Are we at war with Islam?

[Team Sergeant]

Now why in the world would any intelligent being think we’re at war with islam?

Afghan cartoon protesters threaten to join al Qaeda
Mon Feb 20, 2006 11:43 AM ET Reuters 2006

By Dawood Wafa

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Hundreds of Afghan students shouted support on Monday for Osama bin Laden and threatened to join al Qaeda during a protest against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.
In an attempt to cool the controversy after a weekend of rioting in countries including Nigeria, where 28 people were killed, and Libya, where 11 died, Pope Benedict said the world's religions and their symbols had to be respected.
Pakistan's main Islamist alliance vowed to broaden its campaign with more protests targeted at the U.S. and Pakistani presidents.
The protest in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad passed off without violence. Students gathered at the university campus chanted "Death to Denmark", "Death to America" and "Death to France", a witness said.
They also shouted support for al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahri.
Shouting "Death to Karzai", they demanded President Hamid Karzai close the embassies of Denmark, the United States and France and expel their forces from Afghanistan.
"If they abuse the Prophet of Islam again we will all become al Qaeda," the students shouted.
Two weeks ago in Afghanistan, at least 10 people were killed in several days of protests over the cartoons but violent demonstrations there have largely petered out.
VIOLENCE
The cartoons, first published in a Danish newspaper last year and reprinted in European papers, have sparked worldwide protests by Muslims who believe it is blasphemous to depict the Prophet.
In a speech to the new Moroccan ambassador to the Vatican, the Pope said: "In order to promote peace and understanding between peoples and mankind it is both vital and urgent that religions and their symbols are respected and that believers are not the object of provocations that wound their religious feelings." Continued ...

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsar...ONS.xml&rpc=22

Team Sergeant
Infidel
And I laughed at the cartoons......

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Now why in the world would any intelligent being think we’re at war with islam?
.............................
Team Sergeant
Infidel
And I laughed at the cartoons......

I still find it hard to understand why a lot of people think we are NOT at war with Islam.

There is something very wrong with a "religion" that spins it's members up into this kind of reaction over some cartoons.

Yes, Yes, Yes, Christians did some really crappy things in the past, and so did most other religions. But Islam has not gone through the reformation period that most main religions have. It's still stuck in the 13th century.

Until the moderates force the religion through it's reformation Islam is like a mad dog running down the street. Kill it or get out of the way.

[jatx]

February 22, 2006
Furor Over Cartoons Pits Muslim Against Muslim
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
and HASSAN M. FATTAH
AMMAN, Jordan, Feb. 21 — In a direct challenge to the international uproar over cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad, the Jordanian journalist Jihad Momani wrote: "What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras, or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony?"

In Yemen, an editorial by Muhammad al-Assadi condemned the cartoons but also lamented the way many Muslims reacted. "Muslims had an opportunity to educate the world about the merits of the Prophet Muhammad and the peacefulness of the religion he had come with," Mr. Assadi wrote. He added, "Muslims know how to lose, better than how to use, opportunities."

To illustrate their points, both editors published selections of the drawings — and for that they were arrested and threatened with prison.

Mr. Momani and Mr. Assadi are among 11 journalists in five countries facing prosecution for printing some of the cartoons. Their cases illustrate another side of this conflict, the intra-Muslim side, in what has typically been defined as a struggle between Islam and the West.

The flare-up over the cartoons, first published in a Danish newspaper, has magnified a fault line running through the Middle East, between those who want to engage their communities in a direct, introspective dialogue and those who focus on outside enemies.

But it has also underscored a political struggle involving emerging Islamic movements, like Hamas in Gaza and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and Arab governments unsure of how to contain them.

"This has become a game between two sides, the extremists and the government," said Tawakkul Karman, head of Women Journalists Without Constraints in Sana, Yemen. "They've made it so that if you stand up in this tidal wave, you have to face 1.5 billion Muslims."

The heated emotions, the violence surrounding protests and the arrests have sent a chill through people, mostly writers, who want to express ideas contrary to the prevailing sentiment. It has threatened those who contend that Islamic groups have manipulated the public to show their strength, and that governments have used the cartoons to establish their religious credentials.

