, additional commissioner of police (protection and security), told the paper, “Security at important locations in the city is always high, as they are prone to terror threats. We do take such intelligence inputs seriously and beef up the security.”
Similar Al-Qaeda threats were reportedly received last month by Saudi missions in Pakistan, the Philippines and Kuwait.

Saudi Gazette April-11-2009
http://www.gulfinthemedia.com/index.php?id=464746&news_type=Top&lang=en

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Pakistan, the ISI, and the Taliban

"Why the Pakistan intelligence agency's close ties with the Taliban should not be condemned"
--Robert D. Kaplan

from Wider still yet wider
at Pajamas Media
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/04/11/wider-still-yet-wider/#more-3237
April 11th, 2009 4:13 pm

Richard Fernandez writes:

Robert Kaplan describes the logic for negotiating with the Taliban in order to “make progress and find an exit strategy” in Afghanistan. But halfway through the article the reader will come to the realization that Kaplan isn’t talking about the War in Afghanistan at all, but about something much larger: Pakistan, India, Pashtunistan, the Great Game. The discussion is about the Taliban only in the sense that when you talk about a dog, it necessarily includes the tail. Kaplan places the origins of the Taliban in Islamabad — and the region.

Remember, it wasn’t radicals burrowed deep within the ISI who made the decision to help bring the Taliban to power in the mid-1990s: it was the democratically elected government of the western-educated Benazir Bhutto who did that, on the theory that the Taliban would help bring stability to Afghanistan. This history indicates the degree to which talking to the Taliban has broad support within the Pakistani political establishment.

[quoting the article at The Atlantic]

The Pakistani military and political establishment both view Afghanistan through the lens of their conflict with India. When they look to the west they envision an “Islamistan” of Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries with which to face off against Hindu-dominated India to Pakistan’s east. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, with his pro-western and pro-Indian tendencies, gets in the way of this Pakistani vision. But even if Pakistan were to come to terms with Karzai, it would still need to have lines of contact with all Afghan groups, including the Taliban….

Sugata Bose, a history professor at Harvard, in 2003 described the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier area as “historically no frontier at all,” but the very “heart” of an “Indo-Persian and Indo-Islamic economic, cultural, and political domain that had straddled Afghanistan and Punjab for two millennia.” The fact, which we all keep repeating, that there is no solution for Afghanistan without a solution for Pakistan, is itself an indication of the extent to which both countries are joined. This makes it even more crucial for the ISI to maintain contacts and highly developed networks with all principle Afghani political and guerrilla groups.

[end quote from The Atlantic]

You can see where this is going. The idea is to resolve The War in Afghanistan in the framework of some grander regional bargain which will ’suck the life’ out of radical groups like al-Qaeda. Where have we seen this before? Veterans of the Bush Administration, who were reviled for accepting the doctrine that terrorism was largely state-supported or state-enabled, may now be watching a revival of their doctrine under a new brand name: shut down the state support for terror with diplomacy and voila! once you mop up the puddle it won’t come back. Except this time, the job is going to be accomplished not by a demonstration of military action, but a still undetermined combination of demonstrations of resolve and diplomacy. But since the Bush doctrine was never wholly reliant on arms and never completely without diplomacy, what this probably means is that the Obama administration simply means to alter the proportions between these two ingredients. They are going to get their chance to try out the new approach. How they will fare only the future will show.

The original The Atlantic article "Talking to the Taliban" (has more) can be found at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200904u/pakistan-taliban

Obama and India

India, for its part, is concerned by Obama's repeated assertions that its refusal to transfer control over the disputed Jammu and Kashmir provinces to Pakistan inspires Pakistani terror against India. It is equally distressed at the Obama administration's refusal to make ending Pakistan's support for jihadist terror groups attacking India a central component of its strategy for contending with Pakistan and Afghanistan. In general, Indian officials have expressed deep concern over the Obama administration's apparent lack of regard for India as an ally and a significant strategic counterweight to China.

***

AMERICA'S BETRAYAL of its democratic allies makes each of them more vulnerable to aggression at the hands of their enemies - enemies the Obama administration is now actively attempting to appease. And as the US strengthens their adversaries at their expense, these spurned democracies must consider their options for surviving as free societies in this new, threatening, post-American environment.

For the most part, America's scorned allies lack the ability to defeat their enemies on their own. India cannot easily defeat nuclear-armed Pakistan, which itself is fragmenting into disparate anti-Indian nuclear-wielding Islamist and Islamist-supporting factions.

