Explaining the Islamic State Phenomenon, Part One

The perception that the West led by the United States are the new Crusaders trying to subdue Islam has nurtured extremists ideologies and created many militant organizations whose mission is to fight “the infidels.” This perception should be considered to be at the root of the creation of Al-Qaeda whose raison d’être is to fight the West and to strive to re-create a Muslim (Sunni) caliphate in the areas extending from North Africa to “Ma wara al Nahr,” meaning Central and Eastern Asia, the historical boundaries of the once Islamic empire. - Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah

I do believe Col. Neriah has hit the nail on the head about how Middle Eastern Muslims feel toward the West and America in particular. As you read Col. Neriah’s part one essay about the pattern of the emergence of what Daesh/ISIS calls itself the Islamic State, he elaborates on the part United States played in this emergence. Although Col. Neriah talks of America’s part he is very careful not to talk about America’s President in charge of Foreign Policy during this growth of the Islam State. Of that President the most responsible is Barack Hussein Obama in which Hillary Clinton was his Secretary of State in Obama’s earliest days of Foreign Policy decisions.

JRH 2/2/16

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Explaining the Islamic State Phenomenon, Part One

By Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

2016-02-01

ACT for America

Part One: Explaining the Islamic State Phenomenon

• The Islamic State is a terrorist state with almost all governing elements. Over the last four years, it has developed from an extremist fringe and marginal faction to become the strongest, most ferocious, best funded and armed militia in the religious and ethnic war that is waged today in Syria and Iraq.

• ISIS rules today over a swath of land bigger than the United Kingdom, with a population of almost 10 million. ISIS changed its name to the Islamic State to illustrate that its goals are not limited to Iraq and the countries of the Fertile Crescent.

• Since the fall of Muslim empires and supremacy, Muslim scholars and philosophers have tried to understand the reasons behind its collapse. The conclusion of most was that Muslim civilization had drifted away from the teachings of the Koran and adopted foreign and heretical inputs that had destroyed its fabric. The remedy they proposed was to return to “pure Islam” and reconstruct Muslim society.

• After the U.S. occupational authority in Baghdad disbanded the Iraqi army in May 2003, thousands of well-trained Sunni officers were robbed of their livelihood with the stroke of a pen, creating some of America’s most bitter and intelligent enemies. In addition, many Islamic State terrorists spent years in detention centers in Iraq after 2003.

• Never in the modern history of the Muslim world has a conflict drawn so many jihadists, who seek to participate in the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate to rule the world after the defeat in battle of the Western powers and their local Arab allies.

• For many, life in the Islamic State is better than in their country of origin. This is particularly the case for Chechen fighters who flock to the IS because the conditions of combat in Iraq and Syria are less harsh than against the Russians.

Much has been written about the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (the Levant) — ISIS.   Most of the analysts have looked at ISIS as another terrorist organization, an al-Qaeda off-shoot, waging a guerrilla war with cohorts of unorganized thugs. The Afghani-style gear, the pickup trucks, the all black or army fatigue uniforms that most ISIS fighters wear, the unshaven beards, the turbans, hoods and head “bandanas” with Arabic inscriptions have added to the confusion.

In fact, ISIS is much more than a terrorist organization; it is a terrorist state with almost all governing elements. Over the last four years, since the beginning of the civil war in Syria, the Islamic State developed from an extremist fringe and marginal faction participating in the civil war to become the strongest, most ferocious, best funded and armed militia in the religious and ethnic war that is waged today in Syria and Iraq.

ISIS rules today over 300,000 square kilometers, a swath of land roughly bigger than the United Kingdom with a population of almost 10 million citizens. In the course of its first year of expansion, ISIS has changed its name to the Islamic State, a choice made to illustrate that its goals are not limited to Iraq and the countries of the Fertile Crescent. Moreover, the IS caliphate now has 10 branches, following pledges of allegiance in the past few months from new fronts including Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Algeria, Afghanistan, Nigeria and, most recently, the Caucasian Emirates.

Factors behind the Establishment of the Islamic State

To understand the IS phenomenon, it is crucial to examine the factors that contributed to its emergence.

Since the fall of Muslim empires and supremacy, Muslim scholars and philosophers have tried to understand the reasons behind its collapse, its domination by Western Powers, its colonization and its incapacity to reproduce the genius that so much characterized the Muslim civilization following the conquests that stretched the Muslim lands from Spain to India, West Asia, and China. Most, if not all the scholars tried to analyze the characteristics behind the “Golden Age” of Islam and why at a certain point, the Muslim world stopped producing innovations in science, medicine, algebra, mathematics, military warfare machines and graphic arts. The conclusion of most was that Muslim civilization had drifted away from the teachings of the Koran and adopted foreign and heretical inputs that had destroyed its fabric. The remedy they proposed was to return to the “pure Islam” which would heal the wounds and respond to the West by first reconstructing the Muslim society according to their raw interpretation of the Koran and organizing to defeat Western power.

Indeed, since the fall of Muslim Spain in the fifteenth century and especially since the beginning of western colonization of Muslim territories, the Muslim world has witnessed the rise and fall of successive radical movements whose prime aim was to combat the West while regenerating the original Muslim society of Prophet Mohammad which was thought to be the cure for all ailments. Muslim thinkers like Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani (late 19th century), Muhammad ‘Abduh (19th century), Sayyed Qutub (20th century), Muhammad Iqbal (early 20th century), and the Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi in Sudan (19th century) are only a few examples of Muslim radicals who inspired upheavals against Western powers.   ISIS is but another refined product of the radicalization of the Sunnis in West and Central Asia.

