Dec 19 2006
The War For The Heart Of Islam Rages
The ME is now, finally, taking its future into its own hands and deciding whether they will live under the brutal oppression of Islamo Fascism or in the modern world. There is a role for the devoutly religious in our world of consumerism, me-first, and what-ever-turns-you-on media driven society. From the open civil war in Palestine to the trouncing in Iran that Ahmadinejad took at the polls, to the counter demonstrations in Lebanon, the signals are clear. The ME is taking this choice on and not simply letting the Islamo Fascist take the field without a fight. The counter balance this moment offers the world could be helpful. The more conservative and religous views are necessary to illustrate the ideas of sacrifice and honor and dedication, but they must be presented at the table of democracies and free economies in order to be productive and useful.
Confronting the Wahhabis
By Stephen Schwartz 19 Dec 2006
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=121906A
“The dogs bark, the caravan moves on.”
That Middle Eastern proverb could well describe the events surrounding production of the world’s most-hyped dud firecracker, the Iraq Study Group Report. After immense agonies in the mainstream media (MSM), those like myself who predicted the report, once released, would largely be ignored by President George W. Bush, are being proven right and neoconservatives who support a continued commitment to the transformation of Iraq have exhibited renewed influence.
Only a couple of lines in the report were worthy of comment. One appears on page 29 of the printed version: “Funding for the Sunni insurgency (sic) comes from private individuals within Saudi Arabia.” This was the first time anybody connected to the U.S. government acknowledged something known throughout the Muslim world. That is, Sunni terrorism in Iraq is not an insurgency, but an invasion; the “foreign fighters” are mainly Saudi, as revealed when their deaths are covered in Saudi media, replete with photographs of the “martyrs.”
But this obscure comment was overlooked by most of the MSM, which is also befuddled by the recent sudden departure of Ambassador Turki al-Faisal from his post in the Royal Saudi Embassy in Washington. The MSM and a large part of the American government scratch their heads, barely capable of imagining that the revelation of the Saudi financing of Sunni terrorists in Iraq and the resignation of the kingdom’s man in the U.S. would have anything in common.
Yet they are linked. Liberal reformers in the milieu of Saudi King Abdullah point out that Abdullah has called for an end to sectarian fighting in Iraq and has demanded that Shia Muslims no longer be called unbelievers by the Wahhabi clerics that still function, unfortunately, as the official interpreters of Islam in the Saudi kingdom. Abdullah has promised to spend $450 million on an ultra-modern security fence along the Saudi-Iraqi border. Ambassador Turki, it is said, supports Abdullah in these worthy goals.
But King Abdullah and the overwhelming Saudi majority, who want to live in a normal country, are opposed by the Wahhabi-line faction in the royal family. The pro-Wahhabi clique is led by three individuals: Prince Sultan Ibn Abd al-Aziz, minister of defense; Prince Bandar, predecessor of Turki as ambassador to Washington; and Sultan’s brother, Prince Nayef. Nayef is notorious for having been the first prominent figure in the Muslim world to try to blame the atrocities of September 11, 2001 on Israel. He is deeply feared both inside and outside Saudi Arabia for his extremism.
Saudi sources indicate that King Abdullah is assembling his forces for a decisive confrontation with the reactionaries. Part of the Wahhabi-line strategy is to depict a U.S. leadership in conflict with King Abdullah, to undermine the monarch’s credibility. That is why different versions of a meeting between U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and King Abdullah, late last month, circulate in the MSM and the blogosphere.
According to credible reports, Cheney urged Abdullah to stiffen action against Saudi-Wahhabi involvement in the Iraqi bloodletting. According to unreliable gadflies, King Abdullah commanded Cheney’s presence, to demand that the U.S. immediately attack Iran. But the claim that King Abdullah summoned and berated Cheney does not ring true. King Abdullah is too polite, and Cheney does not take such orders, according to those who know both men.
Many leading clerics and intellectuals among Sunni Muslims indicate that King Abdullah has effectively told the Wahhabis that they will no longer receive official subsidies, and must end their violent jihad around the world. The greatest impact of this development may be seen in Iraq, but Wahhabis everywhere have begun to worry about their future. In a totalitarian system like Wahhabism, the weakest links snap first. And the beginning of the end for them may now be visible in the Muslim Balkans.
That the crisis of Wahhabi credibility would become manifest simultaneously in Washington, Baghdad, and Sarajevo might seem counter-intuitive to many Westerners, especially given that the former Yugoslavia is considered by foreigners to be marginal and insignificant. But for those who know the Islamic world, it makes perfect sense. The Saudis have tried for almost 15 years to use the difficulties of Bosnian and other local Islamic folk to drive the Balkan Muslims away from their traditional, spiritual, and peaceful form of Islam into Wahhabi radicalism. But Wahhabi agitators who went to ex-Yugoslavia to sow discord and reap recruits for terror have begun to show deep anxiety about the loss of their Saudi support, and now act in an ever more provocative and aggressive manner.
