Fit to be Fried

If he was smart, al-Zawahiri would take this opportunity to surrender instead of making more demands. Of course, if anyone in Al-Qaeda was smart, they wouldn’t have placed themselves in a position of being enemies of the United States. Live and learn, right guys?

Sometimes I just crack myself up.

New Qaeda release expected from No. 2 Zawahri | Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri is expected to issue a new statement calling for an end to Israel’s economic blockade of the Gaza Strip, U.S.-based Internet monitors said on Tuesday.

(more…)

Put this in your pipe and smoke it, Madame Speaker; will you give the Iranians credit for this too? death toll has barely passed 4,000, which, for a war that’s been going on for over five years is incredible, especially when you consider that in the three years of the Korean war, we lost 33,000 men in the line of duty. The South Koreans lost 47,000 on top of that, bringing the 3 year total to approximately 80,000¹. It seems that not only is the surge working, it’s working incredibly well, despite all the negative press the war is getting on the home front.

Al Qaeda near defeat, on defensive: CIA chief | Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda is essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the world, CIA Director Michael Hayden said in a Washington Post interview published on Friday.

The upbeat assessment came less than a year after the CIA warned of new threats from a resurgent al Qaeda, the Post said.

“On balance, we are doing pretty well,” Hayden told the newspaper this week citing major gains against Osama bin Laden’s network and its allies.

“Near strategic defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq. Near strategic defeat for al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Significant setbacks for al Qaeda globally — and here I’m going to use the word ‘ideologically,’ as a lot of the Islamic world pushes back on their form of Islam,” Hayden said.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I haven’t been able to stop giggling since I heard this.

Obama quits church, citing controversies - CNN.com

Sen. Barack Obama said Saturday that he has resigned from the church where controversial sermons by his former pastor and other ministers created political headaches for his campaign.

“We don’t want to have to answer for everything that’s stated in the church,” the Democratic front-runner said. “We also don’t want the church subjected to the scrutiny that a presidential campaign legitimately undergoes.”

(more…)

For someone so keen on going to war with radical Islamic terrorists (and yes, that’s what we’re doing, it’s not like we’re tangling with the IRA or the KKK in the “International War on Terror”), President Bush seems to enjoy nothing better than stabbing his own troops in the back to curry favor with radical Islamists. One of our boys had been using a Koran for sniper practice, and instead of standing up for him, our esteemed Commander in Chief has promised that this soldier will be punished. For shooting a BOOK and offending the muslim community. He didn’t hurt any civillians, the incident is unrelated to any raid, and has nothing to do with anything that could be perceived as a war crime. We had an acronym that summed this sort of thing quite well, while I was in Iraq- BOHICA: Bend over, here it comes again…

Two civilians and a Nato soldier have been killed in Afghanistan during a demonstration over the shooting of the Koran by a US soldier in Iraq. The protest by over 1,000 people in Chagcharan turned violent after the crowd tried to storm a Nato base. President Bush apologised earlier this week for the Koran incident, in which a copy of the book was found riddled with bullets at a shooting range in Iraq. He also promised the soldier would be prosecuted.

So what is there to prosecute?

The Islamic community has been whipped into a fervor over this incident, the likes of which they used to reserve for Dutch cartoonists and expatriate novelists, and have been calling for this man’s head

Again, for shooting a BOOK

Our President is showing the world just how spineless Americans can really be by giving in to the Islamists’ demands. Instead of kowtowing to them, he should have brushed them off like the bunch of cry-baby cave-people they are- would this fly in the States? If some liberal artist shoots a Bible or a Torah as part of some bullshit performance art piece, or worse, wipes his/her ass with it, pisses on it and throws it into a fire, said individual would receive no punishment at all, his/her actions being protected by the First Ammendment. No matter what amount of religious fervor built up in opposition to such actions, they wouldn’t stand a chance of seeing such an insult being dealt with in the way these Islamists are demanding. More than likely, the offended Judeo-Christians in this scenario would be told to quit crying over what was essentially nothing, and to go develop a sense of humor. This is what Bush should have done, instead of capitulating. Hell, more have been hurt by the Muslim protest of the Koran shooting than were harmed in the actual shooting, as two were killed in the ensuing riot that broke out.

Is this justice? Or is it a tale told by an idiot, a bunch of bass-ackward cave-dwellers sharing half a brain and a hive mentality, full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing?

Do these people really have nothing better to do than riot over something so trivial?

