Thoughts On Gun Control From The Late Paul Harvey

From Paul Harvey, written in 2000:

Are you considering backing gun control laws? Do you think that because you may not own a gun, the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment don't matter?

CONSIDER:

- In 1929 the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, approximately 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

- In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915-1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

- Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, 13 million Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill, and others, who were unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

- China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

- Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

- Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

- Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million "educated" people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

That places total victims who lost their lives because of gun control at approximately 56 million in the last century. Since we should learn from the mistakes of history, the next time someone talks in favor of gun control, find out which group of citizens they wish to have exterminated. . . .

Put simply, gun control is a means of insuring that targeted populations cannot defend themselves against government oppression. Indeed, in our nation, gun control started in states controlled by Democrats as a means of insuring that the black population would not be armed.

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Dracula's Birthday

I missed it. It was May 18. No, it was not the birthday of the real Dracula, Vlad Tepes, a 15th century Wallachian Prince and a knight of the order of Dracul. May 18 was the day, in 1887, that Bram Stoker published his magnum opus, "Dracula."

It is hard to overestimate the cultural importance of that novel. Interestingly, it was not a major seller upon its initial release. But over the years, the popularity of the story has grown exponentially. Indeed, at last count, over 227 movies and innumerable books had been created featuring Stoker's undead antagonist.

Stoker's background research for his novel was extensive and spanned several years. There was much material to draw upon, as vampire myths date back several millennia, with the first known reference appearing in the writings of Mesopotamia. Vampires of mythology fed on life essence, not necessarily blood. Nor was a stake through the heart the most common way of destroying the vampire. But Stoker's novel forever altered the mythology of vampires.

Likewise, Vlad Tepes was never associated with vampirism until Stoker's novel. Tepes was one of the most blood thirsty, sadistic people ever to walk this earth. He executed over 100,000 of his foes, most of them invading Turks captured in battle. Tepes favored method of execution was impalement. Tepes had his prisoners stripped and then had a long stake with a blunted point forced perhaps a foot into the anus of the prisoner. He then had the prisoner raised up and the stake planted firmly in the ground. This method of execution was designed to cause utmost agony over hours if not days as the individual, exposed to the elements, slowly slipped ever farther down the stake. And Tepes made entire forests of the people he impaled. Indeed, one of the most famous incidents occurred in 1462 when Turkish Sultan Mehmed II led an Islamic invasion force into Wallachia, only to turn back in horror after happening upon a scene of 20,000 impaled corpses outside Vlad's capital of Târgoviște.

It is not surprising that Stoker would choose Tepes as his vampire, given the prince's royal lineage, his utter blood thirstiness and his association with horror. That said, in Romania, Tepes is celebrated as major national hero for his stand against Islamic imperialism. At any rate, on 18 May, 126 years ago, Tepes was reanimated and a long deceased Wallachian prince became the most famous undead villain of our era, the vampire Dracula.

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Turkey, Israel & Gaza, Take Two

Charles Krauthammer at the Washington Post and Barry Rubin at PJM both address the attempt by a coterie of pro-Palestinian activists and Turkish radical Islamists to run Israel's naval blockade of Gaza, ostensibly to deliver aid. Krauthammer concentrates on Israel while Rubin looks at the incident from the standpoint of our NATO ally - and a one time ally of Israel - Turkey. Robert Pollock at the WSJ documents Turkey's descent into an radical Islam. This from Dr. Krauthammer:

The world is outraged at Israel's blockade of Gaza. Turkey denounces its illegality, inhumanity, barbarity, etc. The usual U.N. suspects, Third World and European, join in. The Obama administration dithers.

But as Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes, the blockade is not just perfectly rational, it is perfectly legal. Gaza under Hamas is a self-declared enemy of Israel -- a declaration backed up by more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilian territory. Yet having pledged itself to unceasing belligerency, Hamas claims victimhood when Israel imposes a blockade to prevent Hamas from arming itself with still more rockets. . . .

Oh, but weren't the Gaza-bound ships on a mission of humanitarian relief? No. Otherwise they would have accepted Israel's offer to bring their supplies to an Israeli port, be inspected for military materiel and have the rest trucked by Israel into Gaza -- as every week 10,000 tons of food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies are sent by Israel to Gaza.

Why was the offer refused? Because, as organizer Greta Berlin admitted, the flotilla was not about humanitarian relief but about breaking the blockade, i.e., ending Israel's inspection regime, which would mean unlimited shipping into Gaza and thus the unlimited arming of Hamas.

Israel has already twice intercepted ships laden with Iranian arms destined for Hezbollah and Gaza. What country would allow that?

But even more important, why did Israel even have to resort to blockade? Because, blockade is Israel's fallback as the world systematically de-legitimizes its traditional ways of defending itself -- forward and active defense. . . .

. . . The whole point of this relentless international campaign is to deprive Israel of any legitimate form of self-defense. Why, just last week, the Obama administration joined the jackals, and reversed four decades of U.S. practice, by signing onto a consensus document that singles out Israel's possession of nuclear weapons -- thus de-legitimizing Israel's very last line of defense: deterrence.

The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, 6 million -- that number again -- hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists -- Iranian in particular -- openly prepare a more final solution.

And looking at this issue from Turkey's perspective, this from Mr. Rubin:

Israel-Turkey relations have gone from alliance to the verge of war because the West pretended an Islamist government could be benign.

The foolish think the breakdown is due to the recent Gaza flotilla; the naïve, who pass for the sophisticated experts, attribute the collapse to the December 2008-January 2009 Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

Such conclusions are totally misleading. The relationship breakdown was already clear — and in private every Israeli expert dealing seriously with Turkey said so — well over two years ago: the cause was the election in Turkey of an Islamist government. . . .

When the Turkish armed forces were an important part of the regime, they saw Israel as a good source for military equipment and an ally against Islamists and radical Arab regimes. But once the army was to be suppressed, its wishes were a matter of no concern. Depriving it of foreign allies was a goal of the AK Party government.

When Turkey thought it needed Israel as a way to maintain good relations with the United States, the alliance was valuable. But once it was clear that U.S. policy would accept the AK — and was none too fond of Israel — that reason for the alliance also dissolved. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced:

It’s Israel that is the principal threat to regional peace.

At first, this outcome was not so obvious. The AK Party won its first election by only a narrow margin. To keep the United States and EU happy, to keep the Turkish army happy, and to cover up its Islamist sympathies, the new regime was cautious over relations with Israel. Keeping them going served as “proof” of Turkey’s moderation.

Yet as the AK majorities in elections rose, the government became more confident. No longer did it stress that it was a center-right party with family values. The regime steadily weakened the army, using EU demands for civilian power. As it repressed opposition and arrested hundreds of critics, bought up 40 percent of the media, and installed its people in the bureaucracy, the AK’s arrogance and its willingness to throw off its mask grew steadily.

