Isaac Schrödinger

A Stranger Passing By

Izzy Mo:

300 was awful. I just had to say that. The film 300 was terrible. I couldn’t get through 30 minutes without pointing out the historical and cultural inaccuracies. I just couldn’t do it.

Poor soul.

Why are all the bad guys non Caucasian? So the all white, oops I mean, Spartan army is good but the multi-culti Persian army of Indians, Africans, Arabs and Persians is bad?

Yeah, it would have been certainly historical to have a multi-racial Spartan army.

This asinine critique always amuses me. Reverse the situation. Imagine a movie about the Germans losses in North Africa and a reviewer who complains that the movie made the white guys look bad and that the multi-culti army of Brits, South Africans, Indians and Australians were made to look good.

As though it would have been prudent or historically accurate to add a little color to the Wehrmacht. You know, just so that whites don't feel bad.

Hilter Off the Hook

Michael C. Moynihan: Pat Buchanan Prevents the Holocaust.

Churchill was such a doofus for provoking Hilter.

Link via Daimnation.

Damian Penny has a one-sentence summation at the end here.

64 Years Later

D-Day Today.

What is Stress?

Here's a brief example.

Sissy-in-Chief?

Hillary Clinton comes off so small in comparison to the other mentioned women. She's practically microscopic!

Link via Foreign Dispatches.

Give Appeasement a Chance

Pat Buchanan:

Chamberlain's negotiated deal with Hitler averted a European war -- at the expense of the Czech nation. That was appeasement.

German tanks, however, did not roll into Poland until a year later, Sept. 1, 1939. Why did the tanks roll? Because Poland refused to negotiate over Danzig, a Baltic port of 350,000 that was 95 percent German and had been taken from Germany at the Paris peace conference of 1919, in violation of Wilson's 14 Points and his principle of self-determination.

Later:

The cost of the war that came of a refusal to negotiate Danzig was millions of Polish dead, the Katyn massacre, Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz, the annihilation of the Home Army in the Warsaw uprising of 1944, and 50 years of Nazi and Stalinist occupation, barbarism and terror.

You read that right: The deadliest war in human history was started because the Poles refused to appease Hitler!

Fools can often see that appeasing a monster only increases the appetite of the beast, yet Buchanan extracts the exactly wrong lesson from history.

James Taranto:

One wonders if there is any point at which Buchanan would have said, "This time, Herr Fuehrer, you've gone too far!"

Apparently not.

Links via LFG.

Just How Dumb Can One Be?

This dumb (via LFG):

Democrats are rebuking President Bush for saying in his speech to the Knesset, here, that to “negotiate with terrorists and radicals” is “appeasement.” The Democrats took it as a slap at Barack Obama. What bothers me is the continual reference to Hitler and his National Socialists, particularly the British and French accommodation at the Munich Conference of 1938.

The narrative we're given about Munich is entirely in hindsight. We know what kind of man Hitler was, and that he started World War II in Europe. From the view of 1938, what Hitler was demanding at Munich was not unreasonable, according to the prevailing idea of the nation-state.

Stefan Sharkansky:

promoting appeasement of Hamas and Iran now by saying that appeasing Hitler in 1938 was reasonable at the time, is not a very persuasive argument.

Indeed.

Happy Birthday

For sixty years she has been a beacon of light in a neighborhood filled with darkness.

May she forever shine bright.

Muhammad The Merciful

Cafe Alpha asks:

Wow. Mohammad raped a women - and took her as a slave "wife" immediately after torturing her husband to death and killing her father.

What's the source for this one?

This occurred at the end of the Battle of Khaybar in 629.

A Jewish tribe called Banu Nadir was present at Khaybar during that time. Safiyya was the daughter of the chief of Banu Nadir. She was married to the treasurer of the tribe. Muhammad had interrogated her husband but he refused to divulge any information about their precious belongings.

So, Muhammad had him tortured.

The fellow died and took the secret to his grave.

Muhammad on the same day beheaded all the adult males of the tribe. Safiyya lost her father and husband within a few hours.

Then Muhammad took her as his wife and raped consummated the marriage on the same night. Truly what a glorious example of morality!

Update
Islamic sources follow:

Sahih Bukhari: Volume 1, Book 8, Number 367. An excerpt:

Anas said, 'When Allah's Apostle invaded Khaibar, we offered the Fajr prayer there yearly in the morning) when it was still dark. The Prophet rode and Abu Talha rode too and I was riding behind Abu Talha. The Prophet passed through the lane of Khaibar quickly and my knee was touching the thigh of the Prophet . He uncovered his thigh and I saw the whiteness of the thigh of the Prophet. When he entered the town, he said, 'Allahu Akbar! Khaibar is ruined. Whenever we approach near a (hostile) nation (to fight) then evil will be the morning of those who have been warned.' He repeated this thrice. The people came out for their jobs and some of them said, 'Muhammad (has come).' (Some of our companions added, "With his army.") We conquered Khaibar, took the captives, and the booty was collected. Dihya came and said, 'O Allah's Prophet! Give me a slave girl from the captives.' The Prophet said, 'Go and take any slave girl.'