Hell, if we’re going to start rounding up Americans who’ve offended people while visiting other countries, half the population who’ve ever been abroad would have to be locked up and shot in the back of the neck, including yours truly.¹ Hell, there’s a particular illegal immigrant who’s come through my wife’s line at the Grocery store and, when asked if he’d like to donate a buck to Texas Children’s Hospitals, blew his top and said that if it wasn’t for Mexicans only, he wasn’t donating shit. He then went on to rant about how Americans needed to get over themselves, how how we never did anything but whine, and that “we’re gonna be running things here soon, so you better get used to the idea.” I don’t know about you, but I found that pretty damn offensive, especially because all my wife had done to set him off was ask for a charitable donation, which she had been asked to do with everyone who came through her line. Does this give me the right to call for this man’s life? Suppose, instead of racial diatribe, he’d been an atheist, and had gone off on a rant about the stupidity of believing in God- would I have the right to call for him to be punished for what, to me, would be blasphemy? Of course not. This sort of behavior is a throwback to the days of witch trials and inquisitions, which may be where we’re headed if we keep rolling over for the very people we should be fighting. In fact, I think I’m going to go out and get myself a Koran to use as target practice, as a show of support for our troops over there. if anyone else out there would like to do the same, send me a pic, and I’ll post it in a special section here.

OK, so what was I talking about?

Oh yeah, the New Deal, and crippling national debt, and the loooong, slow, agonizing death of the American Spirit.

Proof that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Roosevelt adopted the Keynesian model of fiscal policy, which was to run deficits during hard times, for fear that the private sector would not invest enough to bring the country out of a recession. He also followed Great Britain’s lead in abandoning the gold standard in 1933, and forced citizens to sell all but the most trivial amounts of privately held gold to the government. After that number, he raised the price of gold from $20.67 to $35.00 and cut the value of the dollar nearly in half. In the midst of such devastatingly bad decisions, FDR instituted Social Security and what would later become our modern welfare system, and lowered taxes. Contrary to where you might think things are going, these were not in and of themselves bad ideas, and did much to help the economy, although not in the way the Keynesian economists had hoped. Instead of funneling the new income afforded to them through social programs (in combination with a sharp downturn in unemployment) back into the economy,¹ people started to pay back the debts they had been accruing over the years.

Things actually looked bright for a while, until a sudden backslide in 1937 caused unemployment to rise again, and production and profits to waste away. Roosevelt’s answer to this was to nearly abandon any attempt to balance the national budget and instead spend money we didn’t have like there was no tomorrow.²Government spending tripled between 1930 to 1940, as did the national debt, from 16 billion to 72 billion.

Though employment was slowly improving even after 1937’s nosedive, numbers would not significantly improve until the advent of World War II and the subsequent drive to provide supplies, men and services to support the war effort. At the height of the big deuce, unemployment dropped to about 3%, and have never risen above 8% to this day³ Even though the economy seemed to be getting better, the damage from FDR’s deficit spending practices had been done. Though most of the New Deal was rallied against and done away with by the advent of the war⁴, the powers of the federal government were greatly enhanced, and our long slide towards becoming a socialist state had begun.

Did he just say “socialist state”, referring to the United States?

What would you call it?

I began this series intent on filling you in on the decline of the American Spirit , and believe me, this history lesson is leading somewhere. In my next post, “The Land of the Free” keeps taking and giving it away…⁵

Author’s Note: Throughout this text I have included quotes from Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq, a highly significant writing with regards to the anti-western holy war, originally published by the Muslim Brotherhood, a known terrorist organization and antecedent of Al-Qaeda in its current form. Its author, Sayyid Qutb, was convicted of treason in Egypt, and executed two years after its publication (Coll, 2005). I include these texts as an illustration of the modern radical Islamist way of thought, in the hopes that some further degree of illumination into their motives may be attained.

“Indeed Islam has the right to take the initiative. Islam is not a heritage of any particular race or country; this is God’s religion and it is for the whole world. It has the right to destroy all obstacles in the form of institutions and traditions which limit man’s freedom of choice. It does not attack individuals nor does it force them to accept its beliefs; it attacks institutions and traditions to release human beings from their poisonous influences, which distort human nature and which curtail human freedom.”
- From “Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq”(Qutb, 1964).