***

THE RISKS that the newly inaugurated post-American world pose for America's threatened friends are clear. But viable opportunities for survival do exist, and Israel can and must play a central role in developing them. Specifically, Israel must move swiftly to develop active strategic alliances with Japan, Iraq, Poland, and the Czech Republic and it must expand its alliance with India.

from Surviving in a post-American world Caroline Glick

Read it all at http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/04/obamas-emasculation-of-our-country-.html

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Islamic concept of Al-Taqiyah to infiltrate and destroy kafir countries



























Title: Islamic concept of Al-Taqiyah to infiltrate and destroy kafir countries
Author: Dr. Walid
Publication: BHARATIYA PRAGNA
Date: JUNE 2000 VOLUME 2 NUMBER 6
URL: http://www.pragna.org/Art20615.html (apparently now a dead link)


This article by Dr. Walid, a top scholar at the Islamic University, exposes our so-called secular Indian Muslims. By the doctrine of Al-Taqiyah, Muslims dominate crime syndicates, increase population by massive Bangladeshi infiltration and make temporary alliances with Dalits, Christians, etc.

In the early years of the Islamic conquest of the Arabian peninsula and in the Fatah (Arab-Islamic invasion and conquest of the upper Middle East and the outside world), a Muslim concept was devised to achieve success against the enemy (non Muslims), Al-Taqiyah. Al-Taqiyah, from the verb Ittaqu, means linguistically dodge the threat. Politically it means simulate whatever status you need in order to win the war against the enemy ...

According to Al-Taqiyah, Muslims were granted the Shar'iyee right (legitimacy) to infiltrate the Dar el-Harb (war zone), infiltrate the enemy's cities and forums and plant the seeds of discord and sedition. These agents were acting on behalf of the Muslim authority at war, and therefore were not considered as lying against or denouncing the tenants of Islam.

They were "legitimate" mujahedeen, whose mission was to undermine the enemy's resistance and level of mobilization. One of their major objectives was to cause a split among the enemy's camp while downplaying the issues related to Islam ("Oh, I am not religious." "Oh, that is not Islam, you are mistaken, there is so much misinformation." "Oh, it is in the interpretation." "Brother, Islam is all about peace and love and music just like in the 60s.") In many instances, they convinced their targeted audiences that Jihad is not aimed at them, that indigenous people are not targeted. Meanwhile the (allegedly) "un Islamic" Muslims continued their attacks on the target's property and life (e.g. Lashkar-e Toyiba, Mujahideen and Osama Bin Laden's
declaration of war against innocent American civilians).

They convinced many Jews that they will be protected from Christians, and they convinced many Christians that Jews were the mortal enemies, because they killed Issa (Jesus). They convinced the Aramaics, Copts, and Hebrews that the enemy is Greece, and signed peace agreements with the Bysantines Greeks at the expense of Maronite Aramaics, etc.

They convinced the knitted diversity of India to degrade into civil war by introduction of a variant Buddhist / mystical Islam (Sufism which is decried as "deviant Islam" used to ease the transition of new recruits from local communities) creating divisions (based on Muslim - Non Muslim) eventually fomenting unrest and chaos in the land to prepare it for waves of armed Invasion (Mohammad bin Qasim, Mahmud Ghaznavi, etc.).

Even today, India is bitterly divided and getting slowly Islamised as battle lines form between hordes of overzealous Muslims (armed and trained in madrasahs) and the more pacifist civilians of urban dwellings.

This Jihadic agency of subversion was one of the most fascinating and efficient arms of the conquest. In less than four decades, the Middle East fell to the Arab-Islamic rule [since Arab society was divided again between pagan and Muslim resulting in nephews and sons killing their uncles and fathers in cold blood] followed by North Africa and Central Asia [this was the era of hordes like tribal conquests where barbaric savages invaded pacifist civilians in towns of major civilizations; the same scenario replayed itself against the Arab-Islamic world with the Invasion of the Mongolian hordes].

Al-Taqiyah was a formidable weapon, used by the first dynasties and strategists. Today, scholars may identify it as deception. But the Jihadic deception was and still is more powerful than the James Bondian methods of Western classical intelligence tactics, for the simple reason that it has a civilizational, global dimension versus the narrow State interest of the regular Western subversive
methods.

Al-Taqiyah is still in use today (and is widely practised and acknowledged by the Shi'ite sect) but not necessarily State-organized. Arab-Islamic missionaries are slowly converting the disillusioned criminal classes of the Western world by feeding them a Western "moderate" version of Islam (at the same time denouncing the actions of Muslims in the rest of the world as Un Islamic e.g. Taliban, GIA & FIA [Armed Islamic Front] of Algeria, Hamas, Lashkar -e Toyiba, Bin Laden and company, etc.)

It is done to prevent the new converts from seeing the real face of Islam; at least until their faith or mental conditioning is strong enough to make them turn against their own country and people.

