Category Archives: BAB’s A List

'Root Causes Of Anti-US Islamic Terrorism'

BAB's A List, Islam, Terrorism

Barely a Blog’s guest today is Retired Ambassador, Yoram Ettinger. He puts paid to the totemic–and fanciful–notion that pacifying the Palestinians will bring peace to the world. To complement what is Mr. Ettinger’s first installment in a series, do read Greg Richards’ “Primer on Islamic Imperialism.” —ILANA

ROOT CAUSES OF ANTI-US ISLAMIC TERRORISM by Yoram Ettinger

Tony Blair’s, Baker’s and Scowcroft’s contention that the Palestinian issue is the core of anti-Western Islamic terrorism and Mideast violence reflects miscomprehension of Mideast reality.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, Jim Baker and Brent Scowcroft have developed an intriguing theory: The core of the 13-century-old Islamic terrorism and Middle East violence is the less-than-a-century-old Palestinian issue. They have introduced a cost-effective tactic in combating terrorism: Rather than flex a muscle against Iran and other rogue regimes, instead of challenging the Palestinian Terror Authority and Hamas, one should suspend disbelief, shrink the Jewish State back to the 1949 Lines and establish a Palestinian State. Such a contriving approach would, supposedly, mollify the unprecedented wave of anti-US Islamic terrorism. Really?!

1. 9/11 was planned while Clinton’s USA and Barak’s Israel were appeasing the Palestinians and the Arabs, proposing a total Israeli withdrawal, including the re-partitioning of Jerusalem and the giveaway of the Golan Heights.

2. The October 12, 2000 Islamic terrorist attack on the USS Cole (17 sailors murdered) occurred when Israel was willing to give away the store, while the US pressured Israel to absorb and compensate Palestinian refugees.

3. The August 27, 1998 Islamic terrorist assault of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania took place (257 murdered and over 4,000 injured) while President Clinton was brutally pressuring Prime Minister Netanyahu for sweeping concessions to the Palestinians and to Syria.

4. The 1995/6 Riyadh and Khobar Towers, Dhahran Islamic terror attacks (19 murdered) were carried out while Israel implemented unprecedented concessions, in spite of Palestinian hate-education, systematic violation of all commitments made by the PA and unprecedented Palestinian terrorism.

5. The February 1993 Twin Towers bombing (6 murdered and over 1,000 injured) transpired while Israel conducted the pre-Oslo talks with the PLO, snatching the PLO from the jaws of oblivion in terrorist camps in Yemen, Iraq, Sudan and Tunisia and making unprecedented concessions.

6. The December 21, 1988 PanAm-103 (270 murdered) terrorism took place a few months following the groundbreaking initiation of direct talks between the US and the PLO, while the US attempted to initiate a direct Israel-PLO dialogue.

7. The June 1985 TWA 847 hijacking to Beirut (1 US Navy Seabee diver murdered) took place when the US was backing Iraq in Baghdad’s war against Iran, irrespective of the Palestinian issue.

8. The April/October 1983 bombings of the US Embassy and Marines and French military headquarters—by Syria and PLO-supported Islamic terrorists (300 Americans and 58 French murdered)—occurred while the US military confronted Israeli tanks in Lebanon and the US Administration blasted Israel horrifically for its was against the PLO.

Tony Blair’s, Baker’s and Scowcroft’s contention that the Palestinian issue is the core of anti-Western Islamic terrorism and Mideast violence reflects miscomprehension of Mideast reality. It diverts attention and resources away from The Core Cause: a 13 century old hate-education and terrorism, which has characterized inter-Muslim politics, domestically and externally (to be continued).

‘Root Causes Of Anti-US Islamic Terrorism’

BAB's A List, Islam, Terrorism

Barely a Blog’s guest today is Retired Ambassador, Yoram Ettinger. He puts paid to the totemic–and fanciful–notion that pacifying the Palestinians will bring peace to the world. To complement what is Mr. Ettinger’s first installment in a series, do read Greg Richards’ “Primer on Islamic Imperialism.” —ILANA

ROOT CAUSES OF ANTI-US ISLAMIC TERRORISM by Yoram Ettinger

Tony Blair’s, Baker’s and Scowcroft’s contention that the Palestinian issue is the core of anti-Western Islamic terrorism and Mideast violence reflects miscomprehension of Mideast reality.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, Jim Baker and Brent Scowcroft have developed an intriguing theory: The core of the 13-century-old Islamic terrorism and Middle East violence is the less-than-a-century-old Palestinian issue. They have introduced a cost-effective tactic in combating terrorism: Rather than flex a muscle against Iran and other rogue regimes, instead of challenging the Palestinian Terror Authority and Hamas, one should suspend disbelief, shrink the Jewish State back to the 1949 Lines and establish a Palestinian State. Such a contriving approach would, supposedly, mollify the unprecedented wave of anti-US Islamic terrorism. Really?!