With terrorist activity under close scrutiny by government agencies around the world, it has become more important than ever to recognize the root cause of such actions. Its one thing to squelch the plans of terrorists in action, but identifying the underlying factors that cause terrorism and eliminating them before we suffer more attacks similar to those that occurred on September 11th, 2001 seems an even more proactive solution. Some may argue that responsibility lies with socioeconomic factors such as poverty and oppression for the wave of terrorist activity currently plaguing the world; however, though socioeconomic factors may contribute in some ways, ideology and extremism remain the true roots of modern terrorist motivation. By taking a closer look at the goals, ideology, and prominent members of Al-Qaeda, this case becomes clearly evident.

Before delving into the goals of Al-Qaeda, one must know the facts behind the group’s history. Broader in scope by far than any terrorist group of the previous century, Al-Qaeda has raised terrorism from a tactic of rebellion and protest to a truly fearsome weapon with which to challenge all opposing ideals. It first saw life in 1987, as a concept created by radical militant Abdullah Azzam, for the Islamist journal Al-Jihad. Azzam went on to found the Mujahidin with Osama Bin Laden as a response to the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. After their success against the Soviets, Bin Laden and Azzam were eager to find a new, worthy cause on which to focus their followers. In 1988, Azzam published his eight guidelines for training Al-Qaeda (“The Foundation”, or “Base”) Upon returning to their homelands, the warriors that had come from other nations to aid in the holy war alongside the Mujahidin brought with them the ideologies of Azzam, powered by the will of Bin Laden, and so became the international network of independent cells that would make up Al-Qaeda. The network utilized secrecy to mask it’s existence, committing relatively minor attacks against U.S. interests overseas, and is believed to have backed the failed, first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center. Until September 11th, 2001, when terrorists linked to Al Qaeda hijacked aircraft, and utilized them to destroy the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, (as well as partially destroying the Pentagon building in Washington D.C.), the world at large was not completely aware of the group (Gunaratna, 2002).

The goals of Al-Qaeda include “The “creation of societies founded on the strictest Islamic principles” (Gunaratna, 2002). In his 1964 book Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq, Sayyid Qutb stated “If Islam is again to play the role of the leader of mankind, then it is necessary that the Muslim community be restored to its original form. It is necessary to revive that Muslim community which is buried under the debris of the man-made traditions of several generations, and which is crushed under the weight of those false laws and customs which are not even remotely related to the Islamic teachings, and which, in spite of all this, calls itself the ‘world of Islam.’”(Qutb, 1964). Osama Bin Laden has expanded on this goal in his attempts to re-establish the Caliphate and unite all Arab peoples under one Muslim power structure. Another of their goals is to drive out western influence including American citizens and soldiers from all Islamic nations. This goal exposes the xenophobic nature of Bin Laden and his followers, and may stem from Bin Laden’s bitterness over the Saudis choice to ask the US for aid after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, rather than his own forces. Bin Laden believed the US had no business setting foot in the Middle East, and has harbored a grudge against America and all westerners ever since.
Also among the aims espoused by Al-Qaeda, the destruction of the nation of Israel, is widely believed a smokescreen to encourage potential recruits, rather than an actual goal. Al-Qaeda’s direct activity against Israel has been negligible, and instead, the group has in the past focused its efforts on America and her allies.
Less a formal group than a collective of like-minded individual cells, Al-Qaeda’s main strength lies it’s ability to adapt itself to new causes and goals in order to survive. It is this adaptability that has allowed Al-Qaeda to gain support from the most unlikely of sources. Evidence shows that Al-Qaeda, a Sunni Muslim group, has been cooperating with Hezbollah, a Shi’ite organization, shocking due to the blood-feud that has existed between the Sunni and Shi’ite factions of Islam for centuries. Al-Qaeda has even found support among several white-supremacist movements, as well as Marxist organizations in South America, for their stance and actions against the government of the United States (Stern, 2003).
As before when Bin Laden shifted the groups stated goals to include Palestinian liberation, Al-Qaeda has also striven to boost the morale of disenfranchised Muslims the world over – by violently attacking perceived enemies of Islam (Stern, 2003). This is evident in Bin Ladens’ latest videotaped message, in which he called for more violence against the United States, yet offered an ambiguous cease-fire. Though seemingly ludicrous to those in the west, Bin Laden has, in the minds of Islamic viewers, made a correlation with himself and other great Arab leaders of the past. Most notable of the leaders Bin Laden has associated himself with is Saladin, who gave a similar offer to the Crusaders when his homeland was threatened. By setting himself up in the same league as these heroes of the Arab world, Bin Laden has gained even more inspirational power than before; despite the fifty-million dollar bounty on his head that has forced him into a life of seclusion (USA Today, 2006).