A good example is the growing influence of Islamists in the Americas. On the one hand, American embassies, trade facilities, soldiers and intelligence infrastructures are under attack (but denounced as un-Islamic for the benefit of the new American converts).

On the other hand, the multiplying Islamic community (due to illegal immigration, paper marriages, religious visas granted to the religious men) attempts to pass itself off as "peace loving" and patriotic. In their own circles, the same community will liberally and violently denounce America, the West and its values (freedom, individualism, secularism, capitalism, scientific materialism, benign rehabilitation of criminals, prevention of cruelty against animals, women and gay rights).

One can easily detect Taqiyah in the two discourses used by Islamist strategists. On the one hand, one comprehensive Islamist theory is attempting to mobilize the Middle East, and sometimes Western Christian leaders and intellectuals, against "evil Jews".

They are forming alliances with everyone from Animal Rights' groups (to attack the Jewish tradition of slaughter which is ironically similar in cruelty to the Islamic way) to Far Right fundamentalists (to push for censorship of critiques of Islam and attack every forward thinking movement like women's rights and gay rights).

We see considerable success on that level. And on the other hand, another Islamist comprehensive theory is attempting - with success also - to mobilize the Jews against "evil and pagan Christians".

One can easily detect the sophisticated work of Taqiyah, for the strategic objective of Islamists is to destroy the foundations of the non Muslim civilizations, as a prelude to the defeat of an isolated Israel, India, United States of America, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Egypt, Afghanistan, etc.

Taqiyah is not a unique phenomenon in history. Many strategists from all backgrounds implemented subversion. But the uniqueness of today's Taqiyah is its success within advanced and sophisticated societies. Taqiyah is winning massively because of the immense lack of knowledge among Western elites, both Jewish and Christian.

For interesting examples of Taqiyah methods, visit Christian discussion groups and forums and note the discourse of Islamist visitors aimed at undermining the Christian perception of Jews, and visit Jewish discussion groups and forums and note the subtle anti-Christian discourse of Islamist visitors. It is really informative and fascinating.

AND

Preventing the West from Understanding Jihad
By Walid Phares

In the years that followed 9/11, two phenomena characterized the Western public's understanding of the terrorists' ideology. The first characteristic stemmed from the statements made by the jihadists themselves. More than ever, Islamist militants and jihadi cadres didn't waste any opportunity to declare, clarify, explain, and detail the meaning of their aqida (doctrine) and their intentions to apply Jihadism by all means possible. Unfortunately for them, though, those extremely violent means changed the international public opinion: the public now was convinced that there was an ideology of Jihadism, and that its adherents meant business worldwide.

From Ayman al Zawahiri in Arabic to Azzam al Amriki in American English, via all of the videotapes made by "martyrs" in Britain, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the public obtained all the evidence necessary. Against all the faulty academic literature of the 1990's, the statements by the jihadists themselves were very convincing.

The second phenomenon of help to the public was the surfacing of a new literature produced by alternative scholars, analysts, journalists, experts, and researchers who, from different backgrounds and countries, filled in some of the gaps is "jihadi studies." Producing books, articles, and blogs from Europe, India, the Middle East, and North America, a combination of Third World-born and Western-issued scholarship began to provide the "missing link" as to what Jihadism is all about. These factors came together to shift the debate from "Jihad is spiritual yoga" to "Why didn't we know it was something else as well?" And this triggered in response one of the last attempts to prevent jihad from being understood.


In the 1990's, apologist literature attempted to convince readers and audiences in the West that jihad was a "spiritual experience only, and not a menace." [1] That explanation has now been shattered by Bin Laden and Ahmedinijad. So in the post-9/11 age, a second strategy to delay public understanding of Jihadism and thereby gain time for its adherents to achieve their goals has evolved. It might be called the "good cop, bad cop" strategy. Over the past few years, a new story began to make inroads in Washington and the rest of the national defense apparatus. A group of academics and interest groups are circulating the idea that in reality jihad can develop in two forms: good jihad and bad jihad.


The practice of not using "Jihad" and "Jihadism" was lately defended by two academics at the National Defense University [2] who based their arguments on a study published by a Washington lobbyist, Jim Guirard.[3] On June 22, 2006, Jim Garamone, writing for the American Forces Press Service, published the study of Douglas Streusand and Harry Tunnel under the title "Loosly Interpreted Arabic terms can promote enemy ideology." Streusand told CNN that "Jihad is a term of great and positive import in Islam. It is commonly defined as striving or struggle, and can mean an internal or external struggle for faith." [4]

The article was posted under the title "Cultural Ignorance Leads to Misuse of Islamic Terms" by the US-based Islamist organization CAIR. [5] Since then the "concept" of deflecting attention away from the study of Jihadism has penetrated large segments of the defense newsletters and is omnipresent in Academia. More troubling though, is the fact that scholars who have seen the strategic threat of al Qaeda and Hezbollah have unfortunately fallen for the fallacy of the Hiraba. Professor Michael Waller of the Institute of World Politics in Washington wrote recently that "Jihad has been hijacked" as he bases his argument on Jim Guirard's lobbying pieces.[6] Satisfied with this trend taking root in the Defense intelligentsia of America, Islamist intellectuals and activists are hurrying to support this new tactic.


