Taking Back Islam
Moderate Muslims say their faith is compatible with freedom.

By Erick Stakelbeck & Nir Boms

There's an elephant in the room whenever the current U.S. operation in Iraq is discussed: Is Islam truly compatible with democracy? Or do the U.S.'s troubles in stabilizing Iraq signal that Muslims simply have no desire to live in a free, democratic society?

Right now the answers to these questions are unclear. For every modern Islamic "success story" like Turkey or Malaysia, there are Islamist nightmares like Saudi Arabia and Iran.

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@hotmail.com), June 05, 2004

Answers

bump

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@hotmail.com), June 05, 2004.

I know people who've lived in the "success story" that is Turkey. It's not much of a success.

Saudi Arabia and Islamist Iran wouldn't exist if not for Western intervention. The British were the ones who backed the radical (and wildly unpopular) Saud family and made them the Kings of Saudi Arabia, and it's our government who backs them, despite their horrible human rights record. There's a good chunk of evidence suggesting that Osama is hiding there. After all, that's where his friends and his family are, that's where he has a huge support base, that's where all the money came from, plus his kindeys aren't working and he's on dialisis, and I for one find it hard to swallow that a 47 year old man on dialisis is runing from cave to cave in the mountains of Afghanistan. By why should Bush care? He's good friends whith the Sauds (even affectionately calls Prince Bandar "Bandar Bush"). His family is tied to them financialy. Sure, if he put his foot down in Saudi Arabia he could end this war, but what does he care? It's not his kinds dying in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Islamic revoluation in Iran wouldn't have happened if the U.S. hadn't OVERTHROWN A DEMOCRACY and installed the Shah. They had a democracy before we came in and screwed it up. Why can't the U.S. just stay home?

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), June 06, 2004.

Anti-Bush,
You asked, why can't we just stay at home. Well it sure would be nice if we Americans could live in our 'fortress America' separated by the world by 2 great oceans, and let others be. But that is not the real world we have inherited. Maybe things could have been done better in the past (ok, things definitely would have been done better). But we can't pretend we live in the past. Today, if we pull out of the Middle East and don't support Israel, you will have radical Islamic states being run by Islamists who are intent on creating a world-wide Islamist empire by the sword. This has been their goal all along.

The price of gas will be way above $5 a gallon as the Islamisists use it as a weapon to control our economy.

And they will continue to attack us to demoralize us and ruin our economy. They have declared war on us, and the war is not only to get us out of the Middle East, but it is a war of conquest. They really want to destroy our society and replace it with an Islamic state. You can pretend that is not their intent, but they have told us that it is repeatedly, and they have been attacking us to that end since 1983.

Clinton tried keeping out and ignoring them and what resulted was 9/11.

If we ignore them now and pull away, they will proclaim a battle won and you will have many, many more 9/11s until our society crumbles. I am sure that is not what you want.

War is tough, but we’re in it, like it or not.

Related articles:

This link will take you to pages covering various international terrorist incidents where crimes have been committed against U.S. citizens or property since 1983.

The New Defeatism

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@hotmail.com), June 06, 2004.

oops, I posted an interview with someone who survived the Warsaw getto on the "Iraq and just war, revisited" thread, it should have gone here instead. This was for Anti-Bush.

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@hotmail.com), June 06, 2004.

Bill, post the interview here if you like, then I will delete in the other thread.

Moderator

-- Ed (catholic4444@yahoo.ca), June 06, 2004.

from another board:

Not sure if this interview has made it into the western press, nor do I have any way to confirm the details of the translation, but I hope it is true: Marek Edelman is the last surviving military leader of the heroic Jewish Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943. He recently spoke to a Polish television channel TVN24, and the interview has been re- published in a Polish weekly "Przekroj" and here are some translated excerpts.
 