Sahih Bukhari: Volume 2, Book 14, Number 68. An excerpt:

Allah's Apostle (p.b.u.h) offered the Fajr prayer when it was still dark, then he rode and said, 'Allah Akbar! Khaibar is ruined. When we approach near to a nation, the most unfortunate is the morning of those who have been warned." The people came out into the streets saying, "Muhammad and his army." Allah's Apostle vanquished them by force and their warriors were killed; the children and women were taken as captives.

Sahih Bukhari: Volume 3, Book 34, Number 437. An excerpt:

The Prophet came to Khaibar and when Allah made him victorious and he conquered the town by breaking the enemy's defense, the beauty of Safiya bint Huyai bin Akhtab was mentioned to him and her husband had been killed while she was a bride. Allah's Apostle selected her for himself and he set out in her company till he reached Sadd-ar-Rawha' where her menses were over and he married her.

Sahih Bukhari: Volume 5, Book 59, Number 513.

Anas bin Malik said, "The Prophet took Safiya as a captive. He manumitted her and married her." Thabit asked Anas, "What did he give her as Mahr (i.e. marriage gift)?" Anas replied. "Her Mahr was herself, for he manumitted her."

How generous of him. A Muslim man gives her wife a gift. Muhammad provided Safiyya a simple one: he freed her from slavery.

Who was her owner? Muhammad.

Sahih Bukhari: Volume 5, Book 59, Number 523.

The Prophet stayed with Safiya bint Huyai for three days on the way of Khaibar where he consummated his marriage with her. Safiya was amongst those who were ordered to use a veil.

But, I thought that these women wore the veil by choice.

So Perfect

Hassan Radwan: Prophet Muhammad.

I've written quite a bit over the years about this "flawless" role model of humanity. Here's one that deals with his behavior towards the Jewish tribe Banu Quraiza.

Also, see this post where his personality is distilled down to seven words.

What the West Needs to Know

Google Video: Islam: What the West Needs to Know.

Spend 98 minutes of your time and be utterly depressed.

Link via Connie in the comments.

Herstory!

You Tube: How Hillary Can Still Win.

Pejman:

She should major in miracles.

Our World War

An excellent topic is discussed at Uncommon Knowledge:

Professor Bruce Thornton of Cal State Fresno describes a European civilization that after twenty-five centuries is drawing to an end. He lists the symptoms: Economies are less adaptable and competitive because of an enormous regulatory burden; social welfare entitlements are incredibly expensive; and, demographically, Europeans simply aren’t reproducing. At the source of this demise is a loss of the foundational belief system that created the West — that created Europe — in the first place.

The interview -- The Decline and Fall of Europe -- is divided into five parts. Here are the links: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5.

Here Obedient to Their Laws We Lie.

Chicago Boyz:

Thermopylae and The Spartans can be profitably read by specialists yet also serve as an enjoyable introduction to the world of ancient Sparta to the general reader. Cartledge concisely explains the paradox of Sparta, at once the “most Greek” polis among the Greeks yet also, the most alien and distinct from the rest of the far-flung Greek world.

The Neocon Identity

Ummah Pulse:

"Trickle-Down Theory", which first surfaced in the 1930s, is an old con-trick idea which promises that if rich people were encouraged to make themselves as wealthy as possible through huge salaries, tax cuts, bonuses, stock options and perks, their wealth would trickle down to the rest of the population and thereby raise the standard of living for all. Although in theory it appeared appealing, in practice it has always led to a drastic increase in the gap between the rich and the dispossessed. The rich always get richer and the poor are always swamped by more destitution.

So what if the income gap got larger? Relative poverty ought to be meaningless. What matters is that one can live a comfortable, individual, debt-free life in most of the US for under $1,000-a-month.

Another point: There will always be poverty because some people just do not know how to save and spend money. One can give them a million dollars and a few years down the road they would be broke and wallowing in debt. Blaming Neocons (hunh?) for the poor in the US is asinine.

During the Reagan administration, the Neocon darlings could not tout Trickle-Down Theory for it was by then thoroughly discredited through bitter experience. So they came up with a new disguise for it. Trickle-Down Theory was re-branded as the Laffer Curve, named after its inventor Arthur Laffer, a colleague of Milton Friedman who had famously written a column, Hooray for Magaret Thatcher, in Newsweek magazine urging American politicians to follow her example.

What will those Jews Neocons think of next!

Throughout the 1980s there was continuous decline in the long-term capital investment upon which growth and jobs are dependent. In that same decade a recession began, the Federal Reserve was forced to raise interest rates to dampen inflation and unemployment rose, for the first time since the 1930s, above 10 per cent.

Correct. The unemployment rate in 1982-83 was the worst since the Great Depression. So, an interesting question presents itself: Why didn't Americans vote out Ronald Reagan in 1984 like they did Herbert Hoover in 1932?

The Curse of the Black Gold

Pedestrian: Economic Prosperity: A Hurdle to Democratic Reform.

I think the Gulf region is the only place where you will find men in their prime “hanging out” at shopping malls during the day when all around the world, men of that age are at work.