“And it is life from God for the martyrs: “Do not consider those as dead who were killed in the way of God; they are living and find sustenance from their Sustainer. They enjoy what God has given them from His bounty, and are glad for those who are left behind (on earth) and have not reached there yet, that they shall have no fear nor shall they grieve. They are jubilant at the favor from God and His bounty; indeed, God does not destroy the reward of the Believers”

- From “Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq”(Qutb, 1964).

Taking it’s ideology from extremist interpretations of Islamic scripture, Al-Qaeda seeks to drive western influence from the Middle-east and establish a new Caliphate, a unified nation of Arab states under one ruler, The Caliph, with laws derived from the strictest interpretations of Shariah (Islamic Law). Al-Qaeda’s motivation goes beyond mere religious ideology, however, and stretches deep into the collective Arab sub-conscious. Middle-Eastern civilization sprang from an honor culture that still thrives in many Islamic nations; after their successful campaign against the Russians in Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden wanted to take the Mujahidin to Iraq to fight Saddam Hussein upon his invasion of Kuwait, and felt insulted when the Saudi Government chose to ask the UN (and the United States) for aid. Bin-Laden also believed US presence in Saudi Arabia blasphemous, and so began his war against western influences around the globe. Al-Qaeda sees themselves as warriors of God, and their motivation deeply rooted in Islamic scripture, twisted into a doctrine of hate and violence by charismatic ideologues.

In order to deal yet another blow to the theory that socioeconomic factors make up the root causes of terrorism, we turn to investigate the backgrounds of some of the groups more prominent members. The group’s leader, Osama Bin Laden (AKA, “The Sheikh”), was born to Yemeni immigrant parents in Saudi Arabia in 1957, the seventeenth of fifty-two children. Bin Laden’s father, Muhammed Bin Laden, founded the Saudi Bin Laden Group, a construction company that had won substantial contracts to renovate the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The group gained much respect from the Saudi royal family, and Muhammed himself was well-liked by Faisal ibn Abdul Azziz, the Saudi King. Ironically, Muhammed Bin Laden had always discouraged his children from political and religious interests; after his death in 1968, Osama became the only member of his family to disrespect this wish.
Bin Ladens boyhood classmates from the Al Thagher Model School in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, describe him as an “honorable student” who looked after fellow students belongings to safeguard them from thieves and practical jokers. There, Bin Laden first received a taste for holy war, from the after-school lessons taught by the schools’ Syrian gym teacher, a man who may have been linked, or at least strongly influenced by the ideals of the Muslim Brotherhood. At first, the group resembled something like a Bible study, with memorization of Koranic verses and other such religious activities, but soon lessons took on overtones of violence. Though some students opted to distance themselves from the group at this point, Bin Laden remained. It was soon after this point that Bin Laden and his compatriots overtly began to take on the look and way of thought of an Islamic militant (Coll, 2005).
While attending University, Bin Laden studied Islamic history and law under Muhammed Qutb, brother of Sayyid Qutb, author of Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq (“Milestones along the way” or “Milestones”, as published in the U.S.). In 1978, he journeyed to Pakistan to prepare for a holy war against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, and rose to power as one of the seven principle leaders of the Mujahidin, backed by a coalition formed by the CIA. In Afghanistan, Bin Laden would meet the man who would influence his thinking for the next ten years; Abdullah Azzam.
Abdullah Azzam’s life and ultimate fate had much to do with the current courses of action taken by Al-Qaeda, and make him a figure worthy of a closer look as well. A former leader of the radical militant group Hamas and Al-Qaeda’s ideological father, Azzam met Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, and working with Bin Laden formed the Mujahidin to combat the Soviet presence in that country, and the Maktab al-Khidmat (or MAK), a group which served to fund and recruit new members for the Mujahidin, as well as care for jihadis who had come from abroad.
Although agreeing with Bin Laden that the Mujahidin and MAK could be put to good use after the ouster of the Soviets, Azzam did not believe that Al-Qaeda should train in the use of terrorist tactics, citing examples from his time in Egypt as demonstrating the futility of such actions. Azzam, who had a Bachelor’s degree in Islamic Law (Shariah), also cited Koranic scripture which warned against attacking children and non-combatant women. Azzam also believed that the MAK should concentrate its efforts in Afghanistan where he thought they could do the most good. This did not fit in with Bin Laden’ dream of a new international Caliphate, and in 1989, assassins using a remote-controlled bomb murdered Azzam and his two sons while on their way to prayer services, thus leaving the way open for Bin Laden to turn al-Qaeda to his own ends (Gunaratna, 2002).
Another prominent figure that bears close study is Ayman Al-Zawahiri. Ayman Al-Zawahiri (AKA, Dr. Muez) grew up in Maadi, a secton of Cairo favored by the wealthy and well educated, and came from quite an impressive lineage. His relatives include a former head of Cairo University, a former religious leader at the world’s most influential Arab school, Al Ahazar, and Abdul Azzam. Those who knew him as a youth as “polite, composed, well-read, and even funny” (Lacayo , 2001). Zawahiri first met with arrest in Egypt at the age of fifteen, and earned a three year sentence for his part in the Muslim Brotherhood’s assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1966 (Perry, 2004) Though implicated as one of the top conspirators out of hundreds of defendants (Zawahiri was number 113), Egyptian police were unable to find sufficient evidence to convict Zawahiri on anything more than weapons possession (Lacayo, 2001).
Zawahiri went on to join his relation Azzam and Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, joining his group, al-Jihad, with their own forces to fight the Soviets. Zawahiri later became Bin Laden’s closest advisor and personal physician, and has been described as being to Bin Laden “…like the brain is to the body” (Lacayo, 2001). Zawahiri’s goals have always been more political rather than religious, and Bin Laden’s shift towards a worldwide jihad has been widely attributed to his influence.
In a 1999 trial of a group charged with terrorist attacks against the Mubarak regime in Egypt, Zawahiri acquired a death sentence in absentia (Lacayo, 2001), and many believe that Zawahiri had a large part in the orchestration of the September 11th attacks on New York City and Washington DC (Perry, 2004).