Since the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, foreign military intervention in the latter part of the 20th century, be it Soviet or American, was greatly responsible for the awakening of Sunni radicalism in West and Central Asia and to its expression today as a Holy War against the West, its allies and Israel. The perception that the West led by the United States are the new Crusaders trying to subdue Islam has nurtured extremists ideologies and created many militant organizations whose mission is to fight “the infidels.” This perception should be considered to be at the root of the creation of Al-Qaeda whose raison d’être is to fight the West and to strive to re-create a Muslim (Sunni) caliphate in the areas extending from North Africa to “Ma wara al Nahr,” meaning Central and Eastern Asia, the historical boundaries of the once Islamic empire.

The civil war in Syria transformed very quickly into a radical Sunni armed insurrection against the Alawite Iranian-backed Assad regime. The Muslim Brotherhood, which led the battle against the regime at the beginning of the conflict, was soon joined by radical organizations financed not only by Saudi Arabia and Qatar but also by other actors such as the United States, UK, France and Turkey. Qatar alone is said to have poured into the conflict more than $500 million. The Syrian scene provided all the ingredients for the radicalization of Sunni organizations. The Syrian civil war is an “all-in-one” situation in which all the previous factors are involved: foreign presence, Sunnis against Shiites, Iran and Hizbullah, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the United States, France and Turkey and an international coalition led by the United States fighting Islamic militants in the lands of Islam.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar fund Islamic organizations all over the world, nurturing mainly the Salafi-Wahhabi schools at the expense of traditional and moderate Islam. Most of the Muslim states have been exposed for a long time to Wahhabi proselytism that is by essence opposed to the “moderate” Sufi Islam practiced in North Africa. No wonder after the revolution in Libya and the takeover of Mali by Islamic fundamentalists, the Muslim militants destroyed all religious shrines, an exact copy of the reality in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. However, it appears now that Saudi Arabia is apprehensive of what seems to be the result of its actions: One of the biggest contingents fighting in Syria and Iraq is Saudi (almost 2,500). As a consequence of the assessment that these Jihadist organizations could harm the monarchy, Saudi Arabia and all Gulf states have adopted a sort of “Patriot Act” and designated all those volunteers as terrorists.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has also played a major catalyst role in contributing to the polarization of the Muslim world into two rival camps, Shiites and Sunnites. Since the beginning of the Khomeini takeover in 1979, Iran has been preaching a pan-Islamist ideology while sealing alliances with Islamic movements in the Arab world, Africa, and Asia. Iran concealed its Shiite philosophy and succeeded in creating the illusion that it was transcending its origins and its identity as a Shiite entity. It was not until the beginning of the so-called “Arab Spring” that the Arab nations realized the Iranian scheme. The war in Syria and Iran’s open alliance with the Assad regime and the Shiite regime in Baghdad, Iran’s subversive activity in Lebanon through Hizbullah and the Houthis in Yemen, unveiled the implications of the Iranian contribution: the transformation of local conflicts in West Asia into a Shiite-Sunni open conflict over hegemony. Moreover, the Arab perception that the U.S. administration was looking to mend the fences with Iran at the expense of it historical clients in the Middle East accelerated the crisis between the Arab world and Iran and justified in the eyes of many the armed struggle waged by the Islamists against Iran and its allies in the region.

Another factor in the rise of the Islamic State is the so-called “Arab Spring” which was the expression of the failure of the Arab nation-states. The events in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen were exploited by Islamic militant movements which found the right opportunity to rise from their clandestine activities after years of oppression and persecution by the different Arab regimes to the forefront of the political struggle for power. Years of military rule did not eradicate the Islamic political forces that had remained in the shadow and camouflaged themselves under the cover of charitable organizations, social assistance and non-profit entities. However, after a first round in which the Islamists seemingly won in Tunisia and Egypt, the secular forces backed by the military succeeded in overcoming the Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood was dealt a heavy blow both in Syria and Egypt. However, the different regimes were unsuccessful in eradicating the plethora of militant terrorist Islamic organizations that are still conducting their deadly attacks against the different regimes. Some regimes survived – even though deeply shaken and destabilized – like Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco – while others like Libya deteriorated into failed states, and others are struggling for their survival such as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

The second American war in Iraq in 2003 dealt a death blow to the Sunni minority that had ruled Iraq since its separation from the Ottoman Empire by British colonialism. The Americans, striving to establish a new world order with democratic regimes as a copy of the West, established an unprecedented Shiite regime which in turn discriminated against the Sunnites who found themselves out of jobs, positions, army command, and Baath party offices. Paul Bremer, then head of the U.S. occupational authority in Baghdad, disbanded the Iraqi army in May 2003. Thousands of well-trained Sunni officers were robbed of their livelihood with the stroke of a pen. In doing so, America created its most bitter and intelligent enemies.  This was the fertile ground that welcomed Al-Qaeda and allowed the symbiosis between the Sunnite opposition to the Shiite regime and the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Until the schism with ISIS in 2013, Al-Qaeda was, in fact, the sole quasi-military opposition to the U.S.-led coalition campaign:

Amazingly, the Islamic State terrorists who have emerged in Iraq and Syria are not new to the U.S. and Western security agencies. Many of them spent years in detention centers in Iraq after 2003. “There were 26,000 detainees at the height of the war,” the New York Times reported, “and over 100,000 individuals passed through the gates of Camps Bucca, Cropper, and Taji.”  The leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was incarcerated in Camp Bucca in southern Iraq. “A majority of the other top Islamic State leaders were also former prisoners, including Abu Muslim al-Turkmani, Abu Louay, Abu Kassem, Abu Jurnas, Abu Shema and Abu Suja,” the Times detailed. “Before their detention, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and others were violent radicals. Their time in prison deepened their extremism and gave them opportunities to broaden their following.”

