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The jihadist monster has turned on itself

Pakistan must fight the enemy within following the latest terror attack, warns Ramesh Thakur  

WHEN terrorists struck Mumbai on November 26 last year, the English cricket team was touring India.

 It went back home but returned just a little later to complete a curtailed tour in a show of determination to deny terrorists the satisfaction of victory. But the Indian Government cancelled the planned Indian cricket tour of Pakistan for January this year.

Pakistan successfully appealed to Sri Lanka to replace India. The Sri Lankan team was rewarded on Tuesday by being attacked in a surreal replay of Mumbai by a group of about a dozen well-trained, disciplined, heavily armed young men executing an audacious, carefully planned mission with commando-style precision and toughness. Six policemen and two civilians are dead, including the bus driver whose heroics prevented the entire Sri Lankan team from being massacred.

The implications are many and far-reaching. Some can yet be positive.

This may be the first time since the Munich Olympics in 1972 that sportspeople have been targeted directly by terrorists. Pakistanis believed that because of the game's passionate popularity, terrorists would not risk a public backlash by attacking cricketers. In fact they have attacked the team that came to show solidarity when arch-enemy India withdrew. This is the end of innocence for the most genteel of games.

Second, it should disabuse innocent foreigners of the notion that the terrorists infesting Pakistan have Kashmir as their agenda. Mumbai last year already proved that the terrorist leaders mean what they say when they lump together Hindus, Christians and Jews as common enemies of Islam. Indeed, a Los Angeles Times story suggested that a primary aim of the Mumbai attacks was to disrupt the growing relationship between India and Israel.

Third, it should help to convince the Pakistani establishment that the jihadist monster it has spawned is now its own biggest security threat.

An irritant for India is proving to be fatal for Pakistan, destroying it from within. To the anguish of many, the Government recently surrendered control of the lovely Swat Valley, a mere 160km from Islamabad, to Islamists whose agenda had been roundly repudiated by voters in recent elections. As the extremists regroup in the notorious Afghanistan-Pakistan border badlands and strike with growing daring and impunity on both sides, a gathering war-weariness in NATO is encouraging negotiations with "good" Taliban as a means of containing "bad" al-Qa'ida. This could prove adangerous self-delusion.

Fourth, it should drive home to all South Asian leaders the folly of believing that their neighbour's terrorist is their own freedom fighter. Indira Gandhi played that game domestically with the Sikhs and her son Rajiv played it with Sri Lanka: both paid with their lives, felled by the bullets and bombs of the monsters they had created.

Related to this, fifth, the region's governments must co-operate in their intelligence, law enforcement and political remedies to the common scourge of terrorism. Its infrastructure of madrassas, recruitment centres, financial networks and training camps must be uprooted across South Asia. India can be the solution to Pakistan's nightmare of militancy, but not until such time as New Delhi is convinced of Islamabad's good faith, which to date has been conspicuously lacking. The Pakistan Government has been in denial, obfuscation and diversion mode with regard to the Pakistani origins of the Mumbai attacks and possible complicity of Inter-Services Intelligence agents, rogue or not.

Conversely, it is disheartening to read that India's home and foreign ministers were quick to say "I told you so" instead of letting the rebuke lie implicit while offering unconditional solace, sympathy and support to a nation in shock. A little neighbourly magnanimity can go a long way in times of national peril. The Indian team, playing in New Zealand, wore black armbands in sympathy when news of Lahore came through.

Building on anti-terrorism co-operation, South Asians also could look to foster common institutions such as regional human rights commissions (they should avoid Canadian-type Frankensteins that mock the rights they should protect), press councils, a common peacekeeping doctrine for UN deployment, joint tourism promotion, combined protection from abuse of nationals working as labourers and domestic help in the Middle East. With greater cross-border flow of goods, services and people, even the Kashmir dividing line could be made irrelevant in practice without confronting the thorny issue of sovereignty. Special envoys of former president Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reportedly had worked out such a deal after several rounds of secret discussions. Courage deserted one or both, Musharraf is out of power and now Singh faces elections in April-May. However, the deal could be resurrected after May.

Ramesh Thakur is founding director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Ontario and adjunct professor at Griffith University, Queensland.