Upon close examination of the goals, ideologies, and members of Al-Qaeda, it’s clear that socioeconomic factors have little to do with the current state of terrorist activity. Instead, we see a loose-knit group run by like-minded ideological demagogues under the auspices of religion. Said leaders cannot be considered poor and disenfranchised, instead, for the most part, they have wealth, education, and an extreme bitterness over a supposed blow dealt to the pride and dignity of Arab and Islamic peoples of the world.
Since religion inter-twines with the daily lives of nearly every resident of the Middle East, it makes perfect sense that Al-Qaeda’s leaders use it to control the minds and wills of those sympathetic to their cause. Promises of martyrdom and religious purity have enabled Al-Qaeda to whip up a clandestine coalition of people who believe more than anything that they do the right thing, not only for their own people, but for the entire world. Such motives seem to carry hate and frustration in their wake, and any outside criticism of the differences between Al-Qaeda’s actions and the teachings of the Quaran tends to cause more trouble than it alleviates. Likewise, trying to force those sympathetic to the terrorists to think and feel differently would not only constitute a breach in our own ethics, but would equally result in disaster. Finding a new way to deal with this new enemy remains the only course of action available. Perhaps even as we meet the terrorists on the battlefield, we can change the hearts and minds of those the terrorists would recruit; as Jesus taught in the Bible “…bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you…” (Matthew 5:44); Perhaps by consistently and earnestly pursuing the trust and goodwill of all the people of the Middle East through aid and other acts of friendship, we can win over those that currently would like nothing better than to see us dead.

References
Coll, S. (2005). Young Osama. The New Yorker, 81(40), 48-61.

Gunaratna, R. (2002). Inside al Qaeda : global network of terror. New York: New York Columbia University Press.

Lacayo, R., Gibson H., Macleod S., and Radwan, A. (2001). Public enemy no. 2. TIME, 158(21), 77-80.

Matthew 5:44-Hollman Bible Publishers. The Holy Bible; Authorized King James Version. Crown Reference ed. Nashville, TN: 1985.

Perry, G. (2004). The History of Egypt: Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Qutb, S. (1964). Ma’alim fi-l-tariq (“Milestones”). Revised ed. Burr Ridge, IL: American Trust Publications.

Stern, J. (2003). The Protean Enemy. Foreign Affairs, 82(4), 27-40.