Unfortunately, the phenomenon went unnoticed for most American decision makers. “The prisons became virtual terrorist universities,” the Times reporters Andrew Thompson and Jeremi Suri wrote. “Policies changed in 2007… Where possible, the military tried to separate hardline terrorists from moderates.” But after the American withdrawal these prisoners were placed in Iraqi custody. The Islamic State freed these extremists as they swept across parts of Iraq. “With a new lease on life,” the New York Times reported, “these former prisoners are now some of the Islamic States’ most dedicated fighters.”

Never in the modern history of the Muslim world has a conflict drawn so many jihadists as is the case with the Syrian and Iraqi civil wars, surpassing wars in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. Since the outburst of the conflict in Syria in 2011 and the 2014 takeover of Mosul by the IS (the Islamic State), Syria and Iraq have become the epicenter of the global Jihad. Thousands of jihadists originating from more than 90 different nationalities have flocked to Syria and Iraq to be part of the battle against the Assad regime and the Shiite regime in Iraq. The latter two are reinforced by Hizbullah and Iran.

The jihadists seek to participate in the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate to rule the world after the defeat in battle of the Western powers and their local Arab allies. The attraction the Islamic State is exercising on Sunni Muslims around the globe and jihadists in the Arab and Muslim world is tremendous. The Islamic State has become the beacon to rally thousands of militants in Iraq, Syria and around the globe.

The attraction is not limited in space or time. The movement is in Europe, the United States, Australia, Xinyang and also in the Arab world and Africa. As a matter of fact, most of North Africa’s jihadist groups were hesitant to associate themselves with the Islamic State until the United States commenced its military intervention in Iraq and Syria in August 2014.

Part Two of this series will be published on Wednesday, February 3^rd

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Killing Islam

Justin Smith describes a strategy against Islamic terrorism that is sure to make bleeding heart Leftists bleed more and Muslim Apologists cry for their non-existent Mahdi. I concur with the strategy and might even be bold enough to take the strategy to a higher level of collateral damage due to the inherent violence sewn within the pages of the Quran, Hadith and Sira. Justin also mentions a few Muslims that are calling for a Westernized reform of Islam. And yet Justin correctly points out such a reformation would obliterate the heart of makes Islam into Islam.

JRH 1/3/16

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Killing Islam

Or Let Allah Sort It Out

By Justin O. Smith

Sent: 1/2/2016 2:29 PM

Islam is a septic, twisted and demented ideological maelstrom that is incapable of reform, and it has disseminated its own particular brand of hate, intolerance, dissent, division and violence in every nation that has opened its doors to Muslims, who deny the theological warrant for violence and intolerance embedded in Islam's religious texts. It is not a religion of peace, as history and current events detail, and the terrorist murderers from Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and the Islamic State quote the same Koranic verses that every Muslim in the world considers sacrosanct; in totality, all the factual evidence shows that Islam is the antithesis of freedom, constitutional governance and liberty, and America should close Her doors to Islam and Muslims permanently.

Approximately 70% of Muslims in America and Europe follow fundamental Islamic traditions and cultural adaptations, and over 50% of Muslims worldwide, about 800 billion, affirm all or a significant portion of the Koran's teaching on violence. This includes theologically sanctioned violence aimed at blasphemy, adultery, apostasy and any perceived insult against family "honor" or Islam.

Throughout Islam's history, several attempts towards "islah" [Wikipedia & Oxford Islamic Studies] (reform and "tajdid" [Claremont Graduate University & Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization]) renewal were witnessed. Many of these ended in the manner of Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah of Damascus (1263-1328), who died in prison after trying to modify Islam's "fiqh" (jurisprudence). One other, Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahab (1703-92) was a "reformer" who aimed his efforts at doctrinal purity; his vision became the virulent Wahhabi sect of Islam that controls most of Sunni Islamic thought today and advocates violent methods to make Islam supreme across the entire world.

Secular attempts to reform Islam have largely failed, because they were not sanctioned by the top clerics of Islam: Mustafa Kemal enraged Muslims in Turkey and everywhere else by abolishing the Ottoman sultanate on November 1st 1922, which resulted in the Khilafat Movement and an effort to protect the caliphate. And today we see Pres. Tayyip Erdogan supporting the Islamic State covertly [Jihad Watch] and restoring Turkey's fundamental Islamic heritage and Sharia law to the heart of public life in finance, legislation and education.

Likewise, Shah Mohammed Reza lost support from the Shia clergy of Iran, largely due to his strong policies regarding secular government and modernization. This paved the way for the January 17th 1979 revolution and Ayatollah Khomeini's rise to power; Khomeini would later offer his convoluted reasoning that suggested Islamic government, the theocratic state -- the mother of all totalitarianisms, was constitutional.

Khomeini saw government as the vehicle of divine law and divine rule, which Allah had delegated to the Prophet. In December 1987 Khomeini stated: "The government is empowered to unilaterally revoke any lawful agreement ... if the agreement contravenes the interests of Islam and the country. It can prevent any matter, whether religious or secular, if it is against the interests of Islam."

