Al Qaeda calls a truce

[Ramo]

Islamic extremism is on the rise because it's the only ideology available on the market since noone bothers seriously advancing another one.

I don't completely agree. Islamism was losing politically until 9/11. It was in serious decline in places like Egypt, Algeria, Iran. The changes afterwards, I think, are to a large extent an aberration (although the lack of a genuine secular alternative is an important factor as well).

[Az]

Not every Islamist is a terrorist. Why, exactly, should these people be exterminated (I presume you mean through violence)?

I actually don't mean through violence, necessarily. Education if possible. But all it takes, really. Just like every other fundy.

I don't completely agree. Islamism was losing politically until 9/11. It was in serious decline in places like Egypt, Algeria, Iran. The changes afterwards, I think, are to a large extent an aberration (although the lack of a genuine secular alternative is an important factor as well).

You'll have to back up this claim.

[NeOmega]

Originally posted by Japher


WE EUROPEANS now equal Germans and French I guess... See what the EU has done! Italy was a big supporter, as was Spain and Poland, as well as other powerhouses. Regardless of whether you support the US in Iraq, the US' war on terror, etc... you are still suseptible to the crimes of terrorist who hate the western world and the western way of life. As long as you are a christian you are their enemy. The sooner you understand that, the sooner you can't start saving yourselves.

The governments of these countries you mentioned rejected the feelings of their people. They were not "BIG" supporters. The governments of these European countries acted like dictators.

Also you said other "powerhouses", name another government "powerhouse" besides Britain. The "coalition of the Willing" was a sham, pure and simple. It should have been called the "Coaltion of the Weak"

[Datajack Franit]

Does this mean that I can go to Rome for the Aztec expo without exploding?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Pax Africanus
It's foolish to think of AQ as simply terorists. Propaganda really. They are an organization with goals. One of their goals was U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia. That did not mean invade another middle eastern country and place your troops there. While we don't necesarrily have to take the truce at face value the only way to end this war on terrorism is to a) capitulate b) negotiate or c) kill all the muslims in the world who would fight for their way of life.

One of the their goals is to replace all secular governments with Islamic Republics througout Islam. They tolerate "democracy" to an extent, but with ultimate power in the hands of the clerics as we seen in Iran.

I think option c) does not involve killing all the muslims who want to live in fundamentalist governments. I think it involves bringing true democracy to the Muslim world where people can practice their religion but also have the right to elect a real government.

This struggle will not end soon. Iraq is critical to a Western victory.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus

Saint Marcus, you really, really have no fundamental commitment to human rights and democracy, do you?

[Ned]

Azazel, on the list of al Qaeda demands, you failed to mention a demand on the very top of bin Laden's list:

Recovery of Spain!

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus
It seems that Spain's recent actions have pulled Europe of of Al Qaeda's target list.

And I can't say I'm unhappy about this news...not one bit.

When your garden is infested with vermin, you always kill a venomous snake before you kill a mouse.

Read your al Qutb and al Maududi. You're just a lower priority target, but as long as you exist and you are not a follower of true Islam, you are a target. If you are a true follower of Islam, and your government, or someone else or their government are not, your duty as a true follower is to join the jihad.

As Sayyid al Maududi, peace be upon him, has so graciously enlightened us, "Islam requires the entire world."

[Saint Marcus]

give the fundies something to lose, and they'll stop attacking us. Plain and simple. They don't want to kill/convert us all simply because we're not islamists. They may say they do (didn't the commies make similar claims in the not so distant past?), but that doesn't mean they'll actively pursue this with terract after terract. Leave the arab world to the arabs, withdraw your troops from Iraq and Saudi Arabia, have the Israelis withdraw from Gaza and the Westbank, and you'll see a 99% drop in terracts against western targets worldwide. There will always be a few loonies who'll kill us no matter what, but most muslims won't go that far, hell, even most islamists won't go that far.