"I keep hearing, 'Why are liberals silent?' " said Said al-Ashmawy, an Egyptian judge and author of books on political Islam. "How can we write? Who is going to protect me? Who is going to publish for me in the first place? With the Islamization of the society, the list of taboos has been increasing daily. You should not write about religion. You should not write about politics or women. Then what is left?"

While the cartoons have infuriated Muslims, the regional dynamics underlying the conflict have been evolving for decades, during which leaders have tried to stall the rise of Islamic political appeal by trying to establish themselves as guardians of the faith.

In the end, political analysts around the region say that governments have resorted to the very practices that helped the rise of Islamic political forces in the first place. They have placated the more extreme voices while arresting and silencing more moderate ones.

Jihad Khazen, a columnist for the pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat, said: "The Islamists wanted to prove their strength. The government replied in kind, saying that we are all Muslims and we care about our religion, and I think the truth was trampled on in the process."

In Jordan, King Abdullah II, who has been trying to control the most extreme religious forces in the region, came out with such a powerful condemnation of Shihan, the newspaper Mr. Momani edited, that even some of his allies were taken aback.

The newspaper printed three cartoons without obscuring them, including one depicting the prophet in a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. Many of the king's supporters said he felt the need to respond as firmly as he did partly because of the rise of Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in Gaza, and to strip the Islamists in Jordan of an issue to rally around.

"What Shihan did was a corruption on earth, which cannot be accepted or excused under any circumstances," the Royal Court said in a statement.

But now there seems to be a growing concern and in some circles a degree of regret for unleashing a wave of anger that has claimed lives. In Jordan, authorities moved quickly to release the journalists from detention. In Libya, where spontaneous protests are unheard of, allowing protests over the cartoons seemed a safe bet for the authorities — until protesters began criticizing the government. At least 11 people were killed in clashes with the police.

Some of the world's most renowned Islamic religious leaders and scholars recently issued a declaration that, though sharply critical of the drawings, sought to rein in the violence and cautioned Muslims against becoming international pariahs. In so doing, they have begun to echo the sentiments of the journalists facing criminal charges.

"We appeal to all Muslims to exercise self-restraint in accordance with the teachings of Islam," the statement said. It added that "violent reactions" can lead to "our isolation from the global dialogue."

To many journalists, proof that Mr. Momani and Mr. Assadi face charges because of the region's broader political dynamics — and not because of the nature of the cartoons — can be found in Egypt.

After all, Ahmed Abdel Maksoud and Youssra Zahran are free. They are journalists with the Egyptian weekly Al Fajr, one of the first Arab newspapers to publish the cartoons. They wrote a story about the caricatures and reprinted them in October — months before the conflict erupted — to condemn the drawings.

"The feelings of the Muslims are being exploited for some purpose," said Adel Hammoude, editor in chief of Al Fajr. "Religion is the easiest thing to use in provoking the people. Egyptians will never go out on the street in protest about what happened in the case of the sinking ferry or against corruption or this or that."

That thinking is widespread in Yemen, where three journalists languished in a squalid cell, escorted to court by machine-gun toting police. It is echoed in Jordan as well, where two journalists await trial.

Mr. Momani appears in court on Wednesday, while two of the Yemeni journalists were released Tuesday pending their trial. The third begins his trial on Wednesday.

Government officials in both countries say the journalists were arrested for having printed blasphemous cartoons. In Jordan, a spokesman said the king felt especially obligated, because his family is a direct descendant of the prophet.

"If freedom of the press affects national unity in a tribal system with high levels of illiteracy, one has to consider how far it can go," said Yemen's foreign minister, Dr. Abu Bakr al-Qirbi. "All societies have red lines."

But in Yemen, with presidential elections scheduled for September, many see a more political motive.

"They've now found a good reason to put us here — they say the public demanded it," said Mr. Assadi in an interview in his jail cell. "The Yemeni government has many reasons to arrest Yemeni journalists. They want to keep people busy as long as they can, so that they can cover over issues like corruption."