This is the only place in the world where, if you step into a shopping mall in the middle of the day, you will be faced with the weird sight of young and middle aged men, in their long white robes – dishdashas - roaming around the mall, sitting around at Starbucks … in short, doing nothing.

Apparently nobody is in a hurry to get back to work.

Yup. They gained almost all their wealth by chance since it doesn't take any skill to be born in a land that is floating on oil. Their mentality is largely the one that has persisted for over a millennium. That's why after a quarter-century of amassing wealth, we still don't see Arabs managing their own oil infrastructure! They, collectively, simply have no desire to learn and be productive people.

What they are good at is sugarcoating their intellectual emptiness and civilizational void with spectacularly grotesque projects.

Not only is the emirates trying to outdo itself in towers – to a point where it’s even difficult to keep up with what they’re building today and how high it’s going to be – they are outdoing themselves in everything … What’s the deal with Abu Dhabi’s “Green City”? 22 BILLION dollars is going to be spent on creating it. And more than a haven for the environment, it seems just another vacation resort for those whose salaries go above 6 digits. More than that, not a single one of these projects are led or engineered by Arabs. Most often times, it is a British or American architectural firm doing the work.

Of course.

When the oil runs out or when the West finds another source of energy, the Middle Easterners will be in a grand world of pain.

One Smart Infidel

International Herald Tribune via Israellycool:

A mathematical mystery that has baffled the top minds in the esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly four decades has recently been cracked — by a 63-year-old former security guard.

Avraham Trakhtman, a mathematician who worked as a laborer after immigrating to Israel from Russia, has succeeded where dozens have failed, solving the elusive "Road Coloring Problem."

Dang.

One War Hero

Gateway Pundit:

On this day in 1973, Lt. Commander John McCain was released from a North Vietnamese prison after spending five plus years as a prisoner of war.

Will a Mirage Materialize?

Ibn Warraq via Samizdata:

1. What is a Reformation? Defined from the UDHR 1948 perspective
Since there is no Pope or even, in principle, an organized clergy in Islam, how would we ever know if an Islamic Reformation had taken place? One person’s reformation will be another person’s decadence. My perspective will be from The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which many Muslims still do not accept—indeed several Muslim countries got together in 1981 and issued their own Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, where individual freedoms are denied. Muslims were particularly horrified by Article 18 of the UN Declaration which guarantees the right for anyone to change her or his religion.

Islam is a psychological prison. That's why Muslims were horrified. If people were truly free to leave, then the hollow religion would quickly fall apart. That's also why any criticism of Islam, or its decrepit prophet, is met with harsh punishments.

Wafa Sultan Stands Tall

I linked to this post regarding the Holocaust yesterday. Now, I just finished watching a disgusting creature who considers that evil to be a fabrication.

Charles Johnson:

Here’s Arab-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan in another amazing appearance on Al Jazeera, facing down a lunatic moderator and a lunatic Islamist with righteous anger.

This is what “speaking truth to power” really means.

Please note again, the sheer hatred and irrationality that is Al Jazeera’s stock in trade. The “moderator” is just as bad as—or worse than—the Islamist, denying the Holocaust over and over.

Go there and watch the video.

Good on Wafa Sultan for bringing up the undeniable history of Banu Quraiza -- a Jewish tribe whose men were massacred and their women and kids taken as slaves by Muhammad and his followers. That is the glorious period which the Islamists want to revive.

Where God Died

Notes from Here and There:

It's raining. It's windy. The sky is bright. Not enough to wash away the blood, and not enough to lift the eternal darkness that Wiesel speaks about. I was reading the book - Night - on the way to Oswiecim from Krakow. Some words come back to haunt me. "Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never." I take a breath in - and smell the burning flesh.

Link via DesiPundit.

Fierce Feynman

Richard Feynman, the Challenger Disaster, and Software Engineering.

President Reagan created the Rogers Commission to investigate the [Space Shuttle Challenger] disaster. Physicist Feynman was invited as a member, but his independent intellect and direct methods were at odds with the commission's formal approach. Chairman Rogers, a politician, remarked that Feynman was "becoming a real pain." In the end the commission produced a report, but Feynman's rebellious opinions were kept out of it. When he threatened to take his name out of the report altogether, they agreed to include his thoughts as  Appendix F - Personal Observations on Reliability of Shuttle.

I've bookmarked it.

Link via Slashdot.

Getting Rid of the Burden

It's taught in Muslim schools that before Islam came along the condition of women in Arab society was wretched. For example, many Arabs would be disgusted with the birth of a daughter; they would bury the infant rather than take care of her.

Today Arabs with such a mindset don't bury their daughters alive.

They abort them.

The Immature War

Cafe Alpha provides this link:

Sixty years later the lessons from the era of Japanese reconstruction have been ignored entirely following the US-led military interventions in Afghanistan, now under the post-Taliban Karzai regime, and Iraq, after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Indeed the post-World War II paradigm of neutralizing Japan’s bellicose, religio-political creed of Shintoism, has been turned on its head with regard to Islam, and the theocratic Islamic legal code, Shari’a—imbued with jihad, and completely antithetical to modern human rights constructs.