And Ned, you don't give a rat's ass about human rights either. I didn't hear you calling for an invasion of Ruwanda or Ethiopia to stop antrocities there.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus


give the fundies something to lose, and they'll stop attacking us. Plain and simple. They don't want to kill/convert us all simply because we're not islamists. They may say they do (didn't the commies make similar claims in the not so distant past?), but that doesn't mean they'll actively pursue this with terract after terract. Leave the arab world to the arabs, withdraw your troops from Iraq and Saudi Arabia, have the Israelis withdraw from Gaza and the Westbank, and you'll see a 99% drop in terracts against western targets worldwide. There will always be a few loonies who'll kill us no matter what, but most muslims won't go that far, hell, even most islamists won't go that far.

And Ned, you don't give a rat's ass about human rights either. I didn't hear you calling for an invasion of Ruwanda or Ethiopia to stop antrocities there.

Saint Marcus, you weren't listening or you do not care to listen. Your choice.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus
They don't want to kill/convert us all simply because we're not islamists[/b].

Tell that to them.

[NeOmega]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


When your garden is infested with vermin, you always kill a venomous snake before you kill a mouse.

Read your al Qutb and al Maududi. You're just a lower priority target, but as long as you exist and you are not a follower of true Islam, you are a target. If you are a true follower of Islam, and your government, or someone else or their government are not, your duty as a true follower is to join the jihad.

As Sayyid al Maududi, peace be upon him, has so graciously enlightened us, "Islam requires the entire world."

Right, they are all just a bunch of suicidal extreme muslims, not even human.

C'mon. That is ridiculous. Extreme Islam has been around for a long time. The root of the problem is not religious differences, it is Iraq, and more precisely, Israel. It is American World power dominating every national agenda across the globe. It is overthrow of middle-eastern governments to build more profitable pipelines.

How many suicide Islam bombs occured before WW II?

How many times was America struck by suicide bombers before Gulf war I?

How many times were Spanish civilians the target of muslim extremists before they supported invading Iraq?

Why must Israel continue to build settlements in the occupied territory?

Religion is a tool used to achieve political objectives, but not the driving force.

How would you feel if Iran had thousands of troops stationed in Mexico, a la Saudi Arabia before the Second Gulf war.

Wolfowitz has said before one of the objectives of the second gulf war was to have a presence in the middle east,. but still pull out of Saudi Arabia, because American presence was causing political problems for the royal family.

The whole "they want to kill us because they hate our freedom" line is utter tripe, completely unsubstantiated, and an oversimplification for the corraling of the ignorant masses.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ramo


I don't completely agree. Islamism was losing politically until 9/11. It was in serious decline in places like Egypt, Algeria, Iran. The changes afterwards, I think, are to a large extent an aberration (although the lack of a genuine secular alternative is an important factor as well).

I don't think it was- it had simply shifted from the public arena to the non-governmental sphere.

In Algeria, thanks to a bloody civil war that had cost thelives of thousands of Algerians and many non-Algerians, secularism was maintained at the price of human rights violations (admittedly on both sides).

Similarly in Egypt, support for groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood goes underground, again as the result of the actions of the largely one party autocratic government of Mubarak, and following such unpleasantnesses as the massacre of an international party of tourists at a top tourism site, and the murder of Sadat. More human rights violations followed in Egypt, of course, and what you see is largely the same as what happened in Algeria- the Islamic extremists paradoxically thrive on government oppression, especially somewhere like Egypt, which of course borders on the mini-Satan, Israel, attracts Jewish and Israeli tourists, caters to the international tourist trade, and is steeped in institutionalized state corruption, has massive poverty related problems, and a chaotic infrastructure.

Similarly in Iran, 'reformist' movements were (and still are) hampered by governmental and quasi-governmental hardline Islamists (although to describe them as Islamists is perhaps as inaccurate as describing some right wing Christian fundamentalists as 'Christian', since their version of Islam hardly tallies with the Islam of history, which accommodated Christianity and Judaism, and did not convert by the sword, or bomb) who seek to impose the kind of joyless, repressive Iran embodied in the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini, a forward to the past state, that elevated obscurantism and ignorance at the expense of progress and pragmatism.

In Sudan it was slightly different, since from the days of Nimeiry's regime, the government had hoped to appease or possibly stave off, full scale state cooption of Islamism by degrees, with a little application of sharia here, an extension of it there, all without the consultation of southern Sudan's largely black African Christian and animist citizens, and with the application of slavery, human rights' violations, and as in Al;geria, a covert and overt civil war.

