Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad Caught Red-Handed

'Jews Praying in the Synagogue' by Maurycy Gottlieb ca. 1878, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv

 

We are all well aware how Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad is modeling himself on Grand-Master-Über-Thug Ayatollah Khomeini, may he rot in Hell for all eternity.

We also know with certainty, that the Mullahcracy has been desperately trying to build the bomb at least since the early Nineties. We furthermore know today, that all the various assurances given in the past, that no such efforts were in fact made, were also nothing but bold faced lies.

Finally, we know, that for the period of almost two decades, every promise of cooperation, extracted from the Mullahcracy at various times by the U.S., several EU member states, the IAEA, the UN and other such illustrious parties so as to prevent a nuclear Islamic Republic in the heart of the Middle East, has only ever been feigned with one aim in mind, to buy more time for the Mullahcracy to reach nuclear ecstasy.

Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani feels quite evidently so secure in his conviction that we in the West still refuse to acknowledge this unyielding track record of utterly determined defiance when he, as part of a feud with a military commander over responsibility for the 1988 cease-fire, released a letter from Ayatollah Khomeini written in 1988 saying "that Iran would need nuclear weapons to win the war with Iraq". And he is right; exposing the deceitful agenda of our Thug-In-Chief and his Mullahcracy does not pass for headline news:

In the letter, Khomeini, who died in 1989, quotes the country's leading military commander of the day on the weaponry Iran would need to continue fighting. The letter also reveals that Iran's economy had been almost destroyed by the eight-year war and that the supply of military volunteers was drying up.

The letter strikes a nerve because the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has denied that Iran plans to develop nuclear weapons. He has said that such weapons would violate Islamic principles.

But the letter suggests that Khomeini, leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution, had no such qualms.

We knew of course, that our Thug-In-Chief was lying through his teeth when he stated that nuclear weapons violate Islamic principals. But we couldn't quite prove it. Now we can and that should be big news, especially amongst the apologist Liberals. The word of Khomeini is as good as law for Ahmadinejad; he would never contradict it save for false pretenses in the interest of spreading the dominance of Islam.

Again, I ask my Liberal friends, which part of, "alone of the world's major faiths, Islam was founded by a prophet who used force to win converts" do you not understand"?

"I was ordered to fight all men until they say, 'There is no god but Allah,' " Muhammad proclaimed in his farewell address to his followers in AD 632.

Spare me the intellectually challenged retort of citing missionary precedent of forceful conversions; the spotlight is directed on Muhammad and his teachings, and at the stark contrast in which they stand to those of Jesus Christ.

Instead, and on this Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we ought to remember the injustice meted out against the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as it was wrongly blamed for the massacre at Sabra and Shatilla in 1982. In the words of Menachem Begin:

"The whole campaign of blaming Israel for the massacre, of placing moral responsibility on Israel," he wrote, "seems to me, an old man who has seen so much in his lifetime, to be almost unbelievable, fantastic and utterly despicable.

"After the September 14 [1982] assassination of president-elect Bashir Jemayel we decided to move the IDF into West Beirut to prevent a Christian revenge on the Muslim population. It never occurred to anyone dealing with the Lebanese military units which subsequently entered the Sabra and Shatilla camps that they would perpetrate a massacre.

"The first horrific truth is that Arabs murdered Arabs. The second truth is that Israeli soldiers stopped the carnage. And the third truth is that if the current libelous campaign against Israel should go on without a reaction of outrage by decent men - yes, outrage - then within a matter of weeks or months everyone everywhere will have gotten the impression that it was an Israeli military unit which perpetrated the horrible killings."

"How right Begin was", are the closing words by Yehuda Avner, author of this moving tribute (he served on the personal staff of five prime ministers, including Menachem Begin).

I wish all my Jewish friends that you may have an easy fast!

Comments

[Kenny]

Hey, Alexandra, if you still have Subs's e-mail address, would you just e-mail her for me and tell her that she's the most impressive teenaged conversationalist I can remember talking to? I bailed on the conversation when I bailed on everything else and never got around to telling her so myself. Thanks.

[John C. Randolph]

Well, in the interest of compromise, I'll give old Mo' four out of six:

"There is no god."

Now, can we stop with the head-chopping and suicide bombers? I met you more than halfway.

-jcr

[Subs]

Yeah, ironically it makes a lot of sense. Your point about knowledge, wisdom, pride ect. was brilliant!
I agree :p

[Kenny]

Hey, Subs,

One thing: you're not going to convince many people to stop talking about Islamic terrorists by pointing out that among the four or five billion people on earth there are a few who are terrorists even though they aren't Muslims. What people are reacting to is the fact that the percentage of terrorists who rationalize their terrorism by means of Islam, is orders of magnitude higher than the percentage of people on earth who are Muslim. If anywhere in the world there are people killing each other over religion, the odds are overwhelming that the thugs on at least one side, and frequently on both, call themselves Muslim and justify their thuggery on religious grounds. If a terrorist act is committed somewhere tomorrow, the odds are overwhelming that it will be committed by somebody who calls himself Muslim and justifies his terrorism on religious grounds.

See, we know that every so often a non-Muslim does something terrible; we all know about the Irish Republican Army, for example. But there seems to be something about Islam that very disproportionately lends itself to this kind of perversion. And I think we all have to recognize that fact, even if we fully agree that Islamofascism is a perversion and is not truly Islam: for whatever reason, it is under modern conditions vastly easier to rationalize murder and barbarism by appeal to "Islam" than by appeal to any other major religion. That's just empirical fact. The appearance of the rare non-"Muslim" terrorist now and again doesn't materially affect the comparison.

That doesn't, by the way, mean that Islam is inherently evil; in the Latin of the philosophers, "Abusus non tollit usus" -- meaning roughly, "Just because something can be abused, that doesn't mean it can't be a good thing when used properly." In a great many areas of human endeavor, the more powerful something can be for good, the more powerful it can also be for evil. For example, I think we would all agree that intelligence is a good thing; but surely we all also can recognize that an evil genius is usually a far more dangerous critter than is an evil moron. (Though Democrats would say that in Karl Rove and Dubya you get both for the price of one, while Republicans could convincingly argue that it's almost impossible to conceive of a more destructive force than the incarnate walking never-running-dry folly that is Jimmy Carter.) Furthermore, I would certainly argue, based on my admittedly limited experience, that intelligence in the American culture as a whole is much more likely to make a man a fool than to make him wise. This is because wisdom is fundamentally a matter of honesty and humility, but American culture encourages the intelligentsia to think that wisdom is a matter of intelligence. This in turn leads the intelligentsia to think themselves wise when they are merely smart, which leads them out of humility into pride. And the first casualty of pride is intellectual honesty...and once your intellectual honesty is gone, then the more powerful your brain is, the more effectively and persuasively you can lie to yourself, and the more toweringly, insanely foolish you can talk yourself into being.

All of which is just to say, that the empirical fact that Islam is by far the easiest major modern religion to pervert into a license for savagery, does not necessarily lead to a conclusion that Islam is the worst of modern religions or that it is false.