And then, on top of that, the regime saw that the United States would not criticize it, not press it, not even notice what the Turkish government was doing. President Barack Obama came to Turkey and praised the regime as a model of moderate Muslim democracy. Former President Bill Clinton appeared in Istanbul, and in response to questions asked by an AK Party supporter, was manipulated into virtually endorsing the regime’s program without realizing it.

Earlier this year, the situation became even more absurd as Turkey moved ever closer to becoming the third state to join the Iran-Syria bloc. Syria’s state-controlled newspaper and Iranian President Ahmadinejad openly referred to Turkey’s membership in their alliance, and no one in Washington even noticed what was happening. Even when, in May, Turkish policy stabbed the United States in the back by helping Iran launch a sanctions-avoidance plan, the Obama administration barely stirred.

A few weeks ago, the Turkish prime minister said that Iran isn’t developing nuclear weapons, that he regards President Ahmadinejad as a friend, and that even if Iran were building nuclear bombs it has a right to do so. And still no one in Washington noticed. . . .

The current Turkish government hates Israel because it is an Islamist regime.

Note who its friends are: It cares nothing for the Lebanese people; it only backs Hezbollah. It never has a kind word for the Palestinian Authority or Fatah; the Turkish government’s friend is Hamas.

Lately for the first time, the AK government began to run into domestic problems. The poor status of the economy, the growing discontent of many Turks with creeping Islamism in the society, and the election — for the first time — of a popular leader for the opposition party began to give hope that next year’s elections might bring down the regime. Indeed, polls showed the AK sinking into or very close to second place. With the army neutered, elections are the only hope of getting Turkey off the road to Islamism. . . .

The question now becomes: how much can Turkey sabotage U.S. interests before U.S.-Turkish relations go the same way? The defection of Turkey to the other side would be the biggest strategic shift in the Middle East since the Iranian revolution three decades ago.

Pretending that this isn’t happening will not change it.

Robert Pollock, writing at the WSJ, documents the sharp move towards the Islamist camp that Turkey's PM Erodogan has led. This from Mr. Pollock:

. . . To follow Turkish discourse in recent years has been to follow a national decline into madness. Imagine 80 million or so people sitting at the crossroads between Europe and Asia. They don't speak an Indo-European language and perhaps hundreds of thousands of them have meaningful access to any outside media. What information most of them get is filtered through a secular press that makes Italian communists look right wing by comparison and an increasing number of state (i.e., Islamist) influenced outfits. Topics A and B (or B and A, it doesn't really matter) have been the malign influence on the world of Israel and the United States.

For example, while there was much hand-wringing in our own media about "Who lost Turkey?" when U.S. forces were denied entry to Iraq from the north in 2003, no such introspection was evident in Ankara and Istanbul. Instead, Turks were fed a steady diet of imagined atrocities perpetrated by U.S. forces in Iraq, often with the implication that they were acting as muscle for the Jews. The newspaper Yeni Safak, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's daily read, claimed that Americans were tossing so many Iraqi bodies into the Euphrates that local mullahs had issued a fatwa ordering residents not to eat the fish. The same paper repeatedly claimed that the U.S. used chemical weapons in Fallujah. And it reported that Israeli soldiers had been deployed alongside U.S. forces in Iraq and that U.S. forces were harvesting the innards of dead Iraqis for sale on the U.S. "organ market."

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has distanced himself from allies such as the U.S. and curried favor with the likes of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The secular Hurriyet newspaper, meanwhile, accused Israeli soldiers of assassinating Turkish security personnel in Mosul and said the U.S. was starting an occupation of (Muslim) Indonesia under the guise of humanitarian assistance. Then U.S. ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman actually felt the need to organize a conference call to explain to the Turkish media that secret U.S. nuclear testing did not cause the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. One of the craziest theories circulating in Ankara was that the U.S. was colonizing the Middle East because its scientists were aware of an impending asteroid strike on North America.

The Mosul and organ harvesting stories were soon brought together in a hit Turkish movie called "Valley of the Wolves," which I saw in 2006 at a mall in Ankara. My poor Turkish was little barrier to understanding. The body parts of dead Iraqis could be clearly seen being placed into crates marked New York and Tel Aviv. It is no exaggeration to say that such anti-Semitic fare had not been played to mass audiences in Europe since the Third Reich. . . .

[PM Erodogan] and his party have traded on America and Israel hatred ever since. There can be little doubt the Turkish flotilla that challenged the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza was organized with his approval, if not encouragement. Mr. Erodogan's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, is a proponent of a philosophy which calls on Turkey to loosen Western ties to the U.S., NATO and the European Union and seek its own sphere of influence to the east. Turkey's recent deal to help Iran enrich uranium should come as no surprise.

Sadly, Turkey has had no credible opposition since its corrupt secular parties lost to Mr. Erdogan in 2002. The Ataturk-inspired People's Republican Party has just thrown off one leader who was constantly railing about CIA plots for another who wants to expand state spending as government coffers collapse everywhere else in the word.

. . . Prime Minister Erdogan was one of the first world leaders to recognize the legitimacy of the Hamas government in Gaza. And now he is upping the rhetoric after provoking Israel on Hamas's behalf. It is Israel, he says, that has shocked "the conscience of humanity." Foreign Minister Davutoglu is challenging the U.S: "We expect full solidarity with us. It should not seem like a choice between Turkey and Israel. It should be a choice between right and wrong."

Please. Good leaders work to defuse tensions in situations like this, not to escalate them. No American should be deceived as to the true motives of these men: They are demagogues appealing to the worst elements in their own country and the broader Middle East.

The obvious answer to the question of "Who lost Turkey?"—the Western-oriented Turkey, that is—is the Turks did. The outstanding question is how much damage they'll do to regional peace going forward.

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Heh

Some fine satire on the recent flotilla heading towards Gaza.

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Obama, Turkey and Israel

On Monday, nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed and others injured when Israeli soldiers took control of six boats forming a flotilla about 70 miles offshore in international waters. The flotilla was headed towards the Gaza strip for the ostensible purpose of delivering aid. The real purpose was to challenge Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza strip and, thereby, create an international incident. The "flagship" of the flotilla was dispatched by our NATO "ally," Turkey. Israel's blockade is meant to stop the well documented and deadly flow of military equipment and terrorists into Gaza from the sea.

With those basic facts in mind, here are a few thoughts.

