Terrorism in London

If one wants to understand the nature and motivation of the egyptian brotherhood, which revived Sunni islamism in the early 1900's, and understand the nature and motivation of the iranian theocrats, who revived Shis Islamism and then immediately kidnapped Americans in 1979, and to understand the nature and motivation behind the global Islamist terror movement, then one must understand why they passionately believe themselves to be true to their faith. What's more, there is a civil war in the islamic world between the islamists and all others. neither can that be understood without knowing the faith.and thus, this is not a personal thing at all. It is something of dramatic import to us all, as the terrorists hate us for who we are, part of judeo-Christian civilization that their faith was born to displace, and liberal democacies, which because they innately appeal to muslims as they do us, are the ideological enemy of Islamism. The islamists know that in order to successfully complete their march to imperial control over the islamic world, they must, first, get the American military out of their sphere, where it defends the enemies of islamism, and they must, second, discredit the notion of liberal democracy by demonstrating it to be weak and immoral. And all this they do in resilute conviction of being true to the faith, citing the koran always, even when cutting off heads of live victims (the Koran makes many references to cutting off heads).

Who is true to their faith matters because it greatly determines how soluable is the problem. Christians who bear you grievous harm are not true to their faith and, therefore, will have to commit seriously illegal and punishable offenses to do so. Nor do they have, therefore, much support, overall, in the Christian community. They are isolated and seen by the majority of believing Christians as not only wrong (if they commits acts of terror or single you out for assassination), but to be violating their faith. Such sanctions and perspective keeps the small movement of truly fanatical Christians (those who might fly planes into buildings or bomb subway trains) in check.In contrast, Muslims who bear you, me, all other western liberal democrats and truly peaceful, tolerant, democratically-minded Muslims grievous harm are, very rationally and arguably, true to their faith. That makes it not only harder to convince them not to feel, see and act as they do, but it provides them a huge support system of like-believing Muslims. Worse, while many non violent Muslism disapprove of their methods, their aims have their sympathy and, therefore,a kind of ambivalent support. Thus, fanatical Christians are under control and in the tiny minority, while fanatical muslims are not under control and, while a small minority, they have support from a sizeable minority worldwide, even right here at home. That makes the problem difficult to solve.To sum: If Christians are not true to their faith when they carry out terrorist war, they are easier to control. And so they are. But if Muslims are true to their faith when they so act, they are far harder to control. And so it is.

Again, we'll have to agree to disagree.

We have publicly funded art exhibits of a cross in urine. But if we throw pages of the koran into a toilet there are riots in islamic countries. we have Muslims preaching to prisoners in our prisons, but Chruches burned to the ground in Muslims nations, along with those inside. To even begin to suggest that religious tolerance here is similar to that in islamic nations is just plain nuts.

Laughable, except that islamists are killing in the name of their faith all over the globe, and almost everywhere that an islamic nation borders on a non islamic nation there is active or smouldering war, and almost everywhere that there is a sizeable islamic minority, there is either violence within, or serious social conflicts that typically do not exist with other minorities. And such is the long history of islam. Why? Because of the faith.

Do you log onto Front Page Magazine? If not, you will appreciate it: frontpagemagazine.com

have you not read huntington's The Clash of Civilizations? My information comes from many sources, including, as may surprise you, several islamic writers. As for front page magazine...its rhetoric is sometimes over the top, although no more than many popualr leftist sites, like moveon.org. But its themese are, generally, reasonable. Interestingly, while it was treated dismissively originally, its influence has grown to where it is now treated angrily. Take the Academic bill of Rights: laughed at, then roused anger, then key associations who opposed it grudgingly accepted its principles, along with senate legislatures.

Again, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

We'll also have to agree to disagree about who is in command of the facts.

Again, and again, and again, we'll have to disagree about the reasoning, the facts, the sources, and whatever else. Neither of us will convince the other of anything, including the greater credibility of our respective sources.

From the Koran.