At any rate, the reason people focus on Islamofascist terrorism rather than on other kinds, is the same reason that medical research tends to focus on diseases like breast cancer that kill thousands rather than on some rare disease that affects maybe ten people per decade. If you found a magic cure for Islamofascist terrorism then the overwhelming majority of the world's terrorist problems would vanish. If you found a magic cure for every imaginable kind of terrorism except Islamofascist terror, then...well, then the world would still have a huge problem with terrorism. That's why people who recognize terrorism as the great existential threat facing civilized society today, focus on the Islamofascist variety.

I should specify that by terrorism I mean the deliberate attempt to manufacture civilian deaths for political or military ends. And by "deliberate" I mean that if an attempt at terrorism were to produce deaths of military personnel but not of civilians, the terrorists would be annoyed because they need the civilian deaths to accomplish their goals. Thus it is a terrorist act to break into somebody's house and behead a four-year-old girl; it is also a terrorist act to disguise yourself as a civilian and put your rocket launchers inside elementary schools and hospitals so that any attack on you will generate civilian deaths that you can use for propaganda purposes; but it is not a terrorist attack to fire a rocket at a military target even if you know that civilians are likely to die as collateral damage. Just apply the pissed-off test: if the civilians don't wind up dying after all, will the attacker be relieved, or will he be pissed? If the former, he isn't a terrorist; if the latter, he is. If somebody keeps the attacker from successfully killing the little girl, will he be pissed? Yes? Then he's a terrorist. If the Israelis successfully manage to kill disguised-as-civilians Hezbollah fighters without killing any civilians that can be used as propaganda bait, will Hezbollah be pissed? Yes? Then they are terrorists. If Hezbollah fires a rocket at a military barracks in Tel Aviv, and if they were successfully to kill all the soldiers without killing any of the neighbors, would they rejoice and say, "Thank God we didn't kill any of those innocent Jewish children"? If so, then even if it turns out that some children are regrettably casualties of the rocket firing -- indeed, even if Hezbollah misses the barracks entirely and accidentally hits an elementary school instead -- then they are not terrorists. But if Hezbollah just fires rockets into the middle of Israeli towns in hopes of killing as many Israeli men, women and children as they can even though the towns they are targeting have no targets of military significance, then they are terrorists. Does that make sense?

[Kenny]

Subs,

I referred to you as "he" simply because I always do that when somebody hasn't explicitly said what gender is his -- or hers. This is because, as you well know I'm sure, the male ego is much more fragile than the female, and accidentally referring to a male commenter as "she" is sort of like asking a co-worker when the baby is due when she isn't pregnant. But you will be relieved to know that you do in fact sound quite feminine, and when complimenting your comment to Alexandra in IM's I have always referred to you as "she."

You, as a Muslim, have a problem that I wouldn't wish on anybody: there are millions (maybe as many as a hundred millions) of people who espouse evil doctrines and do so in the name of your religion. Of course I look back on the internecine religious wars of Reformation-era Christendom with outrage, but in modern-day Christianity the bloodthirsty nutcases are a perishingly small fraction of the Christian population -- and have no chance of taking over any nation of any significance. When people like Andrew Sullivan and Al Gore are reduced to trying to draw some sort of equivalence between James Dobson and Osama bin Laden in order to continue to fuel the fantasy world in which only their ceaseless vigilance and moral superiority stands between America and the Second Coming of Torquemada, a Christian like me has to make an imaginative effort to read, say, Locke's first great letter on religious toleration with any sense of how desperate was the situation in which he wrote, or of how far "Christianity" had wandered away from the New Testament. Today a Christian reading Locke on toleration mostly comes away thinking, "Um, well, yeah, isn't that obvious?" But what must it have been like to have been a genuinely godly Catholic Frenchman while the French were massacreing the Huegenots?

What I try to keep in mind, and what I wish folks like LGF and Michelle Malkin and our own Crusader would keep in mind, is...hmm, how do I put it. Let's try this: it sucks to be a Christian American in a world with bloodthirsty Islamofascist nutcases. But it sucks way more to be a decent and moral and kind and honest Muslim in a world with bloodthirsty Islamofascist nutcases. The Islamofascists would be happy to kill my kids. But they would also be happy to kill you -- plus they're stealing your religion.

I say all this just to tell you that I know that Muslims like you, and like my beloved Kazakh friends the Shunaevs, and like young Nurgul whom I spent two years trying to adopt, and like Naj with whom I occasionally have dinner so that we can try to convert each other, and even like the Turkish family who many years ago used pantomime to invite a lone America college student to lunch and who managed to make him feel completely at home even though we had not a single word of any verbal language in common...I know that you delightful and decent folks outnumber the lunatics nine or ten to one. And I know that the Islamofascists have done and will continue to do far more damage to you and yours than they have or will manage to do to me and mine. The people Alexandra is gunning for on this site...they aren't you. On the contrary, they are your enemies even more than they are ours.

Now, a word to the Crusader.

Dude, there are 900 million to a billion Muslims who don't think the Islamofascist interpretation of the Quran is the right one. So, let's say that you're right and that the only honest and intelligent reading of the Quran entails jihad and sharia and the subjugation of the West; and that those billion Muslims are being bad Muslims by being good people. Why in the hell would you try to convince them of that fact? Say that you're absolutely right and Islam is a completely evil religion, and that the best thing for all of us would be for all Muslims to convert to Christianity. Hooray, I'll totally grant that for the sake of argument -- but most of them still aren't gonna convert, and what are you going to do with the ones that don't? As far as I can tell, what you intend to do with them is to explain to them very emphatically that if they intend to be a Muslim they have to start killing infidels. If being a good person means being a bad Muslim, don't we want as many Muslims as possible to stay bad Muslims? Why straighten out their errors and put their feet back on what you think is the true Muslim path, i.e., jihad, bloodshed and brutal theocracy?

I'm exaggerating for rhetorical effect, obviously, but surely you see my point? Subriah is absolutely no threat, at present, to any of us infidels or our children. Wouldn't you like her to stay that way? And if so, what can possibly be the point of explaining to her that the murderers have her religion right and she has it wrong?

(Actually, I can posit a decent answer, just switching around to play devil's advocate against myself. 1. The eternal destiny of a single soul -- say, Subriah's -- is more important than any amount of temporal suffering. 2. The only hope of converting Subriah to Christianity is to convince her that Islam is utterly flawed. 3. So it's worth the gamble. Unfortunately I don't buy that it's worth the gamble simply because I think your chances of evangelistic success, especially in the environment of a politically-dominated blog comment section, are vanishingly small.)