For their part, the Balkan Muslims are demonstrating an attitude of disgust and repudiation toward their alleged Saudi patrons, such that the Muslim Balkans may become the first “Wahhabi-free zone” in the global Islamic community, or umma. Months ago, Bosnian chief Islamic cleric Mustafa Ceric issued a document readable here, stating, “the most perilous force destabilizing the umma presently is from the inside.” The Bosnians, according to Ceric, are “determined in [their] intention to protect the originality of the centuries-long tradition of the Islamic Community in Bosnia-Hercegovina.”
In October 2006, imam Dzemo Redzematovic, leader of the Slavic Muslim minority in newly-independent Montenegro denounced the Wahhabis for “introducing a new approach to Islamic rules [that] is unnecessary and negative because it creates a rift among the believers” and “claims some exclusive right to interpret Islamic rules.”
The Wahhabis had lost their chance in Bosnia-Hercegovina but were under close scrutiny in Montenegro. They were also active over the border, in southern Serbia. On November 3, as described here, a group of fanatics disrupted Friday prayers at a mosque in the town of Novipazar, assailing the imam for refusing to follow their “guidance.” In the ensuing affray, two local Muslims allegedly replaced “the weapons of criticism” with “the criticism of weapons,” and the Wahhabis were met with gunfire. Iraq, it seemed, had come to ex-Yugoslavia.
I was in Sarajevo when this incident occurred, and the outrage of the local Muslims against the Wahhabi interlopers was palpable then and has grown more aggravated since. Bosnian Muslim intellectuals became more militant in their anti-Wahhabi idiom. On November 18, a distinguished professor of Arabic at the University of Sarajevo, Esad Durakovic, wrote, “The snowball called Wahhabism has been rolling down the Bosnian hill, but it is still not certain which side is going to be struck by the avalanche…. Wahhabi efforts are extremely decisive and resolute… the response has to be more appropriate and urgent… Wahhabis are wrong when they think that they can act as a Taliban in Europe (just as they are wrong about everything else)… We have to act immediately.” (translation here)
A week later, on November 25, Professor Resid Hafizovic of the Faculty of Islamic Studies of the University of Sarajevo was even bolder. An outstanding Balkan scholar of Sufism or Islamic spirituality, Hafizovic dramatically warned, “They Are Coming for Our Children.” He accused the Wahhabis forthrightly:
“They are among us. By marrying related folk in our villages, towns, and cities, they have already infected our traditional social system. They are already present in our media, state administration and religious institutions: in our mosques, medresas, and academia, everywhere.”
Hafizovic identified the Wahhabi trail of blood traced through the past decade “Recognizing it as a continuation of the inferno in Iraq, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Palestine, the most powerful civil and religious authorities… should immediately take responsibility for preventing the hell Wahhabis are constructing in this country.”
Questioned on Bosnian television about the country’s receipt of aid from Saudi Arabia during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, Hafizovic said: “I would be very pleased if a full stop were put once and for all to the talk of the great and fabulous aid that Saudi Arabia has given [us]… Because we have to pay. The Saudis and their envoys keep asking us to pay… the price is such that we have to sell our people, our religion, our 500 years of religious and cultural tradition and legacy. And this is precisely what they want: our minds, our hearts, our souls… Let us put an end to this story once and for all and say: Dear [Saudi] gentlemen, if you keep rubbing our noses in the aid – and you are – we will give it back to you.” Hafizovic and other Bosnian Muslim clerics and intellectuals call Wahhabism a virus.
Given these developments, global eradication of the Wahhabi virus may be in sight.
The civil war, Lebanon witnessed many of them and now their main concern should not return to the Arab and bloody wars, has vowed the Lebanese people in the 14th of March to remain united in perpetuity, Muslims and Christians chanted that behind Shahid Jubran Twini, Palestine, and is now about to fall into the trap of civil war, which the government has Israel is behind the assassination of children and the elderly
Free Palestine T-shirts, Free Lebanon T-shirts
Sincere promise, a promise made by Lebanon to help the Palestinian people due to the massive destruction to the city of Gaza by the Israeli monsters, Lebanon made his country for freedom of Palestinians and help them in these difficult circumstances, was the war on 13th of July 2006 between the Israelis and the Lebanese staged and led to the destruction of southern Lebanon and the launching of thousands of missiles, which shelled northern Israel for the first time since the emergence of the State of Israel.
