Grok Your World

Why Political Islam Is the Problem, NOT Terrorism

It's nothing new for us, of course, to point out the manifold ways in which the low level of public discourse in the US in general, and towards all things Middle Eastern in particular --

a sad and incredibly self / destructive phenomenon in which Democrats have as eagerly and stupidly participated at the ruling BCRHB clique --

have made an already difficult and problematic global and regional scene much worse than it was already ...

An excellent -- if, as usual, disturbing and sad -- example of this confusion between the challenges presented by political Islam and "terrorism"

is this piece in the New York Times about growing -- and increasingly violent -- tensions between the historic minority [ 10% ] Coptic Christian community in Egypt and the dominant Muslim majority ...

This would be dismaying in any case, but it's particularly so because, for quite a long time, there were relatively few problems between the two communities, and those were relatively minor ...

As the article shows, however, this is no longer the case, and it only points to the extent to which political Islam is continuing to create problems throughout the Arab / Muslim world for non-Islamic minorities ...

If the US had taken a different tack after 9/11 by correctly identifying the problem as political Islam, and not some amorphous "terrorism",

there is little doubt the polarization and animosity that has become so prominent since that day would be considerably smaller and much less of a real problem,

which, as the article shows, even anti-Islamist governments like Egypt's, do everything they can to sweep under the rug ...

So while the piece might be about what's going on in Egypt, don't have any illusions:

a major factor contributing to the problems there are rooted in the failure of the US elites to make even the slightest effort to understand what is actually going on there ...

As more and more conflicts pile up and as the tensions of daily life increase, many people in Egypt and around the region said the problem of sectarian clashes had become more urgent.

They said that ordinary conflicts had become more bitterly sectarian as religious identity had become more prominent among Muslims and Christians alike.

“It is as if there is a struggle — each against the other — and it creates a sectarian atmosphere,” said Gamal Assaad, a former member of Parliament who is a Coptic intellectual and a writer.

“This tense atmosphere makes people ready to explode at any point if they are subjected to any amount of instigation or incitement.”

Egypt is the most populous Arab country, with about 80 million people. About 10 percent are Coptic Christian. ...

For most [ Copts ], the tension is personal, a fear that a son or daughter will fall in love with a Muslim or of being derided as “coftes,” which means “fifth column.”

“We keep to ourselves,” said Kamel Nadi, 24, a Coptic who runs a small shop in the Shubra neighborhood of Cairo.

“Muslims can’t say it, but it’s clear they don’t accept us. Here no one can speak the truth on this issue, so everybody’s feelings are kept inside.”

Christian Arabs have increasingly complained of being marginalized in the Middle East, with large numbers leaving over the decades.

Now it appears that pressure on these communities is spiking, whether in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan or the West Bank. In each, Christians speak of specific national behavior that has made them feel less welcome.

While governments are generally regarded as more accommodating than they used to be, the overall environment is seen as less hospitable.

“Yes, we are feeling marginalized,” said Dr. Audeh Quawas, a surgeon in Amman, Jordan, who serves on the central committee of the World Council of Churches, a Geneva-based group.

He rattled off a list of grievances, from the refusal of the state to acknowledge Easter as a national holiday to the insistence that Christians abide by Islamic law regarding inheritance. ...

Many Egyptians around Cairo and in the south said that conflicts often arose over everyday matters — a dispute between farmers, an argument between students — but that once sparked, they deteriorated into sectarian name-calling, sometimes worse.

That is partly because religious identity is paramount now, more important than a common citizenship, Mr. Assaad [ the Coptic writer ] said. ...

“When something happens, it always comes back to Muslim and Christian,” said Tharwat Taki Faris, 45, a subsistence farmer in Mansafees, a village of about 33,000 people five hours south of Cairo. ...

Frustrated by the official posture of denial, a small group of Egyptian bloggers decided in January 2007 to try to bring Muslims and Christians together to talk.

The group, which calls itself Together Before God, began with about 20 members of both faiths.

They posted an Internet survey to gauge Muslims’ and Christians’ ideas about each other and received about 5,000 responses. Two-thirds were from Muslims, the rest from Christians.

The survey showed profound misunderstanding on both sides, said Sherif Abdel Aziz, 36, a co-founder of the group.

Some Muslims declared that Coptic priests wore black to mourn the Arab invasion of Egypt in the seventh century.

Some Christians believed that the Koran ordered Muslims to kill all Christians.

Did the group discover a sectarian problem?