Of course Sudan wasn't as important an asset as Egypt, so despite the Khartoum Embassy assassinations, and despite harbouring international terrorists, it more or less slipped off the radar (except for a little foreign adventurism in Clinton's presidency) and the north -south cultural and religious divide and civil war carried on for 20 years:

http://www.africaonline.com/site/Articles/1,3,52045.jsp

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security...1/0613suda.htm

But hey- at least Sudan has oil, something really worth fighting over.

Sudan (1983 et seq.)

War Annual 4 (1990): 500,000 dead, 1983-89

Dunnigan (1991): 500,000

Washington Post: 500,000 (12 Feb. 1993)

Detroit Free Press (AP): 1,300,000 "in the fighting and resulting famines" (14 Jan. 1997) [http://www.freep.com/news/nw/qsudan14.htm]

B&J (1997): 1,500,000 (1983-95)

SIPRI 1997: 37,000 to 40,000 battle dead

CDI: 1,000,000 (1983-97)

BBC News Online: 1,500,000 "in fighting and related famines" (4 June 1998) [http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/wo...000/106635.stm]

Time: 1,500,000 killed, 1983-98 (27 July 1998)

U.S. Committee for Refugees: 1,900,000 (Quantifying Genocide in Southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains, 10 Dec. 1998) [http://www.refugees.org/news/crisis/sudan.pdf] This report updates a 1993 study, which had estimated that 1.3M had died thus far.

Dict.Wars (1999): 1.5M (1956-98)

29 April 1999 AP: 1.5M

Ploughshares 2000: 2M

23 May 1999 Denver Rocky Mtn News: 2M

10 Nov. 2003 Baltimore Sun: 1.5M

[MEDIAN of last 7 estimates: 1.5M]

I'm not saying that this what Al Qaeda and its supporters necessarily want to see happening in what they view as the parts of Dar al Islam that have been 'tainted' by Western leaning regimes, or are populated by non-Muslims (especially like those in the Sudan who are non-Arab, Christian and happen to live in and around lucrative oil fields) but it kinda makes you wonder.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dar_al-Islam

[Az]

C'mon. That is ridiculous. Extreme Islam has been around for a long time. The root of the problem is not religious differences, it is Iraq, and more precisely, Israel. It is American World power dominating every national agenda across the globe. It is overthrow of middle-eastern governments to build more profitable pipelines.

How many suicide Islam bombs occured before WW II?

Actually, extreme Islam in the current form is a child of the mid-70s.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by NeOmega


Right, they are all just a bunch of suicidal extreme muslims, not even human.

C'mon. That is ridiculous. Extreme Islam has been around for a long time. The root of the problem is not religious differences,

How many suicide Islam bombs occured before WW II?

Religion is a tool used to achieve political objectives, but not the driving force.

The whole "they want to kill us because they hate our freedom" line is utter tripe, completely unsubstantiated, and an oversimplification for the corraling of the ignorant masses.

Do suicide assassins count? Because the Assassin Brotherhood were an extremist Muslim sect, after all.

'The Muslim Brotherhood begun as a youth organization aimed at moral and social reform in Egypt. They regarded Islam as a way of life.'

The Muslim Brotherhood did not scruple about sending its members on what were almost certainly going to be SUICIDE missions:

'A Muslim Brother ASSASSINATED Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi Nokrashi on December 28, 1948. '

'Muslim Brother Abdul Munim Abdul Rauf tried to ASSASSINATE Nasser on October 26, 1954.'

'The Saudi Arabian branch convinced king Ibn Saud to let them start the ISLAMIC University in Medina in 1961. '

'Nasser legalized the Brotherhood again in 1964, and released all prisoners. The result was more ASSASSINATION attempts against him. He had leaders executed in 1966 and imprisoned most others again.'