To Muslim ears, bin Laden’s words carry different meaning. (2006). USA Today, 9- . Retrieved Jan 29, 2006, from MasterFILE Premier database. http://libsys.uah.edu:3052/login.aspx?direct=true&db=afh&an=J0E096454634706

Michael Savage (host of talk radio show “The Savage Nation”) lost his first bout in his lawsuit against C.A.I.R., (the Counsel for American/Islamic Relations) for copyright infringement and debasement of character. C.A.I.R. had taken clips of Savage’s show out of context, portraying him as a racist, and was using them to raise funds for their organization. C.A.I.R. is also well known as an unindicted co-conspirator in terrorist related activities and is believed to have ties to Hamas ( the militant Palestinian Sunni Islamist organization currently in control of the Palestinian government), and Hezbollah (the terrorist group currently stirring things up in Lebannon). Sure sounds like a bunch of folks we want to make happy, don’t it? Don’t you just love how our judiciary is catering to this (somehow legal, God knows why…) terrorist front group?

I just want everyone to know where we are headed if we keep giving up ground to the islamo-fascists, as one of their stated goals is the establishment of a new Caliphate.

Quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate:

Caliphate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A caliphate (from the Arabic خلافة or khilāfah), is the Islamic form of government representing the political unity and leadership of the Muslim world. The Caliph, the political leader of the community (Ummah), has a position based on the notion of a successor (the Quranic and initial meaning of “caliphate”) to Muhammad’s political authority.

According to Sunnis he is ideally a member of the Quraysh tribe elected by Muslims or their representatives;[1] and according to the Shia, an Imam descended in a line from the Ahl ul-Bayt. From the time of Muhammad until 1924, successive caliphates were held by various dynasties, including the Umayyads, Abbasids, and finally Ottomans.

The caliphate is the only form of governance that has full approval in traditional Islamic theology, and “is the core political concept of Sunni Islam, by the consensus of the Muslim majority in the early centuries.”[2]

 

Reestablishment

Once the subject of intense conflict and rivalry amongst Muslim rulers, the caliphate has lain dormant and largely unclaimed since the 1920s. In recent years though, interest among Muslims in international unity and the Caliphate has grown. For many ordinary Muslims the caliph as leader of the community of believers, “is cherished both as memory and ideal”[33] as a time when Muslims “enjoyed scientific and military superiority globally,”[34] though “not an urgent concern” compared to issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[33]

Tight restrictions on political activity in many Muslim countries, coupled with the obstacles to uniting over 50 nation-states under a single institution, have prevented efforts to revive the caliphate. Popular apolitical Islamic movements such as the Tablighi Jamaat identify a lack of spirituality and decline in personal religious observance as the root cause of the Muslim world’s problems, and claim that the caliphate cannot be successfully revived until these deficiencies are addressed. No attempts at rebuilding a power structure based on Islam were successful anywhere in the Muslim World until the Iranian Revolution in 1979, which was based on Shia principles and whose leaders did not outwardly call for the restoration of a global Caliphate.

Islamist call

A number of Islamist political parties and Islamist guerrilla groups have called for the restoration of the caliphate by uniting Muslim nations, either through peaceful political action (e.g., Hizb ut-Tahrir) or through force (e.g., al-Qaeda).[35] Various Islamist movements have gained momentum in recent years with the ultimate aim of establishing a Caliphate; however, they differ in their methodology and approach. Some are locally-oriented, mainstream political parties that have no apparent transnational objectives.

Pioneer Islamist Abul Ala Maududi believed the caliph was not just an individual ruler who had to be restored, but was man’s representation of God’s authority on earth;

Khilafa means representative. Man, according to Islam is the representative of “people”, His (God’s) vicergent; that is to say, by virtue of the powers delegated to him, and within the limits prescribed by the Qu’ran and the teaching of the prophet (peace upon him), the caliph is required to exercise Divine authority.[36]

One of al-Qaeda’s clearly stated goals is the re-establishment of a caliphate.[37] Bin Laden has called for Muslims to “establish the righteous caliphate of our umma.”[38] Al Qaeda recently named its Internet newscast from Iraq “The Voice of the Caliphate.”[39]

According to author Lawrence Wright, Ayman al-Zawahiri, an active member of the Muslim Brothers, “sought to restore the caliphate, the rule of Islamic clerics, which had formally ended in 1924 following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire but which had not exercised real power since the thirteenth century. Once caliphate was established, Zawahiri believed, Egypt would become a rallying point for the rest of the Islamic world, leading the jihad against the West. “Then history would make a new turn, God willing,” Zawahiri later wrote, “in the opposite direction against the empire of the United States and the world’s Jewish government.””[40]

In Pakistan the Tanzeem-e-Islami, an Islamist organization founded by Dr. Israr Ahmed, calls for a Caliphate.

