OBAMA AND SLAVERY

The following essay is authored by Bill Warner of Political Islam.

SLAVERY STILL STALKS the American consciousness, its wounds yet festering in many hearts. If Barack Obama were to set his mind to it, he could heal much of the damage this peculiar institution wrought on our national soul. This is a great and tragic error that must be given justice. Obama is the best person in the world who can recognize, remember and honor the deaths of 125 million and the enslavement of tens of millions of people.

His unique qualifications can be found in his names. Until he was 20 years old, he went by the first name Barry. Then he decided to be called Barack Hussein Obama, his original birth name. Baraq [Barack] was the name of the winged horse-like creature that took Mohammed to Paradise in the Night Journey. Baraq can also mean God's blessing. Hussein reminds some Americans of Saddam Hussein, and Obama's supporters get upset if it is used. Hussein was the name of Mohammed's grandson. So OBAMA's entire name is based upon Islamic mythology and African conquest. Barack Hussein means [Allah's blessing] [Mohammed's grandson].

Obama's name reveals a part of history that is unknown or hidden about America, Africa and slavery. It also reveals a history of the destruction of native African civilization. His name came from his father, a so-called Arab African. The word Arab is the clue to the hidden history. Kafirs (non-Muslims) rarely refer to Islam, but call it by an ethnic name whenever they can. When Islam conquered the Middle East, the conquerors were not called Muslims, but Arabs. In Eastern Europe the Muslim invaders were called Turks. In Spain conquering Muslims were referred to as Moors. Thus it is that the Islamic culture in Africa, Arab African, is referred to with an ethnic name, Arab Africans, like Obama's father, are Muslims who leave behind their African culture and adopt the Arab culture.

The Arab African Muslim has always been associated with slavery because Islam is the driving force in the history of world slavery. Islam's connection with slavery starts with Mohammed. The exact details of how slaves are taken are described in detail in the Sira, Mohammed's biography. The Sira is a sacred text since it relates Mohammed's words and deeds, called the Sunna. Everything he did is the perfect pattern of behavior for all Muslims.

Mohammed was involved in every single aspect and detail of slavery. He bought and sold slaves both retail and wholesale. He gave them as gifts, used them for sex, received them as gifts, stood by as slaves were beaten, attacked. He enslaved tribes, and owned black slaves. Indeed, his rise to political success was financed, in part, by the profit of his slave trade.

So the sacred pattern of Mohammed and Islam is the enslavement of non-Muslims, kafirs. For 1400 years Islam has enslaved all races and cultures including Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Zoroastrians, animists, and atheists. Only Muslims are free of being enslaved.

What Obama could do...

Obama could tell us that there is only one way to understand Africa and slavery and that is to understand political Islam. For 1400 years Islam has steadily been at work in Africa. The easiest place for Americans to see Islam's annihilation of kafir civilization is in North Africa and Egypt. Egypt used to be a Christian and Coptic (the descendants of the Pharaohs) country. North Africa was a Greek and Christian culture, and at one time a part of the Roman Empire. The first Islamic assault on African culture was the jihad that annihilated Coptic Egyptian culture and Greek culture in Northern Africa. Today these areas are Arabic and Islamic. That was just the thin end of the jihad wedge. Over the next 1400 years, Islam took approximately 25 million slaves out of Africa. An Arabic word for African is abd, the same word that is used for black slave. Arabic has about 40 words for slaves.

White slaves are mamluk. Islam took more than a million European slaves into slavery. The highest priced slave in the Meccan slave market was a white woman. There is great deal of collateral damage when a slave is taken. A warring party attacks a tribe and when enough of the protectors are killed, the rest will surrender and become slaves. All of those who were strong enough to work were taken away in a forced march for days.

But there are many who are left behind—the young, the old, and the sick and injured. Estimates vary, but from 5 to 10 people left behind died as the result of taking one slave. So for 25 million slaves, we have the deaths of 125 million Africans over a 1400-year period. When the story of slavery is told in America, as in the movie Roots, the sailors get off the boats and capture the Africans and make them slaves. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

When the white slaver showed up in his wooden ship, he made a business deal with a Muslim wholesaler. Jihad was the machinery that Mohammed used, and his model worked well in Africa as slavers filled the slave pens for the same reason that Mohammed did it: profit. Whites only traded slaves with Islam for about 200 years. Islam was in the slave trade before and after selling to the West.

If you would like to learn about the Arab African slave traders that came from the same area of Africa that Obama's father came from, read Tippu Tip and the East African Slave Trade (Leda Farrant, Northumberland Press, 1975). Tippu Tip looked African, but he was 100% Arab and Muslim. By the way, Arab is not a racial term, but a cultural/language term.

But the slave trade had another effect. Africa slowly became Islamic. Jihad worked in many ways to bring about conversion. Sometimes trade introduced Islam and a hybrid Islam/native African religion evolved. Then jihad was used to purify and remove the African culture to result in a purer Islam. But in the end, half of Africa fell to Islam. The oddest thing is that many people have the idea that an Arab African is the same as African. When the Arab culture replaces the native African culture the culture is not African. African culture is no more Arab than Hindu culture is Arab. Sharia law is just as foreign to native African culture as it is to ours.

