Posted on 10/02/2004 8:58:34 PM PDT by paltz
It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.
The hostage-takers of children in Beslan, North Ossetia, were Muslims. The other hostage-takers and subsequent murderers of the Nepalese chefs and workers in Iraq were also Muslims. Those involved in rape and murder in Darfur, Sudan, are Muslims, with other Muslims chosen to be their victims.
Those responsible for the attacks on residential towers in Riyadh and Khobar were Muslims. The two women who crashed two airliners last week were also Muslims.
Osama bin Laden is a Muslim. The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings, all over the world, were Muslim.
What a pathetic record. What an abominable "achievement." Does all this tell us anything about ourselves, our societies and our culture?
These images, when put together or taken separately, are shameful and degrading. But let us start with putting an end to a history of denial. Let us acknowledge their reality, instead of denying them and seeking to justify them with sound and fury signifying nothing.
For it would be easy to cure ourselves if we realize the seriousness of our sickness. Self-cure starts with self-realization and confession. We should then run after our terrorist sons, in the full knowledge that they are the sour grapes of a deformed culture.
Let us listen to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the sheikh – the Qatar-based radical Egyptian cleric – and hear him recite his fatwa about the religious permissibility of killing civilian Americans in Iraq. Let us contemplate the incident of this religious sheikh allowing, nay even calling for, the murder of civilians.
This ailing sheikh, in his last days, with two daughters studying in "infidel" Britain, soliciting children to kill innocent civilians.
How could this sheikh face the mother of the youthful Nick Berg, who was slaughtered in Iraq because he wanted to build communication towers in that ravished country? How can we believe him when he tells us that Islam is the religion of mercy and peace while he is turning it into a religion of blood and slaughter?
In a different era, we used to consider the extremists, with nationalist or leftist leanings, a menace and a source of corruption because of their adoption of violence as a means of discourse and their involvement in murder as an easy shortcut to their objectives.
At that time, the mosque used to be a haven, and the voice of religion used to be that of peace and reconciliation. Religious sermons were warm behests for a moral order and an ethical life.
Then came the neo-Muslims. An innocent and benevolent religion, whose verses prohibit the felling of trees in the absence of urgent necessity, that calls murder the most heinous of crimes, that says explicitly that if you kill one person you have killed humanity as a whole, has been turned into a global message of hate and a universal war cry.
We can't call those who take schoolchildren as hostages our own.
We cannot tolerate in our midst those who abduct journalists, murder civilians, explode buses; we cannot accept them as related to us, whatever the sufferings they claim to justify their criminal deeds. These are the people who have smeared Islam and stained its image.
We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women.
We cannot redeem our extremist youths, who commit all these heinous crimes, without confronting the sheikhs who thought it ennobling to reinvent themselves as revolutionary ideologues, sending other people's sons and daughters to certain death, while sending their own children to European and American schools and colleges.
*Abdel Rahman al-Rashed is general manager of Al-Arabiya news channel. This article first appeared in the London-based pan-Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.
Lets tell it like it really is!!!!
the news regarding terrorism and what each term really means:
1. Insurgents = Muslim murderers
2. Militants = Muslim murderers
3. Guerrillas = Muslim murderers
4. Secessionist Chechen rebels = Muslim murderers
5. Revolutionaries = Muslim murderers
6. Arab fighters = Muslim murderers
7. Rebels = Muslim murderers
8. Armed Gang = Muslim murderers
9. Resistance fighters = Muslim murderers
10. Iraqi resistance = Muslim murderers
11. Palestinian freedom fighters = Muslim murderers
12. Assailants = Muslim murderers
13. World Trade Center Bombers = Muslim murderers
14. Bombers = Muslim murderers
15. Suicide bombers = Muslim murderers
16. Shoe Bombers = Muslim murderers
17. Perpetrators = Muslim murderers
18. Attackers = Muslim murderers
19. Radicals = Muslim murderers
20. Kidnappers = Muslim murderers
21. Hostage-takers = Muslim murderers
22. Gunmen = Muslim murderers
23. Captors = Muslim murderers
24. Commandos = Muslim murderers
25. Hamas = Muslim murderers
26. Hezbollah = Muslim murderers
And, believe it or not (from the Pakistan Times) ...
