[SJackson]

Islamic Propagandist Attacks Me! [No, not me]

by Alan Caruba

September 15, 2004

I have known about Dr. Habib Siddiqui, identified in the Pakistani Times as "a Pennsylvania-based noted analyst", for some time now. His commentary about me has been circulating on a number of Middle Eastern and Asian websites and his admirers have sent me its text. He learned about me by reading my commentary, "The Decline and Fall of Islam", posted on my website for The National Anxiety Center and widely posted on other news and opinion websites.

"He helps to foment anxiety among people through negative stereotypes about Islam and Muslims," says Dr. Siddiqui. I don’t think I have do anything to promote negative perceptions about Islam and, in particular, the fanatical Islamists responsible for 9-11, the slaughtering of children in Beslan, Russia, and other acts of barbarism one can read about daily in newspapers or learn about from television news. Christians and Jews do not take hostages and behead them. What I do, however, is write about the way Islam encourages the worldwide holy war that so many nations have experienced.

Indeed, I am not the only commentator and analyst with whom Dr. Siddiqui has a problem. Another is Dr. Daniel Pipes, arguably one of the best analysts of Islam and the problems of the Middle East. In a September 5, 2003 letter, Dr. Siddiqui described him with terms such as racist, spiteful, disingenuous, biased, and bigoted. Both Dr. Pipes and I support a strong American defense and a vigorous campaign, in cooperation with our allies, against Islamist terrorism.

In his commentary criticizing me, Dr. Siddiqui devoted most of it to a comparison between the Koran and the New Testament, citing the latter extensively to prove that Christianity too supports and urges violence against unbelievers, ending by saying "So much claptrap about Christian ethics!" Trying to justify the attacks on churches and synagogues by saying Christian and Jewish religious texts advocate violence while the Koran is devoted to peace and love is so ludicrous it defies comment.

Like all Islamic apologists, Dr. Siddiqui identifies America and Israel as the real enemies, citing the actions taken in defense of our nations. In a March 22, 2004 opinion editorial, Dr. Siddiqui wrote the following: "Caruba’s charge that Islam has been trying to conquer modern world is debunked by history. It is outright criminal and mendacious to the core. His analysis lacks scholarship and gives a bad name to journalism." No mention is made of Osama bin Laden’s fatwa calling for the deaths of all Americans or the long history of attacks on Americans going back to when Iranian Islamists took our diplomats hostage for 444 days in 1979, culminating in 9-11. The attacks in other nations are a mounting list of atrocities.

Dr. Siddiqui dismissed my review of these attacks as I connected the dots with other attacks. "One has to be totally out of touch with reality to make such a silly and wacky observation," said Dr. Siddiqui in his attack on "anti-Islamic hawks" in the Bush administration and "a brain-dead devotee, Alan Caruba is one such paranoid journalist."

If I am paranoid, then there is clearly no need for the new US Department of Homeland Security, nor was there any need to attack the Taliban in Afghanistan or remove the threat of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein whose record of aggression is a very long.

Nor has Dr. Siddiqui been content with attacking Dr. Pipes or me. In a June opinion editorial published in the Pakistani Times, he wrote a long piece attacking former President Ronald Reagan, a week after he was laid to rest. "How will future (sic) measure Reagan? It is highly unlikely that it will look as rosy as it has been the past week." Suffice it to say that Reagan’s policies were turned inside out as proof that he was anti-Islamic, "If America fails to learn the lessons from his failed policies, it is doomed to repeat them, something that has already become the hallmark of the current Bush administration."

The pathetic history of Muslims since their brief period of scholarship, abandoned hundreds of years ago, the way they were driven out of Europe, and the end of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, speaks volumes for why Muslims submitted to the oppression and exploitation by the monarchs and despots who have ruled the Middle East and northern Africa. Islam has engaged in conflict throughout modern India, has encouraged it in modern times throughout Africa and the Pacific Basin, inflicted it on Spain and Russia, and continues to threaten the United States of America.