Some small hope can be placed in recent calls from reformers, such as Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, Irshad Manji, Asra Nomani ( December 4th) and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (March 20th), who have all outlined plans for the reformation of Islam. One should also note Egyptian President Sisi's call for reform, as he told Egyptians on January 22nd 2015 that "the Islamic world is being torn, it is being destroyed ... by your own hands."

And in February of 2015, Sheik Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al Azhar University (leading cleric), called for a reform of Islamic teaching [Clarion Project] on the first day of a counter-terrorism conference in Mecca. This is only significant if the lesser clerics act in favor of Sheik Tayeb's suggestion.

However, with so much of Islam grounded in the literal translation of Koranic verses touting Islam's supremacy and Mohammed's infallible nature, any of the proposed reforms will be seen as an attack at the heart of Islam and the Shahada itself, which states: I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger." At least 109 other verses command Muslims to war with the infidels for the sake of Islamic rule, and these verses are still followed by the greatest majority of Muslims.

Muslim (1:33) - "the messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Mohammed is the messenger of Allah."

Bukhari (52:256) - "The Prophet ... was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The Prophet replied, 'They are from them'.

Tabari 9:69 - "Killing Unbelievers is a small matter to us."

Some American Muslims might accept [reforming] "the core ideas that inspire political Islam" and [condemning] "violent jihad", in the manner described by Dr. Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy [AIFD], but the overwhelming majority of Muslims across the earth will recoil in revulsion, disgust and anger from such proposals. This overwhelming majority of Muslims accept the literal translation of the Koran, and they believe the Koran is the final and perfect manifesto of God's will; even so-called "educated" people, like the failed Times Square Bomber, the islamofascist terrorists in Chattanooga and San Bernardino and Al Qaeda leader Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri, fall within this group.

By accepting such reforms, Muslims would be sticking a knife into the heart of Islam. In essence, these reforms call for Muslims to kill Islam.

From the highest levels of Islam, the top "qadis" [Britannica.com] (judges), their consultants ("muftis" [Wikipedia]) and the ("ulema" [About.com]) religious scholars to CAIR, the average Muslim around the world and the idiot U.S. Congressman - Keith Ellison, the apologists for Islam continue to insist that Islam is "a religion of peace and tolerance." But, my own lying eyes tell me otherwise, as I observe that Saudi Arabia outlaws Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, Pakistan executes critics of Islam, most Islamic nations imprison anyone celebrating Christmas, Iran hangs homosexuals, and last year 70% of all fatalities in armed conflicts worldwide [WSJ – 3/20/15] were a result of Islamic inspired wars (International Institute for Strategic Studies [IISS]).

The laws and cultural practices of other nations deserve respect and tolerance only in so far they themselves are respectable and tolerant. We cannot accept any form of oppression in the name of cultural tolerance, and we cannot accept codified child abuse, oppression of women and murder under the color of any law.

America has already suffered too much from Islam's intrinsic evil and violence. Why would any sane person allow more Muslims entry to America or the expansion of the anti-American ideology of Islam -- the death cult of their Anti-Christ?

In my lifetime, I've seen Muslims rejoicing over the murders of innocents on 9/11 and every terror attack against America, since that time. I've seen Muslims conceal information that would have prevented the Boston Bombing and the attack in San Bernardino. I've witnessed American middle school children intimidated into emulating Muslims, and I am now seeing Congressional Democrats attempting to pass a blasphemy law (HR 569) to appease Muslims. I have witnessed the horrible bloody violent truth at the core of Islam, from Cyprus and Pakistan and Bangladesh and Algiers and Lebanon to Iran and Serbia and Russia, and much of Eastern and Western Europe, and on to Iraq, Libya and Syria, and so-called "allies" like Pakistan (aids Haqqani and Taliban), Turkey (aids Islamic State) and Saudi Arabia (aids Taliban and Islamic State) actually aiding our enemies in far too many instances.

This is a record that demands more than a simple accounting or retribution from proponents and agents of Islam or "diplomatic conferences" and negotiated peace. America must encourage the decline of Islam, as it is now configured, within Her borders, by halting all Muslim immigration and utilizing forceful countermeasures to defeat any Islamic political adventurism focused on subverting and abrogating our U.S. Constitution. America must defeat the islamofascists and Islam abroad more definitively than the Allies defeated the Ottoman Empire, with or without the Western nations, through political, military and any other necessary means; defeat them so definitively that they beg for relief from the spilling of Muslim blood, and they quit their efforts to harm us and content themselves within the confines of a (renewed? - modernized? - civilized?) Middle East of their own making. America must take this course to avoid the complete islamification of our country and a certain bloodier future, since the Islamic world will never totally reject the imposition of Islam's ideology by the sword.

Whether "Islam is at a crossroads" or not, I don't give a damn. Let Allah sort it out, if they really hate living so much. Let Allah sort it out, if they hate modernization, secularism, civilization and Westerners. Let Allah sort it out if they wish to die in various internecine battles between Shia and Sunni sects or by the hands of Western forces; they can do what they want, so long as they do it over there and no longer harm Americans and Christians here and abroad. And let Allah sort it out if they reject peace and wish to be isolated from the civilized world.

By Justin O. Smith

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Edited by John R. Houk

All links or text enclosed by brackets are by the Editor.

