[KeyLargo]

"The long-range strategy of the Third Jihad counts on three strategic goals. 1. The U.S. withdrawing from the region just as it did in Southeast Asia, following Vietnam. 2. Taking control of the oil wealth in the Muslim countries, which would be upwards to 75% of known reserves, and 3. Using nuclear weapons or other WMDs to annihilate Israel. A further outcome of successfully achieving these objectives would be to place the United Nations as the sole arbiter in East/West negotiations..."

This sounds very possible.

[Tolik]

Food for thoughts!

Important article PING.

I don't have to agree with the author 100%  to feel the need to share the article.

[tm22721]

If we flee Iraq then we deserve to have our heads sawn off by the Jihadists.

BUMP

[DuncanWaring]

It's not a "Clash of Civilizations".

It's a clash of Civilization vs. Barbarism.

[DoctorMichael]

Yet another Bump for a good article.

[Zman516]

"I must also fault President Bush and the administration spokesmen for not telling the American people what they really need to know about this “war”. If they don’t do that sometime between now and November it may cost them the election." The administration may talk all they like about this, but if Blather, Jennings and Brokaw don't mention it, most Americans won't hear it. Sadly.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

However, by this time a growing anti-western sentiment, blaming its internal failures on anyone but themselves, was taking hold and setting the stage for a new revival know has Wahhabism which came into full bloom under the House of Saud on the Arabian peninsula shortly before the onset of WWI. It is this Wahhabi version of Islam which has infected the religion itself, now finding adherents in almost all branches and sects, especially the Shiites. What this sect calls for is the complete and total rejection of anything and everything which is not based in the original teachings of The Prophet and it finds its most glaring practice in the policies of the Afgani Taliban or the Shiite practices of the late Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. Its Ali Pasha (Field Marshall) is now known as Osama bin Laden, the leader of the “third Jihad”.

Huh??

Hatred of all things Shi'ite is a basic cornerstone of radical Wahhabism.

---

This is particularly true of the Shi`ite question in Saudi politics. Radical Sunni Islamists hate Shi`ites more than any other group, including Jews and Christians. Al-Qaeda's basic credo minces no words on the subject: "We believe that the Shi`ite heretics are a sect of idolatry and apostasy, and that they are the most evil creatures under the heavens." For its part, the Saudi Wahhabi religious establishment expresses similar views. The fatwas, sermons, and statements of established Saudi clerics uniformly denounce Shi`ite belief and practice. A recent fatwa by Abd al-Rahman al-Barrak, a respected professor at the Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University (which trains official clerics), is a case in point. Asked whether it was permissible for Sunnis to launch a jihad against Shi`ites, al-Barrak answered that if the Shi`ites in a Sunni-dominated country insisted on practicing their religion openly, then yes, the Sunni state had no choice but to wage war on them. Al-Barrak's answer, it is worth noting, assumes that the Shi`ites are not Muslims at all.

This sectarian hatred that the clerics preach bears directly on the United States. Projecting their domestic struggle onto the external world, Saudi hard-liners are now arguing that the Shi`ite minority in Saudi Arabia is conspiring with the United States in its war to destroy Islam. Thus al-Ayyiri, the al-Qaeda propagandist, argued that the Shi`ites have hatched a long-term plot to control the countries of the Persian Gulf. As part of this conspiracy, the Shi`ite minorities in Sunni countries are insinuating themselves into positions of responsibility so as to function as a fifth column for the enemies of true Islam. "The danger of the Shi`ite heretics to the region," he states, "is not less than the danger of the Jews and the Christians."

The Saudi Paradox ~~ Michael Scott Doran, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2004
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040101faessay83105-p40/michael-scott-doran/the-saudi-paradox.html

---

Iraq being a strongly-Shi'te country (60-65% of the population), I expect that the Shi'ites will eventually come to complete power in Iraq following the US withdrawal (and the US must withdraw sooner or later, the occupation is financially and militarily unsustainable in an age of $500 billion dollar deficits).

This will result in a confrontation between the radical Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia (who supplied 15 of the 19 WTC hijackers) and the "Shi'ite Empire" of Iran and Iraq.

I think it's pretty well inevitable, and I say: so be it. Best we should return home, tend to our own business here in the USA, and let the Wahhabis and Shi'ites get back to their preferred mutual occupation -- killing eachother.

Whoever "wins" will still sell us oil, after all -- it's the only thing they have.

IMO as always, OP

[Kay Ludlow]

bump for later reading

[Rebelbase]

"If you became a convert, your taxes were immediately eliminated, as was your tithe."

As the Islamic world grew in size the above statement was discontinued. Conquered people realized it was easier to bow and pray five times a day and avoid taxes, so they paid lip service to Islam for that reason. This caused a lack of revenue which IIRC, led to at least one of the many uprisings in Bagdhad (or Damascus?).

[Killing Time]

"It is this Wahhabi version of Islam which has infected the religion itself, now finding adherents in almost all branches and sects, especially the Shiites"

I stopped reading at this point. The author is plainly clueless.

[BayouCoyote]

BUMP!

[fourdeuce82d]

Some of this sounds like crap- "It is this Wahhabi version of Islam which has infected the religion itself, now finding adherents in almost all branches and sects, especially the Shiites."

the Salaf HATE the Shia more than they hate us infidels.

"...forces of the jihad will infiltrate governments and the military as a prelude to taking control, once the secular leadership is ousted or assassinated. Such was the case in Lebanon leading to the Syrian occupation."

So the jihadists WANTED Hafez Assad to run the country, because he was NOT a secularist? He's a friggin' Alawite- they wnat to kill him too. What a crock.

[dennisw]

Add to that getting China and/or Russia and/or Iran to provide a greater nuclear umbrella and implied threat.

[BartMan1]

ping for agreat read

[OldCorps]

bump to read later

[SuziQ]

Bump for a later read.

[OldCorps]

btt