Interviewer: Not a day seems to go by in Iraq without a terrorist attack, and in the last few days two Polish soldiers and a Polish journalist have died.
Edelman: And do you know any war where nobody dies? I don't. Alas, it's in man's make-up; there's a fatal flow there that makes him kill, for pleasure or over some silly beliefs.
Interviewer: So this war is one over some silly beliefs?
Edelman: Now, now. Who started killing people? Americans didn't invade a wonderful democratic Iraq. There was a dictatorship there, torture, terror.
Interviewer: But there are people who say it's not our business.
Edelman: And whose business is it? Every war with fascism is our business. In 1939 there were also many people who said that the war in Poland was not their war, and what happened? Great nations fell because politicians listened to those who were saying th! at it's not worth dying for Gdansk [Danzig]. If only we'd intervened militarily after Hitler re-entered Rhineland we probably would not have had the war and the Holocaust.
Interviewer: Many people do understand that, but they don't understand why the Americans have to go to the other side of the world and fight over Iraq now.
Edelman: And why did they go to Europe then? Who defeated Hitler and saved Europe from fascism? The French? No, the Americans did. We thanked them then because they saved us. Today we criticise them because they're saving somebody else.
Interviewer: Returning to the question about having Polish soldier on the ground in Iraq. Many Poles don't want them there.
Edelman: If they don't want them there, let's just keep waiting and then let's see from which direction the rockets and the bombs will come from - will we in the end be lorded over by Saddam's viceroys or Bin Laden's, just as w! e were once lorded over by Hitler's viceroys.
Interviewer: Do you really believe in such a scenario?
Edelman: It's possible. If we will keep closing our eyes to evil, then that evil will defeat us tomorrow. Unfortunately there's more hatred in men than love. Those who murder understand only force and nothing else. And the only force that is able to stand against them is the American democracy.
Interviewer: But the Americans aren't going too well with introducing democracy in Iraq.
Edelman: That's true, but it's a difficult war. The Second World War went for five years. Democracy tends to be structurally weak. Dictatorship is strong. Hitler was able to mobilise several million people and chase another few million into gas chambers or slave labour. But only democracy saves the humanity and saves millions of lives. The more I see people getting murdered the more I believe that we need to put a stop to tha! t. The murderers understand only deeds.
Interviewer: What about the photos from Abu Ghraib - don't they cause you to start question that American democracy?
Edelman: Well, it happened. Among several hundred thousand American soldiers there were a few perverts...
Interviewer: But the incident nevertheless seriously damaged America's standing. What to say to Polish people after the death of several more of our soldiers?
Edelman: But they died fighting for their freedom. How many thousands of people died in the Warsaw Uprising [in 1944]?
Interviewer: But those people then were fighting for their country.
Edelman: They were fighting for their world. Free and democratic. Just like those who died during the martial law [in Poland in 1981-3]. Did they die only for Poland? No. They died for the freedom of the whole Europe, for the freedom of all those enslaved behind the! Iron Curtain.
Interviewer: But the Spanish withdrew their troops from Iraq after the terrorist attack in Madrid.
Edelman: Please don't tell me what the Spanish did. So what? Do you seriously think that it will save them from further attacks? No. The weak just get punched in the head. Pacifism lost a long time ago.
Interviewer: There are more and more voices saying that Poland shouldn't work so close with the Americans and that instead we should get closer to France and Germany.
Edelman: France used to be a great power, culturally and intellectually. And what happened to them? They didn't want to fight for their own democracy, they thought it wasn't really their war [in 1939]. And they lost everything, because when you bend over and take it - even once - then you're finished. And what's that whole talk about the difference between American politics and European politics? There is no other politics but international democratic politics. If we withdraw from Iraq now, what do we have left? Cosying up to Iran and Saudi Arabia? ...
Interviewer: Is it possible to introduce democracy by force?
Edelman: Yugoslavia showed that it's possible...
Interviewer: You used your own personal history and your moral authority to appeal for the intervention then.
Edelman: Yes... Those who say that you don't have to fight for freedom, don't understand what fascism is. I do.