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Original piece is http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25139588-7583,00.html


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On 5.3.08, Ymr responded to Aqeel with "Your fact-free denial is trite." That applies to the rest of his contributions. Three points though: 1) the terror attack on Sri Lankan cricketers had the hallmarks of islamists; 2) Jews lived continually in what is now Israel for thousands of years before Mohammed started his war on the world and in 1935, the Brits were considering a wall to keep out illegal Syrian migrants; 3) I just want peace and justice for Jews and I don"t give a damn about Mohammedan "victimhood", delusions of superiority due to their "glorious past" and their need to humiliate the Jew, the only object that unites the mutually murderous clans, secularists, nationalists, pan-Arabs, communists, islamists, revolutionaries, monarchists and sundry corrupt, remorseless power and leadership seeking barbarians of societies where cruelty is a virtue.

Posted by paul2 on 2009-03-15 10:55:59 GMT


Malvina has a point about violence founding states, but should have reminded our resident islamist, that the violence was started by the Arabs. Violence was and remains the only Arab/Muslim response to settling any dispute. On another note, Aqeel piously informed us that 5:54 says "not to rely on non Muslims to be our protectors". My Everyman edition of The Koran states (5:54)"O Believers! take not the Jews and Christians as friends. They are but one another"s friends. If any one of you taketh them for his friends, he is surely one of them! God will not guide the evil doers." Aqeel would do well to go to a site where fools take his da"wa and teqqiya as wisdom and truth. Pity too, that he substitutes verbosity for veracity and thinks that we are stupid enough to be confused.

Posted by Paul2 on 2009-03-14 22:39:12 GMT


Malvina, first of all.. One would argue that the Palestinians themselves are trying to establish their state, therefore they are using violence just as the European settlers did.. If the Jews who were settlers from Europe had the right to do that, then the Palestinians who are from that land have more right to it.. In addition to that, you say it"s unfortunate that they weren"t given Bavaria, the British offered the Europeans places like land in Argentina and Uganda but they refused, they wanted to go to Palestine and take it over. Paul2, the Arabs didn"t start the fighting, they resisted occupation.. How would you feel if the United Nations came into Israel today and said that the people who came from Europe and their families now had to leave Israel and give it back to the Palestinians? Would you just accept that? Or would you fight against it? No doubt you"d fight against it because you"d never give up that land. So of course the Palestinians did the same thing. Nevertheless let"s look at your quote for the Qur"an. First of all, I"m not using Taqiyya.. Taqiyya is dissimulation if my life is in danger I am able to lie about being a Muslim, so you"re misinformation isn"t really helping you. But okay, let"s address the verse of the Qur"an that you"re speaking about. In fact the verse is not 5:54, rather it"s 5:51. The word it"s using is "alwiya", this can have many meanings, including friend, but in fact in this case it"s referring to protectors and this is evident by looking at context. You see Paul2, this verse was revealed just after the Muslims had come to Madina as refugees from Makkah, it was an order to them not to rely on the Christians and Jews as their protectors because Muslims should themselves be prepared to protect themselves.. If you"d like more information on this issue please see this explanation written by Afroz Ali http://alghazzali.org/resources/articles/friendship.pdf, it goes into detail about this issue and examines the words used in Arabic.. Nevertheless, you prove time and time again that your really a bigot who hates Muslims.. Lastly, Gisli, I completely agree with you, Muslims should do something about this.. But where can we do this? In the West there"s freedom of Religion so we cannot stamp these peoples beliefs out completely, only discredit them and not allow them into positions of influence into the community.. Which we have been very successful of doing so far.. Nevertheless they still have some members of these groups who promote these ideas and they are closely watched by the intelligence services. Now in regards to other parts of the world, in Places like Saudi Arabia the worst of these ideas tend to originate and these ideas are propagated out in the world because the Saudis provide huge funds to do so.. So again.. Have the West stop supporting Saudi Arabia and we"ll deal with them ourselves, until such a time we can"t do much because the Western governments prefer cheaper oil rather than the Saudi government being taken out of power.

Posted by Aqeel on 2009-03-14 13:39:50 GMT


Malvina has a point about violence founding states, but should have reminded our resident islamist, that the violence was started by the Arabs. Violence was and remains the only Arab/Muslim response to settling any dispute. On another note, Aqeel piously informed us that 5:54 "says not to rely on non Muslims to be our protectors". My Everyman edition of The Koran states (5:54)"O Believers! take not the Jews and Christians as friends. They are but one another"s friends. If any one of you taketh them for his friends, he is surely one of them! God will not guide the evil doers." Aqeel would do well to go to a site where fools take his da"wa and teqqiya as wisdom and truth. Pity too, that he substitutes verbosity for veracity and thinks that we are stupid enough to be confused.