The magnitude of this problem is seen in Darfur, where Arab Africans are destroying Africans who are not yet Arab enough. This is a centuries-long jihad to annihilate the native African culture. This process is no different than the process by which Coptic Egypt became Arab Egypt. Islam is not a religion but a complete civilization whose stated goal is to replace all other civilizations. There has never been a historical example of a country that kept its native culture after Islam entered. The only times that a civilization has recovered from Islam is the use of outside force, such as in Eastern Europe or Spain. So Africa is an ordinary historical example.

The ignorance about the history behind Obama's names is the root of why he can achieve such an impact. Obama represents the chance to help heal the curse of slavery in America by revealing its complete history. He is a descendant of a white woman who had slave owners in her ancestry. His African father descended from those who enslaved the Africans. Obama is descended from slave owners and slave traders, but he does not have a single drop of slave blood in him.

Since race trumps all, everyone sees him as being representative of America's slave descendants. It becomes true simply because in a race/culture-obsessed society, some want it to be true. Obama's slave ancestry is a fiction and not reality. So Obama is half enslaver, by ancestry, and half slave, by choice. He is the most uniquely positioned to tell the truth, the complete truth about Islam, Africa, America and slavery.

Now here is the last little twist to Obama's name. He called himself Barry, an Irish name, for many years in America. He changed what he wanted to be called after he went to Pakistan for a three-week stay. He left America as Barry and returned as Barack. Some whites may have bought slaves from Islam for 200 years, but after that, their culture was first to outlaw slavery. So Obama changed his name from a culture that abolished slavery to a name from a culture that has enslaved others for 1400 years and has a highly detailed doctrine of slavery.

This is the world that Obama spans: from slavery abolition to the eternal enslaver. He represents hope to many American descendants of slaves, but his ancestors were never enslaved. No one else could tell the story that Obama knows. He could tell the story of how 125 million Africans died. He could tell the story of how 25 million Africans became slaves. There is an enormous irony that descendants of the slaves that his ancestors created now look to him for justice. And he could give them real justice by telling the complete truth of their enslavement. Only he has the power to make others listen.

Obama has declared himself to be a world citizen with his speech in Berlin, and his speaking the truth of the complete story of slavery would be historic, and could reverse centuries of ignorance and lies. He can stand up and tell the world the true complete story of slavery. It would change history far beyond the election cycle.

But will he?

1. Paul Baepler, Editor: White Slaves, African Masters: An Anthology of American Barbary Captivity Narratives
   
2. Basil Davidson: The African Slave Trade
   
3. Robert Davis: Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800
   
4. K. S. Lal: Muslim Slave System in Medieval India
   
5. Giles Milton: White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and Islam's One Million White Slaves
   
6. Daniel Pipes: Slave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System
   
7. Ronald Segal: Islam's Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora
   
8. Bill Warner: Political Islam

NO HUMOR IN THESE HERE PARTS

BY NOW WE'VE ALL heard daytime TV diva Whoopi Goldberg's crass remark to candidate John McCain, "Do I have to worry about becoming a slave again?" Well, slavery on the planet is a very real issue. Here's a pro-active website dedicated to raising awareness and combatting this brutalizing practice, most notably in Arab Africa.

Which leads me to another interesting thought by the thankfully deceased Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran who was quoted as saying in 1979 at the height of the revolution:

"Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious."

So, Whoopi, what are your thoughts on the surge of Muslim immigrants to the West who believe the same austere motivations of life that their honored Islamic mullah set forth for you and me and a dog named Boo?

SHREDDING ISLAMOPHOBIA

No assembly required. No stereotypes allowed. No counter-arguments declarable.

From the awesome Hugh Fitzgerald files, also known here at the Project as instant relief thanks to a battalion of word soldiers...

“When the world is compelled to coin a new term to take account of increasingly widespread bigotry—that is a sad and troubling development,” Annan said. “Such is the case with ‘Islamophobia.’ The word seems to have emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Today, the weight of history and the fallout of recent developments have left many Muslims around the world feeling aggravated and misunderstood, concerned about the erosion of their rights and even fearing for their physical safety.”
—Former Secretary-General of the U.N. Kofi Annan

The “world” was not “compelled to coin a new term”—it was Muslims who coined the word, and they did so deliberately. For that word so deliberately kept undefined is merely a weapon employed to deflect criticism, to label all those who may offer criticism of Islam and of its adherents, basing their criticism not on some blind prejudice, but on their own observations and study. Indeed, the entire Western world—its political leaders, its media, its university departments of Middle Eastern studies—have all been engaged in a massive effort to deflect criticism or disarm it. It is despite all that that Infidels everywhere are coming to some conclusions about Islam, and the more they study, and the more they observe, and the more “Interfaith” gatherings and little Muslim Outreach evenings they attend, all of which end up being dismal exercises in Taqiyya and Tu-Quoque argumentation, the more wary, and critical, and indignant, and sometimes more, they become. The game is up. From a Beslan school full of children to a Bali nightclub full of revellers, from Madrid subways to Moscow theatres, from New York skyscrapers to Najaf mosques (where Sadr’s bezonians tortured, killed, and stacked the bodies of Iraqis who had opposed their reign of terror), from Istanbul to India, the evidence just keeps piling up. And the evidence, too, of what is actually in the Qur’an and hadith and sira—and how many Infidels, a few years ago, even had heard of the “hadith” and the “sira,” or had any idea what was really in the Qur’an, or had ever heard of the Treaty of al-Hudaibiyya—now online, and it can easily be read. And all the excuses, all the nonsense, can no longer be offered up—for we Infidels, fortunately, have the guidance of defectors from Islam, ex-Muslims such as Ibn Warraq (whose own guide to debating Muslims, and how not to be intimidated or snookered, will for many prove invaluable).