The core problem is that the West still doesn't comprehend (or refuses to acknowledge) the true nature of the enemy. If Islam is a religion of peace which is being "perverted" by a few psychotics, then we don't have to worry about the influence of Islamic law in Afghanistan and Iraq. Reality, however, doesn't jive with this premise.

It is because of Islam that an ex-Muslim was a few days away from death in Afghanistan. It is because of Islam that Jews are not welcome in Iraq. Islam is the problem.

To be fair, our job is far tougher. Japan was and is one nation. Islam infects dozens of countries with over a billion people. If we come out and bluntly say that a state has no business implementing sharia, then this will put the West in an explicit war with the majority Muslim world. The Bush Administration has tried to avoid this scenario. They'd rather co-opt the "peaceful" majority and defeat Al Qaeda and its ilk.

The problem would still remain, though. What Al Qaeda won't gain through terror, the "peaceful" majority will achieve through demographics. The West will eventually have to broaden the scope of this war in all spheres -- in objectives, strategy and tactics.

The Holy Clown

Saifuddin:

It is well known that the Prophet Muhammad (may Peace and Blessings be upon him) was indeed the perfect man. He was a devoted seeker of Truth, a warner and exhorter, a person of good cheer and pleasantness, a brilliant leader, a courageous and yet reluctant warrior, a statesman par excellence and the teacher of teachers. He was a compassionate ruler and spiritual leader, but many do not know that the Holy Prophet Muhammad (may Peace and Blessings be upon him) had an extraordinary sense of humor!

Like, OMG, I wasn't taught that in my Pakistani school!

The Prophet brought an uplifting spirit that penetrated the hearts of people.

Often literally.

There is a story mentioned about the Prophet and a common merchant that tells us just a little about the spirit he carried,

Let's go through it.

“One of his companions was Zahir, who used to trade in metal objects. Once the Prophet was passing by the bazaar, he saw Zahir and playfully grabbed him from behind

Not that there's anything wrong with that!

and said, “Will anyone buy this slave?” Zahir laughed and said, “O Messenger of Allah, whoever buys this slave will be in loss.” The Prophet smiled and said, “In Allah’s eyes, your value is high.”

I have to admit: Muhammad was a joker.

Here's more regarding "the perfect man":

(1) He banned interest on money.
(2) He objected to the use of pictures that depicted humans or animals and refused to enter the premises where such works were present.
(3) He married a six-years-old girl and had sex with her when she turned nine.
(4) He approved the killing of all the post-pubescent males of a Jewish tribe called Banu Quraiza.
(5) He then took all the young males and women of that tribe as slaves and distributed them among his companions.
(6) He married multiple times and kept sex-slaves.
(7) He loathed dogs and ordered that they be killed.

Muslims aren't in on this big joke.

Time To Let Go

Amil Imani:

As a group, Muslims are paranoid and suffer chronically from the disease of victimization. That is, they either victimize the helpless whenever and wherever they can, or scream murder against the strong. This mentality is one of the many bequests that Muhammad left for his Ummah.

Recall that Muhammad himself bemoaned his victim plight in Mecca, packed his bags and fled to Medina where the Jews were not as vicious as his own Quraish tribe operating the lucrative tourist business of the idolaters.

Then the infighting started in earnest among the various factions, as soon as Muhammad died. People began jockeying for power and doing their Muslim-best to destroy their competition. Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law was elbowed out of the way by the more powerful disciples of the Prophet and had to wait his turn to head the already fractured and feuding Ummah.

Fun!

Later, Imani boils it down so superbly:

Well, the Yazid-Hussein bloody drama was some 1400 years ago. Isn’t it time to let go? Why is it, particularly to Iranian Shias, that they just keep on continuing and promoting the tragic events associated with two Arabs fighting for personal power?

More to the core: Why do Muslims, after 1400 years, continue to worship an irrational, immoral, psychotic Arab?

Link via Free Thoughts.

Is Islam Innocent?

Austrolabe:

In the January/February 2008 issue of Foreign Policy magazine, Graham E. Fuller, former Vice Chair of the National Intelligence Council of the CIA, engages in an interesting thought experiment.

Here it is:

Imagine, if you will, a world without Islam—admittedly an almost inconceivable state of affairs given its charged centrality in our daily news headlines. Islam seems to lie behind a broad range of international disorders: suicide attacks, car bombings, military occupations, resistance struggles, riots, fatwas, jihads, guerrilla warfare, threatening videos, and 9/11 itself. Why are these things taking place? “Islam” seems to offer an instant and uncomplicated analytical touchstone, enabling us to make sense of today’s convulsive world. Indeed, for some neoconservatives, “Islamofascism” is now our sworn foe in a looming “World War III.”

That's a spectacular counterfactual. If Muhammad hadn't spread his poison, then the history of the Middle East would have been profoundly altered in the 7th century. (It's likely that Jews would still be living in Makkah and Medina!) It's nonsensical to say that our world would be likely the same without that scourge.