One last point, which is much less important than the others. On the Aisha question, like Subs I think there's no point in doing anything other than agreeing to disagree affectionately. In fact I think Subriah's post nicely illustrates the point I was trying to make. If somebody doesn't think there's any good evidence to believe that Mohammed was a prophet (as I myself don't, despite having been the target of quite a bit of Muslim evangelistic ardor and lots of Islamic apologetics), then you're going to hear the Aisha story and simply think, "Yeah, all those cult leaders are the same -- it doesn't take long before God very conveniently gives a Message that says it's okay for them to do weird sexual stuff." If you have cultivated the habit of remaining cautious when going outside your own areas of expertise, you may remain open to the possibility that cultural variances and possible special circumstances or personality traits would have caused Mohammed and Aisha not to have the sort of relationship that one would see between, say, my dad and one of the girls in my son Rusty's third-grade class (which is the kind of age difference we're talking about here); but even leaving that much doubt open is going to take an effort.

Meanwhile, if you're convinced that Mohammed is the acme of human virtue, but you don't have any objection to sex with prepubescent girls and actually think the neighbor's second-grader is a pretty hot little number, then you -- like Khomeini -- are going to say, "Well, obviously there's nothing wrong with pedophilia; 'cause the Prophet (PBUH) did it."

But now put yourself in Subriah's position: devoutly Muslim and devoutly convinced that Mohammed couldn't have been a sexual pervert; and also viscerally aware of the depravity of the behavior Khomeini and his sickos engage in; and then you find yourself faced with the fact of Mohammed's relationship with a girl whose own later purported reminiscenses of the wedding chamber (I think I'm remembering this correctly) include her husband's coming to her bedchamber -- while she was playing with her dolls, so that she had to put the dolls away in order to perform her marital duties. If there's not something wrong with the first two assumptions (Mohammed was good but pedophilia is perverted), then there has to be something wrong with what purports to be the historical record. And thus you see Subriah tossing in parenthetically the nugget that Aisha had already had her first period, at nine years of age, when the marriage was consummated.

I am not trying her to disprove Subriah's view. I'm actually arguing for its rationality given the premises of which she is, on the basis of other evidence, fully convinced: if other evidence is overwhelmingly that Mohammed wasn't doing anything wrong by bedding Aisha at nine, and if in general schtuping a prepubescent girl is wrong, then one has to conclude that Aisha must have been hormonally nubile at nine. Aisha's reminiscences got copied down wrong, maybe, or I'm not remembering them accurately, or the translations I've seen are malicious and misleading translations, or something along those lines. As far as I (in my very limited expertise) can tell, the historical evidence, such as it is, that discusses Aisha specifically, doesn't very easily lend itself to Subriah's view when taken in isolation -- but that's not the only evidence in the world, and therefore to take it in isolation is to commit a logical fallacy.

Thus, my Muslim friends and I simply ignore the whole Aisha thing. If they ever leave Islam, it won't be because of Aisha; if I ever convert to Islam, the Aisha question will be moot. There are so many other things of so much more importance for us to discuss -- many having nothing to do with religion, and on many of which we can agree and cooperate with each other. If infidel Westerners like most of us on this blog, and humanist Muslims like Subs, can get in the habit of expressing our differences, accepting those differences (in the sense of loving each other anyway even while recognizing that the differences are potentially important), and then moving forward as friends, then the Islamofascists will be in very deep trouble indeed.

One last thing: Subriah, you do, in fact, seem quite unusually patient. Not many people can be as deeply upset as you obviously were in your initial comment, and yet extend the kind of olive branch you extended.

[Subs]

&& Randy you said "I'm as sick as a dog and haven't been able to give Subs the response I promised; but it looks like he just dropped by and moved on. Too bad."
He? I am a she! Thank You. Female. Oh God. Does my writing style have a masculine aura to it or something? :P

[Subs]

And can you all pretty please, try to at least listen 2 one of Shaykh Hamza Yusuf lectures? You can download them for free on i-tunes ++ listen to the podcasts. Also check out www.zaytuna.org and got to media files and listen to one. They are very revitlizing and hopefully it will answer many of your questions.
Peace be upon you all, and live a happy life :)

[Subs]

Hey everybody, may God shower you all with his blessing and I hope your all in excellent health and are satisfied, watered and fed, have shelter over your heads and you get the gist.
You know what’s funny; I received this e-mail yonks ago and couldn’t be bothered reading it. I just read it and then signed in and came to this blog and realized that so many people have responded to my comment. Well what can I say, I feel flattered that people have taken time out of their lives to read other people’s opinion (like mine :P) even if they agree with it or disagree with it. That just shows us how open-minded you are to reasoning! Well, I am fourteen, but in Feb, I’m turning 15. I however, feel that age is irrelevant.
Hey Kenny, I was particularly interested in your comment! And you know what. I thought about it and I agree with you to a certain extent. I mean it is crude, disgusting, gross, unjust, and all the other words in the dictionary which express disgust for someone who is old enough to be your father’s father to get married to you. Ewww…and being nine years old, and not even having your period yet (note: however Aisha did have her period by the age of nine).
I mean in Afghanistan there are like 65 year old men who practically can’t walk and they get married to 8 year old children. That is simply in humane. I was reading in the Age newspaper (a newspaper here in Australia, Melbourne) and it had an article of how some child was getting married to some old Afghani man. You know why she was getting married to the old hag? Because her forsaken father lost a bet with her father and he had no money so he gave away his daughter.
You know what’s sadder. The girl bought her dolls to the wedding and she was playing with them in the wedding.
God these people have no sense of morality, I mean gambling your daughter? They have no intellect, I mean selling their daughter over a pack of cards or a bet?
Know what makes me even madder? That old….man did it in the name of my religion which is meant to be a pristine clarity of which the Prophet (p.b.u.h) gave to humanity. Now, if we have people who don’t understand my religion, then how the hell am I meant to expect other people from the wider community to see my religion in a healthier light?
I mean, we can argue till our fingers rot and freeze and drop off, whether Aisha’s marriage was ethnical or not. If the Prophet was a worthy role model or not. But the sad conclusion is that we might never agree, so we can agree to disagree.
Like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who also has won a Nobel prize, said “If we all learnt to agree to disagree the world will be a much better place” and to be frank with you all I agree with him.
And everybody, I’d just like to point out that in Islam, a proposal which is offered to anybody, regardless of their gender they are allowed to decline. So Aisha was not forced upon it. However I think that in the modern era marrying someone who is like decades younger that you or marrying more than one woman is just plain stupid because the child has to finish her education and has a life to live. And besides its illegal (thank the lord)! I will hate it if every Muslim started marrying kids in grade 2 because the prophet did, cause the circumstances are different and the children in the past were much more mature that the kids in the present.
&& Michael Van Der Galien, it is actually quite reassuring that you are attacking people who misinterprets the Quran (notice, that it’s spelt with a “Q” and “U”…Lol) and not anyone who reads the Quran.
And please stop worrying about my opinion on “she loved him and he loved her” I believe it. I am not forcing you to. Don’t waste time worrying about my opinion. Waste time worrying about the Ozone layer and the materialistic state we human beings are drowning in!!
And my fellow friend Red Violin, I can assure you that I think I know about my religion, and I have no PHd, but I have to agree with you that some people have PHds and all, and they call themselves Muslim however they do not have a clue on the religion.
Wow, and ex-Muslim. Well, I can tell you one thing, okay. I am equal as any man, child and human being out there. And if my religion told me that I was worth an atoms-less than a man, well to hell with that religion because I am human, GOD thought my existence worthy on this Earth and by no means will I be downgraded to something like a sub-human. I don’t know who the hell taught you Islam in your youth, but he or she needs to seriously read the Quran himself/herself, and read the Sharia laws!
LOL, a sound Hadith tells us that the Prophet (p.b.u.h) said “The lowest of the man is someone who mistreats a woman and the highest of men is someone who treats a woman with respect”.
P.S- I hate nobody. I hate their sins. Well, with the possible exception of Satan.
I stand by that. Thanks.
And Randy…(again), Why is it just that Muslim’s can be hijackers. Hello, have we forgotten about the Guildford four conspiracies, I mean terrorism isn’t only associated wit Islam. I am so sick of my Muslim friends whining about “Islam” being targeted as the only terrorists when there have been other communities in the past who have been associated with terrorism.
I mean, sure “jihadist Muslims” have been associated with terrorism and hijacking planes. And to be frank with you, you will never know whether they are a crazy Jihadist or just a poor Muslim like me who wants to get to another country for a holiday without having to go through any embarrassing procedures of checking my bag and inside my boots and under my hat for a gun.
And if anybody touches your wife and 8 kids, God damn them.
And your right Kenny, Aisha was engaged to Mohammed when she was 6 and they later got married when she was ready, and she was nine. (Yes, you can all gasp)
And why is my comment all about this issue?? Hello, there are much worthier issues which I ought to comment on! Well, such is life.
And my name is not Subs, that’s my nickname. My name is Subriah; it comes from the root word “Saboor” which means patience in Arabic. Although you guys probably think that I am not patient. Well, I am more patient in real life, I promise: D
And on a final note Jesus Christ (yes, I believe in Jesus, I believe he is a prophet of God) told his followers “The people of the world will hate you. Do not be afraid of being hated, because often people who bear the truth are despised by people of falsehood”. I think we can pretty much relate to that statement.
And I hope I haven’t hurt anybody’s feelings and I wish you all the best in living in this curious planet- Earth.
And thanks a million for having the time to read this, even if you don’t agree with it.
Cheers, Salams, Shalom and fair well ~ Subriah