Kofi Annan, as Oriana Fallaci notes in her Fallaci Intervista Fallaci, looks, on the surface, to be far more presentable, and far more decent, and far more intelligent—grey hair, gravelly voice, grave mien—than in fact he is. The words quoted above are the words of a simpleton. Perhaps Edward Mortimer, that early admirer of Khomeini and Nazi-Zionist conspiracy theorist, who feels a special responsibility to protect Islam, is the main puppet-master here, or perhaps it is Ms. Rishmawi (the “Palestinian” behind-the-scenes operative who was so influential with Mary Robinson, she of the antisemitic lynch-mob meeting in Durban in September 2001).

Or perhaps it is Annan—the man on whose watch for more black African deaths occurred than anyone since Leopold III of Belgium—really thinks that the word “Islamophobia” came into use because it actually described a real, and deplorable condition; that it describes an unfair, unjust, prejudiced and irrational (i.e. without foundation, against reason and logic) phobia, or hatred, of Islam. What is unreasonable or irrational would be the opposite. That is, the continued ability of many Infidels to regard Islam as just another “religion” worthy of respect, perhaps at the edges a bit rough, but hijacked by a few extremists, or even many extremists, but having a decency at its core, a real religion of “peace” and “tolerance” as a number of Western leaders have insisted.

If, upon reading and studying Qur’an and hadith and sira, and if, after looking around the world over the past few years, and if, after having studied the history of Jihad-conquest and Muslim behavior toward dhimmis—Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists—you do not feel a deep hostility toward the belief-system of Islam and toward its adherents (for the category of “moderate” is nearly meaningless, given the dangerous use to which “moderates” can be put in continuing to mislead the unwary Infidels), then it is you who are irrational, and need to have your head examined.

The word “Islamophobia” must be held up for inspection, its users constantly asked precisely how they would define that word, and they should be put on the defensive for waving about what is clearly meant to be a scare-word that will silence criticism.

So let us ask them which of the following criticisms of Islam is to be considered “Islamophobic”:

1) Muhammad is a role-model for all time. Muhammad married Aisha when she was 6 and had sexual intercourse with her when she was 9. I find appalling that Muslims consider this act of Muhammad to be that of the man who is in every way a role model, and hence to be emulated. In particular, I am appalled that virtually the first act of the Ayatollah Khomeini, a very orthodox and learned Shi’a theologian, was to lower the marriageable age of girls in Iran to 9—because, of course, it was Aisha’s age when Muhammad had sexual relations with her.

2) I find appalling that Islam provides a kind of Total Regulation of the Universe, so that its adherents are constantly asking for advise as to whether or not, for example, they can have wear their hair in a certain way, grow their beards in a certain way, wish an Infidel a Merry Christmas (absolutely not!).

3) I find appalling the religiously-sanctioned doctrine of taqiyya—would you like some quotes, sir, about what it is, or would you like to google “taqiyya” and find its sources in the Qur’an?

4) I find appalling many of the acts which Muhammad committed, including his massacre of the Banu Qurayza, his ordering the assassination of many of those he deemed his opponents, even an old man, a woman, or anyone whom, he thought, merely mocked him.

5) I find appalling the hatred expressed throughout the Qur’an, the hadith, and the sira for Infidels—all Infidels.

6) I find nauseating the imposition of the jizya on Infidels, the requirement that they wear identifying marks on their clothes and dwellings, that they not be able to build or repair houses of worship without the permission of Muslim authorities, that they must ride donkeys sidesaddle and dismount in the presence of Muslims, that they have no legal recourse against Muslims for they are not equal at law—and a hundred other things, designed to insure their permanent, as the canonical texts say, “humiliation.”

7) I find the mass murder of 60-70 million Hindus, over 250 years of Mughal rule, and the destruction of tens of thousands of artifacts and Hindu (and Buddhist) temples, some of the Hindu ones listed in works by Sita Ram Goel, appalling.

8) I find the 1300-year history of the persecution of the Zoroastrians, some of it continuing to this day, according the great scholar of Zoroastrianism, Mary Boyce, which has led to their reduction to a mere 150,000, something to deplore. There are piquant details in her works, including the deliberate torture and killing of dogs (which are revered by Zoroastrians), even by small Muslim children who are taught to so behave.

9) I find the record of Muslim intellectual achievement lacking, and I attribute this lack to the failure to encourage free and skeptical inquiry, which is necessary for, among other things, the development of modern science.

10) I deplore the prohibition on sculpture or on paintings of living things. I deplore the horrific vandalism and destruction of Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Hindu, and Buddhist sites.