The Quran and the Nazis

MikeT provided a link in the comments to some amazing news:

Islam watchers blogged all weekend about news that a secret archive of ancient Islamic texts had surfaced after 60 years of suppression. Andrew Higgins' Wall Street Journal report that the photographic record of Koranic manuscripts, supposedly destroyed during World War II but occulted by a scholar of alleged Nazi sympathies, reads like a conflation of the Da Vinci Code with Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail.

If serious research goes ahead, then the reaction will make the response to the Muhammad cartoons look like a picnic.

In 2005, Puin published a collection of articles under the title, Die dunklen Anfange. Neue Forschungen zur Entstehung und fruhen Geschichte des Islam ("The dark beginnings: new research on the origin and early history of Islam," Hans Schiller Verlag, 2005). This drew on the work of the pseudonymous German philologist "Christoph Luxenburg", who sought to prove that incomprehensible passages in the Koran were written in Syriac-Aramaic rather than Arabic. Luxenburg's thesis became notorious for explaining that the "virgins" provided to Islamic jihadis in paradise were only raisins. The Koran, according to the research of Puin and his associates, copied a great deal of extant Christian material.

Since Muhammad was illiterate, this explanation is more plausible than the, er, "fact" that the angel Jibrael revealed the Quran to him.

Apart from the little group at the University of the Saarland and a handful of others, though, the Western Academy is loathe to go near the issue. In the United States, where Arab and Islamic Studies rely on funding from the Gulf States, an interest in Koranic criticism is a failsafe way to commit career suicide.

A lot more than the career would get killed, I'd say.

The Quran and, by extension, Muhammad are two areas where any criticism can be deadly for the host. This is because the authenticity of Islam is firmly linked with them. A true Muslim is, thus, forever stuck in the dark, seventh century.

Update
Another reader emailed this link to a Wall Street Journal piece.

All Perished

Metroblogging Lahore presents a sad photo.

Pakistani Equilibrium

Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistan People's Party, was overthrown in a coup by General Zia-ul-Haq in 1977.

Bhutto was tried and executed in 1979.

In 1988, Bhutto's daughter, Benazir Bhutto became the first woman to be elected as head of an Islamic state.

Today, she was assassinated.

Update
Metroblogging Lahore:

I personally have never supported Ms Benazir and her party (the PPP). But this, by all means, goes beyond the immediate politics of pretty much everything. It goes without saying that no one, and I mean no one -- even for a moment -- deserves to go this way, to die in such an unnatural manner and for such obnoxiously stupid reasons. Fate, as we already should know, is not without a sense of irony; Benazir has died (primarily) due to gunfire wounds while leaving a political gathering at Liaquat Gardens; Liaquat Gardens is not only named after, but is also the same place where the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Khan Liaquat Ali Khan was murdered with a bullet.

All Things Pakistan:

At a human level this is a tragedy like no other. Only a few days ago I was mentioning to someone that the single most tragic person in all of Pakistan - maybe all the world - is Nusrat Bhutto. Benazir’s mother. Think about it. Her husband, killed. One son poisoned. Another son assasinated. One daughter dead possibly of drug overdose. Another daughter rises to be Prime Minister twice, but jailed, exiled, and finally gunned down.

Vinod at Sepia Mutiny offers his thoughts on Bhutto and Musharraf.

Crazy Turkey

News from last week:

Bowing to demands of prosecution lawyers, yesterday the judge presiding over a contrived case against two Turkish converts to Christianity for “insulting Turkishness” ordered 12 more witnesses to testify.

More:

In July, State Prosecutor Ahmet Demirhuyuk had called for the Christians’ release, declaring that no credible evidence had been produced against them.

Not only did the three plaintiffs give contradictory testimonies, he said, but the prosecution failed to provide any concrete proof that the two men had ever cursed Turkey or Islam.

More details about their alleged "crimes":

Tastan and Topal are accused of insulting Turkishness, reviling Islam and secretly compiling files on private citizens for a Bible course by three young men, two of them minors.

At least they weren't planning a course on The Armenian Situation during the 1910s and 20s. That would have been really uncouth.

Al Qaeda Begins

Rediff:

Nothing -- not even the rise of Osama bin Laden -- shook the foundations of Saudi Arabia as the siege of Mecca 28 years ago.

From the interview of Wall Street Journal reporter Yaroslav Trofimov:

Why do you believe there is a co-relation between the events of 1979 and the genesis of Al Qaeda?

The Mecca uprising of 1979 was the very first operation of global jihad in modern times, uniting radicals from all over the world -- Saudis, Egyptians, Pakistanis, even American converts to Islam. This organisation served as a model to Al Qaeda in the future, and some of the surviving rebels actually went to Afghanistan and later joined Al Qaeda.

But this is not the only connection. In order to storm the Grand Mosque in 1979, the Saudi government needed a fatwa from the leading Islamic clerics, the Wahhabi ulema. The clerics obliged -- on the condition that the kingdom become much more rigid in enforcing the Wahhabi brand of Islam.