Posted by paul2 on 2009-03-14 12:18:39 GMT


Oh Aqeel, you poor poor victim. Everyone is against innocent pious Muslims and it is their right to retaliate. Everything is greater for the faithful - as Abu Mazen said, we must understand that the Nakba is worse in the Arab mind than the Shoah. In callinig me a hatemonger, Aqeel is only projecting his feelings toward dhimmis; what I feel for Islaminc societies, realising that it contains a handful of decent folk, is contempt and disgust. The only worthwhile comment to Aqeel"s propaganda is: yawn!

Posted by paul2 on 2009-03-13 13:47:30 GMT


Paul2, 5:54 doesn"t say do not befriend Jews, it says not to rely on non Muslims to be our protectors, that is an obvious fact that even the Jews learnt throughout history due to persecution. You must be able to defend yourselves. But in terms of friendship and good relations there is no doubt that the Prophet peace be upon him had great relations with people of other religions. In fact if you take a look at the example of the Christians from Najran you"ll see that he even looked after them, letting them pray their way in the Mosque and feeding them and allowing them to sleep in the mosque also. 5:33 doesn"t say to harm the opponents of Islam, it"s talking about those who spread fitna in the land and if you had any knowledge whatsoever what this meant according to historical context you"d understand that this punishment was used against rapists and war criminals who themselves had tortured innocent people or prisoners of war. I wont apologize for that. If you torture innocent people or you rape a woman you get what you deserve. There is a huge difference between executing a prisoner and putting them through a slow and painful death. All Muslims support Jihad, but the fact is that you don"t know the meaning of it. Jihad in the context of fighting is about fighting to stop oppression. So I most certainly support it, but only when fighting is helpful because fighting is not always the right way to achieve your goals, in fact the Qur"an states it"s better to negotiate and find a solution. In addition to that suicide bombing is not the same as Jihad, suicide bombing is a tactic and Jihad is not a tactic, suicide bombing is also used by the Hindu Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, it was used by the Japanese also. So it"s most certainly not limited to Muslims at all, but even as a tactic it"s unislamic because we do not have the right to choose whether we are martyred or not, this is purely up to God, however when you blow yourself up you are almost certain to be killing yourself and essentially making yourself a martyr. At the time of the Prophet peace be upon him, the Muslims would sometimes take off their armor in battle, not because they were going to kill themselves in battle, rather it was because they wanted to be more mobile in battle, just as it is known that the Muslims sometimes wore two suits of armor to protect them. Martyrdom is not our choice, if we fight against oppression in an Islamically sanctioned way and die then that is God"s choice, but most certainly we don"t have the right to kill ourselves. By being against Israel we are not against Jews at all, we are simply against Europeans coming into the Middle East and setting up an apartheid state in a land which was already inhabited by people and forcing them off of their land in the name of religion because. Just as we were against the Europeans coming to do so during the Crusades. And back then, when the Europeans did this during the Crusades the Muslims Christians and Jews who were from the Holy Land united and fought against them.. And today, the Palestinians have the support of Christians and Jews from around the world against the Apartheid occupation of their land. In regards to your comment about "Jewish Freedom Fighters" who "only attacked British Soldiers" we know that"s a lie, how many people died in the King David Hotel Bombing Paul2? And how many of them were civilians? There are other events where we know for a fact that these terrorists directly targeted civilians, not just soldiers. The Deir Yassin Massacre caused an exodus of Palestinians from their homes, did those people who condemned the massacre then bring the Palestinians back and give them their homes? No, they took them over after the Palestinians fled for their lives so the fact is that they profited off of the Palestinians leaving, condemnation isn"t enough, as you always say to Muslims. In regards to Palestinians allegedly killing doctors and nurses, I"ll always condemn the intentional killing of innocent people, but look at the Israeli soldiers who blew that Palestinian doctors house into pieces killing his daughters when the KNEW he lived there in that house and he told them, he used to go and operate on Jews in Israel yet he was still killed. That also needs to be condemned. In regards to my knowledge of Iran"s tactics, you forget that I"ve studied all of this.. I"ve looked into Iran"s tactics and even if you listen to their rhetoric they threatened the exact thing, they have sleeper cells all over the Middle East, ready to strike at US and Israeli targets if they are attacked.. Just like the CIA and Mossad are trained to do the exact same thing and have done so in the past.. Again, I"m a Muslim, not a Mohammedan, you"re bigotry really shows you to be an ignorant and uneducated hatemonger Paul2 and it"s really sickening. And I"d suggest you be careful about who you are accusing of being a terrorist, because I most certainly am not, the fact is that you"ve gone on so long hate mongering against Islam and Muslims that you have lost touch with reality. I"ve explained you very clearly that I"m against the killing of any civilians.