Any links enclosed or not by parentheses are by Justin Smith. Any link not in a bracket are by Justin Smith.

© Justin O. Smith

Pak-Stan, Land of Pure

Intro to ‘Pak-Stan, Land of Pure’

Edited by John R. Houk

11/5/14

Shamim Masih writes about Sunni Muslims persecuting all the religious minorities of Pakistan. Shamim points out religious strife in Pakistan is largely due to the intolerance by Sunnis of all things not Muslim especially all things not Sunni Islam. Then Shamim segues how some Pakistani Sunnis flipped their lid when some students participated in an international student fair choosing Israel their nation to commemorate.

Now let me address Shamim’s title, “Pak-Stan, Land of Pure”:

Many writers translate the word ‘Pakistan’ as ‘Land of the Pure’; this is incorrect. The word Pakistan consists of two parts, i.e., Pak and Istan. While Pak is a Persian word, which mans (sic) holy/ pure/ clean, the word Istan is from the word isthan, which is a Hindi word meaning a place. For example ‘Janum Isthan’ means the place of birth. So the word Pakistan means a holy/ pure/ clean place (country) and not the ‘Land of the Pure’. The word Pak is an adjective which describes ‘Istan’ (Isthan), place and not its inhabitants. This is eulogized in the National Anthem; which begins as ‘Pak Sar Zamin Shad Baad’ As regards its inhabitants; all of them cannot be said to be pure as they have proved time and again. (The true meaning of Pakistan; By KHAWAJA MUHAMMAD BASHIR BUTT; The Nation; 1/19/13)

I suspect Shamim views the Land of the Pure through the filter of the hope that Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah was genuine in his founding speech proclaiming:

You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed. That has nothing to do with the business of the State. - Presidential address to the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, Karachi, 11 August 1947 (Muhammad Ali Jinnah; Wikiquote)

The minority religions in Pakistan to this do believe this was a promise for secular state in which all the citizens of Pakistan would enjoy equal civil rights. I believe this was a lie. You can read a decent essay that sets the case that Jinnah was not being honest to the future citizens of Pakistan: “Muslim Partition of an Independent and United India”.

If Pakistan was ever to be considered the Land of the Pure it was more in the sense of a Nazi Aryan pure race in which like Hitler’s German supremacy, Pakistan was intended to be an Islamic Supremacist State.

JRH 11/5/14

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Pak-Stan, Land of Pure

Pakistani demanded expulsion of the students for displaying pro-Israel

By Shamim Masih

Sent: 11/4/2014 7:11 PM

ISLAMABAD: Rawalpindi city was seized for three days due to the Moharam [Also Muharram] riots [Religious conflict between Sunnis and Shias – HERE and HERE] in October, 2013. Roads were blocked, mobile service was off and the residents faced a short fall off their household items. Sunni Muslims wanted to dictate to the other faiths of the country. There is large number of Shia Muslims living in the country, on every year when there is Moharam, the situation becomes worse. This has been [going] on for years, both targets each other; and thus the situation is getting worse day by day (I am sorry, but it is fact). When there are different schools of thought and people are from different faiths, you have to be tolerant. Tolerance is the essence of the faith you believe in.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah had conceived Pakistan as a democratic state for Muslims and all others, [where] they could live together in peace and harmony. And every Pakistani can worship freely according to his belief. Unfortunately a religious mind-set had started ruling after Pakistan’s independence. As a result, insecurity, terrorism and intolerance are prevailing in the country. No Pakistani feels safe and secure in the country either from the majority or minority. Minorities - weak segment of the society - is especially targeted [by the] majority Muslims, especially Shias are not protected.

Recently the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) arranged an international student fair at Faisal Mosque. Students publicly displayed Israeli culture & customs that include Israeli flags, photographs of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Orthodox Jews, a high-tech manufacturing plant, and Jerusalem’s Al- Aqsa [See HERE]. The mere presence of the display triggered a ferocious and immediate reaction led by religious and student groups on campus and across the country. After a firestorm of criticism, authorities at the university empanelled a disciplinary committee to investigate and punish the students behind the stall. Even this was discussed in the parliament and parliamentarians demanded to take strict action against those students, who have promoted Israeli culture and painted it as land of peace and prosperity. Unfortunately people don’t accept others.

When there are different schools of thought and people are from a different faith, you have to be tolerant. Since, the people of Pakistan tied with Jordanians and Egyptians are the world’s most anti-Semitic people. According to the most recent Pew Global Attitudes Survey only 2% of all Pakistani polled reported favorable attitudes towards the Jewish people and Israel. Perhaps, they could be Christians. Christians around the world believe Jews as [the] favorite nation of God.

For more than a decade - Pakistan [has] faced terrorism and you [can] find different protests, mobile phone service [is often] off, sit-ins, energy shortages etc. The law and order situation has reached its worse. Politicians are smashing each other and only nationalism is seen in papers. Normally on every other occasion, when people are celebrating their special days, mobile service usually is off. This is so-called precautionary measure taken for security reasons.

Biblically speaking- Jews, Christians and Muslims are siblings of Abraham. Thus Pakistani Christians believe and obey the Word of God. We being Christians believe that Jacob (son of Isaac) was named Israel by God. And God loved Israel throughout his life and ordered to bless Israel.  It is written in the Bible; Genesis 27:28-29 ……. May nations serve you and people bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers…… may those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed.