Mr. Assadi, who once worked as a part-time correspondent for The New York Times, is the editor of The Yemen Observer, an English-language paper owned by an adviser to Yemen's president. Mr. Assadi has been sharing a prison cell with Abdulkarim Sabra, the managing editor of the weekly Al Hurriya, and Yehiya al-Abed, a reporter for that paper.

The three stand accused of insulting their faith by publishing the images, a crime approaching heresy. In each case the intention was to condemn the drawings, and The Observer obscured the image with a black X. A fourth man, Kamal al-Aalafi, editor-in-chief of the weekly Al Rai al Aam, became a fugitive after escaping arrest for similar charges.

[jatx]

"When I saw all the demonstrations, I thought that Muslims should be able to see what the fuss was all about," said Mr. Sabra during an interview in jail. "I condemned them; I said these drawings don't represent our prophet, burn them."

The Yemen Observer had called for Muslims to accept the apology of Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first printed the caricatures, and urged Muslims to avoid violence. Mr. Assadi said that call was especially unpopular with the government and the Islamists. The Observer recalled its print run and republished a new issue just two days after the initial publication, but to no avail.

"Anyone who insults the prophet must face the sword," said one imam in a recent Friday sermon in Yemen. Another announced, "The government must execute them."

In Jordan, Mr. Momani is free from jail, but a prisoner in his home. He has no work, no immediate prospects, a criminal case against him and a lifetime of friends who privately support his message but say they dare not support him publicly.

Mr. Momani was not the first to print the cartoons in Jordan. Hisham Khalidi, whose newspaper, Al Mehwar, printed the cartoons a week earlier with a story condemning them, is awaiting trial.

But Mr. Momani's timing was particularly bad, just one week after the Hamas victory in Gaza, political analysts said. Jordanian officials expelled Hamas leaders years ago and saw their recent victory as a potential threat to national stability.

From the beginning, Mr. Momani felt the cartoon issue was being manipulated by Islamic groups eager to flex their muscles, and he asked his readers to consider why the protests began so many months after publication. He says he did not expect such a backlash, but that in hindsight, he understands why the authorities acted as they did.

"They wanted to show the Islamic movement that they are the defenders of the prophet" Mr. Momani said in an interview. "They used me."

Mr. Momani expressed exasperation when asked why he printed the cartoons. He insisted that it was the work of journalists to inform, and that he did so after speaking to many people who were outraged without ever seeing the cartoons.

"I am telling my people, 'Be rational, think before you go into the streets,' " he said. "Who harms Islam more? This European guy who paints Muhammad or the real Muslim guy who cuts a hostage's head off and says, 'Allah-u akbar?' Who insults our religion, this guy or the European guy?"

Michael Slackman reported from Amman for this article, and Hassan M. Fattah from Sana, Yemen. Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting from Cairo.

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by jatx

February 22, 2006
Furor Over Cartoons Pits Muslim Against Muslim
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
and HASSAN M. FATTAH
AMMAN, Jordan, Feb. 21 — In a direct challenge to the international uproar over cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad,

The First Crusade was launched in 1096 CE.

The first Cartoon War was launched in 2006.

islam has come a long way……

Team Sergeant

Infidel and still laughing at the cartoons.....

[Sten]

The Crusades are making more sense to me every day.

[jatx]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

The First Crusade was launched in 1096 CE.

The first Cartoon War was launched in 2006.

islam has come a long way……

Team Sergeant

Infidel and still laughing at the cartoons.....

I don't disagree, but do like to see these signs of (modest) internal dissent...

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by jatx

I don't disagree, but do like to see these signs of (modest) internal dissent...

I would not call this "modest"........ it would not surprise me if the shiite's destroyed every sunni mosque in Iraq after this attack.


Shrine Attack Brings Reprisals and Fear
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Associated Press

SAMARRA, Iraq — A large explosion heavily damaged the golden dome of one of Iraq's most famous Shiite shrines Wednesday, spawning mass protests and triggering reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques. It was the third major attack against Shiite targets this week and threatened to stoke sectarian tensions.

Following the blast at the Shiite holy site, a Sunni cleric in Baghdad was killed after gunmen sprayed him with bullets as he entered a mosque, the Iraqi army said.