As part of this grand bargain, millions of dollars in Saudi petrodollars started to flow all over the world to fund the clerics' effort to spread Wahhabi Islam -- creating the Islamic madrassas, charities and welfare groups that would breed the new generation of Al Qaeda recruits.

I blame Bush.

Link via Brothers Judd via Infidel Bloggers Alliance.

Absolute Evil

Raymond Ibrahim compares two totalitarian ideologies from across the ages. It's quite a telling presentation.

Here the topic is democracy:

MK: “And that is why this type of democracy has become the instrument of that race which in its inner goals must shun the light of day, now and in all ages of the future. Only the Jew can praise an institution [democracy] which is as dirty and false as he himself,” (p. 91).

AQR: “You [Americans] elect the wicked from among you, the greatest liars and most depraved, and you are enslaved to the wealthiest and most influential [among you], especially the Jews — who direct you through the lie of ‘democracy,’” (p. 210).

Here we see direct opposition to peace.

MK: “In exactly the same way, our German pacifist will accept in silence the bloodiest rape of our nation at the hands of the most vicious military powers if a change in this state of affairs can be achieved only by resistance — that is, force — for this would be contrary to the spirit of his peace society” (p. 112).

AQR: “But what does amaze us from some who claim to adhere to Islam is that when the infidels attack and ridicule their religion, openly advertising it as a “Crusade” against Islam, we suddenly find them responding by saying that they do not crave war but instead they desire coexistence, universal peace, and justice… Does this not count as a defeat? Is it not a perversion of the Islam of Muhammad?” (p. 23-24)

The conclusion -- the very last sentence -- is something I can't disagree with.

Terrifying Information

Jerusalem Post via Elphi Delphi:

A senior Zionist official stationed in Switzerland during World War II was likely the first person to receive information from a German source regarding the plan for the systematic extermination of Europe's Jews, according to a new book published by Yad Vashem.

Chaim Pazner, head of the Jewish Agency's Palestine Office in Geneva, immediately forwarded the information to senior British officials and to Jewish officials in British-ruled Palestine, and the report reached the top echelons of the British government, according to the book, Chaim Pazner - The Man Who Knew.

Wow.

Ignoring History

Eric Alterman:

When Enola Gay pilot Paul Tibbets died November 1, the New York Times repeated Tibbets's contention that "It would have been morally wrong if we'd have had [the atomic bomb] and not used it and let a million more people die." That virtually no reputable historian would put the casualty figure for a US invasion of Japan anywhere near that high (leaving aside the question of whether an invasion would have been necessary) was not mentioned in the story.

Oliver Kamm via The Corner:

One of my regular correspondents, the military historian D.M. Giangreco, wrote a definitive paper on the administration's casualty estimates, published as "'A Score of Bloody Okinawas and Iwo Jimas': President Truman and Casualty Estimates for the Invasion of Japan", in Pacific Historical Review, Feb 2003, and reprinted in Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism, ed. Robert J. Maddox, 2007, pp. 76-115. From his scrutiny of primary sources, he observed: "Truman's much-derided accounts of massive casualties projected for the two-phase invasion of Japan are richly supported by US Army, White House, Selective Service and War Department documents produced before the use of nuclear weapons against Japan and stretching back through the last nine months of the Roosevelt administration."

The American casualty figure was over 25,000 at Iwo Jima -- a piece of rock barely over 20 square kilometers. Out of the 21,000 Japanese soldiers who defended that island, less than 300 survived. On the basis of such heavy losses and fanatical Japanese resistance, it is reasonable to predict that American casualties would have approached the million mark upon, and leading to, the invasion of mainland Japan.

Jihadists Running Out of Ammo

Strategy Page via One Hand Clapping:

The various terrorist groups in Iraq, especially the Sunni Arabs and al Qaeda, appear to be having supply problems. In a word, the enemy is running out of ammunition. Their logistical "tail" is being chopped to bits. Captured documents and prisoner interrogations mention these shortages.

It's like the mini version of the Battle of the Atlantic.

Embrace Us ... or Else

The Telegraph via Pedestrian Infidel:

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, the leader of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), thinks the Government is stoking the tension.

"There is a disproportionate amount of discussion surrounding us," he says. "The air is thick with suspicion and unease. It is not good for the Muslim community, it is not good for society."

Then he vomits out this:

Britain must, he warns, beware of becoming like Nazi Germany.

Pop quiz: Who made up the 13th SS Handzar Division?

Answer here.

"I think it is creating a scare in the community and wider society. It probably helps some people who try to recruit the young to terrorism. Muslim young people are as vulnerable as any others. Under this climate of fear they will begin to feel victimised."

Of course. This vile British fear is creating the terrorists from the Muslim communities. If only the Brits were to embrace the evil sharia cute Muslims, the violence would go away.

His passion is to integrate Muslim and British cultures - he says integration must go both ways.

"Everybody can learn from everyone. Some of the Muslim principles can help social cohesion - family, marriage, raising children with boundaries, giving to the poor, not being too greedy."

British people could, in his view, benefit from arranged marriages. "I prefer to call them assisted marriages," he says.