11) I deplore the Muslim jurisprudence which renders all treaties between Infidels and Muslims worthless from the viewpoint of the Infidels, though worth a great deal from the viewpoint of the Muslims, for they are only signing a “hudna,” a truce-treaty rather than a true peace-treaty—and because they must go to war against the Infidel, or press their Jihad against the Infidel in other ways, on the model of the Treaty of al-Hudaibiyya, no Infidel state or people can ever trust a treaty with Muslims.

12) I deplore the speech of Mahathir Mohammad, so roundly applauded last year, in which he called for the “development” not of human potential, not of art and science, but essentially of weapons technology and the use of harnessing and encouraging Muslim “brain power” for the sole purpose of defeating the Infidels, as a reading of that entire speech makes absolutely clear. Here—would you like me to read it now for the audience?

13) I deplore the fact that Muslims are taught, and they seem to have taken those teachings to heart, to offer their loyalty only to fellow Muslims, the umma al-islamiyya, and never to Infidels, or to the Infidel nation-state to which they have uttered an oath of allegiance but apparently such an oath must be an act of perjury, because such loyalty is impossible. Am I wrong? Show me exactly what I have misunderstood about Islam.

14) I deplore the ululations of pleasure over acts of terrorism, the delight shown by delighted and celebrating crowds in Cairo, Ramallah, Khartoum, Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, and of course all over Saudi Arabia, when news of the World Trade Center attacks was known—and I can, if you wish, supply the reports from those capitals which show this to have taken place. I attribute statements of exultation about the “Infidels” deserving it to the fact that Islamic tenets view the world as a war between the Believers and the Infidels.

15) On that score, I deplore that mad division of the world between Dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb, and the requirement that there be uncompromising hostility between the two, until the final triumph of the former, and the permanent subjugation, and incorporation into it, of the latter.

16) I deplore the sexual inequality and mistreatment of women which I believe I can show has a clear basis in the canonical Islamic texts, and is not simply, pace Ebadi and other quasi-”reformers,” a “cultural” matter.

17) I deplore the fact that Infidels feel, with justice, unsafe in almost every Muslim country, but that Muslims treat the Infidel countries, and their inhabitants, with disdain, arrogance, and endless demands for them to bend, to change, to what Muslims want—whether it be to remove crucifixes, or change the laws of laicity in France, or to demand that “hate speech” laws be extended in England so as to prevent any serious and sober criticism of Islam.

18) I deplore the emphasis on the collective, and the hatred for the autonomy of the individual. In particular, I believe that someone born into Islam has a perfect right to leave Islam if he or she chooses—and that there should be no punishment, much less the murderous punishment so often inflicted.

19) I find the record of Muslim political despotism to be almost complete—with the exception of those Muslim countries and regimes that have, as Ataturk did, carried out a series of measures to limit and constrain Islam.

20) I deplore the fact that while Muslims claim it is a “universalist” religion, it has been a vehicle for Arab imperialism, causing those conquered and Islamized in some cases to forget, or become indifferent or even hostile to, their own pre-Islamic histories. The requirement that the Qur’an be read in Arabic (one of the first things Ataturk did was commission a Turkish Qur’an and tafsir, or commentary), and the belief by many Muslims that the ideal form of society can be derived from the Sunna of 7th century Arabia, and that their own societies are worth little, is an imperialism that goes to culture and to history, and is the worst and most complete kind.

21) I deplore the attacks on ex-Muslims who often must live in fear. I deplore the attacks on Theo van Gogh and others, and the absence of serious debate about the nature of Islam and of its reform—except as a means to further beguile and distract Infidels who are becoming more wary.

22) I deplore the emptiness of the “Tu Quoque” arguments directed at Christians and Jews, based on a disingenuous quotation of passages—for example, from Leviticus—that are completely ignored and have not been invoked for two thousand years, and I deplore the rewriting of history so that a Muslim professor can tell an American university audience that “the Ku Klux Klan used to crucify (!) African-Americans, everyone standing around during the crucifixion singing Christian hymns (!).”

23) I deplore the phony appeals of the “we all share one Abrahamic faith” and “we are the three monotheisms” when, to my mind, a Christian or a Jew has far less to fear from, and in the end far more in common with, any practicing polytheistic Hindu.

24) I do not think Islam, which is based on the idea of world-conquest, not of accommodation, and whose adherents do not believe in Western pluralism except insofar as this can be used as an instrument, temporarily most useful, to protect the position of Islam until its adherents have firmly established themselves.

25) I deplore the view, in Islam, that it is not a saving of an individual soul that is involved when one conducts Da’wa or the Call to Islam, but rather, something that appears to be much more like signing someone up for the Army of Islam. He need not have read all the fine print; he need not know Islamic tenets; he need not even have read or know what is in sira and hadith or much of the Qur’an; he need only recite a single sentence. That does not show a deep concern for the nature of the conversion (sorry, “reversion”).

26) I deplore the sentiment that “Islam is to dominate and not to be dominated." I deplore the sentiment “War is deception” as uttered by Muhammad. I deplore what has happened over 1350 years, in vast swaths of territory, formerly filled with Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists, much of which is now today almost monotonously Islamic. I do not think Islam welcomes any diversity if it means the possibility of full equality for non-Muslims.