The good holy war is when the right religious and political authorities declare it against the correct enemy and at the right time. The bad jihad, called also Hiraba, is the wrong war, declared by bad (and irresponsible) people against the wrong enemy (for the moment), and without an appropriate authorization by the "real" Muslim leadership. According to this thesis, those Muslims who wage a Hiraba, a wrong war, are called Mufsidoon, from the Arabic word for "spoilers." The advocates of this ruse recommend that the United States and its allies stop calling the jihadists by that name and identifying the concept of Jihadism as the problem. In short, they argue that "jihad is good, but the Mufsidoon, the bad guys and the terrorists, spoiled the original legitimate sense."[7]

When researched, it turns out that this theory was produced by clerics of the Wahabi regime in Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood as a plan to prevent jihad and Jihadism from being considered by the West and the international community as an illegal and therefore forbidden activity. It was then forwarded to American- and Western-based interest groups to be spread within the Untied States, particularly within the defense and security apparatus. Such a deception further confuses U.S. national security perception of the enemy and plunges democracies back into the "black hole" of the 1990's. This last attempt to blur the vision of democracies can be exposed with knowledge of the jihadi terror strategies and tactics, one of which is known as Taqiya, the doctrine on deception and deflection. [8]


First, the argument of "good jihad" raises the question of how there can be a legitimate concept of religious war in the twenty-first century to start with. Jihad historically was as "good" as any other religious war over the last 2,000 years. If a "good jihad" is the one authorized by a caliph and directed under his auspices, then other world leaders also can wage a "good crusade" at will, as long as it is licensed by the proper authority. But in fact, all religious wars are proscribed by international law, period.

Second, the authors of this lobbyist-concocted theory claim that a wrong jihad is called a Hiraba. But in Arab Muslim history, a Hiraba (unauthorized warring) was when a group of warriors launched itself against the enemy without orders from the real commander. Obviously, this implies that a "genuine" war against a real enemy does exist and that these hotheaded soldiers have simply acted without orders. Hence this cunning explanation puts "spin" on jihad but leaves the core idea of jihadism completely intact. The "spoilers" depart from the plan, attack prematurely, and cause damage to the caliphate's long-terms plans. These Mufsidoon "fail" their commanders by unleashing a war of their own, instead of waiting for orders.

This scenario fits the relations of the global jihadists, who are the regimes and international groups slowly planning to gain power against the infidels and the "hotheaded" Osama bin Laden. Thus the promoters of this theory of Hiraba and Mufsidoon are representing the views of classical Wahabis and the Muslim Brotherhood in their criticism of the "great leap forward" made by bin Laden. But by convincing Westerners that al Qaeda and its allies are not the real jihadists but some renegades, the advocates of this school would be causing the vision of Western defense to become blurred again so that more time could be gained by a larger, more powerful wave of Jihadism that is biding its time to strike when it chooses, under a coherent international leadership.


Dr Walid Phares is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a visiting scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy. This piece was adapted from his recently published book The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] See John Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? 3rd edition. (New York: Oxford University Press) 1999.


[2] May 23, 2006


[3] "Hiraba Versus Jihad," the American Muslim. August 2003.


[4] See Henry Shuster, "Words in War," CNN, October 19, 2006.


[5] Quoting the American Forces Press Service on June 29, 2006.


[6] Michael Waller. "Making Jihad Work for America." The Journal for International Security Affairs. Spring 2006


[7] (7) See James Fallows, "Declaring Victory," Atlantic Monthly (September 2006).


[8] (8) According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Taqiya: "spelled Taqiyah, Arabic Taqiyah ("self-protection"), in Islam, [is] the practice of concealing one's belief and foregoing ordinary religious duties when under threat of death or injury to oneself or one's fellow Muslims. The Qu'ran allows Muslims to profess friendship with the unbelievers (3:28) and even outwardly to deny their faith (16:106), if doing so would save them from imminent danger," on the condition that their hearts remain attached to faith. Also see Larry Stirling, "On Taqiya' and ‘Fatwas,'" San Diego Source, September 25, 2006; also Walid Phares, "al-Taqiyah: The Muslim Method of Conquest," Freeman Center for Strategic Studies, December 1997.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/preventing_the_west_from_under.html
at March 15, 2009 - 09:38:05 PM EDT

Friday, February 27, 2009