'After the Six-Day War in 1967, the movement as a whole split into moderates and radicals. The latter faction in Syria declared JIHAD against the SECULAR Ba’ath party leaders. King Hussein allowed the Jordanian branch to give military training to Brotherhood rebels in Jordan. '

'The appointment of Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite MUSLIM, as the Syrian president in 1971 angered the Brotherhood even more because they did not consider Alawites TRUE MUSLIMS at all. Assad initially tried to placate them, but made very little progress. Assad’s support of CHRISTIAN Maronites in the Lebanese Civil War made the Brotherhood re-declare its JIHAD. They began a campaign of strikes and terrorist actions. In 1979, they killed 83 Alawite MUSLIM cadets in the Aleppo artillery school. Assad’s attempts to calm them by changing officials and releasing political prisoners did not help. Eventually the army was used to restore order by force. '

'An ASSASSINATION attempt against Assad on June 25, 1980 was the last straw. Assad made the Syrian parliament declare Brotherhood membership a capital offense and sent the army against them. In the operation, which lasted until February of 1982, the Syrian army practically wiped out the Brotherhood, killing maybe 10,000 to 25,000 people. The Syrian branch disappeared, and the survivors fled to join ISLAMIC organizations in other countries. '

'Nasser’s successor in Egypt, Anwar Sadat, promised reforms, and that he would implement SHARIA. However, Sadat’s peace treaty with Israel in 1979 angered the Brotherhood again, and they apparently had a hand in his ASSASSINATION in 1981. '

My emphases throughout- you notice how often assassination and religion and anti-secularism occur and intertwine, even in this truncated history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood

Bin Laden's ideological predecessor:

'What he saw in America, its morals, and especially the free conduct of its women, so shocked him that he wrote a book in denunciation of what he took for paganism. '

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayyed_Qutb

Don't let your opposition to the Republican Party and the current president blind you to what is real and dangerous- these people are the enemies of tolerance, just as much as fundamentalist Christians, but unfortunately equipped with bigger and better and more lethal armaments, the will to use them, and a disregard for the preservation of their own, and other people's lives.

[Az]

I didn't know it was that old. Thanks molly.

[Pax]

Originally posted by Qilue


Referencing the part italicized after noting flag under avatar.

Afganistan
Iraq
Grenada
Panama
Libya

Just to name a few of the known incidents of the last few decades.

I'm talking about the U.S. as well. I'm talking about the Arab states that attacked Israel. I'm talking about all acts of aggression outside of any nations borders.

[Docfeelgood]

Its all Christian New Testament material.


Armageddon, Revelations, man.


The battel of Armageddon will be good against evil.

Jews and Christians against the ---------------!!!!!!



{fill in the blank with what ever you want}

IMHO

I was fortunate enough to be brought up by a Jew and Christian Parents.

Got the best of both


Yep, I'm only half circumcised

[Pax]

Islam Christianity and the Hebrew faith all seem related to me. I think on judgement day everyone on both sides is going to be surprised at who gets into heaven and who does'nt. I see most faiths who believe in one god as entering.

[Pax]

I don't understand how anyone can think that the idea of using diplomacy to solve this situation instead of endless war is a strawman concept.

Ned, you seem to think that democracy is the penicillin that will solve eveything. It's the idea of imperialism and knowing what's best for other countries that ot us into this situation in the first place. Freedom of choice is what democracy is all about. Self-determination. If the majority of these people voted on a theocratic anti-west government then you would not allow it. Yet it is the will of the people. They don't like the west. Deal with it. The way to do it is not occupy them until all the ones who really really hate us are dead. That will never happen. The way to do it is to change public opinion.

If you can tell me that having foreign troops in your own neighborhood occupying your streets, conducting searches in your home would make you feel secure and happy then I would have to change my view. More than likely, you would at least consider taking up arms to fight the invaders. What's true in California is true in Iraq.

[NeOmega]

Originally posted by molly bloom



Do suicide assassins count? Because the Assassin Brotherhood were an extremist Muslim sect, after all.

'The Muslim Brotherhood begun as a youth organization aimed at moral and social reform in Egypt. They regarded Islam as a way of life.'

The Muslim Brotherhood did not scruple about sending its members on what were almost certainly going to be SUICIDE missions:

'A Muslim Brother ASSASSINATED Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi Nokrashi on December 28, 1948. '

'Muslim Brother Abdul Munim Abdul Rauf tried to ASSASSINATE Nasser on October 26, 1954.'

'The Saudi Arabian branch convinced king Ibn Saud to let them start the ISLAMIC University in Medina in 1961. '

'Nasser legalized the Brotherhood again in 1964, and released all prisoners. The result was more ASSASSINATION attempts against him. He had leaders executed in 1966 and imprisoned most others again.'