Perhaps the Muslims can learn to not marry their cousins.

Is stoning ever justified? "It depends what sort of stoning and what circumstances," he replies. "When our prophet talked about stoning for adultery he said there should be four [witnesses] - in realistic terms that's impossible. It's a metaphor for disapproval."

Stoning to death = metaphor. Welcome to Islamic math.

The Alpha Dhimmis

Elder of Ziyon: Evidence of Arab collusion against Arab Jews starting in 1947.

Here we get "Excerpts of Direct Quotes of the Law drafted by the Political Committee of the Arab League".

“All Jewish citizens…will be considered as members of the Jewish minority of the State of Palestine and will have to register [“within 7 days”] with the authorities of the region wherein they reside, giving their names, the exact number of members in their families, their addresses, the names of their banks and the amounts of their deposits in these banks…”

“Bank accounts of Jews will be frozen. These funds will be utilized in part or in full to finance the movement of resistance to Zionist ambitions in Palestine.”

Arabs numbered in the tens of millions and controlled vast amounts of land which overflowed with crude. Yet, they couldn't stand to see a few million independent Jews as their neighbors on a tiny strip of oil-free real estate.

The level of intolerance is just mind-boggling.

Who Is A Real Muslim?

Tariq Nelson:

A question that I have been asked with increasing frequency by non-Muslims because of my stance against terror, extremism and irrational thinking: €"œAre you still Muslim?"€ or "€œAre you thinking of leaving Islam?"€ or "€œPerhaps you didn'€™t understand the religion you embraced"€

To me, this is only a sign of how bad things have gotten: A ("€real"€) Muslim - in their minds HAS TO BE a person that is pro-terror, narrow, extreme, irrational and has a blood fetish.

It is very sad that some of these people seem to be trying very hard to make the case for the anti-Muslim bigots that we are what they say we are.

Here are only a few events from the life of Muhammad -- the moral gold standard for every Muslim for all times:

(1) He banned interest on money.
(2) He objected to the use of pictures that depicted humans or animals and refused to enter the premises where such works were present.
(3) He married a six-years-old girl and had sex with her when she turned nine.
(4) He approved the killing of all the post-pubescent males of a Jewish tribe called Banu Quraiza.
(5) He then took all the young males and women of that tribe as slaves and distributed them among his companions.
(6) He married multiple times and kept sex-slaves.
(7) He loathed dogs and ordered that they be killed.

Here's how a modern Westerner would likely describe the above.

(1) Idiotic
(2) Irrational
(3) Pedophilic
(4) Genocidal
(5) Monstrous
(6) Misogynistic
(7) Heartless

Is it bigoted to think that a follower of this man is likely "pro-terror, narrow, extreme, irrational and has a blood fetish"?

Note: Of course, not every Muslim completely follows the example of Muhammad. He or she would be an utter moral degenerate if they did. Though, Westerners do have a cause for concern when Muslims passionately parrot the "perfection" of Muhammad.

The numbered items above regarding Islamic canon also lead to a burning question. Why are you still a Muslim?

Islam is not what you individually think it is. It's defined by Muhammad, fourteen hundred years of history and the majority views of Muslims today. Face it, most Muslims do pine for a grand theocracy and a free people would prefer to not live under the nirvana that is sharia -- where Irrationality, Immorality and Intolerance vie for hegemony.

The Quran, Again.

An illuminating post.

Yesterday as I walked into our apartment building the door to the ground floor flat was open. I could hear a male voice reciting the Quran followed by the voice of a small child. The child made a mistake and the male voice sounded agitated. He recited again and the little voice repeated – wrongly. Then smack. Sniffle. Recited. Repeated correctly. Suddenly the door shook a little and I further froze in my already frozen state. Behind the door was another little boy I had met many times before – hiding from the tutor.

Later, Achelois talks about her childhood experience.

Mr. Abdul Rahman never explained the Quran to me and at that age I didn’t understand Arabic at all except for the few Arabic expletives my mum would pronounce in utter frustration with us. He never even highlighted the verses that can potentially teach young children concepts of morality or consciousness about God. I now see that a small indication towards the stories of the prophets of Islam could have been very interesting for children which could be supplemented by various books on the lives of the prophets. Needless to say I finished reading the Quran in Arabic when I was 9 and my younger sister was 7 years old but we learnt zilch. The day we finished the Quran we felt liberated. No more Mr. Abdul Rahman and those sleepy, boring evenings endlessly repeated verses in a language that was completely alien to us.

This leads to a question: If you could only read the Quran but not comprehend it, then what kind of Islam did you follow?

I was almost 28 years old when I found out about concubinage in the Quran. A few years before that I had learnt about inheritance issues, status of men in Islam, divorce, polygamy and other similar prickly concepts. I was raised with a different set of morals [...]

Interesting.