Shiite leaders called for calm, but militants attacked Sunni mosques and a gunfight broke out between Shiite militiamen and guards at the offices of a Sunni political party in Basra. About 500 soldiers were sent to Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad to prevent clashes between Shiites and Sunnis, Army Capt. Jassim al-Wahash said.

A leading Sunni politician, Tariq al-Hashimi, said 29 Sunni mosques had been attacked nationwide. He urged clerics and politicians to calm the situation "before it spins out of control."

A government statement said "several suspects" had been detained and some of them "might have ... been involved in carrying out the crime."

No group claimed responsibility for the 6:55 a.m. attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, but suspicion fell on Sunni extremist groups such as Al Qaeda in Iraq led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The shrine contains the tombs of two revered Shiite imams, descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.

Whole story here:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185640,00.html

Originally Posted by Many people

Are we at war with Islam?

Yes.

They need to clean their house out. If they do that, I am willing to maybe reconsider.

Martin

[The Reaper]

Off an email, no attribution, I wish I knew the lady who wrote it.

TR

Thanks, tk27, corrected to add:

Because They Hate
By Brigitte Gabriel
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 20, 2006

[Editor's Note: Below are selected excerpts from Brigitte Gabriel's speech delivered at the Intelligence Summit in Washington DC, Saturday February 18, 2006].

We gather here today to share information and knowledge. Intelligence is not merely cold hard data about numerical strength or armament or disposition of military forces. The most important element of intelligence has to be understanding the mindset and intention of the enemy. The West has been wallowing in a state of ignorance and denial for thirty years as Muslim extremist perpetrated evil against innocent victims in the name of Allah.

I was ten years old when my home exploded around me, burying me under the rubble and leaving me to drink my blood to survive, as the perpetrators shouted “Allah Amber!” My only crime was that I was a Christian living in a Christian town. At 10 years old, I learned the meaning of the word "infidel."

I had a crash course in survival. Not in the Girl Scouts, but in a bomb shelter where I lived for seven years in pitch darkness, freezing cold, drinking stale water and eating grass to live. At the age of 13 I dressed in my burial clothes going to bed at night, waiting to be slaughtered. By the age of 20, I had buried most of my friends--killed by Muslims. We were not Americans living in New York, or Britons in London. We were Arab Christians living in Lebanon.

As a victim of Islamic terror, I was amazed when I saw Americans waking up on September 12, 2001, and asking themselves "Why do they hate us?" The psychoanalyst experts were coming up with all sort of excuses as to what did we do to offend the Muslim World. But if America and the West were paying attention to the Middle East they would not have had to ask the question. Simply put, they hate us because we are defined in their eyes by one simple word: "infidels."

Under the banner of Islam "la, ilea ill Allah, muhammad rasoulu allah," (None is god except Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah) they murdered Jewish children in Israel, massacred Christians in Lebanon, killed Copts in Egypt, Assyrians in Syria, Hindus in India, and expelled almost 900,000 Jews from Muslim lands. We Middle Eastern infidels paid the price then. Now infidels worldwide are paying the price for indifference and shortsightedness.

Tolerating evil is a crime. Appeasing murderers doesn't buy protection. It earns one disrespect and loathing in the enemy's eyes. Yet apathy is the weapon by which the West is committing suicide. Political correctness forms the shackles around our ankles, by which Islamists are leading us to our demise.

America and the West are doomed to failure in this war unless they stand up and identify the real enemy: Islam. You hear about Wahabbi and Salafi Islam as the only extreme form of Islam. All the other Muslims, supposedly, are wonderful moderates. Closer to the truth are the pictures of the irrational eruption of violence in reaction to the cartoons of Mohammed printed by a Danish newspaper. From burning embassies, to calls to butcher those who mock Islam, to warnings that the West be prepared for another holocaust, those pictures have given us a glimpse into the real face of the enemy. News pictures and video of these events represent a canvas of hate decorated by different nationalities who share one common ideology of hate, bigotry and intolerance derived from one source: authentic Islam. An Islam that is awakening from centuries of slumber to re-ignite its wrath against the infidel and dominate the world. An Islam which has declared "Intifada" on the West.