You attribute to me: "CS's argument was that only those that are militant fundamentalists are the "real" muslims."That's not what I said. Rather, i said that the terrorist islamists are no less true to their faith, and that is why they have too much quiet support in Islamic culture. Islam is presently at civil war with itself, a war fought between those who believe in militant Jihad, and those who do not. This is not a new war. It has been fought on and off for centuries. That is because the faith does, in fact, call for war against infidels until all the world is conquered and ruled by islam. And yet, that is so immoral that a great many Muslims have refused to acquiesce and insist on interpreting the faith otherwise. That's good, and when democracy comes to the Islmaic world - and it will - these people will win out. In the meantime, we westerners haev been dragged into their civil war.Here's are excerptes from three articles that in part explains this.Mark Steyn:
Terrorism ends when the broader culture refuses to tolerate it. There would be few if any suicide bombers in the Middle East if "martyrdom" were not glorified by imams and politicians, if pictures of local "martyrs" were not proudly displayed in West Bank grocery stores, if Muslim banks did not offer special "martyrdom" accounts to the relicts thereof, if schools did not run essay competitions on "Why I want to grow up to be a martyr"
shortened the link""Breeding grounds for suicide bombers," from Tavleen Singh in Indian Express:With Ayodhya on my mind I sat down to write a piece on how Islamic terrorism will not be defeated until we deal with the mullahs and madrasas who breed the suicide bombers and Islamic fundamentalists. I was still writing it when London exploded. This was not some distant horror but deeply personal since I have a son who lives in that city. He could have been on the bus, on the underground or just walking down a street. When I tried desperately to call him I found it impossible to get through and thought of all the others who might be trying as desperately to call a loved one and those who may have lost sons, brothers, sisters, parents, friends just because Islamic fundamentalists believe terrorism is their sacred duty.Tony Blair called the acts of terrorism in London ''barbaric'' and said that the terrorists would not succeed because the civilised world was more determined to defend ''our values and our way of life'' than the terrorists are to cause death and destruction. But, they will succeed because no Western leaders and certainly not our own ''secular'' lot have shown any determination when it comes to dealing with the mullahs and the venomous ideology they preach through Islamic seminaries...The Prophet's mission, as interpreted by the mullahs, also involves converting us infidels to the faith because otherwise we are a constant threat to Islam. This is where the problem begins.If the mullahs used the religious seminaries to teach love and peace and respect for other people and religions, Muslims would find it easier to live with the rest of the world. But, they teach jehad and bigotry and it is from these teachings that Islamic terrorism is born. In India, if we want to tackle the problem we could begin by demanding a White Paper from the government on how many madrasas exist on our secular soil, when they were
built and where they get their funds from. I am willing to bet that most have come up in the past 15 years and that the money comes from the same Middle Eastern countries that funded last week's bombings in London and 9/11. As long as we pretend that this is not true we remain in danger of losing the war against terrorism.Yep."
Sucuri WebSite Firewall - Access DeniedIn his just-released, absorbing, and excellent book, Understanding Jihad (University of California Press), David Cook of Rice University dismisses the low-grade debate that has raged since 9/11 over the nature of jihad - whether it is a form of offensive warfare or (more pleasantly) a type of moral self-improvement.Mr. Cook dismisses as "bathetic and laughable" John Esposito's contention that jihad refers to "the effort to lead a good life." Throughout history and at present, Mr. Cook definitively establishes, the term primarily means "warfare with spiritual significance."His achievement lies in tracing the evolution of jihad from Muhammad to Osama, following how the concept has changed through fourteen centuries. This summary does not do justice to Cook's extensive research, prolific examples, and thoughtful analysis, but even a thumbnail sketch suggests jihad's evolution.The Koran invites Muslims to give their lives in exchange for assurances of paradise.The Hadith (accounts of Muhammad's actions and personal statements) elaborate on the Koran, providing specific injunctions about treaties, pay, booty, prisoners, tactics, and much else. Muslim jurisprudents then wove these precepts into a body of law.During his years in power, the prophet engaged in an average of nine military campaigns a year, or one every five to six weeks; thus did jihad help define Islam from its very dawn. Conquering and humiliating non-Muslims was a main feature of the prophet's jihad.During the first several centuries of Islam, "the interpretation of jihad was unabashedly aggressive and expansive." After the conquests subsided, non-Muslims hardly threatened and Sufi notions of jihad as self-improvement developed in complement to the martial meaning.The Crusades, the centuries-long European effort to control the Holy Land, gave jihad a new urgency and prompted what Cook calls the "classical" theory of jihad. Finding themselves on the defensive led to a hardening of Muslim attitudes.The Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century subjugated much of the Muslim world, a catastrophe only partially mitigated by the Mongols' nominal conversion to Islam. Some thinkers, Ibn Taymiya (d. 1328) in particular, came to distinguish between true and false Muslims; and to give jihad new prominence by judging the validity of a person's faith according to his willingness to wage jihad.Nineteenth century "purification jihads" took place in several regions against fellow Muslims. The most radical and consequential of these was the Wahhabis' jihad in Arabia. Drawing on Ibn Taymiya, they condemned most non-Wahhabi Muslims as infidels (kafirs) and waged jihad against them.European imperialism inspired jihadi resistance efforts, notably in India, the Caucasus, Somalia, Sudan, Algeria, and Morocco, but all in the end failed. This disaster meant new thinking was needed.Islamist new thinking began in Egypt and India in the 1920s but jihad acquired its contemporary quality of radical offensive warfare only with the Egyptian thinker Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966). Qutb developed Ibn Taymiya's distinction between true and false Muslims to deem non-Islamists to be non-Muslims and then declare jihad on them. The group that assassinated Anwar El-Sadat in 1981 then added the idea of jihad as the path to world domination.The anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan led to the final step (so far) in this evolution. In Afghanistan, for the first time, jihadis assembled from around the world to fight on behalf of Islam. A Palestinian, Abdullah Azzam, became the theorist of global jihad in the 1980s, giving it an unheard-of central role, judging each Muslim exclusively by his contribution to jihad, and making jihad the salvation of Muslims and Islam. Out of this quickly came suicide terrorism and bin Laden.Mr. Cook's erudite and timely study has many implications, including these:* The current understanding of jihad is more extreme than at any prior time in Islamic history.
* This extremism suggests that the Muslim world is going through a phase, one that must be endured and overcome, comparable to analogously horrid periods in Germany, Russia, and China.
* Jihad having evolved steadily until now, doubtless will continue to do so in the future.
* The excessive form of jihad currently practiced by Al-Qaeda and others could, Mr. Cook semi-predicts, lead to its "decisive rejection" by a majority of Muslims. Jihad then could turn into a non-violent concept.The great challenge for moderate Muslims (and their non-Muslim allies) is to make that rejection come about, and with due haste.This message has been edited by AdminJar, 07-12-2005 03:04 PM