Posted by Aqeel on 2009-03-13 13:15:50 GMT


Malvina you certainly wont hear me defending Al Qaeda or bin Laden in their actions. They are criminals plain and simple. The truth is that Gaza never had autonomy, that"s really a farce to believe because they didn"t have any sovereignty in their land, in addition to that they adhered to a ceasefire even while the Israeli military was trying to starve the Palestinian people into submission. Even the UN admits that the Israelis broke the cease fire by killing 6 members of Hamas and also by not allowing the aid trucks to pass through. The Palestinians were being starved into submission which is against international law. So what would you do if you were in their position? The Israelis wont accept the Arab Peace Initiative which Hamas has agreed to and is a fair deal, and they are punishing the people in Gaza for electing Hamas with starvation, so Hamas said "fine, if you don"t want to adhere to the ceasefire neither will we, we will not allow you to sleep peacefully while our children are starving to death and suffering from malnutrition simply because they exercised their right to vote us into power" so they started launching rockets.. In regards to Mumbai it"s clearly an attempt of the Wahhabis to create havoc.. Don"t expect me to defend it, they"re savages.. But again, it"s not part of Islam.. If it was you"d see a much different world. But don"t come and complain to me about it, how about you get off of your butts and contact your local members of parliament and congressmen and lobby them to stop supporting dictatorships in the Middle East, they are the ones who promote these sick ideas. And this has nothing to do with Jews or blaming them. It"s about resisting oppression and there are a number of Jews that support the Palestinian"s right to resist occupation. Anyone who tries to make it about Jews is ignorant, because historically we have lived comfortably with Jews, rather we don"t appreciate European imperialism and occupation of Palestine.

Posted by Aqeel on 2009-03-13 12:39:56 GMT


Aqeel uses lies and insults to persuade us that Islam is a good religion. It is in fact a form of fascism dressed as a religion. See the Koran 5:54 to not befreind Jews, 5:33 kill, crucify, cross amputate or exile opponents to Islam and I could go on. Aqeel dissimulates regarding suicide: anyone dying in fighting for Allah regarded as a shahid. Aqeel claims that "most" Ms oppose homicide bombings but surveys show 15-30% in the UK support jihad. The articles Aqeel quotes are no more openminded than he is: the vilfication of Jews via Israel is becoming too acceptable; great that Aqeel can accept the Times but air-brushes comments of Col Kemp. Aqeel, like a true islamist accuses Jews of terror against the Brits, to justify Mohammedan outrages, ignoring that Jewish freedom fighters targeted soldiers, not civilians. The group which commited the Deir Yassin massacre was condemned by Jews, while the Mohamnmedans cheered the butchers of doctors and nurses going to Jerusalem; here,equivalence only exists in the mind of the mindless. One wonders too, how Aqeel knows how many terrorists Iran will activate, if attacked, to defeat Israel and the USA. It begs the question of how to regard the Mohammedans, like Aqeel, among us; as good Aussies or Yanks or Israelis or as a fifth column? The urbane apologist and conspiracy theorist on this site is starting to show his terrorist colours. Gotcha!

Posted by paul2 on 2009-03-13 12:31:25 GMT


Malvina, I and the majority of Muslims and Islamic Scholars agree 100% that suicide bombing is wrong. There are a minority who say it"s okay but they truly are a minority. The fact is that the Qur"an tells us not to kill ourselves, and this idea of killing ones self to kill others is foreign to Islam and has only come about in the last 30-40 years. But actually I didn"t raise the issue of suicide bombings, I asked Paul2 about terrorism because he brought it up, because people act today like terrorism is some horrible new ideology when it"s not.. It"s a tactic in warfare that has been used by every government in the world to be able to gain it"s independence including Israel and the USA. So I really don"t think anyone here has the right to condemn Palestinian terrorism when the fact is that Israel most certainly wouldn"t be in existence today if it were not for the terrorism committed by the "Jews" who came from Europe to Palestine.

