What to do about Islam
I was reminded of this post on reading Feith’s War and Decision. The problem for him was:“Pres Bush … the United States was in no way at war with the religion of Islam. The extremist ideology we were fighting was that of an international network – in the nature of a political movement – that selectively uses Islamic ideas and vocabulary to put itself at war, not only with all non-Muslims but with virtually all Muslims too.”
What a distortion of the truth!Even so he realized as did Rumsfield that “ideas – information, influence ideology – could contribute decisively to our ultimate success, even more than military, intelligence or police actions could.” He asks “what could we do to encourage Muslims to speak openly against the extremists’ views and to make extremist ideology less attractive?” “Who were (or might become) the most influential voices to oppose Jihadist violence?”They were on the right track about what was needed to be done, assuming such people could be found. But this was the responsibility of State and neither Powell nor Armitage had any interest in pursuing it. They said “nothing could be done to push back against Jihadist extremism until we resolved terrorism’s “root causes” defined as economic despair and the Arab-Israel conflict.” Is it possible to be so stupid in high places?Nevertheless Feith created the Office of Strategic Influence to take up the slack but a turf war with State ensued and it died an early death.
By Ted Belman (written in June 11/11)
Four years ago I wrote America’s Limited Options. In it, I duscussed what I thought the US should do regarding moderate Muslims.
US Options
Bush has taken the first step by dropping the use of the phrase “war on terror” and now refers to the battle “as a global war of ideology against a network of terrorists”. He remains unwilling to finger the Saudi support for the Wahhabist ideology which leads to terrorism. To talk about root causes of terror, that has to rank way up there.
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Egypt under Muslim Brotherhood
Jerry Gordon is a friend and colleague of mine and is a very knowledgeable interviewer. He is the Sr. Editor of New English Review and the Iconoclast. He interviews many leading activists and intellectuals and has published his interviews under the title, The West Speaks.
His most recent interviewee is Raymond stock who he introduces as follows:
An Interview with Raymond Stock
by Jerry Gordon and Raymond Stock (November 2012)
by Jerry Gordon and Raymond Stock (November 2012)
In December 2010, after spending two decades in Egypt as an academic and translator of the works of Egyptian Nobel Laureate, the late Naguib Mahfouz, ex-pat Detroit native, Raymond Stock was denied entry and deported by the Mubarak regime. He had apparently crossed the line when in 2009, he authored a Foreign Policy article, “Very, Very Lost in Translation,” about the anti-Semitic rants of former Mubarak cultural minister, Farouk Hosni, who was jockeying to be nominated as head of UNESCO. Stock wrote of Hosni: (Read more…)
Somethings rotten in the schools of Demark
JUST HOW BAD CAN IT GET? REAL BAD.
One day around the beginning of October, a sixth-grade class in Ejerlykkeskolen, a school in Odense, Denmark, was supposed to watch a film. But five or six students made some kind of a disturbance. The details are unclear; the point is that, in one way or another, they disrupted the class and made it impossible for their classmates to view the film. Their teacher tried to control them, but without success. Finally she gave up and sent them down to the principal, a woman named Birgitte Sonsby.
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60% of US Muslims reject freedom of expression
After violent Muslim reactions to the amateurish “Innocence of Muslims” video, which simply depicted a few of the less salutary aspects of Muhammad’s biography, international and domestic Islamic agendas have openly converged with vehement calls for universal application of Islamic blasphemy law.
This demand to abrogate Western freedom of expression was reiterated in a parade of speeches by Muslim leaders at the UN General Assembly. The US Muslim community echoed such admonitions, for example during a large demonstration in Dearborn, Michigan, and in a press release by the Islamic Circle of North America. (Read more…)
Benghazi Reveals Obama-Islamist Alliance
- We have therefore followed a single “community disorganizing” policy toward the Muslim world, consisting of betraying moderates to bring theocratic fascists to power. Obama “explained” that policy in a publicized argument with Hillary Clinton at the White House when Mubarak was overthrown. His explanation? Fascist revolutions are “organic,” and therefore more stable than moderate revolutions.
The nature of the Benghazi disaster is now clear. Ambassador Stevens was engaged in smuggling sizable quantities of Libyan arms from the destroyed Gaddafi regime to the Syrian rebels, to help overthrow the Assad regime in Syria. Smuggling arms to the so-called “Free Syrian Army” is itself a huge gamble, but Obama has been a gambler with human lives over the last four years, as shown by the tens of thousands of Arabs who have died in the so-called Arab Spring — which has brought nothing but disaster to the Arab world. (Read more…)
Clinton Seeks New Syrian Opposition
This report is misleading in one important respect. No mention is made of the fact that the Obama administration turned its back on the minorities and the advocates of democracy in favour of the Muslim Brotherhood backed by Islamists, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. If the administration is sincere, its long overdue but why hold the meeting in Qatar which totally backs the MB. Ted Belman
BEIRUT, Lebanon —The United States indicated on Wednesday that it was undertaking its most aggressive attempt yet to reshape the Syrian opposition, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton dismissing the current leadership as a bunch of out-of-touch exiles who should be replaced with a group more representative of the fighters on the ground.
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Democratic presidents have not strong-armed Israel? False!
by Martin Kramer, Sandbox
Whenever the United States has put serious, sustained pressure on Israel’s leaders—from the 1950s on—it has come from Republican presidents, not Democratic ones…. Despite the Republican Party’s shrill campaign rhetoric on Israel, no Democratic president has ever strong-armed Israel on any key national security issue.
Efraim Halevy, “Who Threw Israel Under the Bus?,” New York Times, October 24
Former Mossad head Efraim Halevy likes Barack Obama and dislikes Mitt Romney. He’s entitled to his opinion. What he isn’t entitled to do is make categorical statements that do violence to the historical record.
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Ted Belman
Jerusalem, Israel
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