Finding out that men could have sex with slaves without marrying them was the biggest bombshell for me. I also learnt that if I had a brother he would have been more equal as a child than I could be; he would inherit more and would be the patriarch, the ‘maintainer’, even if younger than all the sisters. I also found it extremely hard to accept that men were allowed to strike their wives; it really doesn’t matter to me if they are allowed to beat them black and blue or if its with a toothbrush – striking is striking and even a soft slap is injurious to the fragile ego of a woman which hangs in the balance of marraige. Then I learnt women could only ask for divorce and can never give divorce. Polygamy is still the sore spot for me as you all may know by now.

Finally learning about Islam sparked a self-conflict. She could listen to her humanity and continue with her haram thinking or distressingly follow a religion that presented her with immoral and, often, asinine prescriptions.

Her decision, so far, has been different than mine.

Hunh.

Which is safer in the Middle East? War or peace.

Sadat would agree with Dry Bones on this matter.

The Sweet, Syrupy Islam

Tariq Nelson:

When Islam was presented to me, I was presented a religion of worshiping One God alone and as a practical solution for mankind’s social ills. It was a road map for improving our lives. I was told about an Islam that is about togetherness, sharing, caring and strengthening familial bonds. An Islam that was about creating communities, doing business together and uplifting people.

This fellow has likely never lived in a Muslim-majority nation.

Later in the post:

I find it very strange that I would be criticized by any Muslim for my rejection of throat cutting, rape and murder as being a part of Islam as if it were a pillar of some sort.

He likely hasn't heard of Banu Quraiza.

The Holocaust Explained

An Iranian psycho pontificates:

Hashemi Rafsanjani, former Iranian president and current Chairman of the Assembly of Experts, said Friday that Hitler’s treatment of Jewish people in Europe was due in part to their being “a pain in the neck.”

Plus, they wear those silly hat things. It's damn annoying!

Link via Snoopy.

Pushing for a Perverse Policy

Samuel G. Freedman reviews The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.

In their original-sin perspective, there has been no tangled spiral of causes and effects; only Israel's actions and policies have destabilized the Middle East. Palestinian terrorism is the response of an occupied, outgunned people; from the Munich Olympics massacre to the suicide bombing in 2002 at a seder in Netanya, the attacks that traumatized Israel's populace and many moderate-to-liberal American Jews and drove their politics to the right are barely mentioned. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's vow to "wipe Israel off the map" was mistranslated, according to Mearsheimer and Walt. The Israeli offer of land for peace at Camp David was only "purportedly generous."

Of course.

The logical outgrowth of such dismissiveness appears in this rather chilling section toward the book's end: "Although we believe that America should support Israel's existence, Israel's security is ultimately not of critical strategic importance to the United States. In the event that Israel was conquered . . . neither America's territorial integrity, its military power, its economic prestige, nor its core political values would be jeopardized. By contrast, if oil exports from the Persian Gulf were significantly reduced, the effects on America's well-being would be profound."

Think about it. Most of the world sells blood for oil by ignoring the atrocities committed on Israel by Arabs and their regimes. These authors are advocating that we ought to go down the same immoral path.

The Eternal Victim

Tariq Nelson:

Here is an example of past dehumanization and the smearing of all blacks as stupid, lazy and immoral

A few YouTube videos follow and then we get this whopper:

It is no different today when they try to label each and every Muslim as irrational and evil. Everyone agrees that there are lunatics out there, but let’s see a smear campaign for what it is.

Of course. That era of 'blacks are stupid, incompetent, and deserve to be kept separate so as to keep the white race pure' is no different than writing and reporting about the countless crimes and cruelties committed by Muslims in the name of their vile God.

News shows regularly get Muslims who are taqiyya masters parrot the "Islam is peace" line. Western nations are helping Afghans and Iraqis -- who're largely Muslim -- in picking their own governments. Millions of Muslims are allowed to enter the West every year. The average Muslim household in the US earns a higher income than the average American household.

How utterly coarse to minimize the sufferings of slaves and their descendants to compare the rich and luxurious lifestyle of Western Muslims today to them. Such Muslims need to drop their eternal victim schtick and get on with their lives and realize that most of their religious cohorts support the imposition of sharia on the world -- a view that doesn't tend to produce warm and tender feelings for the umma.

By the way, who exactly has labeled all of these billion-plus Muslims as "irrational and evil"? I've read about evil regimes, individual evil Muslims and utterly wicked majority opinions from Muslim nations but not that. Setting that glorious straw man on fire is not convincing.

Update
Code Monkey Ramblings finishes the spanking.

What the Right Hand Possesses

You've heard about a terrible aspect of Islam from some "Islamophobe". You're not really sure if it's true or not. So, you ask the experts.

Are sexual relations between a female slave and a male master are allowed in islam?

I dont think its true but please prove me right or wrong....

You would think that the 'correct' answer is No but then that would make you a baad Muslim. See, there's actually a lot of nuance to it.

There are a lot of special rules in Islam with regard to slaves, which are not relevent to anyone that is not a slave and does not have a slave. These rules protect the rights of slaves and safeguard their welfare.

So says dhakiyya.

Later, 'asiya follows with this gem:

As i have already explained the muslims captives are treated with dignity and respect, you have to remove all notions of western slavery and prisioners of war from your mind.

It helps if you remove rationality and morality as well.

Link via Jihad Watch.