Cook says, in fact, as do most other islamic and non islamic scholars that:
'"Throughout history and at present... the term (Jihad) primarily means "warfare with spiritual significance."' That is war, plain and simple.As for iraq, the people are on side with the Americans. Who is killing them? The Jihadis. Why are the Jihadis killing them? Because they failed to scare off the Americans, so hope, instead, to intimidate iraqis from the democratic course they've chosen. Who are the Jihadis? Mainly Sunni foreigners, the majority of Iraqis being Shias and Kurds.Arabs elsewhere may support bin Laden, but iraqis do not. They despise him, other than the minority Sunni iraqis, and amny of them are Hussein loyalists, p'd off that they lost their privileges as the ruling class when he was pushed from power.bin Laden correctly noted, right after 9/11, that people favour "the strong horse." Of course, he figured that he had positioned himself as that, and would gain the respect and support of Muslims. He did, too, for a little while. But when the taliban quickly fell, and the US appeared to be the strong horse, his support dwindled a bit. After Iraq, it is on a downward trend. When iraqi democracy takes root, it will be over for him and the rest of the Islamists. No, they won't be wiped out. Rather, their Islamist ideology will have begun its inevitable defeat to democracy. And that is precisely why jihadis from around the world have poured into iraq: it is their last stand, and they know it.

You say that the definition of Jihad is not relevant to your post. Yet, you wrote:"But the quoted passage from Cook also suggests another implication. As I read Cook's passage, I notice that he seems to draw a picture of jihad as an expression of resistance against invasion, conquest, and imperialism."That is a reference to Jihad, and implies it to mean "resistance" rather than war of aggression. I indicated that, in fact, through most of islam's history, and certainly during Mohammed's time, it definitely meant aggression, not resistance - as Cook pointed out.You then go on to say that this relates to Iraq. I responded that in no way does it relate to iraq. The insurgency is not a resistance, it is war by jihadi foreigners, teamed up with the Iraqi minority Sunni Hussein loyalists. When iraqis voted in huge numbers, it was a very big deal precisely because they proved, in the act of voting, that they supported US efforts to build a democracy, and concurrently defied the violence before and terrorism threatended by the Jihadis at the poll stations. As i said before, the Jihadis (and Hussein loyalists) are desperately afraid of democracy arising in iraq, adn that is why they have poured so many people over the border from everywhere. Meanwhile, despite all their terror - suicide bombers killing over a thousand iraqis thus far - the iraqis are, pretty much, telling them to Go F'k themselves. That is, they, with determination, continue to build their democracy. Their democratically elected interim government, charged with creating a constitution, has done what no westerners thought possible: All the various interests, especially thte majority Shias, have compromised significantly so that the minorities will feel secure and well represented in teh political system. Thus, Kurds are given even more autonomy than are US states. Thus, proportional representation is assured for Sunnis, even though most of them, unlike the Shias and Kurds, were sufficiently scared of teh Jihadis and Hussein Sunni loyalists not to vote (because those terrorist groups were based in the Sunni area of teh country).I posted an article of Amir tehari's earlier in one of these threads which discussed much of this.