'After the Six-Day War in 1967, the movement as a whole split into moderates and radicals. The latter faction in Syria declared JIHAD against the SECULAR Ba’ath party leaders. King Hussein allowed the Jordanian branch to give military training to Brotherhood rebels in Jordan. '

'The appointment of Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite MUSLIM, as the Syrian president in 1971 angered the Brotherhood even more because they did not consider Alawites TRUE MUSLIMS at all. Assad initially tried to placate them, but made very little progress. Assad’s support of CHRISTIAN Maronites in the Lebanese Civil War made the Brotherhood re-declare its JIHAD. They began a campaign of strikes and terrorist actions. In 1979, they killed 83 Alawite MUSLIM cadets in the Aleppo artillery school. Assad’s attempts to calm them by changing officials and releasing political prisoners did not help. Eventually the army was used to restore order by force. '

'An ASSASSINATION attempt against Assad on June 25, 1980 was the last straw. Assad made the Syrian parliament declare Brotherhood membership a capital offense and sent the army against them. In the operation, which lasted until February of 1982, the Syrian army practically wiped out the Brotherhood, killing maybe 10,000 to 25,000 people. The Syrian branch disappeared, and the survivors fled to join ISLAMIC organizations in other countries. '

'Nasser’s successor in Egypt, Anwar Sadat, promised reforms, and that he would implement SHARIA. However, Sadat’s peace treaty with Israel in 1979 angered the Brotherhood again, and they apparently had a hand in his ASSASSINATION in 1981. '

My emphases throughout- you notice how often assassination and religion and anti-secularism occur and intertwine, even in this truncated history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood

Bin Laden's ideological predecessor:

'What he saw in America, its morals, and especially the free conduct of its women, so shocked him that he wrote a book in denunciation of what he took for paganism. '

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayyed_Qutb

Don't let your opposition to the Republican Party and the current president blind you to what is real and dangerous- these people are the enemies of tolerance, just as much as fundamentalist Christians, but unfortunately equipped with bigger and better and more lethal armaments, the will to use them, and a disregard for the preservation of their own, and other people's lives.

Well that was all fine and dandy... btu it was all after WW II, and the establishment of Israel.

And how about the Aryan Brotherhood... or the KKK... both "ultra-Christian" groups. I am not saying two wrongs make a right, I am saying using extremes proves nothing. There are kooks in every religion and every political philosophy. When people start to be forced from their homes, or are arrested, harrassed, and killed, that is when they tend to get violent in response.

It is ultra-simplistic, and frankly, quite delusional.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by NeOmega


Well that was all fine and dandy... btu it was all after WW II, and the establishment of Israel.

And how about the Aryan Brotherhood... or the KKK... both "ultra-Christian" groups. I am not saying two wrongs make a right, I am saying using extremes proves nothing. There are kooks in every religion and every political philosophy. When people start to be forced from their homes, or are arrested, harrassed, and killed, that is when they tend to get violent in response.

It is ultra-simplistic, and frankly, quite delusional.

Your starting date of the end of WWII is largely irrelevant- after all, the British were in the Palestine Mandate and presented a much juicier target politically than the Prime Minister of Egypt or King Farouk, both of whom were Muslims, but presumably according to the Muslim Brotherhood's way of thinking, much like secular Muslims and Alawite Muslims, just not the 'right kind' of Muslim.

The founding of the Muslim Brotherhood predates the establishment of the State of Israel, and Islamic extremists do not scruple to differentiate between Israelis and Jews who are not Israeli, or even Zionists.

Similarly, as we can see in the Sudan, in Algeria, in Syria, in Iraq, if you are not the right kind of Muslim, or a non-Muslim, you area a target.

'Muslim' is not a political affiliation I'm familiar with- and the Americans and Israelis are simply more targets along with the wrong sort of Muslim, or secularists- or foreign tourists.

'Finally, the violence escalated to the horrific crescendo witnessed in the 1990s with the murder of the tourists at Luxor; the justification being that a fall in tourism would hurt the government. Ayman al-Zawahiri, right-hand man of Osama bin Laden and widely regarded as the brains behind September 11, is a graduate of this movement. '

http://www.atrueword.com/index.php/a...leview/45/1/4/

I don't understand the 'political justification' for the mutilation and murder of 60 tourists- but then I'm not a religious fanatic.