- The Obama administration response to the above incident has been jaw dropping, with the worst being that Obama and Clinton have allowed a UN Security Council statement to go forward that all but condemns Israel and ignores the obvious - that responsibility for this incident lies directly on the shoulders of Turkey and their Islamist Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. There were numerous legitimate ways to deliver aid to the Palestinians. Instead of choosing any of them, Turkey chose to bless an attempt to bust through Israel's blockade of the Gaza strip. This was a blatant attempt to create precisely the type of incident that occurred. The fact is that Israel had every right to board those ships - and indeed, to sink them if they tried to run the blockade, which is no doubt why Israel chose to board the ships before they reached - and tried to run - the blockade.

- If Israel is guilty of anything, it is of not boarding the boats with sufficient overwhelming force / firepower such that there would be no question in the minds of the pro-Palestinian activists on the boats that any acts of aggression on their part would be suicidal. The Israelis went in with with no one pointing guns out of the helicopters to cover their descent and, equally as mystifying, armed with paintball guns and sidearms when they should have had Uzis, bayonets and stun grenades. The first rule of force is that any show of weakness invites a violent response - and a body count. The second rule is that overwhelming force and an obvious willingness to use it invites peaceful attention.

- At about the 1:20 mark in the video above, Clinton states that the Palestinians have a "legitimate need" to receive humanitarian assistance. No, they don't. The Palestinians have no right foreign aid of any sort. Indeed, if anyone was serious about peace in the Middle East, the first thing to do would be to cut off all aid to the Palestinians. All foreign aid does at this point is subsidize Hamas and the PLO, allowing them to pursue the destruction of Israel as opposed to creating a viable nation state.

- If anyone in the U.S. actually believes that Israel and Turkey are allies of equal importance, they are either ignorant or pro-Islamic ideologues. While Turkey was a secular nation for much of the past century, with the rise of Salafi Islam, Turkey itself has become infected. Let there be no doubt, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is moving the country into the Islamist camp "as fast as he can drag it" there. Turkey is at best a nominal ally of the U.S. at this point.

- According to the Washington Post:

The U.N. Security Council early Tuesday condemned "those acts which resulted in" the deaths of at least nine civilians aboard an aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip, and called for a "prompt, impartial, credible and transparent" investigation into why and how the Israeli military acted to stop the ships from reaching their destination.

Why did Obama agree to a UN Security Council statement that did not begin with an affirmation of Israel's right to blockade the Gaza strip, a condemnation of Turkey and those entities responsible for trying to break the blockade rather than to deliver aid through normal channels, and recognition that Israel acted with restraint in an attempt to defuse the situation without having to sink the ships? This is so overboard in its anti-Israeli bias that I cannot think of any similarly egregious act in America's history vis-a-vis Israel.

- If you want to know how peaceful the "aid" and the passengers were, you will not find it in the MSM or in the speeches of our politicians. According to the Jerusalem Post, Israel's search of the ships and passengers found individuals with links to terrorists as well as military equipment. This from the Jerusalem Post:

Dozens of passengers who were aboard the Mavi Marmara Turkish passenger ship are suspected of having connections with global jihad-affiliated terrorist organizations, defense officials said on Tuesday, amid growing concerns that Turkish warships would accompany a future flotilla to the Gaza Strip.

According to the defense officials, the IDF has identified about 50 passengers on the ship who could have terrorist connections with global jihad-affiliated groups.

During its searches of the Mavi Marmara on Tuesday, the military also discovered a cache of bulletproof vests and night-vision goggles, as well as gas masks. On Monday morning, at least nine foreign activists were killed during the navy’s takeover of the Mavi Marmara, which was trying to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The group of over 50 passengers with possible terror connections have refused to identify themselves and were not carrying passports. Many of them were carrying envelopes packed with thousands of dollars in cash.

The military is working to identify the passengers and is looking into the possibility that some of them have been involved in terror attacks. Some of them are apparently known Islamic extremists. . . .

- Lastly, Clinton's call for a "two-state solution" at this point is simply ridiculous. It defies reality to believe that any such "solution" is possible so long as Islamists are determined to see the destruction of Israel. The current international tune is little more than an effort by Islamists to destroy Israel's legitimacy as a nation. And Obama is not merely playing right along, he is in large part directing the tune. I have wondered over the past year and a half whether the U.S. would survive Obama. Now I wonder if Israel will also.

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Jihad & Counter-Terrorism Linkfest

All of the most interesting links on the world of jihadism and efforts to counter it below the fold
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The above cartoon unabashedly stolen from Always On Watch.

Always On Watch is blogging on a major attack by Muslims on a Christian school in Jakarta, Indonesia, injuring hundreds of students. The attack was spearheaded by the local imam and chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood Forum of Kampung Pulo Village, who in the past opposed the opening and continued existence of the Christian institute.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser ponders the significance of the resignation of Parvez Ahmed from CAIR's Board of Directors. What he observes is a change in tactics rather than any fundamental shift away from the goal of instituting political Islam in America.

Someone is killing the Syrian leadership running Hezbollah. A few months ago, uber terrorist and Hezbollah operations chief Imad Muginayah was assassinated in Damascus. Today its Syrian President Bashar Assad's top aide, adviser, and liaison officer to the Hizbullah, General Mohammed Suleiman. Anti-Mullah is blogging on news reports that he was shot and killed by an unidentified sniper in the Syrian port city of Tartous. This is a positive trend.

Atlas Shrugs covers the testimony of Steve Emerson before Congress on the thoroughly backwards State Dept. attempts to engage the Muslim community in the U.S. by going through organizations set up and funded by radical foreign elements. The meat of Mr. Emerson’s testimony:

"While the outreach to the Muslim community by the State Department "is an honorable and worthwhile pursuit, the State Department has conducted outreach to the wrong groups, sending a terrible message to moderate Muslims who are thoroughly disenfranchised by the funding, hosting and embracing of radical groups that purport to be opposed to terrorism and extremism."

As I have blogged on several occasions before, this is precisely the same mistake Britain is making.

CAIR is celebrating the dismissal of Michael Savage’s lawsuit over CAIR’s use of parts of his radio program to organize a boycott of his show’s sponsors. Given the serious implications of Savage’s lawsuit for the fair use doctrine and freedom of speech, I have to say that, in this one very unusual and discrete instance, CAIR was right. Meanwhile, the American wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, the MAS, is supporting the insane decision by a judge to release Sami al Arian on bond.

There is an utter outrage in Pakistan. Kidnapping and rape of pre-teen Christian girls has been given the green light by Pakistan’s lower courts. Christians Under Attack has the story of two young Christian girls kidnapped by Muslims, "married," forced to convert to Islam. In a lawsuit by the children’s parents to force the return of their children, the lower court ruled that they are now Muslims and the rightful property of their "husbands." There is an update to this story at Gates of Vienna.

The Terror Wonk blogs on the ramifications of the CIA making public allegations, carried in the NYT, that Pakistan’s intelligence agency, ISI, is actively involved in supporting the Taliban. The ISI has been a snakes den for decades.