[Kenny]

Crusader,

I'm somewhat reluctant to egg you on, but the Ayatollah Khomeini notoriously issued a string of guidelines for Muslim men trying to decide how to approach their 9- and 10-year-old brides. You can google it up if you want. I believe Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old, called sex with girls who had not yet had their first period "a divine privilege" or something like that, and said that Muslim fathers should make a conscious effort to see that their daughters were married to and living with (and therefore being screwed by) their new husbands before their first period. Khomeini based all of this on the example of Mohammed and Aisha.

Now Khomeini was a lunatic, a murderer, and a pervert (Khomeini explicitly authorized his followers to practice bestiality), as would agree all kinds of Muslims all over the world who also (in what seems to Western eyes to be logically self-contradictory) think Mohammed was a great guy and God's Prophet. The major problem for "moderate" Muslims such as Subs, is that it's not immediately obvious what's wrong with Khomeini's logic, given the premise that Mohammed was a good guy and therefore presumably a godly example. But we who are not Muslims should also remember that things that seem obvious about other people's religion, are often not true; there was a long time where it seemed obvious to Roman pagans that Christians celebrated paganism, and Muslims the world over still think it's obvious that Christians are polytheists.

So, I'm not taking a position on whether or not Mohammed really did practice "thighing" while waiting for Aisha to be physically capable of receiving him vaginally, nor on whether, if he did, that means that this is an acceptable and moral practice for any Muslim man who thinks the neighbor's 7-year-old daughter is really cute and wants to go ahead and hold a marriage so that he can start making use of her. But I do think two practical points are quite important for those of us who want to form an alliance with "moderate" Muslims rather than declaring war on the entire religion.

1. If Subs wants to argue with the Ayatollah's followers that it is wrong to attack infidel regimes in the name of jihad in order to establish Muslim domination by violence, or to marry your daughter-in-law, or to have sex with nine-year-old girls, or to kill people who convert from Islam to some other religion, then he is going to run smack up against the following argument: "Hey, Mohammed did it; so it must be all right." Now this argument may be flawed either in premises or in logic; but the refutation of this argument is going to take you off into a wilderness of arcane technical textual criticism, or epistemological distinctions, or something similar -- in other words, into the sort of thing that's just going to make Ali-the-Khomeini-follower's eyes glaze over, at which point he will just say, "Bullshit, Mohammed did it; so it must be all right." It is one thing to be right. It is another thing entirely to be right and to be able to convince other people that you are right, especially when the other folks are uneducated people who like killing other folks and sleeping with little girls, who think they're authorized by their Prophet to do both, and who have neither training in nor patience for careful and sustained rational thought about religious matters.

2. I can't imagine that even "moderate" Muslims can avoid, generally speaking, feeling that Mohammed's example at least proves that jihad and sex with nine-year-olds can be acceptable under the right circumstances, even if in their moderation they would argue that it is wrong most of the time. In this I would think it would very much parallel my friend Naj's attitude toward polygamy: he maintains that polygamy is an act of mercy and charity in a society where women are economically handicapped without men and where warfare has introduced an artifical shortage of men, but he also feels deep moral disgust for any modern-day Muslim who has multiple wives -- because Naj believes deeply that any Muslim who practices polygamy because he likes variety in his sex life rather than as an act of mercy to a destitute girl or woman in need of a home, is a disgusting lech. And Naj sees no current society in the modern world in which there would be (in his eyes) any reason to take multiple wives other than lust.

But what you won't see very often -- and this is what caused this thread to derail spectacularly the moment Subs brought up the whole Aisha episode -- is a Muslim who either feels or grants validity to the Western conviction that sex with prepubescent girls is always and essentially an evil and disgusting perversion. There's just no way a Muslim can believe that unless he can find a way to talk his way around the evidence that Mohammed did exactly that, because if that's true and the historical evidence is not pretty seriously deceptive, then Mohammed was an evil and disgusting pervert. And thus you see Subs saying not, "No way, Mohammed didn't do that," but, "Look, you don't understand, in Mohammed's case it was okay because it was about love [or whatever]." I think you would probably find that Subs despises Khomeini for marrying and screwing a ten-year-old, but whereas we non-Muslims would despise Khomeini on those grounds alone, Subs would almost certainly despise Khomeini because he did that for the wrong reasons. And that's a pretty serious gulf to cross, especially because Subs clearly can't fathom the revulsion that pedophilic acts generates in non-Muslim minds.