27) I deplore the fact that slavery is permitted in Islam, that it is discussed in the Qur’an, that it was suppressed in 19th century Arabia only through the influence of British naval power in the Gulf; that it was formally done away with in Saudi Arabia only in 1962; that it still exists in Mali, and the Sudan, and even Mauritania; that it may exist in the Arabian interior, but certainly the treatment of the Thai, Filipino, Indian and other female house workers in Arab households amounts to slavery, and it is no accident that there has never been a Muslim William Wilberforce.



I could go on, and am prepared to adduce history, and quotations from the canonical texts. And so are hundreds of thousands of Infidels who have looked into Islam, or in their own countries, had a close look at the Muslim populations which have made their own Infidel existences far more unpleasant, expensive, and dangerous than they would otherwise be.

If this is “Islamophobia”—show me exactly why it is irrational (i.e. not based on facts or observable behavior, or a study of history), an “irrational” dislike or even hatred of Islam. If you cannot show that, then perhaps the word should not be invoked. But if you do invoke it, be prepared to have copious quotations from Qur’an and hadith and sira constantly presented to audiences so that they may judge for themselves, without the “guidance” of apologists for Islam, both Muslim and non-Muslim.

MAKING THE CASE FOR DARFUR DEFENSE

Arab Supremacy alert: African Muslim refugees from Darfur scatter across Sudan to Chad fleeing genocide at hands of Arab Muslim soldiers.

By Hugh Fitzgerald

Osama bin Laden is now attacking the government in Khartoum, decrying the permission given by the fanatical Arab Muslims in Khartoum to the "infidels"—i.e., allowing in some completely ineffective troops from the African Union to "keep the peace" in Darfur.

He needn't worry. Turabi is still Turabi, and the Muslims of Khartoum are just as fanatically vicious as they ever were. They are just willing to be a bit more mindful of Muhammad's "war is deception" as they attempt to diminish Western pressure on them. Hence that "peace treaty" with the Christians and animists in the southern Sudan, which "treaty" is, of course, merely a hudna or "truce" treaty and, for the past six months at least, has been grossly violated by the Sudanese government—and with seeming indifference by the Western powers, which content themselves with the notion that there is now an agreement, a "peace agreement," in the southern Sudan, and they can all forget about that part of the Sudan.

In Darfur, the Sudanese government has made sure that the troops will only be from the African Union, and has repeatedly said that not a single Western soldier will be allowed in. In other words, there will be no force effective enough to smash the Janjaweed, and protect the black Africans being killed for the crime of being black African, rather than Arab, Muslims.

Osama Bin Laden and his Arabs famously treated the Afghani Muslims with indifference, or contempt. The Arabs, after all, are the "best of peoples" to whom the Qur'an was given, and—so Muslims believe—in Arabic. In his remarks on the Sudan, he reveals his indifference to, or rather his tacit approval of, the mass murdering of black Africans. That is not surprising. What is surprising is how this is overlooked by the entire Western world, including those—such as Nicholas Kristof—who write about the Sudan without any mention, much less understanding, of either Islam, or that aspect of Islam that makes it a vehicle for Arab cultural, linguistic, economic, and political imperialism. That subject is too difficult and too troubling for the heart-on-sleeves (and Pulitzers carefully pocketed) likes of Nicholas Kristof and others like him, who can report, who can be mere reporters, full of their easy anguish, but who cannot make sense, for themselves much less for others, of what it is they have been reporting on. They cannot explain the promptings, the attitudes, the atmospherics, that move the people who run the government in Khartoum. They cannot explain the Arab Muslim view of non-Arab Muslims. Don't expect someone on the mental level of Nicholas Kristof to conceivably beable to make a connection between the massacres of Kurds by Arabs in Iraq, and the cultural and linguistic imperialism of the Arabs directed at the Berbers in Algeria, and what is happening in Darfur, where he reports so much, and understands so little.

No, Bin Laden doesn't have to worry about the Turabi government in Khartoum. They know exactly how to delay any day of reckoning.

But what of the American government? Does it realize what an opportunity it is missing by not sending a few thousand troops to seize all of the southern Sudan (with its oil, that would allow that region to pay for itself, and deny those oil revenues to the Arabs in the north?), and Darfur, and holding them until a referendum on independence can be held? That would be a blow for that "freedom" and "democracy" that, unlike in Iraq, might actually mean something because the southern Sudanese are not Muslims, and those in Darfur are nominal Muslims who, having had a taste of the Arab Muslim attitudes, might be willing to listen to the message of Christianity—already hundreds of refugees from Darfur have apparently, once out of the Sudan, converted to Christianity. Quite an opportunity presents itself for the American government to draw a line against further Arab (and Egyptian Arab) expansion further south, threatening Ethiopia, and Kenya, and the rest of the littoral, including Tanzaniya, which is where the old Arab slave trade had its entrepots, at Pemba and Zanzibar, to ship those black slaves to the Arab slave markets of Muscat, and beyond.

But Tarbaby Iraq gets in the way. It gets in the way of properly dealing with Iran's nuclear project. It gets in the way of domestic surveillance that is amply justified. It gets in the way of thinking clearly about the future of the Western countries now subject to demopraphic assault from within. It gets in the way of considering the Jihad as a world-wide phenomenon, one for which terrorism is the least effective of its weapons.