When it is written in the Bible, we being Christian have to follow the teaching and we bless Israel. When it is written; those who bless [Israel will] be blessed. Isaac’s blessing was irrevocable. Israel is the land of prophets; most of messages came from this soil.

  

I give you an example, Hindus of India chose to be secular as that is what their religion teaches; acceptance. When there are 330 million gods you have to be tolerant. That is the beauty of pantheism and polytheism. There are around 180 million Muslims in India. Not only the population is increasing by the percentage but the total population is increasing too. It is due to tolerance from Hindus that Muslims are just multiplying in India.

The authorities have to realize that many Hindus are migrating to India and thousands of Pakistani Christians and Shia Hazaras are seeking asylum in different countries. It doesn’t make any difference if Pakistan does not accept Israel. Israel exists and it is member of United Nations. And most importantly Christ Jesus was born in Jerusalem and set an example of tolerance. A land of peace and prosperity; live long Israel.    

Be Blessed,

Shamim Masih

Diplomatic Correspondent, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, UN, F & S, MOST and CADD

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Is Erdogan Setting Stage for Turkish Caliphate?

Sultan Erdogan

John R. Houk

© June 27, 2014

Caroline Glick has written a very interesting editorial: “Turkey’s high-risk power play”. Glick’s observations are about Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Erdogan seems to be a mystery to Washington DC. For years the PM’s Radical Islamic beliefs seemed to be second to governing a secular pseudo-democratic Muslim State. His initial actions appeared supportive to the Ataturk vision for Turkey but with only a slight reform of bringing Islam to the fore of Turkish society. HOWEVER, in recent years, Erdogan’s governing actions have begun to match his Radical Muslim beliefs. Thus Glick posits in no uncertain terms that Erdogan is trying to revive Turkey’s Muslim domination a la Ottoman style of the old empire days prior to WWI.

Erdogan has moved Turkey away from being a rare Muslim friend of Israel to joining the rest of the Muslim world in Jew-hatred. Erdogan is openly supporting Hamas that has the agenda of destroying Israel, killing Jews and establishing a Radical Muslim State called Palestine. The interesting point that Glick brings up is that Erdogan has reversed decades of a policy of Turkification (ok, I don’t know if this is an actual word but you get the idea) of Turkish society to encouraging non-Turkish yet Muslim ethnic groups to seek the historical identity. One stunning example is Turkey’s treatment of an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq.

After the U.S. finished liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein’s Baathist Party oppression of Iraq a debate began on how Iraq should exist politically. Saddam always favored Iraqi Sunni Muslims over the majority Shia Muslims and the ethnic Kurdish Muslims. Saddam retained power via extreme repression of Shias and Kurds. There was talk of dividing Iraq into three independent nations controlled by the three major players of Iraq; viz. the Kurds in the north, the Sunni minority that gravitated toward the west and the Shias that gravitated toward the eastern part of Iraq bordering Iran.

American conventional wisdom quickly abandoned the three State scenario due American National Interests of the location of oil fields and the legitimate concern that the Arab Shia population of Iraq would be absorbed into Iran which are ethnically Persian yet also are Shias. So the Bush Administration tried to build a new Iraq nation under the auspices of shared governance by the three Iraqi groups. Unfortunately for the shared governance concept the Western concept of democratic elections placed a Shi’ite as the governing Prime Minister. PM Maliki slowly moved away from shared governance to Shia domination by the purging of Sunni political leaders. It may be a bit more complicated but you get the idea.

Enter Erdogan’s Turkey agenda change toward non-Turks. She believes Erdogan is taking a page from the old Ottoman playbook of divide and conquer to maintain political power via the unifying effects of Sunni Islam.

Glick paints a picture of Turkey under Erdogan reasserting Islamic rule under Turkish power to rival the Islamic rule agenda of Shia Iran.

For U.S. National Interests this provides a scenario that has definite pluses and minuses. In the short run letting Sunnis under the aegis of Turkey duking it out with Iran over who controls the Islamic world probably benefits the U.S. by staying out of it. The U.S. would be in an ironic Byzantine situation of throwing support back and forth to keep the violent Muslims in one area more than islamifying the West. The Byzantine factor is the long run. If one group Muslims gains the ascendancy over their the West again could face crazy Muslims trying to conquer the world forcing an Islamized civilization as the Christian Middle East experienced under early Arab conquests and Europe faced from the Ottomans right up to the 17th century (See Also HERE).

Before proceeding to Caroline Glick’s essay I thought you might benefit from a snapshot of how the Ottoman’s maintained a huge Islamic empire for some time. If find that tiresome feel free to skip it, but you really should read Glick.

In addition to their traditions of family sovereignty, the Ottomans drew strength from their origins as ghazis. The ghazi principle fueled their urge for conquest and then helped them to structure their developing society. The social structure of settled, urban Islamic society consisted of four social groupings: 1) the men of the pen, that is, judges, imams (prayer leaders), and other intellectuals; 2) the men of the sword, meaning the military; 3) the men of negotiations, such as merchants; and 4) the men of husbandry, meaning farmers and livestock raisers. Life on the frontier was far less structured; society there was divided into two groups, the askeri (the military) and the raya (the subjects). Besides protecting the realm and the raya, the askeri conquered new territories, thus bringing more raya and wealth into the empire.

… By late in the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the men of the pen were the bureaucrats of the empire, while the judges and imams made up a separate group called the men of religion. The men of the pen, the men of religion, and the men of the sword all were classified as askeri. As such, they were exempt from taxes and lived off of the wealth produced by the raya. Each of the three groups had its own educational system, its own internal practices, and its own values. In Ottoman society there was a place for everyone, but one of the functions of the sultan was to keep everyone in their place.