Robert Spencer at Dhimmi Watch blogs on a Turkish soap opera about an Islamic man and wife who act as equal partners. It apparently has Saudi women enthralled and Saudi clerics up in arms.

The Wahhabi purists in al Qaeda are upset with King Abdullah for attempting to reach out to other faiths. Dinah Lord posts on the latest al Qaeda video calling for beheading the King.

Via Europe News, there is Diana West’s column on how serious the problem of radical Islam is in the UK and the utter failure of the chattering class to face the issue. Indeed, to the contrary, they are doing all they can to silence any attempt to raise or debate the issue. Among the many facts they are ignoring are items like this from an interview with Egyptian Islamic Preacher 'Amr Khaled: "Within 20 Years, Muslims Will Be Majority in Europe" And the Gathering Storm posts on how one small community in Britain that rejected plans for building a Mosque in their town are now having the decision taken away from them by the government.

Winds of Jihad has an eye opening post on how Muslims are turning areas of Germany into no-go zones for police and non-Muslims.

From Eye On The World: "The son of one of the most prominent Hamas MPs coverts to Christianity, calls Islam a religion of death, admires Israel and cautions that Islam will never allow Muslims to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews."

Michael Ledeen blogs at PJM on the interaction between "soft power" and brute force, making the important point that the determining factor of success in a counterinsurgency is who the populace believes is going to win the "brute force" end of things.

At Ironic Surrealism, a chilling video about the goals of jihadism in the words of their spiritual leaders.

Europe News reports that Denmark is 'liberalizing' its laws to allow for the possibility of greater immigration as the result of "cousin marriages" among the Muslim population.

From Islamist Watch, an article by David Rushin on Muslim intimidation and threats of violence against "apostates" in the West who convert from Islam.

At the Lebanese news outlet, Ya Libnan, an editorial on the prospects for the new Cabinet: "To expect Hezbollah to play a positive role in the creation of a Lebanese civil society is to believe in the supernatural and to suspend rationality in favour of miracles."

At LGF, the Turkish AKP party, having just survived a challenge to its constitutionality, has backed down on the issue of "allowing" females to wear headscarves as a sign of their faith in public buildings and universities.

From Marked Manner, Obama has been getting sizable campaign contributions from individuals in Rafah, GA. GA stands for Gaza, not Georgia.

Freedom of speech and radical Islam in all its manifestations are diametrically opposed. Thus it is no surprise when Muslims Against Sharia reports that Kuwait has now declared criticism of Islam on the internet to be a criminal offense.

Debbie at Right Truth has an exceptional update on uranium enrichment and other activities directed towards the imminent creation of a nuclear arsenal by the mad mullahs

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Iraqi MP Calls For Iraq To Be An Ally Of The West

Memri has the translation and video of an Al-Salam TV interview of Iraqi parlimentarian Mithal al-Alousi. I do not know much about Mr. Alousi, but if he is indicative of his brethern in the Iraqi Parliament, then it is good news. He is very clear eyed about the threat posed to Iraq by its expansionist neighbors - and in particular, Iran. He also calls for Iraq to have strong ties to the West.
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This from Memri:

Mithal Al-Alousi: "Some people want to keep Iraq weak. They do not want Iraq to have powerful friends. They do not want Iraq to have room to operate on the international level. They do not want Iraq to receive economic support, or to be able to operate through international banks. They don't want Iraq to be able to send its sons to international universities - that new generation that will return with knowledge, and bring prosperity to our society. They do not want this for Iraq.

"Kuwait wants the great Iraq to have the same power as 'beautiful' Kuwait - I don't want to call it a 'beggar' country today... They want the Iraqi army to be less powerful than a military brigade, so they can always overcome it. Iran does not want Iraq to have any [regional] standing. It says that the Arab Gulf is Persian. Even in sports - if the term 'pan-Arab games' is used, Iran objects and withdraws from the games. Iran has clear national expansionist ambitions. Iran's expansion can only be at the expense of Iraq. Iraq must fade away so they can control it.

Our neighbor Turkey - that Muslim neighbor, which is now ruled by an Islamic party and not by the army - cuts off the water supply to the Iraqis, knowing this spells drought for the fields, and harms the Iraqi citizens and their economy. The king of Saudi Arabia is the Guardian of the Two Holy Places, in Mecca and Al-Madina, but this does not prevent some [Saudis] from sponsoring terrorists, killers, and criminals. The Syrian regime, which heralds pan-Arabism, does not dare to fire a single bullet in the Golan Heights, or even mention the word 'Golan,' yet it has the audacity to kill Iraqis. . . ."

"If we do not have international commitments and agreements, with which we can force the international community and that strong country, America, to defend the Iraqi borders and sovereignty - who will defend Iraq's borders in the east, the west, or even Basra?

. . . "The Arab regimes want to replace the Palestinian-Israeli problem, which has lasted for the past 60 years, with the problem of Iraq... They want a victim, and Iraq is that victim.

. . . "I want a strategic agreement [with the U.S.], which would guarantee the building of an army, as well as Iraqi universities, which would guarantee that American universities be open to Iraqis, and which would guarantee financial ties between Iraqi and American banks. . . .

"By Allah, we will build a strong Iraq, which will be an ally of the West. Let Iran and all those foolish Arab countries listen carefully. Iraq will be the ally of the West, and will progress more than the Emirates and Singapore, and all the rest will come looking for work in Iraq."

Read the entire article.

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Will Turkey Lead A Revolution In Islam?

Turkey is proposing a far reaching revision and reinterpretation of the Hadith. This could mark a titanic event in the world of Islam which has come under increasing Salafization over the past decades. I have little trust in Turkey's pro-Islamic AKP government, but the scope of the proposed revision portends to far reaching and much needed.

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I harbor very significant doubts about Turkey's Islamic movement today. The pro-Islamic AKP party is blurring the line between Church and state secular, it shows the hallmarks of Salifization, and it was only a few weeks ago that AKP PM Erdogan was in Germany, exhorting Turkish expatriates not to integrate into German society. Everything that I see tells me that Turkey is, at the moment, a trojan horse and its entrance into the EU would spell the death knell for Europe.

Almost a year ago, I posted in a lengthy essay that what Islam most needed was to go through its periods of Reformation and Enlightenment. In tracing the problems of modern day Islam, I noted:

Turkey, home of Sufi Islam and the caliphate presiding over the majority of the Islamic world, came into World War I on the side of Germany and was ultimately defeated. Its Middle Eastern empire was divided up among the European counties. Attaturk took power in Turkey and divested Islam from politics, secularizing the country. This was, in essence, the first step towards a revolution in the Islamic world – the divorcing of religion from the nation state and limiting it to the private lives of Turkish citizens. Unfortunately, as time has gone on, Wahhabism has infected Turkey, and today we see the creep of [Salafi] Islamism into the state apparatus. Turkey has withdrawn from the precipice of a revolution to moderate and modernize Islam that its combination of secular government and classical Sufi Islam may have led.