Posted by Aqeel on 2009-03-13 09:31:08 GMT


Paul2, (1) Which Jews were mistreated by the Prophet because of their religion or race? (2) What barbarities are there in the Qur"an? Do you care to point some out? (3) Daniel Pipes is a bigot, but nevertheless.. Terrorism is and has always been a tactic of warfare, not an ideology.. And Israel was built on terrorism against the British, Modern Western Armies train their special forces in it also in case of war.. So please define it? (4) I and the Majority of Muslims have no need for "defeating the West", I am a Westerner and I"m proud of Australia and I think the West has many things to offer the "East" and vice versa. I don"t see a need for a clash of civilizations and the fact is that even if you look at Iran, it"s had great relations with almost every nation on Earth and has engaged in trade and commerce with them.. The only people they"ve refused to deal with has been South Africa during the Apartheid and Israel for it"s occupation.. Nevertheless it would be foolish for Israel or the US to assume that they could attack Iran and face no consequences of it, Iran"s military is perhaps one of the most advanced in the Middle East and the Persians are not the type to just roll over and die, when the WEST put Saddam into power and had him attack Iran, supplying him with CHEMICAL weapons which he used against Iranian cities and Kurds the Iranians had only a small army, but they fought back hard against Saddam"s forces and were victorious in keeping their lands, now they have become self sufficient in most forms of technology, their military forces, both conventional and unconventional are very advanced and the US and Israel have proven themselves incapable to deal with fighting an unconventional war, the Iranians could also mobilize more than 8 million fighters in 48 hours to fight and will strike at every US and Israeli interest in the Middle East, including attacking Israel"s nuclear facilities if theirs are hit.. It"s in no one"s interests to launch war on Iran because it"s a war that the US or Israel would most certainly not win without using nuclear weapons and once that nuclear genie is opened in the Middle East it"ll backfire even more.. (5) A. The Red Cross doesn"t judge what is legal and what is not in war, the laws of war state that you can not use chemical or burning weapons, the only time that white phosphorous is acceptable to use is for smoke cover and it"s most certainly not allowed to be used in civilian areas. The Israelis used WP weapons in civilian areas and even on the UN Aid compound, here is the evidence http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5521925.ece In regards to DIME weapons, the Israeli"s also claim not to have nuclear weapons but we know for a fact that they do, according to the international doctors at the hospitals in Gaza the evidence of the mutilated bodies show"s that the bombs were not normal bombs. B. Yes they did, Al-Fakhoura was bombed.. 40 people died http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/08/world/fg-gaza-school8 Ban Ki Moon even said ""Today, another United Nations school was hit by Israeli Defense Forces" said Ban speaking on the 17th of January. "I condemn in the strongest terms this outrageous attack which is the third time this has happened. The top Israeli leaders had apologized and had given me their assurances just two days ago while I was visiting Israel that UN premises would be fully respected. I strongly demand a thorough investigation into these incidents, and the punishment of those who are responsible for these appalling acts." http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/stories/2009/attacks_un_in_gaza_jan09.html and http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/massacre-of-innocents-as-un-school-is-shelled-1230045.html C. Hezbollah also warned the Israeli"s that it was going to launch rockets during the war in 2006 where the myth of the Invincible Israeli War Machine was exposed as a lie, even being so specific to mention the exact areas they were targeting.. I have written on Darfur and about the stupid idea of banning the criticism of religions actually.. Perhaps if you didn"t judge me before you knew me you"d know that.. But I can imagine that it"s very difficult for a bigot like you!

Posted by Aqeel on 2009-03-12 14:30:26 GMT


While squashing Aqeel"s apologias and misinformation is getting to be tedious, for the record: (1) Bat Ya"or documents that while some Jews prospered under Mohammedan regimes, overall the lot of the Jew was miserable and precarious; (2) anyone who claims that Islam is 100% true is either 100% delusional or 100% lying - genuinely moderate Muslims reject the barbarities of the Qur"an and call on their thunderingly deaf fellows to modernise; (3) Daniel Pipes in a recent debate pointed out that surveys show support for terrorism in Islamic communities is 15-50% - the apologia of fringe groups or NOT REAL Muslims is pure rubbish (4) the Nazi Germans were not exterminated, but changed their tune when they were thoroughly thrashed: Aqeel like Ahmadinejad is delusional that undereducated, underequipped, technologically inferior, disunited islamists will defeat the West; (5) in an earlier post Aqeel, in his seeking to counter bigotry and Islamophobia wrote that Israel used white phosphorus and DIME (which it does not have)in Gaza: clearly he can write better than he can read, because a) the Red Cross confirmed that the IDF used WP legally b) the UN admitted that the school was not attacked c) UK Col R Kemp confirmed the IDF"s extreme care to avoid civilian casualties by warning civilians of attacks, something no other army does and certainly no Mohammedan does: vide Iraq"s sanguinous "love-in". Aqeel should write comething about Darfur or the Muslim world"s love affair with Samir Kuntar or the Durban II draft that would outlaw the criticism of Islam.