And now we are asking you to send this message through out our products to your friends supporting and defending the case of Palestine and Lebanon.
Free Palestine T-shirts, Free Lebanon T-shirts
It’s fascinating to see this muslim struggle play out at a time when we (in the George Bush sense) have taken such a beating.
Thank goodness there’s more to this than just the divided United States.
AJ: frankly, based upon over 30years of personal experience with them, you are being WAY too generous, and hopeful!
The EVIL IS! THE HOUSE OF SAUD!
Eygpt. Jordan. And, THe crappy kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The most backward islamic pit on earth! And, long before OIL, these were just sand-creeps, “bedoining” in the desert.” NO LONGER! Ridh on the west’s needs for oil. Where NO IMPROVEMENT’s been made in automobile technology since day #1. (In other words? That old engine that replaces real horses? Works pretty much the same.)
And, I’m not the one who noticed. Mark Steyn, in America Alone, NOTICED IT. That’s the snake pit. And, unfortunately the Bush Family and the House of Saud are “tight.” That Saudi money has bought us a whole lot of trouble. Not just 9/11. Where this, too, has been ignored.
Iraq? We were pre-emptive! And, yes. We got approval from the House of Saud. TO TAKE OUT ONE MAN.
And, then?
When all hell broke loose, we still backed the Saud’s. THey could fly in terrorists from anywhere. And, some passed right thru Kuwait. And, into Anbar. Which is Fallujah.
Chalabi? He came in while Tommy Franks was still fighting. And, as soon as his goons got out of their C-130 transport; trained as they were by the CIA. They began LOOTING. And, killing Shi’a. And, there were no reprisals. We didn’t flatten Fallujah, either.
Now? Bush is good at selling “used merchandise,” and convincing the American People “he is for real.” (But then, you saw James Baker.) You saw the “real plan.” All the problems belong to the Joooos.
And, all the money that saudis steal from us at our gas pumps, goes into the pockets of Men like Baker. Bush. Or Botts.
It’s a mess.
What happens when the “jig is up?” What happens when you notice in a prize fight that your dog has been beaten silly?
What happens when the senate “may” join ranks; and John McCain is not a fool. And, not the madman he was portrayed to be? Just in case you haven’t noticed. What if there is a CENTER in America, served by patriots from both parties?
Bush is supposed to give a “big new speech,” come January. Just as the doors of the Capitol OPEN. Will we see just another Jimmy Carter dancing to the tunes of the wealth he’s accummulalted from the Saudis? He’s afraid to be buried in Arlington, ya know? He sees that if he were to be buried in Arlington, too many patriots would show up with Champagne. In their systems. Or through their systems. And, they’d unload their true feelings on him. Piss in our time. And, for a long time to come. (So he’s instructing his lawyers to write his will that he will be buried in Plains, Georgia. I supposed it will be easier to control who can come and drop flowers. And, who can come and drop fertilizer.)
But what should have been done? Ah. We had a good head start. Until the Saudis began operating our train. You’ll notice how the military on top is emasculated. How condi has not worthwhile military experience at all. How, it’s possible, Colin Powell was made chairman to satisfy some affirmative action disorder disease, that took hold across this nation, from academia, on down.
I just do not know.
But the Iraqi people? They were put through hell. For them, these past three years has been like having a 9/11 attack every week. Supported by the Saudis, who will never run out of money.
On the other hand. THEY STOOD UP AND FOUGHT BACK! True. They have no military. But experience with terror? Home grown. And, it works just as well in bad nieughbrohoods when the mafia tries to control the flow.
Why weren’t we air bombing the Iraqi borders? Dropping bombs on all those roads so easily accessible to the transport of crap by the Saudis? When will they ever pay?
Oh, yeah. Mark Steyn noticed. He noticed how adaptable American technology has been. While everything gets replaced with something better. Except for the one thing that needs the saud’s oil. (Which we extract. And, manage to ship, worldwide. While they’ve “instructed us” not to interfere at all with them.) So they replaced Islam, worldwide, with a terror network. You think it was just the Taliban? You think in the arab parts of the world those beasts are liked? Or even respected? And, they couldn’t get a run for their money, if we just delivered a soft enough blow, so they’d be left without any new toys? Olmert wouldn’t give them syria this summer.) So what did Israel get? #1701. And, lots of harms from the White House. Delivered in spite of any other foreign policy that might have existed in the United States. I bet Bake made good money doing this, too.)
Strata
“The more conservative and religous views are necessary to illustrate the ideas of sacrifice and honor and dedication, but they must be presented at the table of democracies and free economies in order to be productive and useful.”