Read the entire post.

Yet today there is a major surprise in the news that Turkey is planning what has the potential to be the first major reinterpretation of Islam since the gates of ijtihad were closed near a millenium ago. This is potentially momentous - and it is a direct challenge to the 7th century Wahhabi / Salafi interpretations of Islam being spread across the world with billions in Saudi petrodollars.

Before becoming too excited, we must of course wait to see the finished product and assess its impact. It is possible that this could be nothing more than a PR movement aimed at gaining entrance into the EU by allaying very real and reasonable fears of EU nations. Possibly, but even with that in mind, the scope of this proposed revision is promising indeed. This from the BBC:

Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion.

The country's powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran.

The Hadith is a collection of thousands of sayings reputed to come from the Prophet Muhammad.

As such, it is the principal guide for Muslims in interpreting the Koran and the source of the vast majority of Islamic law, or Sharia.

But the Turkish state has come to see the Hadith as having an often negative influence on a society it is in a hurry to modernise, and believes it responsible for obscuring the original values of Islam.

It says that a significant number of the sayings were never uttered by Muhammad, and even some that were need now to be reinterpreted.

Commentators say the very theology of Islam is being reinterpreted in order to effect a radical renewal of the religion.

Its supporters say the spirit of logic and reason inherent in Islam at its foundation 1,400 years ago are being rediscovered. Some believe it could represent the beginning of a reformation in the religion.

Turkish officials have been reticent about the revision of the Hadith until now, aware of the controversy it is likely to cause among traditionalist Muslims, but they have spoken to the BBC about the project, and their ambitious aims for it.

The forensic examination of the Hadiths has taken place in Ankara University's School of Theology.

An adviser to the project, Felix Koerner, says some of the sayings - also known individually as "hadiths" - can be shown to have been invented hundreds of years after the Prophet Muhammad died, to serve the purposes of contemporary society.

"Unfortunately you can even justify through alleged hadiths, the Muslim - or pseudo-Muslim - practice of female genital mutilation," he says.

"You can find messages which say 'that is what the Prophet ordered us to do'. But you can show historically how they came into being, as influences from other cultures, that were then projected onto Islamic tradition."

The argument is that Islamic tradition has been gradually hijacked by various - often conservative - cultures, seeking to use the religion for various forms of social control.

Leaders of the Hadith project say successive generations have embellished the text, attributing their political aims to the Prophet Muhammad himself.

Turkey is intent on sweeping away that "cultural baggage" and returning to a form of Islam it claims accords with its original values and those of the Prophet.

But this is where the revolutionary nature of the work becomes apparent. Even some sayings accepted as being genuinely spoken by Muhammad have been altered and reinterpreted.

Prof Mehmet Gormez, a senior official in the Department of Religious Affairs and an expert on the Hadith, gives a telling example.

"There are some messages that ban women from travelling for three days or more without their husband's permission and they are genuine.

"But this isn't a religious ban. It came about because in the Prophet's time it simply wasn't safe for a woman to travel alone like that. But as time has passed, people have made permanent what was only supposed to be a temporary ban for safety reasons."

The project justifies such bold interference in the 1,400-year-old content of the Hadith by rigorous academic research.

Prof Gormez points out that in another speech, the Prophet said "he longed for the day when a woman might travel long distances alone".

So, he argues, it is clear what the Prophet's goal was.

Yet, until now, the ban has remained in the text, and helps to restrict the free movement of some Muslim women to this day.

. . . According to Fadi Hakura, an expert on Turkey from Chatham House in London, Turkey is doing nothing less than recreating Islam - changing it from a religion whose rules must be obeyed, to one designed to serve the needs of people in a modern secular democracy.

He says that to achieve it, the state is fashioning a new Islam.

"This is kind of akin to the Christian Reformation," he says.

. . . Significantly, the "Ankara School" of theologians working on the new Hadith have been using Western critical techniques and philosophy.

They have also taken an even bolder step - rejecting a long-established rule of Muslim scholars that later (and often more conservative) texts override earlier ones.

"You have to see them as a whole," says Fadi Hakura.

"You can't say, for example, that the verses of violence override the verses of peace. This is used a lot in the Middle East, this kind of ideology.

"I cannot impress enough how fundamental [this change] is."

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The Danger of Turkey

Turkey's Prime Minister spoke yesterday to a large crowd of Turkish ex-patriates in Germany and told them to resist assimilation into the West. Turkey is being slowly Islamicized and is no longer a secular nation.



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Political Islam - synonomous with Wahhabi Salafi Islam, is a threat to the West. And, as I have noted before, its corrosive effects can be seen ever more starkly influencing Islam throughout the world, including in Turkey. As Mark Steyn has written extensively, while Europe has thrown open its doors to Muslim migration, Salafi and Salafi influenced Muslim leaders promote seperatism and advocate the establishment of Sharia law and Muslim rule. Add Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan to the list.

A crowd of 16,000 expatriate Turks cheered Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a vast indoor auditorium in Germany on Sunday as he told them to resist assimilation into the West.

The political rally by Germany's biggest ethnic minority upset German politicians, who objected to a major public event on German soil being advertised on posters in Turkish only.

Erdogan indirectly addressed those concerns, saying it was right for Turkish immigrants to learn German and other languages so they could integrate, but wrong to abandon their Turkish heritage and assimilate.

"Assimilation is a crime against humanity," he told the crowd. Many Turks had travelled from France, Belgium and the Netherlands to hear his hour-long address in the shiny venue, the Koelnarena.

"I can well understand that you are against assimilation," he said. "It is important to learn German, but your Turkish language should not be neglected."

He said ethnic Turks abroad should be more confident in standing up for their interests, and should win election as mayors and members of European national parliaments.

The prime minister called for a swift inquiry to find the causes of a fire a week ago that killed nine Turkish people in the German city of Ludwigshafen.

Erdogan was lionized by other speakers at the event, organized by the Union of European Turkish Democrats, a group that supports his moderate Islamist AKP party.

. . . Outside, bearded members of the audience spoke politely to an elderly woman protester, Vera Villinger, who wore a scarf in German colours and claimed Islam was taking over Germany.

Read the article. Under no circumstances should Turkey be granted full entrance into the EU - a move that would flood Europe with Muslims and put a stake into the last vesitges of Western culture, values and ideals. It would quite literally be opening the gates of Troy and dragging in the Trojan horse. That analogy is all the more ironic since Troy's probable location was in modern day Turkey.