The Muslim Brotherhood advocates pan-Islamic unity and implementing Islamic law, it is the largest and most influential Islamic group in the world, and its offshoots form the largest opposition parties in most Arab governments.[41] Founder Hasan al-Banna wrote about the restoration of the Caliphate,[42] but officially sanctioned Islamic institutions in the Muslim world generally do not consider the Caliphate a top priority and have instead focused on other issues. Islamists argue it is because they are tied to the current Muslim regimes.

One transnational group whose ideology is based specifically on restoring the caliphate as a pan-Islamic state, is Hizb ut-Tahrir (literally: “party of liberation”). It is particularly strong in Central Asia, Europe and growing in strength in the Arab World and is based on the claim that Muslim can prove that God exists[43] and that the Qur’an is the word of God.[44][45][citation needed] Hizb-Ut-Tahrir believes in a non-violent political and intellectual struggle, that is both a ground up and top down approach in the Muslim World, whilst in the West its aim is an intellectual struggle to show Islam as an alternative system to capitalism and a solution to regulate the natural environment and global warming. In the Muslim world view of this party, foundations of beliefs, rationality and causes are looked into rather than plain political analysis, which can be ideologically biased.

Dallas Journalist John Bloom (under the guise of Joe Bob Briggs, Drive-in Movie Critic) used to have a saying during the Cold War, when referring to events that foreshadowed Communist tyranny taking hold in the United States. "Without eternal vigilance, it can happen here."  Truer words were never spoken, either then or now. Savage knows their true meaning, and plans to keep on fighting. To donate to his legal defense fund, please visit michaelsavage.com

islam,caliphate,war,religion

On September 11th, 2001, the World Trade Center’s twin towers were the target of a vicious attack that ended with thousands of live ruined, and a country crying out for retribution. Vengeance was required, blood for blood. Our nation’s very honor was at stake, after all, no enemy had dared such a strike on US soil since the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and never had the weapons used to wage an attack of this sort seemed so cowardly: hijacked, passenger-filled aircraft. An attack on unarmed men, women, and children, using their own countrymen and women as living bombs: in or eyes, there could be no more heinous act short of outright genocide. The men and women of New York’s Police and Fire Departments became national heroes that day, held in high esteem, and given every honor possible for their valiant rescue efforts. However, on the other side of the world, those responsible for orchestrating the attacks and those sympathetic to their cause revered their own heroes, the hijackers themselves. Al-Queda had scored a victorious blow against the great Satan, and had gained honor in the eyes of its followers. How, it may be asked, is it possible for one nation to view this act as cowardly and heinous, while others view the events with feelings of pride and honor? What causes a country to revere the murderers of thousands of innocents? When closely examined, honor is seen to have many more facets than the majority of us have been led to believe.

It is said that there is no honor amongst thieves, but in truth, it is largely because of underworld culture that honor even evolved as a concept. Criminals carrying large amounts of contraband and/or cash could hardly bring up a complaint with the local constabulary if any of it were stolen. Likewise, cultures of honor arose out of the shepherds of the English and Scottish border country, the Bedouins, even America’s old west, Though geographically diverse and, in some cases, of differing languages, similarities did exist – these cultures were largely rural and/or nomadic; the presence of law was either absent altogether, or spread too thinly. (Wikipedia) Without the law to guarantee safety of life, land, and property, an honor-culture developed to fill the void. In an honor-culture, swift vengeance is demanded for any infraction upon one’s honor, (read: stolen property, insults, infidelity, accidental injury, or as was the case with John Wesley Harding, having a bunkmate that snored too loud); an infraction that goes unanswered results in dishonor and shame. Since, in most of these honor-cultures, women were viewed in a manner akin to property, honor came to be recognized in a fundamentally different way for men and women. For men, bravery was revered, as a strong, valiant man could be seen as a great protector. For a woman, her chastity was often seen as her only source of honor. Even today, so called “honor-killings” persist in some honor-cultures (such as they did under Taliban rule in Afghanistan) as vengeance for infidelity in women, many times even if the woman’s only infidelity was being a rape-victim. Is this the same honor that exists in our own “Genteel South”, where it’s considered unthinkable to even strike a lady? The answer is both yes and no, for honor is indeed what you make of it. It is a compulsion to do what’s right, or at least, to be viewed as someone who does what’s right. Just who determines what is right is different for each individual. The persons whose opinions matter most to an individual are most likely to form that person’s sense of honor. To use a somewhat fanciful metaphor to illustrate, in the Marvel Comics series “Earth X”, the race of Asgardians (who the Norse viewed as gods), were actually shape-shifting aliens whose appearance was altered by the opinions of those who they came in contact with. An old, Norse storyteller who viewed them to be gods was the first person they encountered upon reaching Earth, and so it was they became the Norse deities of legend. In much the same way, our view of honor, ourselves, and the world around us, is shaped by our environment, and the individuals we look up to most. The so-called “honor-system” employed by universities and even our Nation’s military calls for individuals to inform the authorities of any rule infractions by their peers, yet calls for such informants frequently go unheeded; said individuals often value the respect of their peers over the administratively-imposed “honor-system”, and refuse to become a “rat”. Similar behaviors are found within nearly all Police departments, and within the FBI itself, but are most well-known within the world of organized crime. (Bowman) The Italian Mafia called it “Omerta”, literally, silence. This “code of silence” applies not only to avoid punishment but also as a measure to “save face”. In the recent war in Iraq, the Iraqi Minister of information denied on television that US troops had broken down Baghdad’s defenses, even when they could clearly be seen in the background, over-running the city. Though it seemed humorous to us, it would have been considered a great dishonor for him to admit such a defeat, by the Arab/Islamic honor-culture he lived in.