1. 9/11 was planned while Clinton’s USA and Barak’s Israel were appeasing the Palestinians and the Arabs, proposing a total Israeli withdrawal, including the re-partitioning of Jerusalem and the giveaway of the Golan Heights.

2. The October 12, 2000 Islamic terrorist attack on the USS Cole (17 sailors murdered) occurred when Israel was willing to give away the store, while the US pressured Israel to absorb and compensate Palestinian refugees.

3. The August 27, 1998 Islamic terrorist assault of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania took place (257 murdered and over 4,000 injured) while President Clinton was brutally pressuring Prime Minister Netanyahu for sweeping concessions to the Palestinians and to Syria.

4. The 1995/6 Riyadh and Khobar Towers, Dhahran Islamic terror attacks (19 murdered) were carried out while Israel implemented unprecedented concessions, in spite of Palestinian hate-education, systematic violation of all commitments made by the PA and unprecedented Palestinian terrorism.

5. The February 1993 Twin Towers bombing (6 murdered and over 1,000 injured) transpired while Israel conducted the pre-Oslo talks with the PLO, snatching the PLO from the jaws of oblivion in terrorist camps in Yemen, Iraq, Sudan and Tunisia and making unprecedented concessions.

6. The December 21, 1988 PanAm-103 (270 murdered) terrorism took place a few months following the groundbreaking initiation of direct talks between the US and the PLO, while the US attempted to initiate a direct Israel-PLO dialogue.

7. The June 1985 TWA 847 hijacking to Beirut (1 US Navy Seabee diver murdered) took place when the US was backing Iraq in Baghdad’s war against Iran, irrespective of the Palestinian issue.

8. The April/October 1983 bombings of the US Embassy and Marines and French military headquarters—by Syria and PLO-supported Islamic terrorists (300 Americans and 58 French murdered)—occurred while the US military confronted Israeli tanks in Lebanon and the US Administration blasted Israel horrifically for its was against the PLO.

Tony Blair’s, Baker’s and Scowcroft’s contention that the Palestinian issue is the core of anti-Western Islamic terrorism and Mideast violence reflects miscomprehension of Mideast reality. It diverts attention and resources away from The Core Cause: a 13 century old hate-education and terrorism, which has characterized inter-Muslim politics, domestically and externally (to be continued).

The Religion of Peace? By Andrew G. Bostom

BAB's A List, Islam, Jihad

My guest today is Jihad scholar Andrew G. Bostom, MD, MS. Dr. Bostom is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Brown University Medical School, an occasional contributor to FrontPage Magazine and to Barely a Blog too.–ILANA

The Religion of Peace?
By Andrew G. Bostom

During the discussion period after a recent talk by the courageous secular Muslim “apostate Wafa Sultan, Judea Pearl, father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (who was barbarously murdered by pious Muslim terrorists), alluded to the Koran’s “verses of peace,” which certain votaries of Islam uphold as the religion’s exclusive legacy. According to an observer at the event, Judea Pearl derided Ms. Sultan’s critical view of Islam by further contending that the Koran’s bellicose and brutal verses were mere cultural baggage, akin to similar pronouncements in the Old Testament. The comparison was naive, if not absurd.

Naive because the Koran’s verses of peace, frequently cited by both Muslim and non-Muslim apologists, most notably verse 2:256, “ There is no compulsion in religion, were all abrogated by the so-called verses of the sword. These abrogating verses of the sword recommend beheading or otherwise murdering and mutilating non-Muslims, and Muslim apostates. According to classical Muslim Koranic commentators verse 9:5 (perhaps the most infamous verse of the sword), “ Slay the idolators wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush … , for example, cancels 124 verses that promote patience and toleration.