And they must be side dishes, as in Strata’s essentially materialist
America which he desires to impose on the world. But this
world produces confusion among other jejune phenomenae ,as
Strata’s confusion regards the stilted and loaded “Islamofascist”
malapropism. Take Syria-it is opposed to theocracy but will never be a friend to America’s Zionist-oriented foreign policy. It is run by
secular Alawites declared heretics by mainstream Islam, but nonetheless, AJ’s Israel-first robotic orientation casts it adrift.
More importantly, check out the New Republic editorials today–it’s in the driver’s seat, AJ, poor man.
I love your site and come to it every day. On most days, I also enjoy the comments. However, have you ever considered a word limit on the comments page. If a commenter wants us to read an article, he/she can point us to it. We can then go to read that article if we choose. If he/she has long, extended remarks, that person could start a blog of their own.
This is funny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w77sLtz754
Colanut22 – I have tried to get people to synopsize and link! I will keep on it.
Colanut are you Pepsi or Coke?
Okay, it looks like there actually might be a way forward in Iraq and it looks like it is going to split the Shiite bloc leaving al Sadr et al on the wrong side of the politics.
If you read Iraq The Model (will provide a link below) a posting was made on the 15th that basically describes how this is to work. Several Shiite groups, some Sunni groups and some Kurdish groups have come together and said they will support Maliki in any attempt to get the sectarian voilence under control. This wouldn’t work before because attacking any faction would result in that faction pulling out of its complcated alliance with other factions and result in turmoil in the various political blocks in the assembly.
What this does is gives Maliki enough backing to get stuff done even if people like al Sadr pulls out because it gives Maliki backing from more than just the Shiite block. He gets pan-Iraqi support with enough votes to back him even if al Sadr or others go against him. Allawi has said he would throw his secular Iraq Alliance into this group if asked as well.
The bombshell news today is that it looks like the supreme Shiite ayatollah in Iraq is now on board with this concept and appears to be supporting it provided the door is initially wide open to allow Shiite factions to be part of the solution. If they chose not to participate, then they are part of the problem and Sistani is apparently saying “so be it”.
This could finally be the political break that has been hoped for if Maliki can come through with a couple of key promises with regard to re-instating some old Ba’ath member rank and file public service types and military officers. It appears to be agreeable to everyone except al Sadr and his ilk. Sistani apparently has had enough of the infighting between Shiites and wants the fighting to stop.
Links:
Iraq The Model on December 15
NYT on December 20
This could be the real begining of the end of the sectarian violence in Baghdad, and the start of the Sunnis being on board. I am happy to see a broad spectrum of Iraqis finally getting behind Maliki. Tossing him out would have put the entire government in turmoil and set us back months.
It will also be the ticket needed to put the screws to al Sadr. I believe this is why the President might have been holding off in making any bold announcements on Iraq. I believe he wants to see if this has a chance to work and if it does, allow the Iraqis to solve it themselves.
I just love it when the sharks attack and eat their own kind.
Thanks, AJ. I will not post anymore on shortening comments. Enforcement, my cola of choice is Coke. Have surgery tomorrow, so everyone have a Merry, Merry Christmas!
Crosspatch
” It appears to be agreeable to everyone except al Sadr and his ilk. ”
You did notice that the article predicted increased Shia militia
violence if the plan was implemented?
Sistani apparently has had enough of the infighting between Shiites and wants the fighting to stop.”
Sistani has wanted the infighting to stop since 2004.
“way forward”
Nonetheless, if the plan is succesfully implemented it will not result in a pro-American Iraqi government; that’s not included in your definition of “forward,” hopefully.
What did you say Ken? Not Pro-American?
Are you cheering for Al Qaeda? Are you a member? Are you planning to join?
That’s the difference between an ignoramus who wishes to impose America’s will where it is not wanted and not needed and a realist.
And your gullibility and senility prevent you from seeing al Qaeda is not mentioned in the above anti-American Shia factions. You did know al Qaeda was Sunni and hated Shia didn’t you, senile guy?
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2006/12/12/another-reason-for-texans-to-be-embarrassed/
it’s okay for an anonymous senile guy not to know the difference, but when US “intelligence” guys don’t, well….that’s why you’re losing.
aboved link explains.
Ken, would you cut and paste where I said al Qaeda was mentioned in it? you really do have a reading comprehension problem don’t you?
“you from seeing al Qaeda is not mentioned in the above”
As always Ken ‘thinks’ because of his reading comp. problem that someone says something, when in fact, it’s not even mentioned then goes off on a tangent with links to liberal rags to prove a point that was never even brought up.
Have you been wrong all your life Ken, or did it just start lately?
I wouldn’t have expected a Dem to be right or know the diff.
Just for the record.