America and the West can no longer afford to lay in their lazy state of overweight ignorance. The consequences of this mental disease are starting to attack the body, and if they don't take the necessary steps now to control it, death will be knocking soon. If you want to understand the nature of the enemy we face, visualize a tapestry of snakes. They slither and they hiss, and they would eat each other alive, but they will unite in a hideous mass to achieve their common goal of imposing Islam on the world.

This is the ugly face of the enemy we are fighting. We are fighting a powerful ideology that is capable of altering basic human instincts. An ideology that can turn a mother into a launching pad of death. A perfect example is a recently elected Hamas official in the Palestinian Territories who raves in heavenly joy about sending her three sons to death and offering the ones who are still alive for the cause. It is an ideology that is capable of offering highly educated individuals such as doctors and lawyers far more joy in attaining death than any respect and stature, life in society is ever capable of giving them.

The United States has been a prime target for radical Islamic hatred and terror. Every Friday, mosques in the Middle East ring with shrill prayers and monotonous chants calling death, destruction and damnation down on America and its people. The radical Islamists’ deeds have been as vile as their words. Since the Iran hostage crisis, more than three thousand Americans have died in a terror campaign almost unprecedented in its calculated cruelty along with thousands of other citizens worldwide. Even the Nazis did not turn their own children into human bombs, and then rejoice at their deaths as well the deaths of their victims. This intentional, indiscriminate and wholesale murder of innocent American citizens is justified and glorified in the name of Islam.

America cannot effectively defend itself in this war unless and until the American people understand the nature of the enemy that we face. Even after 9/11 there are those who say that we must “engage” our terrorist enemies, that we must “address their grievances”. Their grievance is our freedom of religion. Their grievance is our freedom of speech. Their grievance is our democratic process where the rule of law comes from the voices of many not that of just one prophet. It is the respect we instill in our children towards all religions. It is the equality we grant each other as human beings sharing a planet and striving to make the world a better place for all humanity. Their grievance is the kindness and respect a man shows a woman, the justice we practice as equals under the law, and the mercy we grant our enemy. Their grievance cannot be answered by an apology for who or what we are.

Our mediocre attitude of not confronting Islamic forces of bigotry and hatred wherever they raised their ugly head in the last 30 years, has empowered and strengthened our enemy to launch a full scale attack on the very freedoms we cherish in their effort to impose their values and way of life on our civilization.

If we don't wake up and challenge our Muslim community to take action against the terrorists within it, if we don't believe in ourselves as Americans and in the standards we should hold every patriotic American to, we are going to pay a price for our delusion. For the sake of our children and our country, we must wake up and take action. In the face of a torrent of hateful invective and terrorist murder, America’s learning curve since the Iran hostage crisis is so shallow that it is almost flat. The longer we lay supine, the more difficult it will be to stand erect.

[tk27]

The authors name is Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese immigrant who has founded the American Congress for the Truth.

Unrelated to Ms Gabriel but related to this thread:
Survival strategy: Middle Eastern Islam, Darwin and terrorism by Ralph Peters.
Armed Forces Journal, February 2006.

[Gypsy]

Excellent piece, TR.

Yet apathy is the weapon by which the West is committing suicide. Political correctness forms the shackles around our ankles, by which Islamists are leading us to our demise.

Couldn't agree more.

[NousDefionsDoc]

Great gouge Boss. Thanks

11 March New York Times - Muslim's Blunt Criticism of Islam Draws Threats by John Broder.

The video available from MEMRI.

English transcript of her interview, available from MEMRI.

Martin

[dennisw]

Dr. Wafa Sultan is a brave woman. I cannot imagine the depth of her courgae. Whether it's communism or Islamism, it does not appear that the rest of the World cannot peacefully coexist with these folks. Their methodolgy is all about terror and intimidation, and abouting obtaining power at any costs.

I recently read an artical about muslims having killed around 300,000 non muslims in the Sudan. That's a ton of people. That doesn't count the folks who fled the country. These folks are like a street gang, but on a international level. Who's going to stop them and where?

As a nation and people, we need to take the blinders off, because it appears they have thrown down the gaunlet.