Bin Laden needn't worry about the Sudan. The government there knows exactly what it needs to do to protect the Arab Muslim position, and it has already violated the "peace agreement" with the south in ways that, if Bin Laden knew, would leave him well-satisfied. And they are doing much the same, or trying to, in Darfur.

Those who need to worry about the Sudan are the Infidels. Why has the American government not yet taken the step—the "humanitarian" step—of rescuing the black Africans of Darfur and the southern Sudan? Why has it not allowed its troops to be deployed effectively, instead of ineffectively—to attain exactly the wrong goals—in Iraq? Why has it not created a situation in which the Arab League would have to denounce the Americans (and other Western troops) for protecting the obviously grateful (see those photographs of smiling black faces surrounding their saviors and protectors) for ending the mass murder, by Arabs, of black Africans. What better way to drive a wedge between Arabs and sub-Saharan Africa? What better way to bring to the attention of black Americans, one group long targetted for sinister campaigns of Da'wa, that the Arabs conducted a slave trade that lasted far longer (indeed lasts to this day, despite Western efforts to end it), and claimed far more victims (see "The Hideous Trade") than the Atlantic slave trade and that the Qur'an permanently recognizes the institution of slavery (and Saudi clerics have restated that position repeatedly), and the fury of the Arab League over the rescue of black Africans in Darfur or southern Sudan ought to tell us all a great deal about the real attitudes and intentions of the Arabs.

The Sudan presents a great opportunity to weaken the Camp of Islam, through a very small deployment and application of force. Iraq, on the other hand, presents a great opportunity to weaken the Camp of Islam not through the bringing of "democracy" and keeping the country together, but by the removal of American troops, in order that the pre-existing fissures, sectarian and ethnic, may work themselves out, as they inevitably will.

There is no contradiction here between a policy of removal in Iraq and intervention in Sudan. Both measures would contribute to weakening the Camp of Islam. And that is, or should be, the goal.

FREEDOM AND LIBERTY CAST BEFORE US

I noticed the word "decency" but I could add another “respect”. Respect for one's nation and pride in one's nation. Our founding fathers had the decency and respect for themselves to tell the British where to shove their taxes. Was it the prudent or safe thing to do? Now way but they did anyway and thank god for it because today we live in a free nation were we bow to no nobles or kings. The anti-slavery movement had decency and respect for themselves which is why they opposed slavery. They could have sat around and ignored it. Let it just pass over the falls but they did not and resisted and fought. Was it the prudent and safe thing to do? No way for it led to a civil war but thank god for it.

Today no man is enslaved in this land. We can hold our head up with pride. Throughout our nation's history we have had people who did the unsafe thing so today we could be free and be proud. We did not do it for the adventure but because it was the right thing to do. Now we are faced with yet another example. It is a small one. The question before us is should we recognize the sufferings of the Armenians in the genocide of 1915?

Some say it is not needed because it is for the historians to ponder. I disagree, for if we had let the injustice of the past be pondered by historians of the future we would not be in America today and we would still have chattel slavery. Some say we will anger a supposed ally in the so called war on terror. I disagree, for would a real ally react as Turkey has reacted to simple words.

We are not threatening to wage war against Turkey yet they appear to be willing to kill Americans if we get in their way when they invade northern Iraq. Once again if they behave like this over a few words can they really be trusted for anything? Are they really an ally? Yes, there will be some fallout. Perhaps it will prevent Bush’s plan to unify Iraq and bring Democracy to the Islamic world.

However, it is clear that was not working anyway and if you accept that Islam is a political ideology and not just a faith then the Iraqi adventure was doomed to begin with. There are also some among you that think this a ploy by certain democrats to get us out of Iraq and to make Bush look bad. You maybe are right but I don’t really care. Bush does not need the democrats to make him look stupid as has been proven beyond count. Bush does this to himself. We are in Iraq today because of George W. Bush. This is his mess, so let him figure out how to fix it. That is what you get when you put your trust in nations like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan and others and allow them to play roles in your battle plan. This is why we will continue to pay a heavy price for doing economic and military deals with these nations. This is the price for us buying their oil, this is the price of freedom.

We are not free. If we were free we would not be pushing for a Palestinian state. If we were free we would not be thinking about thought crimes. If we were free we would not be begging Arabians to stop their war against our people. The Arabians proved their point on 9-11. They killed thousands of Americans and what did we do about it? Nothing. For we fear they might hurt our economy. That sounds like a slave to me. If you are a decent, proud and free man or woman you would have no problem with this bill for it is the truth no matter how silly or irreverent it might seem. However, it appears our master has screamed and some of you (along with our President and Congress) have jumped for Massa Turkey.

I am a free man so my response to Turkey is this is none of their business. This is between the United States and Armenia. We recognize their suffering in the 1915 mass murder of their people by the Ottoman Empire. End of Story…

—Great Comet of 1577

Great essay, and I agree with most of its tenets. However, as pointed out on another blog, this does nothing to end a war, but actually extends it which was not the Democrats original motive. And, this small detail is obviously why Speaker Pelosi has now backed off this airy resolution a mere day or two after the news broke she and her cronies were pushing their October Surprise up the Hill.

THE TASK BEFORE EARNEST AMERICANS

by Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch.