This writer is a religious Muslim, but also a moderate and passionate democrat.AND THIS IS WHY THEY DID IT
by Amir Taheri
The Times
July 8, 2005
There is no way to reason with the terrorists, but the thinking behind their actions is perfectly clear
THE FIRST QUESTION that comes to mind is: what took them so long? The answer may be that in the past four years the British authorities have succeeded in preventing attacks on a number of occasions. David Blunkett, who was then Home Secretary, was often mocked for suggesting that this was the case.It may take some time before the full identity of the attackers is established. But the ideology that motivates them, the networks that sustain them and the groups that finance them are all too well known.Moments after yesterday's attacks my telephone was buzzing with requests for interviews with one recurring question: but what do they want? That reminded me of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film-maker, who was shot by an Islamist assassin on his way to work in Amsterdam last November. According to witnesses, Van Gogh begged for mercy and tried to reason with his assailant. "Surely we can discuss this," he kept saying as the shots kept coming. "Let us talk it over."Van Gogh, who had angered Islamists with his documentary about the mistreatment of women in Islam, was reacting like BBC reporters did yesterday, assuming that the man who was killing him may have some reasonable demands which could be discussed in a calm, democratic atmosphere.But sorry, old chaps, you are dealing with an enemy that does not want anything specific, and cannot be talked back into reason through anger management or round-table discussions. Or, rather, this enemy does want something specific: to take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make round the clock and, if you dare resist, he will feel it his divine duty to kill you.The ideological soil in which alQaeda, and the many groups using its brand name, grow was described by one of its original masterminds, the Pakistani Abul-Ala al-Maudoodi more than 40 years ago. It goes something like this: when God created mankind He made all their bodily needs and movements subject to inescapable biological rules but decided to leave their spiritual, social and political needs and movements largely subject to their will. Soon, however, it became clear that Man cannot run his affairs the way God wants. So God started sending prophets to warn man and try to goad him on to the right path. A total of 128,000 prophets were sent, including Moses and Jesus. They all failed. Finally, God sent Muhammad as the last of His prophets and the bearer of His ultimate message, Islam. With the advent of Islam all previous religions were "abrogated" (mansukh), and their followers regarded as "infidel" (kuffar). The aim of all good Muslims, therefore, is to convert humanity to Islam, which regulates Man's spiritual, economic, political and social moves to the last detail.But what if non-Muslims refuse to take the right path? Here answers diverge. Some believe that the answer is dialogue and argument until followers of the "abrogated faiths" recognise their error and agree to be saved by converting to Islam. This is the view of most of the imams preaching in the mosques in the West. But others, including Osama bin Laden, a disciple of al-Maudoodi, believe that the Western-dominated world is too mired in corruption to hear any argument, and must be shocked into conversion through spectacular ghazavat (raids) of the kind we saw in New York and Washington in 2001, in Madrid last year, and now in London.That yesterday's attack was intended as a ghazava was confirmed in a statement by the Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaeda of Jihad Organisation in Europe, an Islamist group that claimed responsibility for yesterday's atrocity. It said "We have fulfilled our promise and carried out our blessed military raid (ghazava) in Britain after our mujahideen exerted strenuous efforts over a long period of time to ensure the success of the raid." Those who carry out these missions are the ghazis, the highest of all Islamic distinctions just below that of the shahid or martyr. A ghazi who also becomes a shahid will be doubly meritorious.There are many Muslims who believe that the idea that all other faiths have been "abrogated" and that the whole of mankind should be united under the banner of Islam must be dropped as a dangerous anachronism. But to the Islamist those Muslims who think like that are themselves regarded as lapsed, and deserving of death.It is, of course, possible, as many in the West love to do, to ignore the strategic goal of the Islamists altogether and focus only on their tactical goals. These goals are well known and include driving the "Cross-worshippers" (Christian powers) out of the Muslim world, wiping Israel off the map of the Middle East, and replacing the governments of all Muslim countries with truly Islamic regimes like the one created by Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and by the Taleban in Afghanistan.How to achieve those objectives has been the subject of much debate in Islamist circles throughout the world, including in London, since 9/11. Bin Laden has consistently argued in favour of further ghazavat inside the West. He firmly believes that the West is too cowardly to fight back and, if terrorised in a big way, will do "what it must do". That view was strengthened last year when al-Qaeda changed the Spanish Government with its deadly attack in Madrid. At the time bin Laden used his "Madrid victory" to call on other European countries to distance themselves from the United States or face similar "punishment".Bin Laden's view has been challenged by his supposed No 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who insists that the Islamists should first win the war inside several vulnerable Muslim countries, notably Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Until yesterday it seemed that al-Zawahiri was winning the argument, especially by heating things up in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yesterday, the bin Laden doctrine struck back in London.The author is an Iranian commentator on Middle Eastern affairs.