(H/T Shield of Achilles)

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Kurdistan Looming

The problem of Kurdish seperatism and obstructionism still looms as the sleeper issue that could tear apart Iraq.





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I wrote here that the problem of Kurdistan promises to be the biggest problem facing the nation building process in Iraq. Michael O'Hanlon and Omer Taspinar write in the Washington Post today, highlighting this issue:

Increasingly, Iraq's Kurds appear to be interfering with efforts to foster political accommodation among their country's major sectarian groups. Since Iraq's future hinges on establishing such a spirit of compromise, this trend has potentially grave implications for Iraq, its neighbors and the United States.

Two key issues stand out. First, Kurds are beginning to develop oil fields on their territory with foreign investors but with no role for Baghdad, claiming cover under Iraq's 2005 constitution. But the relevant sections of the Iraqi constitution (articles 109 through 112, among others) state that future oil wells will be developed by Iraq's provinces and regions in conjunction with the central government.

Second, Kurds want to reclaim the city of Kirkuk and its surrounding oil fields, which may hold about 15 percent of Iraq's total reserves. Kurds claim, with considerable justification, that many properties in the city were taken from them under Saddam Hussein's "Arabization" programs. Kurds want the homes back. More broadly, they want to control the politics of Kirkuk and environs, up to and including the possibility of Kirkuk and its oil joining the region of Iraqi Kurdistan (which many Kurds hope will ultimately become independent). Because of these ambitions, it has been difficult to hold a referendum on Kirkuk's future; a referendum was supposed to have taken place by the end of 2007.

The Kurds are making a major mistake. They should rethink their approach both out of fairness to the United States, which has given them a chance to help build a post-Hussein Iraq, and in the interests of the Kurds and their neighbors. Baghdad needs a role in developing future oil fields and sharing revenue; Kirkuk needs to remain where it is in Iraq's political system, or perhaps attain a special status. It should not be muscled away into Kurdistan.

It is hard to be sure, but the Kurds seem to believe that if Iraq fails, they will be okay. Under this theory, even if the country splits apart, the United States will stand by its Kurdish friends, establish military bases in Iraqi Kurdistan, and ultimately ease the way toward its independence. . . .

To be sure, many Americans admire the democratic, prosperous, resilient Kurds. Americans also feel a moral debt after allowing Hussein to oppress the Kurds so many times in the past. But after protecting the Kurds since 1991 and spending hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives in Iraq over the past five years, that moral debt has been partially repaid. If the Kurds will not now help the United States in stabilizing Iraq, is there really a sense of common purpose, and a set of shared interests, between the two peoples?

Instead of pursuing a maximalist agenda in Kirkuk and a dream of independence, the Kurds should opt for realism. This means recognizing that if Iraq falls apart, they will be on their own. It also means recognizing that Turkey, with its 15 million Kurds, is very nervous about Kurdish independence. Yet the Kurds of Iraq should also know that a Turkish-Kurdish war is not destiny. In fact, with visionary leadership in Ankara and Irbil, Turkish-Kurdish economic, political and military cooperation -- starting with joint operations against the terrorist Kurdish group, the PKK -- could lead to genuine friendship. After all, Turkey is the most democratic, secular and pro-Western of Iraq's neighbors, attributes that Iraqi Kurdistan shares.

Iraq's Kurds have a remarkable future almost within their grasp. But they face a crucial choice: They can attain that future by compromising with their fellow Iraqis, forming a partnership with Turkey and strengthening their bond with the United States. Or they can continue to pursue their own agenda in a way that ultimately shatters their country and destabilizes the broader region.

Read the article here.

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Interesting News - 22 January 2008

Are Brits at the Their Best suggesting that Brits take a cue from their storied ancestors about how to take back their country? Hmmmm, given the nature of the "outdoor activities" they review, one could make that assumption. But who am I to cast stones. I’ve been suggesting a Boston Tea Party at the Thames for some time now.

When you see British people being criminally prosecuted for selling goods in pounds and ounces rather than by metric weights, you can get some small feel for how heavy handed life in the EU portends to be.

Would Turkey lifting its ban on headscarves be a victory for freedom of choice or a Muslim trojan horse? (H/T Turcopundit)

In response to incessant attacks on its people by elements of the democratically elected government of the Palestinians, Israel took the quite reasonable response of cutting off its energy supplies to the Gaza Strip in an effort to have the people of Gaza begin to take control of their murderous government. That lasted two days because of concerns of a humanitarian crisis - in Gaza of course. Apparently, Israelis targeted for anonymous murder by Hamas rockets does not count as such a crisis. The outcome was foreseen by some. When will Israel figure out that it stands no chance if it conducts its foreign policy and national security in terms of the whims of foreign opinion. If this type of decision making continues, we suspect we will see the end of Israel in our lifetime. Having said that, the ability to laugh at insanity and keep one’s sense of humor suggests that I might be wrong.

Indeed, Saudi Prince Turki has offered dhimmi status to Israel if only Israel will embrace the ill named Arab League "peace plan." I think any appropriate response must of necessity include some euphanism for sex and mention of a camel.

Tomorrow War has an exceptional round-up of relevant links covering a wide range of topics, from attacks on U.S. supply lines in Pakistan to California sending a trade delegation to Cuba. (I think the latter might run afoul of a law or two).

Cryptome has posted an extensive interview with our nation’s Spy Chief, Mike McConnel. The interview covers the panapoly of issues facing our intelligence community today – the majority of which are internal. This is a must – read. (H/T Soob)

Free speech, the Blue Group, and France’s hate speech laws are discussed here.

Dinah does Pakistan, . . . or at least an exceptional round up of Pakistani news.

In honor of Neville Chamberlin and the current UK Labour government, TNOY has the top nine UK Islamic occupational specialties.

Fred’s fried. I predicted this after his loss in South Carolina. Rick Moran is in morning, as our many of us who saw in Fred a true Regan conservative. He was the right man, but the wheels started to come off of his campaign in July. I suspect that, given the current economic climate, Romney will reap the most from Thompson’s exit through Super Tuesday.

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Trouble in Turkey

The Ottoman Turkish caliphate, based on the Sufi Islamic sect, established itself as the reigning force in the Islamic world after the Arab empires were decimated by the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. Before the start of WWI, the caliphate stretched over most of the Middle East and into Europe. After their defeat in WWI, the Ottoman empire was divided up by the European powers and, within Turkey itself, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk ended the caliphate and established a strictly secular state.