There was even a place for the non-Muslim. In classical Islamic tradition, non-Muslim religious communities that possessed an accepted, written holy book were granted a covenant of protection, the dhimma, and were considered to be protected people, the dhimmis. In return for this status they paid a special poll tax, the cizye. The Ottomans continued this tradition during the reign of Muhammad the Conqueror (reigned 1451-1481). The three leading non-Muslim religious communities—the Jews, the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Armenian Church—were established as recognized dhimmi communities known as millets. Each millet was headed by its own religious dignitary: a chief rabbi in the case of the Jews, and patriarchs in the case of the Greek Orthodox and Armenian communities. In the millet system, each community was responsible for the allocation and collection of its taxes, its educational arrangements, and internal legal matters pertaining especially to personal status issues such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance. In the pre-modern Middle East, identity was largely based on religion. This system functioned well until the European concepts of nationalism and ethnicity filtered into the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 19th century.

…

…The Ottomans modified the ghulam system by instituting the infamous devshirme, in which young Christian males between the ages of 8 and 15 were removed from their villages in the Balkans to be trained for state service. The youths were brought before the sultan, and the best of them—in terms of physique, intelligence, and other qualities—were selected for education in the palace school. There they converted to Islam, became versed in the Islamic religion and its culture, learned Ottoman Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, and were trained in the military and social arts. They owed absolute allegiance to the sultan and were destined for the highest offices in the empire as they rose through the ranks of the school. When members of this select group graduated at about the age of 25, they assumed positions in the provincial military structure or took up service in the palace guards regiments. They could then work their way up the system and become its military-administrative head, the grand vizier. Those not selected for the palace school converted to Islam, worked for rural Turkish farmers, learned vernacular Turkish and folk Islamic culture, and became members of the sultan’s elite military infantry, the Janissaries.

This division in the devshirme, between those who received the best available education in the high Islamic tradition and those who followed the folk tradition and served as Janissaries, reflected a significant development within the society as a whole: the definition of the Ottoman identity. By the early 16th century the term Ottoman, which had first indicated the men around Osman and then the dynasty itself, had become a cultural-political-sociological term. Only a minority of the askeri class could be called "true" Ottomans. To be an Ottoman one had to serve the state and the religion and know the "Ottoman way." Serving the state meant having a position within the military, the bureaucracy, or the religious establishment that carried with it the coveted askeri status and tax exemption. Serving the religion meant being a Muslim. Knowing the "Ottoman way" meant being completely at home in the high Islamic tradition. It also meant being fully trained in Arabic and Persian—languages that were, along with Turkish, the constituent elements of Ottoman Turkish, the language vehicle of all Ottomans. By this definition, the bulk of the Janissary corps—made up of devshirme youths who were not trained in the palace school but rather in the traditions of folk Islam—could not be considered Ottomans. … (The Ottomans: From Frontier Warriors To Empire Builders: Ottoman Society – Part 4; By Robert Guisepi; International World History Project - About IWHP; 1992 [Bold text is author’s])

JRH 6/27/14

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Turkey’s high-risk power play

By Caroline Glick

June 24th, 2014

CarolineGlick.com

For most Westerners, Turkey is a hard nut to crack.

How can you understand a state sponsor of terrorism that is also a member of NATO?

How can you explain Turkey’s facilitation of Kurdish independence in Iraq in light of Turkey’s hundred-year opposition to Kurdish independence?

What is Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan trying to accomplish here?

Is he nuts?

On the terrorism support front, today Turkey vies with Iran for the title of leading state sponsor of terrorism.

First there is Hamas.

Last week an Israeli security official told the media that the abduction of Naftali Frankel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah was organized and directed by Saleh al-Arouri, a Hamas commander operating out of Turkey.

Turkey has welcomed Hamas to its territory and served as its chief booster to the West since the jihadist terror group won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006. Erdogan has played a key role in getting the EU to view Hamas as a legitimate actor, despite its avowedly genocidal goals.

Then there is al-Qaida. As Daniel Pipes documented in The Washington Times last week, Turkey has been the largest supporter and enabler of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).

Erdogan’s government has allowed ISIS fighters to train in Turkey and cross the border between Turkey and Syria at will to participate in the fighting. Moreover, according to Pipes, Turkey “provided the bulk of ISIS’s funds, logistics, training and arms.”

Similarly, Turkey has sponsored the al-Nusra Front, ISIS’s al-Qaida counterpart and ally in Syria.

The Assad regime is not the Turkish- sponsored al-Qaida-aligned forces’ only target in Syria. They have also been engaged in heavy fighting against Rojava, the emerging Kurdish state in northwest Syria. Yet the same Turkey that is sponsoring al-Qaida’s assault on Syrian Kurdistan is facilitating the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan.

In breach of Iraqi law that requires the Kurds to sell their oil through the central government and share oil revenues with the central government, earlier this month Turkey signed a 50-year deal allowing the Kurds to export oil to the world market through a Turkish pipeline. The Kurds are currently pumping around 120,000 barrels of oil a day to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

Top Turkish officials have in recent weeks come out openly in support for Iraqi Kurdish independence from Baghdad.

Following ISIS’s takeover of Mosul, Huseyin Celik, the spokesman for Erdogan’s ruling AKP party told the Kurdish Rudaw news service, “It has become clear for us that Iraq has practically become divided into three parts.”