One might ask, “What do gangsters and comic-books have to do with the perpetrators of the most egregious crimes in our Nation’s history?” There has long been a strong feeling of resentment towards the United States and her allies within the majority of the Arab/Islamic denizens of the middle-east. Though it stems from the formation of a Hebrew nation-state in the form of Israel, religion is less a motivator than it is a convenient backdrop. They feel that their honor was attacked, and those primal feelings regarding their Palestinian kin’s lost property have resulted in a myriad of terrorist attacks around the world; in their eyes, these are acts of vengeance. The honor-culture is so deeply entrenched within the collective Arab psyche that a Jihaad, or holy-war, can be used as an interchangeable term for “international vendetta”. In their honor-based culture, suicide bombers receive honor because they believe they are righting a wrong, and there is no such thing as collateral damage. We in the west, on the other hand, are brought up to believe that all life is viewed a sacrosanct, and the loss of any life is something most of us wish to avoid, at all costs. If this sort of honor-culture is difficult for those of us in the west to understand, it is even more difficult for their culture to understand ours. In the wake of other terrorist bombings in the recent past, Osama bin Ladin gloated via videotape over the perceived cowardice he saw in the US withdrawals from Beirut, Somalia, Rwanda, and Yemen. He called America a “paper tiger”, a seemingly fearsome beast that will fold with the slightest pressure. He was goading us, even expecting a violent response, and when he did not get it, was even more convinced of our dishonor. He saw our desire to avoid conflict and our compassion, our unwillingness to kill, as weakness. If it can be said without seeming sympathetic to terrorists, he may have even been right.

There is a theory that states that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt actually had prior knowledge of the Japanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor, yet allowed it to happen all the same, in order to shake America out of its’ isolationist slumber and get it involved in the war against the Axis Powers in World War II. Roosevelt knew, the theory goes, that without American involvement in the war, America’s allies, and eventually the entire world, would come under the oppressive rule of the Axis Powers. Without an attack on our Nation’s soil, however (that age-old gut-connection to property, again) the American public would never back US involvement in the war. Bound by his sense of honor, Roosevelt did what had to be done, and allowed the Japanese forces to decimate one of our own bases. (Stinnet) Whether or not the story is true, it is with an eerie sense of deja-vu that we can look at the September 11th attacks. Like the Japanese, (who revived their samurai code of “Bushido” to justify kamikaze raids), Al-Queda is very big on honor, and as before, we found comfort in isolation until we were hit way too close to home, rather, right inside its’ very doors. The attacks struck a chord within the American peoples’ hearts; our honor had been impugned, and vengeance, blood-simple and violent vengeance, was called for against our enemies.

Sources:
WikiPedia: The free encyclopedia- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor

Whatever happened to Honor?- James Bowman, Bradley Lecture, American Enterprise Institute. June 10th, 2002 (transcribed for http://www.jamesbowman.net)

Earth X- Krueger, Ross & Leon, Marvel Comics Group, April 1999-June 2000

Day of Deceit – The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor- Robert Stinnett, Free Press, 1999