The sacralized Islamic sources indicate that as the Muslim prophet Muhammad accrued political and military power, he evolved from a proselytizer and persuader, to a warrior (i.e., a prototype jihadist; see: The Prophet Muhammad as a Jihad Model), and dictatorial legislator. Thus the sword and other similar Koranic verses — as per the linkage between Muhammad’s biography and the Koranic narrative — capture the Muslim prophet at his most dogmatic, belligerent, and intolerant. Muslims are enjoined to fight and murder nonbelievers — woe unto those who shirk these campaigns — but those who are killed fighting for the one true religion, i.e., Islam, will be rewarded amply in the afterlife. A sampling of such verses, which established these eternal injunctions, are included below:

47:4: “ Now when ye meet in battle those who disbelieve, then it is smiting of the necks until, when ye have routed them, then making fast of bonds

9:29: “ Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

4:76: “ Those who believe fight in the way of Allah, and those who disbelieve fight in the way of the Shaitan. Fight therefore against the friends of the Shaitan; surely the strategy of the Shaitan is weak.

8:12: “ When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.

8:38-39: “ Say to the Unbelievers, if (now) they desist (from Unbelief), their past would be forgiven them; but if they persist, the punishment of those before them is already (a matter of warning for them). And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah altogether and everywhere; but if they cease, verily Allah doth see all that they do.

9:39: “ If you do not go forth, He will chastise you with a painful chastisement and bring in your place a people other than you, and you will do Him no harm; and Allah has power over all things.

4:74: “ Therefore let those fight in the way of Allah, who sell this world’s life for the hereafter; and whoever fights in the way of Allah, then be he slain or be he victorious, We shall grant him a mighty reward.

9:111: “ Surely Allah has bought of the believers their persons and their property for this, that they shall have the garden; they fight in Allah’s way, so they slay and are slain; a promise which is binding on Him in the Taurat and the Injeel and the Quran; and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? Rejoice therefore in the pledge which you have made; and that is the mighty achievement.

As Ibn Warraq notes, aptly (p.69):

… “ tolerance has been abrogated by “ intolerance

And this doctrine of abrogation, necessitated by the many contradictions which abound in the Koran, originates as putatively taught by Muhammad, himself, at verse 2:106: “ Whatever communications We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it. Do you not know that Allah has power over all things?. This verse, in combination with verses* 16:101, 22:52, and 87:6, was elaborated into a formal system of abrogation (naskh in Arabic) by the greatest classical Muslim Koranic scholars and jurists, which entailed (p.72),

… the suppression of a ruling without the suppression of the wording. That is to say, the earlier ruling is still to be found in the Koran, and is still to this day recited in worship, but it no longer has any legal force [emphasis added]

But it is only when viewed in the larger context of the uniquely Islamic institution of jihad war— which derives substantively from the abrogating Koranic sword verses — that Judea Pearl’s naïve equation to “s imilar verses from the Old Testament, becomes entirely fatuous. From the bellicose verses in the Koran, expounded upon in the hadith (the words and deeds of Muhammad as recorded by pious Muslim transmitters), Muslim jurists and theologians formulated the Islamic institution of permanent jihad war against non-Muslims to bring the world under Islamic rule (Shari’a law).

Since its earliest inception, through the present, jihad has been central to the thought and writings of prominent Muslim theologians and jurists. The precepts and regulations elucidated in the 7th through 9th centuries are immutable in the Muslim theological-juridical system, and they have remained essentially unchallenged by the majority of contemporary Muslims. The jihad is intrinsic to the sacred Muslim texts, including the divine Koranic revelation — “ the uncreated word of Allah.

The Old Testament [I prefer “Hebrew Testament.”–ILANA] sanctions the Israelites conquest of Canaan — a limited domain — it does not sanction a permanent war to submit all the nations of humanity to a uniform code of religious law. Similarly, the tactics of warfare are described in the Old Testament, unlike the Koran, in very circumscribed and specific contexts. Moreover, while the Old Testament clearly condemns certain inhumane practices of paganism, it never invoked an eternal war against all of the world’s pagan peoples.

Uninformed ecumenical zeal, in search of a fantasy Islam yet to be created, does not excuse making intellectual–let alone moral–equivalences, between the severely limited and contextualized war proclamations of the Old Testament, and the permanent proto-jihad war injunctions of the Koran. Staking out the presumptive “ higher moral ground by a thinly veiled (and ahistorical!) attack on a courageous secularist seeking profound, not cosmetic (and meaningless) changes in Islamdom, is unsavory and destructive, regardless of the misguided motivations.