One hardly needs to be paranoid or anti-Muslim to examine history or respond to the Third Great Jihad the world is experiencing today. Whether Dr. Siddiqui will continue to quote this commentator and direct attention to my views is of little concern to me. He merely gives voice to the distortions of fact common to the media that ill-serves Muslims. One can only hope that the vast bulk of Muslims regard the current conflict to be the hijacking of Islam.

There are few Muslims who have experienced democracy and freedom with the exception of modern Turkey and, ironically, those who are citizens of Israel. When they do, as in the case of an Iraq that is struggling to join the modern world, Muslims may elect to practice their faith without the bloodshed that has been the hallmark of its history since it was founded in the seventh century. That said, I will continue to maintain that a religion that is unable and unwilling to respond to change, as both Judaism and Christianity has, is doomed to fade away over the centuries to come.

Alan Caruba writes "Warning Signs", a weekly commentary posted on the website of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com.

[SJackson]

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[2banana]

According to Dr. Habib Siddiqui, Christians should stay out of the "muslim world," even though much of the "muslim world" was Christian until conquered by islamic armies.

Also, he could give a damn about what islamic terrorist do in the name of allah, but the "beastly crimes at Abu Ghraib" are even beyond Hitler.

What a moroon...

[MissAmericanPie]

What in the world would one expect from a religion of thugs, Islam? The reason the "Road Map" failed was Islam and it's determination never to live in peace with infidels.

They are a sick people with a sick psyche who blissfully agree with beheading of infidels and captive hostages, that's not considered "rough treatment". Let a Palestinian stump his toe on his prison door and the howling never stops.

The only wonder to me is that sane people bother to listen or attempt to reason with them, it's not possible. They are a section of humanity that has turned cancerous and needs removing, starting with the main tumor, their radical clerics.

[Salem]

I am continually pleased that the Evangelical Christian community in America is making such a profound impact on American culture, and the world, exploiting the great opportunities we have in these times, to reduce an Islamist like this into a such a hyper-ventilating, blithering idiot.

Why, you can almost see this guy wetting his pants.

Bravo to the American Conservative community, and especially the best of the aforementioned represented in the men and women of Free Republic!





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[xJones]

I think my eyes started blurring around this point:

and worst of all, shamed us all through systemic, beastly crimes at Abu Ghraib – crimes that even Hitler’s army dared not to commit.

Habib seems to forget that even Hitler's armies didn't slowly behead prisoners while filming it.

[Nachum]

This commentator is a common representation of discourse among the majority of Muslim society. Hyperbole, exaggeration and outright lies are the norm here. It is hardly surprising to read it or hear it.

Because of our addiction to oil, we have given them money and a voice. If we ever have another source of energy that the world may employ, we can cease having an interest in what they say at all. There will be little reason to have anything to do with them and the flow of oil money that gives them power will dry up. They will run out of money and go back to living in their caves,mud huts, and tents,with little power to harm any civilized country.

[Sam's Army]

CZ Bump

[Til I am the last man standing]

Mr. Siddiqui's writing is similar to that of the liberal left in that he chooses to ignore the Holocaust just as the left chooses to ignore 9/11/01.

[SevenofNine]

This guy is psycho patient

I don't know if he realize that back in da day most of Middle East was Christians before Muslum crusades punk that population

What a shumck

[yonif]

Like many earlier hypocritical initiatives, this one, too, is seemingly dead

It's "dead" but I have a feeling will be full speed ahead after November 3.

[happygrl]

Why do we allow loathesome individuals like this to immigrate to our beloved country ?

[monkeyshine]

political Zionism has betrayed Judaism

I've seen that said before and it is the dumbest thing, and very demeaning. Judaism is a religion, but beying Jewish is not just about the religion, it is being part of a national group - the Jews - that have their own national religion. Zionism is the political expression of that national group. The land of the Jews is Israel.