Islam is an all-encompassing belief-system. It is quite different from those other monotheisms which, for obvious reasons while they are still a small group in the West, Muslims like to have "so very much" in common—that "three abrahamic faiths" pitch that once went over well, but nowadays appears to attract only the most muddle-headed or those who, while supposedly being Christian or Jewish clergymen, have brought their art of self-preening or cravenness to such a level that they become Defenders of the Faith, that Faith being Islam.

But Infidels can no longer be stopped. Once they begin to realize that the texts of Islam are not hermetic, and can be studied, they will study them. Once they realize that a knowledge of classical Arabic is not essential to learning about Islam, not least because 80% of the world’s Muslims know not a bit of Arabic, classical or otherwise, and that even many Arabs have difficulty understanding classical Arabic and certainly the text of the Qur’an (see Christoph Luxenberg on the 20% of the Qur’an that is inexplicable, in his view, until one recognizes an Ur-text of Syriac—that is, the Aramaic of Edessa), they will dare to open them. So Infidels are now free to read the immutable texts of Islam—Qur'an, hadith, and Sira—read, and reread, and study with growing understanding, but not necessarily growing delight or pleasure. They can find out about the interpretative doctrine of “naskh” or “abrogation,” by which—as in the common law—the texts deemed later cancel out, or abrogate, the texts deemed to have been set down earlier. And those later texts, presumably from the “Medinan” period of Muhammad’s existence, are far harsher than the softer, “Meccan” verses from the period when Islam was still weak.

Infidels can do so many things. They can find out, as apparently George Bush was incapable of finding out or being told, why Qur’an 5.32 cannot conceivably be understood without the context of the succeeding verse, 5.33. They can learn the real meaning, the meaning that Islam and Muslims assign to the seemingly benign Qur’anic observation that “there is no compulsion in religion.” They can find out what is Halal and what Haram in Islam. They can find out what Muslims are taught to think of sculpture, of paintings depicting living creatures, of music. They can find out what Muslims think of free and skeptical inquiry, and of the possibility of someone born into Islam being permitted to choose for himself whether to remain a Muslim, or to abandon that faith for another, or for no faith at all. They can find out. They can find out the details of Muhammad’s life, and consider what is the likely effect of those details on Muslims who are taught to regard Muhammad, a warrior who took part in 78 military campaigns, 77 of them offensive, as the Model of Conduct, the Perfect Man—uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil—for all Muslims, and for all time. Consider the implications of that in light of the beheading of the bound prisoners of the Banu Qurayza, the attack on the inoffensive Jewish farmers of the Khaybar Oasis, the satisfaction taken when he heard of the assassinations of Abu Akaf and Asma bint Marwan, the “treaty-making model” of Al Hudaibiyyah, and of course the business with little Aisha.

The Qur’anic text is available online, a click away, with several different translations set out synoptically. Much of the Hadith is too, and so is the Sira. More and more studies by the great Western students of Islam, from the period of genuinely free and uninhibited study, roughly 1860 to 1960, are being gathered into sourcebooks (such as Bostom’s The Legacy of Jihad) or republished (especially in accessibly cheap Indian editions). More and more people have uncovered what the Great of the Past had to say about Islam, writing as they did in a period when no punches had to be pulled, and one could speak or write one’s mind. What did that great religious reformer John Wesley write about Islam? And the most learned of nineteenth-century American statesmen, John Quincy Adams? What did that wise student of men and events, Alexis De Tocqueville, write about Islam, based on his wide knowledge, including his observations in Algeria? What did Gladstone have to say about the Turks, and about their role in Europe, and about the Bulgarian Wars? What did Winston Churchill, with his knowledge of history, say about Muslims and Islam?

And above all, we know have the phenomenon of “defectors” from Islam, the apostates from Islam, who in the Western world are no longer fearful, and are willing to speak from their own lifetimes of experience of being born into Islam and then choosing to abandon it, some for Christianity (Walid Shoebat, Nonie Darwish), and some to be resolute freethinkers, such as Ibn Warraq, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ali Sina, Wafa Sultan, and so many more. Some have been Iranians, some Pakistanis, some Arabs, some from still other backgrounds. Muslim spokesmen would prefer that you pay as little attention to these keen observers as possible, and attempt on every occasion to shut them up or shout them down. But up or down, those Muslim spokesmen and enforcers have not succeeded, for when someone such as Ibn Warraq writes Why I Am Not a Muslim and Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes her own stirring testimony in Infidel, or when Ali Sina, with a growing army of fellow apostates, conducts his own lucid campaign from the heights of www.faithfreedom.org, Muslims in this country cannot, as they would in a minute in a Muslim country, shut such efforts down. Thus we, the Infidels, are the beneficiaries of such valuable witnesses, such indispensable temoignage.

It seems a century ago that we were willing to engage in those phony “dialogues” which always end up being sinister apologies for Islam, with the non-Muslim clergymen willingly or unwillingly inveigled into participating into a farce of supposedly symmetrical fault-finding, a farce that relies heavily on Infidel ignorance of Islam, and willingness to assume that if some belief-system is called a “religion” then of course it must be a force for good, must be beyond criticism, and only that “handful of extremists” are not good. But “extreme” about what? If Islam is in its essence so unthreatening, so peaceful, so tolerant, so good, then why should someone who is fanatically in favor of that something good be a threat to Infidels?