* 16: 101: “ And when We change (one) communication for (another) communication, and Allah knows best what He reveals, they say: You are only a forger. Nay, most of them do not know.; 22:52: “ And We did not send before you any messenger or prophet, but when he desired, the Shaitan made a suggestion respecting his desire; but Allah annuls that which the Shaitan casts, then does Allah establish His communications, and Allah is Knowing, Wise; 87:6: “ By degrees shall We teach thee to declare (the Message), so thou shalt not forget

The discussion of abrogation/naskh draws heavily upon the insightful analysis, here pp. 67-75, of my courageous mentor and colleague Ibn Warraq.

Iraqi War Blues By Tibor Machan

America, BAB's A List, Democrats, Economy, Iraq, War, WMD

I’ve said before that I’ve nothing new to say about the crime the Bush administration perpetrated in Iraq. Other than the necessary repetition, few have. I take that back. My guest today on Barely a Blog is Tibor Machan, who has come up with this philosophically acute principle: “Believing something that’s unjustified to believe doesn’t count as a reason for acting on the belief.”

Machan is RC Hoiles Professor of business ethics & free enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics, Chapman University, and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

IRAQI WAR BLUES
By Tibor Machan

It is blues because it’s such a torment—to most Americans, to those who have died—and to a lot of families who have lost members—in this war, and to the supporters because they can’t advance a convincing reason to stay the course.

President George W. Bush may have wanted to hit Iraq even before 9/11 and his reason may well have been that he thought Saddam Hussein did hide some weapons of mass destruction. I have no idea whether Bush was honest but even if he was, it’s no excuse because believing that WMD were hidden in Iraq doesn’t appear to have been justified. Believing something that’s unjustified to believe doesn’t count as a reason for acting on the belief. Say you irrationally believe your spouse is cheating on you and so you decided to meet out punishment. It’s no excuse to say, “But I believed you were cheating on me— even if you did but in fact had no reason to.

Did Bush have good reasons, compelling ones, to think Iraq had WMD? There seems to be no support for this view anywhere now. So then attacking Iraq, while not anything most reasonable people could be too upset about so far as Saddam Hussein is concerned, doesn’t appear to have been justified.

How does this bear on the current debate as to whether the war in Iraq is “a war of choice”? Yes, this seems to be a big deal now—was the war necessary or did Bush decide to wage it as a matter of preference, something he didn’t need to do? Some—for example Republican pundit Morton Kondracke of weekend TV news program “The Beltway Boys”—think that since Bush believed there were WMD in Iraq, the war was not one of choice but of necessity. But this is the kind of justification I sketched above for punishing one’s spouse because one honestly but irrationally thinks one has been betrayed. Even if Bush honestly thought Iraq had WMD, if that belief was ill founded, as it evidently was, the war could be considered a war of choice. There was no objective necessity for it.

Mind you, most of Bush’s critics from among the liberal Democrats have no good case against him either. They haven’t ever objected to preemptive public policies that intrude on innocent people, let alone those under serious if mistaken suspicion. Just consider as a perfect current example how eagerly former VP Al Gore is urging his various precautionary measures—ones that would intrude on millions of us without any regard for civil liberties and due process—because he feels we face big risks from environmental hazards (global warming, climate change, what have you). Gore and his supporters, who complain about Bush’s preemptive war policies because they were preemptive, are hypocrites.

Only those who consistently uphold what we might dub the George Washington doctrine about getting America militarily entangled have a case against Bush & Co. These folks believe that free countries may only go to war when there is a justified and dependable belief that the country is under attack or about to be attacked. The emphasis here is on justified and dependable. Forcibly intervening in other people’s lives is only justifiable when these other people are mounting or about to mount an attack. A war is just, in other words, only when it is defensive.

George W. Bush’s war against Iraq was never defensive, not because he may not have believed the country needs defending from WMD, but because his and his administration’s beliefs about Iraq’s WMD were unjustified, ill founded. Nothing in the meantime, since the war commenced, has changed this fact. Not that there was nothing at all murky about Saddam Hussein and WMD. Yes there was, what with all that hide-and-seek involving the United Nations’ team of inspectors. But war is too big a deal, military, and indeed any other kind of aggression is too big a deal, to start in a murky situation.

Bush, of course, is no consistent follower of the George Washington doctrine. Nor are most of his liberal Democratic critics. So their quarrel about the war in Iraq is mostly incoherent. The only part that has some bona fide relevance concerns the issue of how long to keep American troops in Iraq now that the American military is there.