 

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@hotmail.com), June 06, 2004.

Mr Anti asked why can't we just stay at home? Yeah, what happened to Bush's election promise that there would be no more foreign "nation- building". I've got no problem with fighting Al-Quaeda, but why oh why oh why did we let ourselves get sucked into taking on Saddam and taking over Iraq?

-- Joker (joker@cybernet.com), June 07, 2004.

Because we were attacked in 9/11. We didn't have the island fortess that Bush thought we had before becoming president and being briefed on terrorism. After 9/11 Bush knew he had to change how we were dealing with terrorism. Read: The Right War for the Right Reasons

And Two new members of the Iraqi interim government insist that Saddam and al Qaeda were linked.

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@hotmail.com), June 07, 2004.

Bush has yet to prove that Saddam had any connection to al Quaeda. How many times do I have to say this? Saddam and Osama are total ideological opposites. Osama hated Saddam almost as much as he hated America. Like the Joker said, I have no problem with the US going after al Quaeda. I supported the war in Afghanistan. But Iraq was no threat to the U.S. and certainly not worth American lives.

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), June 07, 2004.

Osama hated Saddam almost as much as he hated America.

oh yes, thats why every day i hear remember 9/12, the day when al quada crashed three planes into iraqi buildings in the second largest terrorist attack the world has ever seen. it was almost as much death as he caused in america, because he hates iraq ALMOST as much.

see how silly that sounds. bin laden hates western culture and anything christian more fiercely than he could hate a muslim who intended to kill him.

-- paul h (dontsendmemail@notanaddress.com), June 07, 2004.

Anti-Bush, you need to read more. In today's Chicago Sun-Times: Why Bush's war to remove Saddam was a 'no brainer'

Tenet was right. Given that Saddam's Iraq had possessed weapons of mass destruction, indeed was developing nuclear weapons before the 1991 Gulf War, and given that Saddam's regime had not accounted for WMDs he had possessed, any prudent intelligence agency would have to have concluded that he still had them. Moreover, there was no evidence that could have been obtained that would have convinced a prudent intelligence agency that Saddam did not possess them. This argument wasn't made in the run-up to the war because Colin Powell and Tony Blair convinced Bush to agree to a round of United Nations inspections. But the U.N. inspectors couldn't prove that Saddam didn't have WMDs. Given his past behavior, we had no basis for concluding he didn't.

And we had no way of being sure that he would not arm al-Qaida with them. That is the conclusion of Stephen Hayes' The Connection: How Al Qaeda's Collaboration With Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America.

As Tenet testified in October 2002, there were contacts going back to the early 1990s between agents of al-Qaida and Saddam's Iraq. Richard Clarke, when he served in the Clinton administration, said the same thing, as did many others in the Clinton administration. Czech officials believe that Sept. 11 hijacker Muhammad Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague in August 2001. Hayes also reveals that in January 2000, Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, acting under orders from Iraqi intelligence, accompanied two of the Sept. 11 hijackers to a meeting in Malaysia that the CIA has concluded was a planning session for the assault on the USS Cole and the Sept. 11 attacks.

As Hayes is careful to note, some of the evidence of Iraq-al-Qaida ties is questionable. Intelligence evidence often is. But it is interesting that many who criticize Bush for not ''connecting the dots'' before Sept. 11 are also criticizing those who connect the dots on Iraq-al-Qaida ties. These critics seem to believe that Saddam's regime should have been considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But foreign policy is not bound by the rules of a criminal court, and Saddam's previous behavior entitled us to regard him as guilty until proven innocent beyond a reasonable doubt.

So put yourself in the position of Bush in late 2002 and early 2003. You must assume that Saddam has or can produce weapons of mass destruction. And you know that Iraqi agents have met with al-Qaida operatives. You know that both Iraq and al-Qaida want to inflict maximum damage on the United States. So the only way to protect the United States is to eliminate the regime of Saddam Hussein. It was, as Hayes said at an American Enterprise Institute panel last week, a ''no brainer.''