Posted by paul2 on 2009-03-12 13:46:13 GMT


Malvina, prior to the Muslims coming to Jerusalem there were differing types of leadership. It changed between the Romans and the Persians.. When the Persians were in power they put the Jews in high places and persecuted the Christians, when the Romans were in power they pushed the Jews out of Jerusalem and persecuted them, even using the temple mount as a dumping ground. When the Muslims came into power they brought the Jews back into Jerusalem and Umar bin Khattab, the leader of the Muslims at that time himself cleaned the Temple Mount, but unlike the Persians he didn"t send out the Christians or persecute them. In Europe the Jews were persecuted everywhere, when the Muslims ruled Spain however, the Jews and Christians were protected and had high positions in government, they all contributed to society etc.. Under a proper Islamic State, (of which there are none today) Jews and Christians have the right to practice their religion, to have their own laws and their own leadership. They become autonomous peoples within the state and the Muslims have to fight and die if necessary to protect their lives, their wealth, their places of worship, their business etc. Prior to Islam in either Jewish or Christian law, or history of Jewish and Christian states that adhere to their religious law have you seen an example where Jews did that for Christians or Christians did that for Jews? If so please mention it. Paul2, Of course I believe Islam is perfect and 100% correct, I wouldn"t believe in a religion unless I believed that, because it is God who is perfect that gives us the way to live our life.. Thus anything He gives us must be perfect. Just like many Jews, Christians and Hindus believe their religions are perfect. However, me believing my religion is 100% true and perfect does not mean that I have the right to impose my religion on others and force them to accept Islam, it also doesn"t mean I have the right to insult other people"s beliefs or them and ridicule them.. The Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him never did that, the Christian delegation that came from Najran to visit the Prophet peace be upon him stayed for a number of days, do you know where they stayed? They stayed in the Mosque, they were guests of the Prophet and they were fed and looked after by him.. They even prayed Christian prayers inside the Mosques. Furthermore, I did not lie about the Israeli war crimes. The use of white phosphorous munitions on civilian areas including schools is well documented, as is the bombing of those schools, even the UN schools and compounds.. Islam has been around for 1400 years and during that period of time the Muslims have lived peacefully with many other religious groups, Islam isn"t the thing that needs to change, rather it"s the Muslims that have deviated and left Islamic teachings for extremist ideologies, tribalism and culturalism that need to return back to the true teachings of Islam and leave these barbaric practices. You"re assertions that Islam will be wiped out like Communism and Nazism is incredibly ignorant to say the very least. I can assure you that Islam is here to stay and anyone who would be so foolish to presume they could wipe out our religion which could only come about by killing the Muslims, which is 1.6 billion people in this world would then themselves be guilty of grave crimes against humanity, we would never tolerate such oppression or genocide and I can assure you that anyone who tries to kill all of the Muslims would themselves be decisively defeated. Next, YMR.. I recently helped draft a very public response to Al Qaeda"s behavior that appeared in the New York Times. If my organization approves of it I am also probably heading to Lahore next month to speak at an interfaith event which will seek to address these extremists.. Also a few days later I"ll probably be in NY to discuss with Muslim groups to take more action at another conference.. I"ve also worked against people trying to radicalize the Muslims in prison in preventing them from getting access to inmates in addition to having my own blog where I write condemning them I also participate in many online forums, and international conferences where I do the same including at the International Conference for Christians and Jews and the Jewish Christian Muslim Association Conference. How many 24 year olds do you know even come anywhere near doing anything like that? I"m not here to brag but for my age and the current position that I am in I most certainly do absolutely everything that I can. I"m not here on this site to address the "Muslim" extremists, rather I"m commenting on these pages because the right wing bigotry and hate mongering I see on here especially by ignorant fools like Paul2 who try to make it seem as if Islam is to blame and that the majority of Muslims are like Al Qaeda or the Taliban.. Which is simply not true..