At one point, it seemed that Turkey might lead a revolution in the Islamic world. Unfortunately, misrule by the secular parties coupled with the growing influence of Wahhabi / Salafi Islam exported from Saudi Arabia has ended that potential. Coupled with that influence has been the rise of the AKP, a political party defined by religion that took power in Turkish elections several years ago. Credit must be given to the AKP for liberalizing and making capitalistic reforms to Turkey's economy. But it ends there. See the articles here and here, discussing many aspects of Islamicization in Turkish society that appear straight out of the Wahhabi / Salafi playbook. Besides all of the issues, under the AKP, Islmaists are threatening the independence of the judiciary, and have tried to stop the appointment of secular generals in the military to key positions. They have also tried to take over the university system, tried to legalize the wearing of head scarves in government buildings and schools, and claim that Turkey's overriding national identity is its religion.

Now today, Stephen Kinzer weighs in on how this is effecting Turkish society:

The brilliant young pianist and composer Fazil Say has dazzled audiences in concert halls around the world. Yet he has set off a firestorm in his native Turkey by saying he wants to leave the country because he finds the drift of politics there repugnant.

"Our dream is dying a little in Turkey," Say told a German newspaper reporter. "Wives of our cabinet ministers wear head scarves. The Islamists have won. We're 30%, they're 70%. I'm thinking about where else I could live."

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan quickly rebuked him, saying that "an artist who is born here should stay here". The deputy leader of Erdogan's party, Dengir Mir Mehmet Firat, was less concerned about Say's wish to move abroad. "I wouldn't cry if he did," Firat shrugged.

The sharp and often bitter debate over Say's comments reflects a growing concern within Turkey's intellectual elite. Some fear that their country, which has been militantly secular since it was founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923, is drifting toward a form of religious rule. Others see this as part of a larger problem: growing intolerance that springs from a surge in ultra-nationalist passion.

Erdogan's government is widely popular and likely to govern for years to come. That is good, because this regime draws its strength from the people's will. It is also disturbing. Turkey's old political system, in which weak and corrupt factions were kept in line by generals, has been replaced by one in which a single party dominates all branches of government and is also increasingly powerful in private business. Many citizens deeply mistrust the new ruling group. They fear that by catering to pious Muslims and to the steadily increasing pool of nationalist voters, it may in the end prove even less democratic than the old military-dominated system.
"Yagmurdan kacarken doluya tutulmak," they lament. We have escaped the rain only to be pelted by hail.

. . . Turkey has entered a period of unprecedented change. The new regime's central challenge is to democratise the country without releasing atavistic forces that will pull it away from the traditions that have brought it so much success.

As for Fazil Say, he has refused to back away from his comments, and insists that Turkish society is changing in dangerous ways. "The people and the press don't want to notice it," he said in a statement. "But an artist is someone who feels the danger of darkness." . . .

Read the article here. As an aside, there is no way that Turkey should be allowed into the EU unless and until it adopts complete religious freedom, including the right of people to freely convert from Islam.

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Sending A Message To Kurdistan

One of the major hurdles to overcome in pacifying Iraq and creating a functioning democracy is to quell Kurdish seperatism and adventurism. LTG Barry McCaffery, in his most recent report, termed this the next likely cause for Iraqi civil war. And indeed, Kurdish insistence on setting up a seperate state could also bring Turkey into conflict as the Turks, rightly or wrongly, have long stated their refusal to countenance a seperate Kurdish state. There is little doubt that the U.S. decision to provide actionable intelligence to Turkey about PKK locations and the Turkish cross border raids taken in reliance on that intelligence are meant as a clear message to the Kurds. This today from al Jazeera:

Iraq's Kurdish regional leader has warned neighbouring Turkey that he is losing patience with the repeated bombing raids against rebel positions in the north of Iraq.

Massoud Barzani said on Monday that his people "cannot accept" the bombing raids and shelling, but acknowledged there was little he could do to stop them.

"We cannot accept this situation to continue," he said.

"We cannot accept our villages to be bombed and our people killed," he told reporters in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah, adding that the attacks violated Iraqi sovereignty.

On Sunday, Turkish fighter jets bombed Kurdish rebel targets inside Iraqi territory, in the fourth cross-border operation against the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in one week.

Barzani refused to meet Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, when she made a surprise visit to Iraq on December 18.

However, George Bush, the US president, took the opportunity on Monday to promise Turkey his country would continue to help fight separatist Kurdish rebels.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, agreed with Bush to continue to share intelligence. Turkey maintains it has the right to pursue PKK fighters into Iraqi territory.

Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House, said the leaders discussed the "importance of the United States, Turkey and Iraq working together to confront" the rebels.

Both Washington and Baghdad have asked Turkey to show restraint, fearing a large-scale Turkish offensive might destabilise northern Iraq.

Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi president who is a Kurd, said Iraq's foreign minister had summoned the Turkish ambassador in Baghdad to complain, but said he did not want to exacerbate tensions between Iraq and its neighbour.

Read the entire article.

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The Intersection of Islam, Government & Democracy

We’ve been treated to a bevy of articles recently discussing the intersection of Islam and politics in the Middle East, all of which raise some troubling questions with surprising answers. The threshold question is how do such parties perform in democratic elections?

Amir Taheri answers that question, and it would seem, throughout the Middle East, that their popularity is not strong:

. . . [I]n Jordan's latest general election, held last month, the radical Islamic Action Front (IAF) suffered a rout. The IAF's share of the votes fell to five per cent from almost 15 per cent in the elections four years ago. The group, linked with the Muslim Brotherhood movement, managed to keep only six of its 17 seats in the National Assembly (parliament.) Its independent allies won no seats.

. . . The Islamists' defeat in the Jordanian elections confirms a trend that started years ago. Conventional wisdom was that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and lack of progress in the Israel-Palestine conflict, provide radical Islamists with a springboard from which to seize power through elections.

. . . So far, no Islamist party has managed to win a majority of the popular vote in any of the Muslim countries where reasonably clean elections are held. If anything, the Islamist share of the votes has been declining across the board.
In Malaysia, the Islamists have never crossed beyond the 11 per cent share of the popular vote. In Indonesia, the various Islamist groups have never collected more than 17 per cent.

The Islamists' share of the popular vote in Bangladesh declined from an all-time high of 11 per cent in the 1980s to around seven per cent in the late 1990s.
In Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, won the 2006 general election with 44 per cent of the votes, far short of the "crushing wave of support" it had promised.

Even then, it was clear that at least some of those who run on a Hamas ticket did not share its radical Islamist ideology. Despite years of misrule and corruption, Fatah, Hamas' secularist rival, won 42 per cent of the popular vote.

In Turkey, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has won two successive general elections, the latest in July 2007, with 44 per cent of the popular vote. Even then, AKP leaders go out of their way to insist that the party "has nothing to do with religion".

"We are a modern, conservative, European-style party," AKP leader and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan, likes to repeat at every opportunity. In last July's general election, the AKP lost 23 seats and, with it, its two-third majority in the Grand National Assembly (parliament).