But if we and Subs can at least agree that what Khomeini did and taught was disgusting, and that it's at least conceivable that Mohammed had motives that we could agree might be admirable (even if we can't go so far as to say good motives can ever make pedophilia moral), then that gives us at least a starting point for working towards understanding each other and agreeing not to kill each other. And we in the West badly need to do that with the Subses of the world, and so do the Subses -- we need each other.

Because the Khomeinis have every intention of killing us both.

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

So let me get this straight - some clerics tried to persuade you that Big Mo waited till Aisha hit puberty before ravaging her? So wait, that would mean she was, like, 12 or 13? Or maybe 14?

Yuk.

Still something awfully creepy and sleazy about that! Hey, we in the West used to do the same thing - knocking girls up at 14 or 15 as well. I will entertain the possibility that it was just as bad for so-called "Christians" to be doing it then.

But I think a good point was raised - if Mo was who he said he was (and we've no way of knowing, for he didn't even have the courtesy to perform some quick miracles, and maybe raise himself from the dead - sheesh) then he was God's Prophet, ergo he did nothing wrong.

Well done Islam! Way to make us Westerners feel comfortable letting our daughters date your sons. Pedophilia - so much more than just another creepy-@$$ crime that weirdos commit.

So here is a question for my Muslim compatriots: if it wasn't pedophilia for Big Mo, why don't you guys indulge in it here? OK, so maybe not a 9-year old girl. How about 14-year olds? Why don't you let your Muslim 14-year old daughters get married?

And if it is illegal here, why aren't you campaigning to make it legal? Remember, unlike Christianity, there is no "render unto Caesar" in Islam! Shame on y'all for living in a state that is secular. Shouldn't you all be working to overthrow that state, and make the world safe for Allah and his followers?
You're supposed to emulate Mohammed, no?

Islam may, like all movements that give cause for self-examination, have a deeply spiritual side to it, but it is mired in the unfortunate consequences of the earthly and self-indulgent behaviour of its head go-to guy, and that is really wherein lies the rub.

Sorry Islam, I think as religion you are flawed beyond repair, despite the existence of a great many good-hearted people in your fold. We can and must wait till those people once again hold sway (for they shall again). Till then, In G-d I trust, everything else just smells really bad...

[Kenny]

Gringo,

I'm reasonably familiar -- well, used to be, though the details are now a bit vague in my mind -- with the details of the Aisha story (including the fact that she was a remarkable girl). If memory serves, she was six when they married, and the marriage was consummated when she was nine. I suppose I could have that wrong; I haven't bothered to look up the details and refresh my memory. I especially don't want to get into the "thighing" controversy.

My point to Subs was simply that I didn't want to go haring off on the Aisha question because it isn't determinative for anybody. A Muslim will find a way to tell himself that Mohammed did nothing wrong. Non-Muslims are going to say that a man who has sex with a prepubescent girl is, by definition, a pedophile (a pedophile simply is somebody who acts on sexual attraction to a prepubescent child; that's what the word means), and they are going to be grossed out; therefore any Muslim apologist will go to great lengths to minimize the pedophiliac aspect of the story (I've seen more than one such apologist try desperately, albeit unconvincingly, to insist that Mohammed waited until after Aisha had reached puberty to have sexual relations with her). But nobody's going to decide whether or not to be a Muslim based on the Aisha story; and the reaction to the Aisha story will be determined almost entirely (for the vast majority of people) by whether one is a Muslim or not. So I just don't see much point in debating it.

I'm as sick as a dog and haven't been able to give Subs the response I promised; but it looks like he just dropped by and moved on. Too bad.

[Red Violin]

... This site evidently is one site which ignites the flame of hatred toward the religion of Islam...

Dear Subs:

As an ex-muslim (shiite), I was always baffeled as a child by my religious teachings in school. I was taught that Islam was the only true religion and the non-muslims are less worthy than muslims. I remember thinking to myself when I was 12 years old that how could so many people who are Christians or jews or Zoroastrian or Bahai(sp?) could be wrong and why would not god want them to be muslims? I thought god can't be that cruel to create so many misguided and foolish souls...By the time I was nineteen, I could no longer call myself a moslem knowing what I knew of the culture, ethnocentrism, hypocrisy, and especially treatment of woman by muslim men...I knew that my god will never ever view woman as half a human being according to Sharia. I knew that my god will never so severly discriminate between his creations...I could go on and on.

Muslims wear their religion on their sleeves and the slightest contrary wind disturbs its cozy sanctified perch. Yet, these very people of great religious fervor have no problem in inflicting all kinds of verbal and physical abuse on non-Muslims. Why the double standards? Read the Quran.

The Islamic world was once again in uproar a few days ago where the poor Pope had to explain himself ad nauseum. Why should the Muslims be outraged? Why should they react by torching churches, shooting a nun in the back, and retaliating by calling Pope and Christians all kinds of names? What happened to reason and dialogue? Their “Dialogue-man,” the smiling fake Mullah Khatami, was just touring the West to promote dialogues. Apparently the snake-oil salesman Mullah means a different thing by “dialogue.” His side can say and do whatever they want, and the other sides should simply acquiesce—a great Islamic offer.

The Muslims missed a golden opportunity. Their greatly-pampered legions of high clerics should have put their medieval heads together and made the case for Islam, if they could. If successful, not only they would have humiliated the Pontiff but impressed the rank-and-file Christians of the marvelous good teachings that Muhammad brought for mankind, for the first time. An added benefit could have been the conversion of the disbelievers to Islam. And dear subs, you can also instead of groundlessly accusing this site of inciting hate can check out your hatred at the cyber door before offering us the religion of peace.

Yet, the way the Islamic leaders are responding to the Pontiff’s speech is indeed a great embarrassment to Islam at a time the world is repeatedly shocked by the many barbarities Muslims commit. The Supreme Spiritual Guide of Iran’s Muslims, Mullah Khamenei, for instance, has urged the close-minded faithful to hold huge protest demonstrations. It appears that the call of the Mullah for demonstrations is an attempt at intimidation, the best he can do since he does not have a rational defensible response and he is not able to send his assassins all the way to Rome to carry out the Islamic favorite way of supplying answers. Also, who knows, perhaps some of his rabid followers, the three Fs: fools, fanatics and frauds will find a nun to shoot in the back during the hoped-for hysterical gatherings. If not, there are a few churches in the country that can be looted first and then burned to the ground.

[gringman]

Dear Subs:

Your understanding impresses this infidel. I mean you sound like a well-indoctrinated 14-year old muslim, more serious than most of your Christian, Jewish or godless counterparts in the U.S. In other words, I find your convictions on a level with the great majority of the billion-strong Ummah.