Absolutely, and it was compounded by the lack of frank public discussion, Mr. Abdel Aziz said.

“The religious discourse has to change from both sides because it incites hatred, even if it does so indirectly, increasing fanaticism from both sides,” Mr. Abdel Aziz said.

Barry's Mush Aside, Kurd Parliament Walkout Shows Iraq Still Radical Mess

It's a bad bad scene whenever Kirkuk is the issue ...

As this sad -- and crucial -- article in the Times makes clear, the situation in Iraq is a complete disaster ...

And -- as we've said a million times -- Americans, including Baruch Obama, have GOT to start realizing that the presence of US troops is NOT the main issue ...

The entire US, and not just Bush / Cheney / Rove, but ALL the elites -- political / military / corporate / media / academic --

are responsible for having created an unholy catastrophe that is NOT going to be solved, no matter what Baruch hopes, by the withdrawal of American troops ...

The dynamics of the disaster ...

The entire bloc of Kurdish lawmakers walked out of Iraq’s Parliament on Tuesday in protest at a proposed provincial election law, part of which they claimed was unconstitutional. ...

The walkout underscores the bitter political power struggle taking place between the Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen communities in the oil-rich northern province of Tamim and its ethnically-mixed capital, Kirkuk.

The Kurds, who claim to have an ethnic majority in Tamim Province, have been pushing to postpone the provincial council vote in Kirkuk until a constitutionally mandated referendum is held on whether Kirkuk should remain under Baghdad’s administration or join the semiautonomous Kurdish regional government. ...

The Kurdish officials who walked out on Tuesday said they had been prepared to vote on the draft election law, with the understanding that other parliamentary blocs agreed to the voting delay in Kirkuk until after the referendum.

But attached to the bill was a separate power-sharing proposal, requested by over 100 Arab and Turkmen lawmakers, to create a provincial council in Kirkuk made up of 10 Kurds, 10 Arabs and 10 Turkmen, with an additional two representatives from the region’s small Christian population.

For the Kurds, this power-sharing arrangement, which had a good chance of passing, is untenable because they say it does not accurately reflect what they claim is their demographic majority in the region. ...

Kirkuk has been at the center of a decades-long custody battle. In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein instituted a policy of Arabizing the city, kicking Kurds out of their homes and forcing Arabs from the south to move in.

A planned census of the region, which might settle questions of proportional representation, has not yet taken place, leaving an atmosphere of profound mistrust between the different communities before the coming election. ...

The Kirkuk question was just one of several issues in the proposed election law that have provoked significant debate.

Other questions include whether to keep a 25-percent quota for women in provincial councils; whether to institute a ban on the depiction of religious figures and symbols in campaign materials; and whether to switch to an open list system of elections, under which voters can choose individual candidates rather than choosing parties.

The walkout took place before any of these issues came up for discussion ...

Backlash vs. Political Islam in Algerian Schools

Very interesting article in New York Times about the on-going mess in Algeria, where things have been a mess since the early 1990s,

altho this talks about the anti-Islamist changes in the education system there, which, while positive, are nevertheless provoking a lot of disorientation among the young ...

Iraq No-Bid Contract Scandals Present - Oil / Majors

It's all so open and brazen ...

a perfect example of how destructively deteriorated public discourse in the US has become since the time of the jerk who started it all, Ronald Reagan ...

and, not to forget, his willing accomplices, the American people ... ;-) ...

Iraq No-Bid Contract Scandals Past - KBR / Food

The amazing thing is that -- between the crass and corrupt ass-licking of the mainstream media ... and the oil-obsessed doufs of the politically correct -- people keep missing the REAL horror and cynicism of Iraq:

that it is now / always has been / will continue to be about the sleaziest regime in American history,

whose guiding aim even before 9/11 was to oversee and legitimize the biggest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle-class to the already excessively wealthy through the tax and spend policy of the US government ...

Baruch Should Stop Talking About the Middle East

Honestly, you can just see Billary and their inner circle rolling their eyes and saying, "see, that's just what we told you was going to happen ..."

Referring, of course, to Baruch's IDIOT remarks in front of AIPAC ...

First of all, this was an appointment he should NEVER have agreed to, especially in the immediate aftermath of having clinched the Democratic nomination,

until he had worked out with his staff EXACTLY what his -- necessarily nuanced and delicate -- position on the endlessly annoying and stupid Israel / Palestine situation was going to be ...

Instead, looking like the amateur the Clintonistas & McCain claim he is, he starts yammering on about Jersualem remaining undivided, and how the US will support Israel from any threat ... blah blah blah ...