AKP's success in Turkey inspired Moroccan Islamists to create a similar outfit called Party of Justice and Development (PDJ). The PDJ sought support from AKP "experts" to prepare for last September's general election in Morocco.
And, yet, when the votes were counted, the PJD collected just over 10 per cent of the popular vote to win 46 of the 325 seats.

Islamists have done no better in neighboring Algeria. In the latest general election, held in May 2007, the two Islamist parties, Movement for a Peaceful Society (HMS) and Algerian Awakening (An Nahda) won just over 12 per cent of the popular vote.

In Yemen, possibly one of the Arab states where the culture of democracy has struck the deepest roots, elections in the past 20 years have shown support for Islamists to stand at around 25 per cent of the popular vote. In the last general election in 2003, the Yemeni Congregation for Reform (Islah) won 22 per cent.

Kuwait is another Arab country where holding reasonably fair elections has become part of the culture. In the general election last year, a well-funded and sophisticated Islamist bloc collected 27 per cent of the votes and won 17 of the 50 seats in the National Assembly.

In Lebanon's last general election in 2005, the two Islamist parties, Hezbollah (Party of God) and Amal (Hope) collected 21 per cent of the popular vote to win 28 of the 128 seats in the parliament.

And, this despite massive financial and propaganda support from Iran and electoral pacts with a Christian political bloc led by the pro-Tehran ex-General Michel Aoun.
Afghanistan . . . [has] held a series of elections since the fall of the Taliban in Kabul . . . By all standards, these have been generally free and fair elections, and thus valid tests of the public mood. In Afghanistan, Islamist groups, including former members of the Taliban, have managed to win around 11 per cent of the popular vote on the average . . .

Read the entire article. Thus, it would seem that Islamist movements have only limited support throughout the Middle East where reasonably free elections have occurred.

One of the other interesting aspects of using religion to justify a political party is the backlash when such parties take power and do not deliver – as is often the case since you can’t eat a holy book, nor do sacred texts generate electricity of serve to make water potable. Thus, in Iraq as pointed out in this article here, and now in Pakistan, when religious parties had in fact taken political control of some of the provicial areas, their failure to perform as promised is not being excused by the electorate, irrespective of their religious credentials:

In 2002, Ibrar Hussein voted for an Islamic takeover.

Fed up both with Pakistan's military-led government and with the mainstream, secular opposition, Hussein decided that religious leaders should be given a chance to improve living conditions in this sprawling frontier city.

But five years after support from people like Hussein propelled the Islamic parties to power in the provincial government -- and to their strongest-ever showing nationally -- the 36-year-old shopkeeper is rethinking his choice.

"You can see the sanitation system here," Hussein said, pointing with disgust to a ditch in front of his shop where a stream of greenish-brown sludge trickled by. "People were asking for clean water, and they didn't get it. We were very hopeful. But the mullahs did nothing for us."

Hussein's disenchantment is just one reason why, with Pakistan on the eve of fresh parliamentary elections, the religious parties are struggling to appeal to voters.

On the surface, at least, they have many things going for them: Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, is deeply unpopular. So, too, are his backers in Washington. The leading opposition politicians have had their opportunities before, and failed. Overall, frustration in Pakistan is running high.

And yet the Islamic parties seem poorly positioned to benefit from that frustration. Beset by bitter internal divisions, they have failed to come up with a unified campaign strategy. Their candidates, meanwhile, have to answer for a dubious record in governing North-West Frontier Province, their traditional base of support. And out on the stump, they are finding that anti-American sentiments are not quite as raw as they once were. . .

Read the article here.

Thus, in terms of democracy, Islamists would seem to have a limited appeal that tends to degrade further when they are actually voted into office. But the danger of Islamist parties is that, at least some seek only one democratic vote - the one to ensconce them into power. Or as Bernard Lewis put it, "one man, one vote, one time." That is what happened in Iran when they voted in a government structure that included the unique Khomeini construct of the Supreme Guide. Time will tell whether that holds true in the Gaza strip, where Hamas, a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot, took total control in a coup some months ago.

On a final note, it is interesting to note that the imposition of a theocracy in Iran has had an effect beyond just the political realm. The theocracy is doing a tremendous job of secularizing a large portion of its youth who comprise over 70% of its population.

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Interesting News From Around the Web - 12-18-07

The U.S. is providing intelligence to Turkey on the location of PKK targets in northern Iraq and Turkey is following that up with targeted strikes. This has Iraq’s Kurds screaming like stuck pigs, but it seems the only reasonable solution to what could otherwise prove a very destabilizing issue.

Our House of Representatives is still refusing to fund the war in Iraq. The President needs to refuse their proffered Budget until they do so. The House Democratic Leadership varies between insane (Pelosi), dementia (Murtha), and adolescence (Obey). They are the not so funny 3 Stooges who are determined to declare defeat in Iraq, irrespective of the national security consequences and wholly irrespective of the reality of our success in Iraq. They are al Qaeda in Iraq’s last best hope for victory.

$7.4 billion has been pledged for aid to "Palestine" at an international conference. The amount actually exceeds what the Palestinian government of Fatah was seeing in aid. It is not clear from the news story how much, if any, of these funds will be provided to Hamas. If there is a single dollar that goes to them, the U.S. should halt its portion of the funding. As to the rest, funding the Palestinians has been a black whole of corruption to this point. I wonder if the donors will start requiring accountability?

The Economist takes a look at Indonesia’s program for deradicalizing jihadists. And WaPo looks at a similar program in Saudi Arabia for recent guests of Guantanamo. And then there is a very successful program being run by our military for detainees in Iraq.

Right Truth has more on the infiltration of our CIA by people related to Hezbollah and the potential damage that could be severe.

Q&O looks at the insanity of our entitlement programs and the gap between what is promised and what our income streams look like. My own thought, we need an NIE that tells us this is no problem and that we can safely ignore it. And take a look at this.

Done with Mirrors has an interesting post on Glenn Greenwald and his mildly biased criticism from on high of Michael Totten.

Bastard. Since I blogged this when it occurred, I need to also blog it now. The conservative student at Princeton who claimed to have been beaten for his exercise of free speech has now admitted to having made it all up. See here.

A really good post the other day from Dr. Sanity: "When religion is rooted in human freedom, as it is in the Judeo-Christian tradition, then it is able to enhance human life and give meaning and purpose to that life. When it is perverted and used for secular political ends--by either the political left or right who want to impose or mandate some social policy or another on others, then it inevitably leads to oppression and cheapens or devalues human life. Even on his best day, a "good" communist, socialist, fascist etc. will never be any better than a really "bad" Christian."

And from TNOY, it’s a Muslim Rage Boy Christmas Caroling . . . .



Do visit their site. Its one of the best humor sites on the web.

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