Hey Kenny:

On whether Mohammed's bonafidies as "God's Prophet" simplifies the matter of marriage to a 6-year old: Yes, maybe, but I'm not sure if it simplifies it totally. Evidence: The student or scholar will quickly find that various muslims themselves do nottake this "easy" and "simple" way out, even if some others do rely on "He was Allah's prophet, so anything goes." In fact, even muslim scholars get defensive on this issue, as they reply to the "infidel slanders" about pedophilia etc. They will point out that Mohammed at age 25 had his first marriage with the wealthy older woman, Kadijah. By all or certainly most accounts it was a very successful union, lasting 25 years until her death. Mohammed, born poor despite a "noble" lineage, knew how to marry strategically and did not become a full-blown polygamist until after the death of the woman who in fact made him, with her wealth, support and becoming his first convert. Scholars, even Western ones like Gibbon and others, will point to the different culture and customs of a hot climate like Arabia. Anthropologists also know that girls are married all over the tribal world at ages that might even shock Mississippi where the age of consent is 12. By all accounts, Ayesha was the favorite of the 13 wives Mohammed married after Kadijah. She also is often described as having surpassing beauty, spirit and intelligence, and is widely esteemed as a kind of female saint in Islam. It's well documented that Mohammed had an eye for the ladies. This, combined with his unusual insight or intuitions, would help explain his "bizarre" attraction to a 6-year old---which may be his only recorded case of "pedophilia" in a rather varied "love life." (I stress 'may,'). Too, this was yet another example of a "strategic" marriage. Ayesha was the daughter of his bosom buddy who, after his death, became his monumental successor, Abubeker. It is also generally conceded that Mohammed practiced exmplary discipline and restraint with this remarkable child.. That is, he didn't consumate with Ayesha, who was still playing on the swing and with dolls, until two or three years after the marriage, when he was over 50. And for the Western sentimentalists, it should be remembered that when Ayesha joshed him about his attraction to Kadijah, "an older woman," he replied that "there can never be a better than Kadijah," the woman who made him.

In other words Mohammed, as muslims will tell you,(and unlike a number of U.S.Congressmen, including page-loving Republicans like Representative Foley,) seemed to know what he was doing, from almost any point of view.

[Kenny]

Subs,

Thank you very, very much for your first-rate comment, which is particularly impressive coming from someone your age. Will you please stick around and talk with us some more about it? I don't have time to give you the response you deserve right this second, but please don't take off.

I don't want to argue about Aisha with you, by the way. That whole issue's really quite simple: if you think Mohammed was God's Prophet, then by definition his marriage to the prepubescent girl was moral; but if you don't think Mohammed was God's prophet, then you're going to be disgusted by any man who has sex with a girl who hasn't had her first period and still plays with dolls, even if he held a marriage ceremony first. But nobody is going to decide whether or not Mohammed was God's Prophet based on the question of his marriage to Aisha -- which means there's no reason to waste time arguing about that issue. Does that make sense?

I'll do my very best to respond to you this evening, though since I have eight children I can't outright promise you I'll be able to make the time tonight.

I can tell you this: there's a big distinction, at least in my mind, between the Islamofascists on one hand, and on the other Muslims like my friends Zharas and Gulmarzhan and Aigul in Kazakhstan, and my friends Najmeddine and Samiha whose wedding in Tunisia I sent my wife to, or my Jordanian friends Nidal and Munther. But the whole problem for us infidels is precisely that we have to have some way to tell which "Muslims" are peaceful and which are jihadist bastards, before they kill our wives and children. If your religion has been hijacked, well, we still have exactly the same problem we face every time we let Muslims get on an American airplane:

Is this particular "Muslim" a hijacker, or not?

More later. Stick around, please.

[Ann]

Subs, I hope we have not scared you off. We are all very reasonable here, but please understand our concern. We would all welcome a discussion, despite your wrongful assumption that Alexandra's site "ignites the flame of hatred toward the religion of Islam". I think you have misjudged her there, but never mind, she is right however that none of us can reasonably get past your comment which Alexandra, Red Violin and Michael have dealt with above. We would all be very interested in your response.

[Red Violin]

To say however [Prophet Muhammad] married Aisha (p.b.u.h) who was nine out of love and she had the choice.
is a very worrying part of your comment.

That is indeed disturbing to hear from a 14-year old living and being educated in Austrailian secular society. I wouldn't have been surprised if a youth living in Iran displayed such obvious lack of reasoning because in a theocracy like Iran boys and girls are brainwashed systematically by Islamic teachings a la Khomeinism. It's a peculiar phenomenon I've been trying to figure out for quite sometime now. How is it that Islam is able to convince otherwise rational human beings to render all reasons and logic passive and irrelevant to their normal brain cognition and convince themselves that Jihad requires them to kill with a clear conscience or that Muhammad or khomeini who married a 14 year old when he was 75 are holy prophets or ignore the discriminatory laws of sharia against their own mothers and daughters. Some of these muslims have phD's in math, computer science, literature but when it comes to Islam, they seem to automatically disable their brain power.

[Alexandra]

Subs,

To say

however [Prophet Muhammad] married Aisha (p.b.u.h) who was nine out of love and she had the choice.

is a very worrying part of your comment, which despite your tender age of 14 shows a complete misconception of what characterizes a pedophile, and more importantly what constitutes choice for a female (or male) child AT THE AGE OF NINE!!!

I think we will have to get past that important factor before I or any of my readers can even begin to deal with the rest of your stance, which we will of course be happy to do.

[Michael van der Galien]

They say Prophet Mohammed (p.b.u.h) was “insolent pedophile” however he married Aisha (p.b.u.h) who was nine out of love and she had the choice.

Umh, that is not exactly a compelling argument to 'prove' that he was not a pedophile. In fact... umh... one might wonder why it is that an adult falls in love with a 9 year old. Get my drift?

Lastly, most of us here are not willing to debate you about the correct interpretation of the Koran. That is something you have to decide for yourself. I must say, though, that I am glad that you are interpreting it as you seem to do.
We only criticize those who interprete the Koran in such a way that we are threatened, that they attack Westerners, &c.

[Subs]