Then, of course, he realized how foolish he sounded and started backtracking, which predictably made the Jews feel he had lied to their faces,

and the Arabs -- equally predictably -- furious, feeling that, once again, they were being taken advantage of by American politicians, and all because of the "money and influence" of the nefarious Jews ...

So by stupidly accepting an invitation he never should have --

and if he felt he HAD to appear before AIPAC, which he could easily have put off, then he should have had the brains to keep it mealy-mouthed and innocuous --

instead the first thing he does as the Democrats' anointed standard-bearer is not just step, but jump into, the pile of shit that is American / Middle East / world discourse about this stupid imbroglio,

and, in the process, not only alienating EVERYONE involved, but also putting himself behind the 8-ball when it comes to foreign policy in general for the first  stage of the "real" campaign ...

Honestly, Baruch, I hope this causes you to reflect upon why the Democrats have done so poorly in Presidential politics for the last several decades, and start THINKING before you open your mouth ...

Jesus, dude ... smarten up ...

You went to Columbia and Harvard Law School, for chrissakes ... have been through one of the longest and most acrimonious Democratic primary campaigns in modern history ...

and then go and do something as unnecessary and avoidable as this ???

Where are your advisers ??? What are they telling you ???

Pathetic ... please don't do it again ... I mean, the Middle East, of all things ... seriously, dude ...

Excellent NYT Op-Ed on Self / Destructive State of US / Israel Relations

While I don't agree with everything in it --

especially the idea that it would be a "tragedy" if Israel were to become a legitimately bi-national Jewish / Arab state,

altho that is, for various reasons, unacceptable to all the locals, and hence even more unlikely to occur than a genuine peace ;-) --

it's GREAT to finally read something minimally honest about the insanely screwed-up state of US / Israeli relations ...

It appeared not in print, but the expanded website Op-Ed section, which is often more interesting than the hard copy version ... what a surprise ;-) ...

Entitled "Israel's 'American Problem'", and written by the interesting if uneven Jeffrey Goldberg,

it doesn't say anything we haven't said before, like in February 2007 ... or March 2007 ... or, specifically on this topic, November 2006 ...

but it IS excellent to read something analytical and HONEST, rather than the usual "we are the victims here" twaddle that ALL sides constantly put forth ...

Some highlights ...

But what Israel needs is an American president who ... helps it to come to grips with the existential threat from within.

Which, of course, is the only real issue confronting Israel:

how to come to a way of living with the Palestinians that recognizes the justice and legitimacy of THEIR presence in Eretz Yisrael / Falastin ...

A pro-Israel president today would be one who prods the Jewish state — publicly, continuously and vociferously — to create conditions on the West Bank that would allow for the birth of a moderate Palestinian state. ...

And the best way to bring about the birth of a Palestinian state is to reverse — not merely halt, but reverse — the West Bank settlement project.

The dismantling of settlements is the one step that would buttress the dwindling band of Palestinian moderates in their struggle against the fundamentalists of Hamas.

So why won’t American leaders push Israel publicly?

Or, more to the point, why do presidential candidates dance so delicately around this question?

The answer is obvious:

The leadership of the organized American Jewish community has allowed the partisans of settlement to conflate support for the colonization of the West Bank with support for Israel itself. ...

[W]hat’s needed now is a radical rethinking of what it means to be pro-Israel. ...

Barack Obama and John McCain, the likely presidential nominees, are smart, analytical men who understand the manifold threats Israel faces 60 years after its founding.

They should be able to talk, in blunt terms, about the full range of dangers faced by Israel, including the danger Israel has brought upon itself.

But this won’t happen until Aipac and the leadership of the American Jewish community allow it to happen.

Iran SHOULD Be Good Issue for Obama vs. McCain

How much longer is the Democrats' abysmal -- at this point, you've got to suspect almost willful -- ignorance of the Middle East going to allow the RPBs to intimidate them on "national security" ???

Probably forever ... which is all the more disturbing because it's utterly needless ...

Latest example is Obama getting defensive over McCain's attack on him over Iran ...

There's an incredibly easy position to take -- and one which Obama should say not just once but make a MAJOR element of his foreign policy program ...

He should keep asking the question:

"Who made Iran the most powerful country in the Persian Gulf region ???"

And he should answer:

The insane / unlawful / and massively de-stabilizing invasion of Iraq by George W Bush and Dick Cheney --

all for the sake of huge no-bid contracts handed out to their past and future personal financial benefactors at Halliburton / Blackwater et al.

