"One Brave Muslim Cleric Dares to Tell the Truth...!"-Pat Dollard

patdollard.com ^ | 2/11/07 | Pat Dollard

[soakncider]

I honestly don't know if I have the courage to do what he did.

[Thumper1960]

I am hearing the voice of a man, surrounded by bloodthirsty cultists. No comparison, whatsoever, with Patrick Henry. Different era, different circumstances, different enemies. The good Imam does exhibit great courage, no question there. I also recognize the reality of the situation. His days are numbered. His comments and expressions of thankfulness to the infidel oppressors mark him as a traitor, an apostate, and worthy of death at the hands of the jihadist lunatics.

In a less charged atmosphere, Sadat dared make peace with the Jews. Where is Sadat? Dead. Blown to bits by a muslim brotherhood.

One man standing against a tide of thousands of fanatics is a portrait in courage. However, one man against a horde is also a sacrificial lamb.

Unless, and until, hundreds and thousands more join him and his stands he will wither in the firestorm coming his way.

I blame not the Imam, I blame the ignorant flock he's supposed to educate. It is up to them to back him and strengthen his message. Unfortunately, I believe that will not happen and he'll become a martyr of a different sort.

[Parley Baer]

I bet well over 50% of the people in Iraqi's feel that way. Problem is that there are too many terrorist running around that will kill anyone who supports the US. I would bet the msm would inform the terrorist of anyone supporting the US and GWB.

[bray]

Wow, he gets it!

Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters

[navyguy]

That video should be broadcast on every TV news outlet (except of course for CNN... CNN wants the US to lose the war, so they wouldn't show it).

I'd love to see the next Murtha speech interrupted, mid sentence, by this video.

[the final gentleman]

So said Thumper...

"I am hearing the voice of a man, surrounded by bloodthirsty cultists. No comparison, whatsoever, with Patrick Henry. Different era, different circumstances, different enemies. The good Imam does exhibit great courage, no question there. I also recognize the reality of the situation. His days are numbered. His comments and expressions of thankfulness to the infidel oppressors mark him as a traitor, an apostate, and worthy of death at the hands of the jihadist lunatics."
________________________________________________________

I don't think that you understand, Thumper.
Brave men create reality. And reality is seated in courage.

But we'll see. We will surely see. May God bless us all.

I

[Thumper1960]

I understand quite well.

Reality exists and men must work within the framework of reality. Reality is not controlled, it is what it is. The reality is that this particular Imam may influence a few, but the Imam himself will never live to see if his stand will affect reality.

[Valin]

You might be suprised

MEMRI's Reform in the Arab and Muslim World focuses on advocates of reform, and the debate surrounding it, within the Middle East and Muslim world.
http://memri.org/reform.html

[Sergio]

Bookmark.

[farmer18th]

The real courage in a Muslim country is to leave the religion of hate and convert to the religion of truth--Christianity. If it takes this much courage to speak the truth in a Muslim country, it's one more proof that we are really at war with Islam--not just the terror it inspires.

[tman73]

I agree with your optimism...however, the pragmatist in me understands that this Imam's beacon of light (truth) only shines on a regional populace (40,0000 member)sect of Islam.
Sufi philosophy was born of Zoroastrian beliefs and, although Islamic in present form, are historically aligned with Judeo-Christian philosophy and origin.
Politically, the Sufi brand of Islam does not have the fervor to spread beyond the current faithful...

[Dajjal]

Sufi bump

[johnmark7]

There are a few books anyone interested in Islam must read for a contemporary sense of what its like.

The Bookseller of Kabul
http://www.amazon.com/Bookseller-Kabul-Asne-Seierstad/dp/0316159417/sr=1-1/qid=1171874922/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-7291940-6173764?ie=UTF8&s=books

From Publishers Weekly
After living for three months with the Kabul bookseller Sultan Khan in the spring of 2002, Norwegian journalist Seierstad penned this astounding portrait of a nation recovering from war, undergoing political flux and mired in misogyny and poverty. As a Westerner, she has the privilege of traveling between the worlds of men and women, and though the book is ostensibly a portrait of Khan, its real strength is the intimacy and brutal honesty with which it portrays the lives of Afghani living under fundamentalist Islam. Seierstad also expertly outlines Sultan's fight to preserve whatever he can of the literary life of the capital during its numerous decades of warfare (he stashed some 10,000 books in attics around town). Seierstad, though only 31, is a veteran war reporter and a skilled observer; as she hides behind her burqa, the men in the Sultan's family become so comfortable with her presence that she accompanies one of Sultan's sons on a religious pilgrimage and witnesses another buy sex from a beggar girl-then offer her to his brother. This is only one of many equally shocking stories Seierstad uncovers. In another, an adulteress is suffocated by her three brothers as ordered by their mother. Seierstad's visceral account is equally seductive and repulsive and resembles the work of Martha Gellhorn. An international bestseller, it will likely stand as one of the best books of reportage of Afghan life after the fall of the Taliban.

The Places in Between
http://www.amazon.com/Places-Between-Rory-Stewart/dp/0156031566/sr=1-1/qid=1171875012/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-7291940-6173764?ie=UTF8&s=books

From Publishers Weekly
We never really find out why Stewart decided to walk across Afghanistan only a few months after the Taliban were deposed, but what emerges from the last leg of his two-year journey across Asia is a lesson in good travel writing. By turns harrowing and meditative, Stewart's trek through Afghanistan in the footsteps of the 15th-century emperor Babur is edifying at every step, grounded by his knowledge of local history, politics and dialects. His prose is lean and unsentimental: whether pushing through chest-high snow in the mountains of Hazarajat or through villages still under de facto Taliban control, his descriptions offer a cool assessment of a landscape and a people eviscerated by war, forgotten by time and isolated by geography. The well-oiled apparatus of his writing mimics a dispassionate camera shutter in its precision. But if we are to accompany someone on such a highly personal quest, we want to know who that person is. Unfortunately, Stewart shares little emotional background; the writer's identity is discerned best by inference. Sometimes we get the sense he cares more for preserving history than for the people who live in it (and for whom historical knowledge would be luxury). But remembering Geraldo Rivera's gunslinging escapades, perhaps we could use less sap and more clarity about this troubled and fascinating country.

These are fascinating and readable stories. You see how a mullah like this one Iraqi can exist like a rose in a sea of thorns.

So many decent Iraqis have risked everything to be free and support our efforts. They deserve some respect.

[soakncider]

Thanks for the link!