The Assassin Brotherhood, which gave would-be assassins a drug-induced ‘vision’ of the paradise they would have on killing someone and then dying, was only exterminated by the Mongols- which goes to show that Islam, like Christianity, and Judaism, and Hinduism and other faiths, has had extremist advocates who claimed their vision was the pure and only vision, and today Al Qaeda are the successors of the Assassins, except their redoubt is not in the mountains of Iran, but worldwide, in the hearts and minds of extremists.

They have simply internationalized and globalized what the Assassins and the Muslim Brotherhood did in the Middle East and Near East, and their targets are not exclusively political, or even mainly political- they will kill fellow Muslims, civilians, soldiers, politicians, anyone who does not fit in with their vision of the Dar al Islam.

'It is ultra-simplistic, and frankly, quite delusional'

- as good a description of the religious philosophy of Al Qaeda as any.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Azazel
I didn't know it was that old. Thanks molly.

Yes, I agree. Molly, you are a tremendous asset to this forum!!

[Ned]

Originally posted by Pax Africanus
Ned, you seem to think that democracy is the penicillin that will solve eveything. It's the idea of imperialism and knowing what's best for other countries that ot us into this situation in the first place. Freedom of choice is what democracy is all about. Self-determination. If the majority of these people voted on a theocratic anti-west government then you would not allow it. Yet it is the will of the people. They don't like the west. Deal with it. The way to do it is not occupy them until all the ones who really really hate us are dead. That will never happen. The way to do it is to change public opinion.

We shall see. Iraq is a test case.

If you can tell me that having foreign troops in your own neighborhood occupying your streets, conducting searches in your home would make you feel secure and happy then I would have to change my view. More than likely, you would at least consider taking up arms to fight the invaders. What's true in California is true in Iraq.

Depends on why they were there and how long they were there.

Even though I believe Iraq was a right move, I also believe we can wear out our welcome.

[Ned]

Did any of this get started by the Third Reich as a form of anti-Brit guerilla movement? I think the Ba'atist party was started by NAZIs for example. It wouldn't surprise me for a second if we found links to NAZI Germany in the foundation of the Muslim Brotherhood.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Pax Africanus
If you can tell me that having foreign troops in your own neighborhood occupying your streets, conducting searches in your home would make you feel secure and happy then I would have to change my view.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3514504.stm

An opinion poll suggests most Iraqis feel their lives have improved since the war in Iraq began about a year ago.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


Yes, I agree. Molly, you are a tremendous asset to this forum!!

Now, Ned, people will talk...

As to your inquiry about the Ba'ath Party, you may be thinking of the 'alliance' between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Third Reich.

'The Ba‘ath Party (also spelled Baath or Ba‘th; Arabic اﻟﺒﻌﺚ) is the name of both the former ruling party of Iraq, headed by Saddam Hussein, and of the current ruling party of Syria. After Saddam's regime was deposed in the 2003 Iraq war, the party was banned by American occupation forces in June, 2003. Its main ideological objectives are secularism, socialism, and pan-Arab unionism, expressed by the party motto; "Wahdah, Hurriyah, Ishtirrakiyah" (Unity, Freedom, Socialism). By 'Unity,' pan-Arab unity is understood, and by 'Freedom,' freedom from Western interests.

Both parties originate in the Ba‘ath movement, an Arab political movement which started in the early 20th century with Syrian nationalists like Michel ‘Aflaq and the more republican wing of Iraqi soldiers under British, and later Hashemite services. Two other major proponents of early Ba‘athist ideology, Zaki al-Arsuzi and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, like Michel Aflaq, were middle-class educators, whose political thought had been influenced by Western education. The Ba‘ath Arab Socialist Party, to give it its formal name, was officially founded at the first party congress, held in Damascus, April 7, 1947.