Blaming Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for Iraq’s instability Celik said, “The Kurds of Iraq can decide where to live and under what title they want to live. Turkey does not decide for them.”

To date, most Western analyses of the Erdogan regime’s behavior have come up short because their authors ignore its strategic goal. In this failing, analyses of Turkey are similar to those of its Shi’ite counterpart in Iran. And both regimes’ goals are wished away for the same reason: Western observers can’t identify with them.

Iran is not a status quo power. It is a revolutionary power. Iran’s goal is not regional hegemony per se, but global supremacy.

As Lee Smith recently noted, two decades before al-Qaida and its goal of establishing a global Islamic caliphate burst onto the scene, Ayatollah Khomeini had already made the Islamic division of the world into the House of Islam and the House of War the basis for Iran’s foreign policy. He viewed his Shi’ite theocracy as the rightful leader of the Islamic empire that would destroy all non-believers and their civilization.

Iran’s first act of foreign policy – the takeover of the US Embassy in Teheran – was a declaration of war not only against the US, but against the nation-state system as a whole.

Iran uses terror, irregular warfare and subversion to achieve its ends because such tactics induce chaos.

As Iran expert Michael Ledeen wrote last week, to defeat the US in Iraq, “the Iranian regime provoked all manner of violence, from tribal to ethnic, because they believed they were better able to operate in chaos.”

The US failed to understand Iran’s strategy because the US was unable to reconcile itself with the fact that other actors do not seek stability as it does.

Like Iran’s mullahs, Erdogan and his colleagues also reject the nation-state system. In their case, they wish to replace it with a restored Ottoman Empire.

Spelling out his goal in a speech in the spring of 2012, Erdogan described Turkey’s mission thus: “On the historic march of our holy nation, the AK Party signals the birth of a global power and the mission for a new world order. This is the centenary of our exit from the Middle East [following the Ottoman defeat in World War I]. Whatever we lost between 1911 and 1923, whatever lands we withdrew from, from 2011 to 2023 we shall once again meet our brothers in those lands.”

To achieve this goal, like Iran, Turkey seeks to destabilize states and reduce peoples to their ethnic, sub-national identities. The notion is that by dividing societies into their component parts, the various groups will all be weaker than one unified state, and all of them will feel threatened by one another and in need of outside support.

This is the same model Erdogan is following in Turkey itself as he remakes it in his Ottoman mold.

As Amir Taheri explained last October, Erdogan has been encouraging members of ethnic groups that long ago melted into the larger Turkish culture to rediscover their disparate identities, learn their unique languages and so separate out from the majority culture of the country. At the same time he is repressing the Kurds, Alevis and Armenians, minorities that have maintained their identities at great cost.

In parallel to his attempt to subsume the Kurds, Alevis and Armenians into a wider morass of separate sub-Turkish ethnicities, Erdogan has been assiduously cultivating hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood associations to enable their takeover of mosques and other key institutions to build a countrywide support base for Islamic supremacism.

By fragmenting Turkish society into long-forgotten component parts while uniting it under radical Islam, he wishes to unite the country under his Sultanate rule while dividing its various factions against one another to maintain support for the regime over the long haul.

A large part of repressing the Kurds at home involves denying them outside assistance. This is where Iraqi Kurdistan comes into the picture.

By acting like Iraqi Kurdistan’s best friend, Erdogan hopes to attenuate their support for Turkish Kurds.

While Turkey and Iran are rivals in undermining the international system, their goals are the same, and their strategies for achieving their goals are also similar. But while their chaos strategy is brilliant in its way, it is also high risk. By its very nature, chaos is hard, if not impossible to control. Situations often get out of hand. Plans backfire.

What we are seeing today in Syria and Iraq and the wider region demonstrates the chaos strategy’s drawbacks.

As Pinchas Inbari detailed in a recent report for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the Syrian civil war is causing millions of Syrians to leave the country and their migrations are changing the face of many countries.

For instance, their arrival in Lebanon has transformed the multi-ethnic state into one with a preponderant Sunni majority, thus watering down Hezbollah’s support base.

The Kurds in Iraq may feel they need Turkey today, but there is no reason to assume that this will remain the case for long.

Kurdish unity across Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran will destabilize not only Turkey, but Iran, where Kurds make up around ten percent of the population. Iranian Kurdistan also abuts the Azeri provinces. Azeris comprise nearly half the population of Iran.

As for ISIS, it is scoring victories in Iraq today. But its forces are vastly outnumbered by the Baathists and the Sunni tribesmen that defeated al Qaida in 2006. There is no reason to assume that these disparate groups won’t get tired of their new medieval rulers.

Many commentators claimed that Erdogan’s recent foreign policy setbacks in the Arab world convinced him to abandon neo-Ottomanism in favor of more modest goals. But his cultivation of Iraqi Kurdistan, and his sponsorship of ISIS, al-Nusra, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas tell a different story.

Erdogan remains an Islamic imperialist.

Like Iran he aims to destroy the global order and replace it with an Islamic empire. But like Iran, if his adversaries get wise to what he is doing, it won’t be very difficult to beat him at his own game by using his successes to defeat him.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. 

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Is Erdogan Setting Stage for Turkish Caliphate?

John R. Houk

© June 27, 2014

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Turkey’s high-risk power play

All right reserved, Caroline Glick. 2013

About Caroline Glick