It is interesting to ponder what those who continue to insist that ''Bush lied'' and that there was no danger from collusion between al-Qaida and Saddam would have said if Bill Clinton had done what Bush did in Iraq -- which is consistent with much of Clinton's rhetoric. Almost certainly they would have agreed, as some of them did in the Clinton years, that there was a danger from Iraqi WMDs and Iraqi collaboration with al-Qaida. That they take the opposite view now is evidence not that they are right but that they are filled with partisan venom.

-bill

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@Hotmail.com), June 07, 2004.

To get back to the point, Bill, you ask "Is Islam truly compatible with democracy?"

Late last century it was still being seriously asked, Are Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism compatible with democracy? In the mid-20th century it was Japanese Shintoism that was queried, while Protestants (and not just the rabid paranoid ones), and also many Catholics, very seriously asked whether Catholicism was compatible with democracy. Indeed up until 20 or 30 years ago most Catholic-majority countries were quite undemocratic.

If you know any Muslims you must know the vast majority want peace, freedom and democracy the same as anybody else. If I were you I would be much more careful about condemning a whole religion just because historical circumstances have not yet favored the development of democracy in most of the Muslim-majority countries. Have patience, Bill. Most of them are heading in the right direction.

-- Joker (joker@cybernet.com), June 08, 2004.

If you know any Muslims you must know the vast majority want peace, freedom and democracy the same as anybody else

While I don't think one can state this definitively, I do agree that peace, freedom, and democracy lie in the hearts of most men. But freedom and democracy would entail tolerance of other religions. Do the vast majority of muslims tolerate other religions? Maybe, Maybe not. I would say no at this point, but that can be overcome. The problem is with Muslim rulers. The muslim populace has been betrayed by their leaders: Hossein, Khomeini, House of Saud, Taliban, Arafat etc. Fact is, a majority of muslim religious and political leaders in the last 50 years have served to oppress their people, have left them intolerant of other cultures, and have set them back many years behind western culture. Now on one hand, their opposition to Western culture has been a good thing. Their societies are not as decadent as Western societies. Abortion is illegal, homosexuality is frowned upon, prostitution is rare, there is less pornography (so far) etc. But there is much less freedom, women are oppressed, there is less tolerance for religious and political dissent, there is poverty despite great wealth in certain natural resources, there is tremendous corruption from the rulers down to the police, bankers, and merchants, creating a tremendous black market which harms the least financially stable. Sigh!

When you consider all of the ills of muslim society it is easy to become discouraged. But Joker, you make a good point in mentioning other societies and cultures which were once thought to be incompatible with democracy. I know the question on the opening post was rhetorical, but I cringe when I read about people saying that muslims can never accept democracy. Bishop Stefano Lorenzetto in the Sudan was recently asked in an interview: Q. – Does it make sense to export our democracy in agricultural and sheep-herding societies that make no distinction between religion and politics?

His answer “No. This is idiotic. Islamic people base their decisions only and exclusively on the umma. They don’t even know what individual rights are. It’s absurd to teach them the first amendment of the American Constitution, which says Congress can make no law to prohibit freedom of worship or to limit freedom of speech or the press. They have absolutely no comprehension of this.”

This seems awfully negative to me. Doesn't it seem condescending?

-- Brian Crane (brian.crane@cranemills.com), June 09, 2004.

bold off

-- @@@@ (turn@caps.off), June 09, 2004.

Yes it does Mr Crane. But give the bishop a break. For decades he’s watched his flock being deliberately impoverished, discriminated against and massacred by the Muslim dominated government of his country, while the rich and powerful “Christian” countries turn a blind eye, simply because Sudan has no oil or anything else they want and is of little geo-political strategic importance. And of course, the Muslims oppressing these overwhelmingly black Christians are overwhelmingly white.

-- Joker (joker@cybernet.com), June 14, 2004.