It was formed in opposition to both French rule and the older generation of Syrian Arab nationalists, mixing Pan-Arab unity and Arab nationalism as its foundation. Its constitution is a blend of neo-Marxist socialism and nationalism. They opposed the influence of Europe in their country's affairs, and used Nationalism and the notion of unifying the Arab world as a platform. Ba‘ath always claimed to be speaking for the entire Arab nation and the progress of the masses, though it was extremely exclusive, factional and often relying on nationalist radicals in the militaries. Its influence spread to other Arab countries 1954-58, and branches were established in Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon.

Ba‘ath is Arabic for 'rebirth'. Comparable to many fascist groups, 'moral and cultural deterioration' have been consistently emphasized by Ba‘athists, and especially associated with 'outsiders', which in the Arab world means Western interests, and local Jews and Christians, considered to be their agents or dupes. The emphasis on cultural and ideological purity has resulted in party purges, those instigated by Saddam Hussein being accompanied by bloodshed.

Ba‘athist party structure was from the beginning based on the party cell or circle, composed of three to seven members, which constitutes the basic organisational unit of the party. Cells functioned at the neighborhood or village level, where members would meet to discuss and execute party directivesintroduced from above. Since individual cells had little contact with one another, party loyalties could be vigorously enforced from the top down. As the U.S. and its allies discovered in Iraq in 2003, cell organization also made the party highly resilient. '

The Grand Mufti:

'In 1937 the Grand Mufti expressed his solidarity with Germany, asking the Nazi Third Reich to oppose establishment of a Jewish state, stop Jewish immigration to Palestine, and provide arms to the Arab population. Following an assassination attempt on the British Inspector-General of the Palestine Police Force and the murder by Arab extremists of Jews and moderate Arabs, the Arab Higher Committee was declared illegal by the British. The Grand Mufti lost his office of President of the Supreme muslim Council, his membership on the Waqf committee, and was forced into exile in Syria in 1937. The British deported the Arab mayor of Jerusalem along with other members of the Arab Higher Committee.

According to documentation from the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials, the Nazi Germany SS helped finance al-Husseini's efforts in the 1936-39 revolt in Palestine. Adolf Eichmann actually visited Palestine and met with al-Husseini at that time and subsequently maintained regular contact with him later in Berlin.'

http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_man...rand_mufti.php

Nice guy.

[Pax]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/3514504.stm

An opinion poll suggests most Iraqis feel their lives have improved since the war in Iraq began about a year ago.

I'm not arguing whether or not their lives have improved. Your own articles states:

The survey shows overwhelming disapproval of political violence, especially of attacks on the Iraqi police but also on American and other coalition forces.

But among Arabs, nearly one in five told the pollsters that attacks on coalition forces were acceptable. ***

About 15% say foreign forces should leave Iraq now, but many more say they should stay until an Iraqi government is in place or security is restored.


Looking back, more Iraqis think the invasion was right than wrong, although 41% felt that the invasion "humiliated Iraq".

But by ethnicity, only one in three Arabs believed their country was liberated - compared to four out of five Kurds. ***

The article also states that the general opinion is that the Governing Council is illegitimate and that Saddam Hussein is still a popular political figure in Iraq. Which can not be concluded that but can be suspected that the legitimate leader of Iraq by popular support was deposed by outside interests.

So Ned, under what circumstances would you be acceptable to foreign troops occupying California or bombing the naval bases their and saying that they are not at war with you just your government?

[Ned]

PAX, I think you a way too pessimistic on Iraq. In June they take over. In December, I believe, the UN will conduct elections to a new legislature. Things are progressing nicely.

I suppose you want Saddam to stand for election and not for trial? Is that what you really want PAX?

As to foreigner's taking over the US, I would support if it the foreigners were an army of liberation intending on restoring democracy and then leaving.

[Pax]

Ned, the original plan was for American troops to stay in Iraq period. Not to leave. It's not clear to me that plan has actually changed. I'm not going to challenge that.

I'm not being pessimistic. I believe in the principles of self determination. If the people of Iraq wanted change then they should have openly revolted against the system as we did in the American Revolution, as the Iraqi's are doing now.

I think you are being far too optimistic if you think the U.S. invaded Iraq for a nobel peace prize. If the reason for invading Iraq was to create democracies then we are seriously behind the power curve. We better get cracking. In fact, you need to cancel all your cases and catch the next plane to Almost anywhere. You've got work to do buddy!!