27. Activists = Muslim murderers
He is just stating the obvious...
Hope he survives the fatwa that will surely be issued against him!
From the post: "Abdel Rahman al-Rashed is general manager of Al-Arabiya news channel. This article first appeared in the London-based pan-Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. "
Interesting article - wonder if it will get much air time in the states -
This was written several weeks ago. Is it now just making it to Arab news sources?
Add: 93% of armed conflicts world-wide involve Muslims attacking non-Muslims. One would think that even an asshole like Kofi Anan would be capable of detecting a pattern in that data. Of course, he does. But the UN template is still: USA Bad, everybody else Good.
I couldn't find a date...unless I missed it. However, it's as recent as Beslan's Terrorist attack. Keep in mind this is the only english arab news daily.
Still worth the repost.
Change that to: "USA Bad, UK sorta bad, Isreal really bad, everybody else good. Send us more money"
Ya got that rite!
And to that you need to add Muslims killing Muslims - as in the Dufar region of Sudan where Arab (white) muslims are killing black (african) muslims and Christians alike!!
This man makes sense, but he might not be in touch with the Arab masses, most of whom are not terrorists, but most of whom rejoiced at our 9-11 tragedy inflicted by their brethren.
Very good post !
No less guilty and no less evil than the Nazis civilians [in Bavaria for example] who lent their full support to the cause but who did not wear a uniform.
The IS no difference. IMO of course...;)
O.K. This is where Bush and the neocons are right. Muslims went from the Caliphate to colonialism to stalinist dictatorship or remained monarchies. These are all failed forms of government. The developed world is completely made up of democratic republics. There will be war until the muslim world is modernized. PERIOD!
I don't know about the Arab sources but it was posted here shortly after the Russian school massacre ended.
Or I have a serious case of deja-vu...
Only one choice:
With US
Against US
The Mosques in America are the Terrorist Cells...not all, but most IMO.
Very brave of him to say that. Now, let us hope he survives a fatwa. He forgot to mention about how Muslims collaborated with the Nazis during and after World War II and the Communists during the Cold War. Adolf Hitler is referred in the Muslim world as Abu Ali.
.. if they support Muslim terrorists, rhetorically, financially, or implicitly, by not condemning them.
SFS
New dispatch from the "Duh" file
I may help you with your case of Deja Vu: Readers may find other sources for articles such as these posted at http://www.memri.org and http://www.memritv.org . Check the archives and you will find some always fascinating, often horrifying, and occasionally refreshingly hopeful articles by Islamic literati that fortunately dispel the notion that rationalism is an entirely lost cause.
I make a point of remembering to hope for the necessary freedoms and safety for journalists who are there living in such environments where short tempers and one's religious conviction is measured by the glaze in one's eyeballs seem to be encouraged. Furthermore, published articles such as these show there are indeed dedicated writers willing to speak out against those willing to make a point of extrajudicial killings ordered by those who decree that the exercise of freedom of the press is a "violation of state security" and "disturbing the public mind" (True and tragic charges in Iran and Saudi Arabia). I can't help but note that it is no coincidence that organizations such as Amnersty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders), the Committee to Protect Journalists, and PEN International are all originated and operated from "Western", non-Islamic societies.
A final point: please note that the label ascribed to academics and intellectuals in the Muslim world when referenced on the MEMRI sites often refer to the espousers of self-reflection and defenders of human rights as "liberals." So just remember, fellow Freepers, you don't have to fall down foaming at the mouth everytime you hear that word. I suspect all of us posting here would want to be called "liberals" if we operated in an Islamic society.
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