I really feel that Muslims are being targeted by the world as a topic of popular cyber hate. This site evidently is one site which ignites the flame of hatred toward the religion of Islam. Well I feel that we simply must observe the actual roots of the religion before stereo-typing it. Yes. This means erasing any previous ideology,thought about the religion. Islam is a religion of peace and submission to the Lord who created this universe. Did you snort out loud? Peace? While they go around killing people for no good cause and slaughter children and commit other heinous crimes? Yes that would redefine the meaning of peace we all were familiar with. Actually no. Islam does not preach such horrific sins.
In fact the Prophet Mohammed said “Whoever has killed one innocent person without just cause it is as if they have killed all of humanity”. That signifies the crime of taking an innocent life.
Most Muslims condemn what is being done in their name, for it is the abuse of religion in non-religious people which is damaging the religion of Islam.
How can people think that taking another soul of someone God has created is a righteous deed? It is horrendous and I can not stand this injustice and I feel for the Jew, innocent Jews who died at the horrific holocaust. I feel for the innocent Iraq children who died due to the invasion of Iraq. I feel for the loss of innocence because of hideous misinterpretations of Islam.
And I want to say Sorry to every Danish person whose flag was stepped on and was spitted at by a Muslim. Because that’s wrong. There’s even a worse in the Quran which commands us not to destroy the idols or other religious or important symbols.
I am sorry if any Muslim did anything wrong to you. I am sorry and God is with you because God is always with the oppressed despite his faith. God is always with the oppressed.
I would just like to condemn what is being done to Islam’s name. I am a Muslim and I honestly cry when innocent Jewish, Christian and Muslim children die. And I cry harder to see that some idiots out there think they are doing this for God. Because God is great and he does not take pleasure in seeing his servants kill one another for no just cause.
I feel that Islam is a religion which has been destroyed. And I really think the three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are beautiful religions and can co-exist.
I apologize for anything any Muslim has done to you which has made you think ill of my religion. And if anyone has been hurt unjustly my religion is against it no matter what anyone says.
Violence is not sanctioned from my faith by any reading or teaching and it indeed is a modern innovation which promotes enmity toward others.
I ask of you all not to let politics to teach you how to treat people; not to let violence represent an entire race, religion but to be open-minded.
Use your intellect it is not too late to take back what you said or thought but it is time we left our old ways and embraced the truth.
Islam is a beautiful religion. I feel that it is being exploited by irresponsible and unintelligent persons.
I am fourteen years old, I live in Australia and I really wish to tell all Muslims and Non-Muslims alike this. I feel bad that any Muslim may have said anything bad to the Danish people, because I know they are a lovely bunch but what they said about my lovely prophet (p.b.u.h) really hurt me; but I know that it was not my prophet it was a misconception and a portrayal of whom they (editorial of newspaper/cartoonists) thought of my prophet. They say Prophet Mohammed (p.b.u.h) was “insolent pedophile” however he married Aisha (p.b.u.h) who was nine out of love and she had the choice. It is Haram (absolutely prohibited) for the man to get married to more than one wife if his wife does not agree, and it is haram to force one to embrace Islam, to kill innocent beings, to force one into marriage, to hurt another emotionally or physically or to do anything that atrocious which is being done in Islam’s name.

I really hope you consider what I have to say, visit www.zaytuna.org and it will give you the true insight of Islam

P.S- this whole thing was off the topic...I know and that painting of the blond with short hair and green eyes on the top right is really nice :)

[Red Violin]

Thanks everyone for your encouraging words. I would join the army myself if they take me but I'm a 38 year old woman, so I don't know if that's possible. I'm new at this blogging thing and never have been a political person but it seems like I have no choice given the latest parade of terrorists in the UN and disastrous interview of Brian Williams and Mike Wallace with the lunatic Ahmadinejad spewing vile propagnda without being challenged once by either one. I will write some more on what questions should have been asked from the lunatic-in-chief. Thanks again for giving me hope.

[Ghost Dansing]

"Geez, there isn't a shovel big enough to handle all the horse-s**t spewing out of Islamic mouths daily.
Oh dear Lord and Saviour, smash the world any day now, please!
Now where is GD? So GD, still think Olmert is going to survive this decade? I'll wager the bastard is shot dead or in prison (or on trial) within the next year. That "man" (for he hardly warrants the term) will run to New York at the first sign of an Islamic bomb aimed at Israel. I think Israel needs to wake up. Ehud Olmert is committed to appeasing the anti-semites over the corpses of his dead Jewish brethren. Is he really any different than the Jewish "constabulary" operating in the Warsaw Ghetto?" Crusader

My goodness (learned the phrase from Donald Rumsfeld) Crusader...you just seem so intent on arguing about something.

While it is more important to understand than be understood let me say this again... in another way. Israel has as much right to exist as any other Nation on the planet. Israel has a right to defend itself.

I have no problem with Israel routing hisballa from lebanon. I have no problem with Israel challenging and even attacking Syria and Iran if they continue to support hisballa.

The problem with military actions is that you have to be capable of actually doing what you say you are going to do. Israel has just demonstrated it cannot rout hisballa from Lebanon...at least not without conquering and occupying Lebanon permanently, or attacking with nuclear weapons.

Olmert, probably due to his lack of military experience (and mirroring mistakes made by the American Republican administration in Iraq) underestimated the enemy, and overestimated his capability.

Israel could not achieve any of its goals in the Levant militarily without significant international help... especially from the United States and probably others.

The United States due to some unfortunate choices by this Republican administration is unable to provide a viable military threat in support of Israel at this time...thus military threat is impotent in forcing diplomatic negotiations in the Levant...The same is true of America's confrontation with Iran on the nuclear issue.

Olmert will survive this decade... he'll probably live a long life and die of natural causes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Bet

[Alexandra]

Red Violin (one of my favorite movies btw),

Have no fear. Brian is absolutely right: If there is one thing I have learned about the United States, is that in times of real trouble we always pull together, and if our freedom is truly threatened we fight with everything we have until our last breath. Brian knows more about our capabilities than I do, but our courage is backed by our military power which is indeed unmatched in the world today.

I am still very concerned that the Iranians who are fighting for the regime change are not getting the support that they need right now. I get many e-mails from readers who are fighting for freedom there.

It reminds me of the time in Belgarde, the capital of the former Yugoslavia, when hundreds of thousands were protesting on the streets for days and weeks against Slobodan Milosevic, asking for the West to give them the opportunity of a democratic government instead of the totalitarian regime they had for some 50 years. The demonstrations were not even televised or publicized other than locally, the pleadings were ignored, and President Clinton came back to bomb them when Milosevic got out of hand.

[rich]

As the diplomatic talks break down, I wonder if we will end up going through the exercise of no-fly zones.

Perhaps a no-fly zone for Iranian Kurdistan, the Shia Arab Gulf Coast, Bandar Abbas and Iranian Baluchistan.

And if the alliance holds up, and Syria becomes active, a no-fly zone for Kurdish Syria (say the triangle of the Euphrates, Turkey and Iraq.)

It would be an asymetric response to the Tehran gamblers asymetric tactics.

[brian]

Red Violin: Let not your heart be troubled, there are Americans who will declare this day shall not pass. The freedom that you and I enjoy today was hard fought and won with courage in the face of tyranny. Trust me, you came to the right place. If this country becomes convinced that Iran threatens our freedoms, that regime will pay dearly. People like to say that the U.S. military is overstretched, but that is only partly true. Ground forces are strained right now, but we've got something no one else has. The U.S. Air Force is the most capable, far reaching in aviation's brief history. In the longer history of Naval forces, the world has never seen a Navy as dominant as our Navy. When you put the two together with the "joint forces doctrine" that came from an act of Congress in the Eighties, this military power is unmatched in the world today, not including the Army and Marines, or Special Operations Command. The mullahs bluff and bluster, but in reality they can't handle what they are asking for. They don't scare me in the short term, but if they are allowed to obtain a credible nuclear threat, there's no way to deter them. Action will be taken to prevent this, I'm absolutely sure of it. Who knows, maybe Iran will end up being the ally it used to be. I sure hope so.