Those “interfaith candlelight ceremonies” that were all the rage just after 9/11/2001 ring hollow today, especially with the list of all those Muslim clerics who appeared to utter all kinds of soothing words, and then were discovered in the past, or at the same time, or later on, to have been heard, even recorded, making quite different statements when they thought no non-Muslims were around. It has been quite a revelation, too, to discover the Islamic websites that counsel Muslims in how to talk to Infidels, telling exactly the things that should be said and the topics that should be carefully avoided, even explaining that one should “let the Sisters talk” if the subject is Islam and the Treatment of Women. And there are those Muslim websites that inform parents just how to wangle special treatment—prayer rooms and suchlike—from teachers and principals. It’s down to a science, all written out. And eventually someone is going to put all that advice for fellow Muslims together, and publish it, but as a warning to, and for the edification of, Infidels.

No Infidels need any longer accept the word of tireless apologists as to what those texts say, or what their "meaning" is, especially when we have all been treated to example after example of Tu-Quoque-and-Taqiyya, sometimes by omission, sometimes by deliberate misinterpretation for the limitlessly naive. Furthermore, we have the long historical record of Jihad-conquest, and the texts, written by Muslims themselves, on the subject of the necessity of Jihad, and the rules of Jihad—here again, see Bostom's sourcebook, The Legacy of Jihad. We have 1350 years of such a record, and are entitled to study that record, from Spain in the west to what is present-day Indonesia in the east. We can study how non-Muslim populations slowly or quickly were reduced in size: what happened to the Copts of Egypt? What happened to the Jews and Armenians under Shah Abbas II in Iran? What happened to the Christians and Jews of the Arabian peninsula? What happened to the Christians of North Africa, where Tertullian and St. Augustine once lived? What happened to the Hindus of India under Muslim rule? Was it all wonderful, or is there reason to think that K. S. Lal and other Indian historians are right in their claim that between 60 and 70 million Hindus lost their lives? What was the historical record of Arab Muslims and slavery in Black Africa? Splendid? A tale of Muslim Wilberforces, long predating the English one? When was slavery formerly abolished in Arabia, and why? And is there any evidence of the continuance of slavery in Arab Muslim countries? And is there any evidence that Muslim scholars today have written about the continuing, indeed permanent, legitimacy of slavery, because it was recognized and accepted by Muhammad?

And these are not the only questions that need to be examined, studied, discussed. One wishes to know what happened to the Hindus of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Why did their numbers in the populations of those countries drop so precipitously, while the Muslim population of India has gone up, both relatively and absolutely? What has happened to Buddhists in southern Thailand, and why? What happened to the Christians of East Timor under Muslim rule? What has been happening to the Christians of the Moluccas? Or Iraq? Or Lower Egypt? Or in Lebanon over the past fifty years? What has happened to the French peres blancs and the Italian monks who tried to help the Muslims of Algeria, and for their pains were murdered? What is that history all about? What happened to the Armenians, and why was it that when Turks and Kurds killed those Armenians, they took pleasure in calling them "gavours" (Infidels), and were delighted if Armenian priests and their wives were among the victims, as recorded by eyewitnesses?

And here is yet another question that needs to be considered, to be discussed, to be pondered and not only in the corridors of power. What are the instruments of Jihad? Bush has focused quite monomaniacally on "terror"—as if he cannot bring himself to see the use of the Money Weapon, carefully-targeted campaigns of Da'wa, and of course a demographic conquest that has been openly discussed by Muslims. It has been discussed by Boumedienne at the U.N. in 1974, and by mild-mannered Pakistani accountants in the letters pages of "Dawn" (see that for December 5, 2001 for example). There are Muslim websites where these developments are openly discussed—as they are by all kinds of Muslim posters at this (see "Naseem") and other websites.

Is it illegitimate for inhabitants of the Western or larger non-Muslim world to study these matters, and to raise these issues? Why? Is it illegitimate to discuss the proposition that one has a perfect right to defend the legal and political institutions that one's own society has received as a legacy, that others before one helped to create, over time, and that in every respect are flatly contradicted by what Islam inculcates? Is the individualism of the West, are our individual rights, those enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to be simply swept away, or to be subject to incessant attack by the adherents of a collectivist faith who do not believe in free speech, or in freedom of conscience, including the freedom to leave one faith for another, or to have no faith at all? Are these illegitimate questions?

And is it illegitimate to point out how frequently in history states and peoples have felt it necessary to expel others in their midst, and that it is a bit hasty to denounce all such efforts (though many certainly should be denounced), especially when one considers the reasons, the historical context, of the Benes Decree, which was adduced not as a model to follow, but as a case to study and ponder?

We in the West have an obligation to defend a civilizational legacy, even if many of us, individually, have not exactly proved ourselves worthy of it. And that includes considering measures that others have undertaken, to see if they provide lessons, any lessons at all, for us at this point in our endangered history.

And that is hardly illegitimate. It is the very least we should ask of ourselves, and of those who presume to "lead" us, or rather, in the cant of this cant-filled age, presume to "take a leadership role." Many people in this country have gone far beyond their so-called leaders, Democratic and Republican, in their understanding of Islam. And that is a good thing. That is a necessary thing.