It is Bush and Cheney -- with the consistent support of McCain [ and, if he wants to get tough on her, Hillary Clinton ] -- who opened the door to a major expansion of Iranian power

and mobilized Shiites in Iraq and the rest of the Arab regions of the Gulf -- as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon -- through an unprovoked on an admittedly brutal dictator,

who, nevertheless, a) did not have nuclear weapons; b) had nothing to do with 9/11; c) was an avowed opponent of Osama-style Sunni political Islam;

and d) had killed millions of his own people in a vain attempt, undertaken with the full aid of the Reagan administration, to turn back the mullah's revolution in Iran ...

If McCain is so worried about Iran, he should be laying the blame at his doorstep, as well as the current occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and learn something about the Middle East,

especially how the US invasion of Iraq has made Shiites more powerful all over the Middle East, thereby benefiting and empowering Iran,

and it's PRECISELY the same idiot thinking that created Iran as the regional superpower of the Persian Gulf area that he and his pals in the White House continue to perpetuate ...

And last but not least, he should STOP citing Reagan as ANY kind of model for ANY positive action in the foreign policy realm ...

It is pathetic that Democrats pay ANY respect to Reagan,

and if Obama wants to have a prayer in hell of becoming President, he should IMMEDIATELY stop that pathetically self-destructive practice,

and START transforming the public discourse in this whole area ...

Obama Citing Bush Sr Re Global Issues Sign of Weakness

Not that the specifics are so problematic, but Barry's chat with David Brooks about Lebanon --

something NEITHER of them knows very much about ;-) --

underscores HIS understanding of the characteristic Clinton tactic of "triangulation" ...

Here's the quote:

" ... I have enormous sympathy for the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush. I don’t have a lot of complaints about their handling of Desert Storm. I don’t have a lot of complaints with their handling of the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

And let me add something even stronger in this vein:

By far, the strongest / most intelligent / consistent pre-invasion critique of the Iraq cyninsanity came from Brent Scowcroft,

legitimately known as the foreign policy spokesman / mouthpiece for Bush the Elder ...

BUT ...

Those days are long-gone ... the situation has changed radically for the worse,

and attempts to legitimize his foreign policy credentials by invoking Bush Sr indicate his FEAR of taking a REAL stand on the current scene ...

as indicated by his pathetically defensive response to W's OUTRAGEOUS "appeasement" comments to the Israeli Knesset ...

While an element of realism would be a welcome change from the cynicism and corruption of the current BCRHB regime,

he is going to have NO chance of avoiding the "soft on terror" crap McCain is already throwing at him if he DOESN'T transform the discourse on America's place in the world,

which, at least to this point, he has shown NO sign of doing ...

That said, this little interlude with Brooks essentially ended in a -- highly preliminary and, as we shall demonstrate, factually wrong -- endorsement of Obama:

[I]n his head, he aligns himself with the realist dealmaking of the first Bush. Apparently, he’s part Harry Hopkins and part James Baker.

First of all, Obama is NO radical / New Deal-style innovator ... indeed, I'd feel a LOT better about him if he were ;-) ... so the Harry Hopkins part of it is simply wrong ...

And the idea that James Baker is any kind of foreign policy / diplomatic "master" is even more screwed-up ...

The guy was a smart Texas oil lawyer -- nothing more ...

Anyone who might disagree with this is requested to please cite a single one of his "accomplishments" in this area,

with the admitted exception of the financing of the -- in my view, completely legitimate -- 1990 war to evict Saddam from his idiot invasion / occupation of Kuwait ...

And that Brooks would cite Baker as a "global issues" maven is indicative of how weak HE is when it comes to these matters ... ;-) ...

So despite Brooks' highly preliminary "endorsement" of Barry as "okay on foreign policy" --

apparently realizing that Obama is NOT a fan of Hamas or Hezbollah, which is something only an idiot could have believed in the first place --

it's just a couple of Ivy League smarties congratulating each other on how smart they are ... ;-) ...

Turkish Islam As Moderating Influence in Pakistan ???

Well, the Times keeps putting it prominently on its website, so I guess they really want to promote SOME good news about ideological dynamics in the Muslim world ...

Referring, of course, to the Turkish Schools Offer Pakistan A Gentler Version of Islam piece ... ;-) ...

And since it's by the talented and smart Sabrina Tavernise, why not ???

It DOES offer some good news ... altho it's hardly brimming with optimism about the possibilities for positive change in Pakistan ... ;-)