[Red Violin]

Generating crisis after crisis finds its roots in the very foundations of the Iranian Isalmic regime: the raison d’être of the Islamic republic resides, not in the defence of Iran’s national interests, but in the export of the regime’s theocratic model throughout the world. The regime’s constitution clearly states the need to “build an ideological army capable of expanding the sovereignty of the law of allah over the entire world.” To this end, the regime has used any means at its disposal, from supporting terrorist groups and religious extremism to interfering in regional countries’ internal affairs (Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia,etc.)to installing academics, so-called "ME experts" in American tink tanks and scholars in the best universities in the US to peddle the IRI's agenda. To my horror I received and email from UC Berkely that Professor Amirahmadi will be speaking at the University of California, Berkeley, on 5 October 2006 at 6 pm. The event will take place at the Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall. I recommend everyone to read this guy's bio on his website. He is lecturing the US on reconciliation with Iran while his bio reads:
He was a candidate for President in the Nine Presidential Elections in Iran in June 2005, but the conservative and religious Guardian Council disqualified him for his American citizenship......This guy nominated himself as a potential candidate to become the president of this theorcracy and he has the audacity to tell us he has the interest of US foremost in his mind? Am I in a twilight zone????!!!

I think the very foundation of international trust vis-à-vis the Islamic regime is non-existance because their actions is utterly incongruent with their rhetoric. Where Rafsanjani and Khatami tried to redefine Islam to please the modern world, a world that is shaped and dominated by Western ideas, Ahmadinejad is trying to revive the purest definition of the faith. He asserts, "Islam is an alternative to the current global system, not a candidate for becoming a small part of it." For us Iranian ex-pats, of course, this is nothing new This is perfectly compatible with true essence of Shia doctrine and Khomeini's "The Islamic Government". Bernard Lewis aptly calls this book Khomeini's Mein Kampe.

We have to face the fact that the Islamic republic’s ideology and doctrine is and has been moving toward fulfilling its original goals for over 27 years now to be a Supremacist power bent on acquiring domination over the world as it's required by Khomeinism who made no secret of his conviction that his supremacist ideology should subjugate not just America, but the entire world: “Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled or incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world... The second goal of this theofascist doctrine is fully on display via thousands of huge signs and murals throuought Iran which states "conquering Qudos (Jerusalem)" or returning Jerusalem to the Islamic ummah...its "rightful place". Ahmadinejad recent tirades against Israel is nothing new in Iran. Iranians have heard it on a daily basis in the Islamic Republic since its very inception.

Iran is betting on revolutionary changes within the power structure of the Middle East to help it achieve its strategic goal. To this end, it makes use of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also of Lebanon, Syria, its influence in the Gulf region, and, above all, Iraq. This combination of hegemonic aspirations, questioning of the regional status quo, and a nuclear program is extremely dangerous.

"When Iran's protégés (Hizballah, Hamas, SCRI...) have the money, information, and support from those who are masters of manipulation, intimidation and violence against their political opponents, they have a strong upper-hand against their rivals in a nascent democracy such as Iraq. In Lebanon, if Hezbollah can spend more money than the government building schools, mosques and hospitals – thanks to generous Iranian contributions – don’t be surprised if they win elections.

A “Bermuda Triangle” from Iraq to Lebanon to Palestine is being taken over by Iran’s allies through the ballot box. It could pull in the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt, and when it does the same to the Shiites of the oil-rich Eastern province of Saudi Arabia, the encirclement of the Persian Gulf will be complete. Islamists will have achieved what the Soviets could not, namely complete control of the Persian Gulf oil and the jugular of Western economies. They would then have a latter day Caliphate to lead all the forces that are against the post Cold War vision of the free world. All the Islamic Republic needs in order to achieve this goal is to be able to use low intensity violence to supplement its financial, intelligence and organizational support for its allies. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why Iran needs the bomb: to neutralize the conventional military superiority of the West, and continue to use terrorism and low intensity violence without the fear of escalation to high intensity conventional warfare. For the free world, these are unacceptable outcomes. And yet, there isn’t much time to find a solution."

It’s remarkable, to put it mildly, that the left – with its obsessions with issues like gay rights, equality for women and sexual licence – should have forged an alliance with radical Islamists who preach death to gays, the subjugation of women and the stoning of adulterers. I fled the theocracy and apartheid of woman under Sharia to wake up one day and realize that 'the land of the free' that I have called home for the past 25 years might lose its freedom by the same people who took my freedom years ago if the liberal/left gets their way.

[brian]

I think my previous comments on Armageddonjihad are being borne out, no? His negotiations are simply serving the function of the lure dangled above the head of the Angler fish. Hypnotise and intrigue with a false carrot, preparing for the lethal strike to devour.

I'm seriously concerned about the intentions of this regime, and all the wishful thinking about "oh it's the Isrealis problem, they will handle it on their own" is baloney. They can't do it without using Jericho ballistic missles. The IAF doesn't have stealthy airframes to penetrate to the targets undetected. Guess who CAN and WOULD do it? Only one guess. That's right! USAF, with some support from the US Navy surface and sub-surface fleet. That seems to be where we are heading, and it's not GWB who's dragging the world down this road, it's Armageddonjihad, and his superiors in the Supreme Islamic Council. A world in which Theocratic Iran has as much nuclear capacity as Pakistan currently has (Islamic Bomb, as they named it) cannot be tolerated by the US or any of our allies that are within range of the Shahab3 missle they've already got(This means you, EU).

Imagine this scenario: Iran tests a nuclear device. Pervez Musharraf is assasinated, the MMA party launches a coup and takes control of the military and their nuclear arsenal. Now what about Kashmir, Kurdistan, the Persian Gulf? Suadi Arabia now wants nukes. Egypt wants nukes. Turkey wants nukes. What about Iraq, right between nuclear Iran and nuclear Saudi? What does Isreal do? Does Syria import nukes from Iran? Does Syria give small nukes to Hezbollah? What about Hezbollah's presence in America?

Think on that, then tell me anyone can live with a nuclear Iran.

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

So, let's get this straight: President Tom wants nuclear technology for "electricity", when he is sitting on top of a HUGE supply of oil.

Oh wait no Alexandra, you've got it wrong - he is trying to do his bit for Kyoto, don't you see? Oil-fired Power plants are so ... dirty, and being obsessed about the environment (didn't that filthy venereal infection Bin Laden claim Kyoto as one of his grievances against the US?) Islam has declared that "dirty" power is .... un-Islamic.

Geez, there isn't a shovel big enough to handle all the horse-s**t spewing out of Islamic mouths daily.

Oh dear Lord and Saviour, smash the world any day now, please!

Now where is GD? So GD, still think Olmert is going to survive this decade? I'll wager the bastard is shot dead or in prison (or on trial) within the next year. That "man" (for he hardly warrants the term) will run to New York at the first sign of an Islamic bomb aimed at Israel. I think Israel needs to wake up. Ehud Olmert is committed to appeasing the anti-semites over the corpses of his dead Jewish brethren. Is he really any different than the Jewish "constabulary" operating in the Warsaw Ghetto?

I dunno. How else would you put it?