Posted by Aqeel on 2009-03-11 13:19:14 GMT


Heeding Ymr"s advice to be brief, let me just reply this way to Aqeel. As long as Aqeel insists that Islam is perfect, that Mohammedans who commit crimes are outside Islam as are terrorists who scream Allahu Akhbar as they murder pitilessly, as long as he plies us with falsehoods about the good life of humiliated and impoverished dhimmis under Islam and lies about Israeli "war crimes", debate is pointless. Islam must change or be wiped out like Naziism and Communism were.

Posted by paul2 on 2009-03-11 12:39:32 GMT


Thanks for forwarding this wise and fervent article. Be assured there are fellows, one at least, me, travelling down the same road at Brandeis University in the U.S.

Posted on 2009-03-10 22:41:21 GMT


1. Malvina, the Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in peace for over a thousand years in Jerusalem.. The Jews and Christians even helped Salahudeen Ayoube drive the Europeans out of the Holy Land. The Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together happily in Spain, we protected the Jews from the Christians that were trying t massacre them.. The Muslims and Hindus even lived together peacefully in India for 400 years. The Muslims and Christians lived together peacefully in Serbia and Greece.. Look at places like Iran and Morocco, Jews live with Muslims peacefully, in Iran the Jews get a higher political representation than their population percentage in comparison to other religious groups. Now I"ll never say that every action taken by those Muslim governments was correct, but it"s a clear demonstration that coexistence did not begin with secularism.. In fact more people have died from secular wars in the last 100 years than you could ever think of blaming religion for.. 2. Paul2.. First of all.. I submit to G-d, the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, the Merciful and Compassionate, the G-d of all of the Prophets including Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mary and Muhammad.. Peace be upon them all.. Regarding the Treaty that you are talking about, it was not the Muslims who broke this treaty, rather it was the Makkans.. The Muslims entered into this treaty for a period of 10 years in circumstances unfavourable to the Muslims.. The Makkans took that as a sign of weakness and thought it would be the perfect time to strike. They mistook Muhammad peace be upon him"s mercy and want for peace and good relations as a sign of weakness.. This backfired on them and they paid the price.. The Muslims marched into Mecca shortly after.. And hardly a drop of blood was spilled when they did.. And if you honestly think Paul2 that those crimes, the rapes, the rebirthing and gang violence are anything like Jihad you"re sorely mistaken.. Those are criminals doing criminal acts who should be brought to justice.. And most certainly you would never see a Jihad in Australia unless Australia was invaded and the Muslims within Australia engaged in Jihad against whoever was occupying Australia, which is our duty to do. Then most certainly we will fight and defend Australia, whether it was attacked by a Muslim or non Muslim.. Whether it"s China or Indonesia that attacked we"d fight them because we"re proud to be Australian. In regards to the Algerian revolution, this war was more about nationalism than Islam actually.. However I agree there were extremists in there, don"t expect me to defend them though because I believe that there is no compulsion in Islam and that if you force people to submit it"s only going to cause resentment. If you have a problem with the way that people view Israel"s continual aggression of the Palestinians, you only need to blame Israel.. Collective punishment, bombing UN run schools, hospitals and mosques, using White Phosphorous ammunition on civilians (a war crime), using Dense Inert Metal Explosive weapons which explode and cause very small fragments of Tungsten alloy to hit people, shredding their bodies to pieces, which when tested on rats caused a 100% cancer rate on all of them.. They don"t have the excuse of they didn"t know or it was an accident to bomb this school or that hospital, they have the most advanced military in the world with smart bombs they could drop from a plane kilometers in the air and it will go right through a window they want it to go through. They hit whatever they try to hit and the fact that in the war, that the majority of casualties on the Palestinian side were women and children are a testament to the fact that they are targeting civilians as a means to get them to submit or give up their support for Hamas.. That IS what the Nazi"s did in WW2.. 3. YMR, I"ve not only condemned these people, but I"ve openly called for Muslims to unite and create a militant organization to find these terrorists like Al Qaeda and extremists like the Taliban and to fight against them wherever they are because they have brought my religion into disrepute and they are a greater threat to the Muslims than any Israeli or American is. I"d like to give shorter answers, but it"s really impossible.. I do apologize for that.. I think that if the ICJS team created a proper forum for it with links on the article pages and a summary of the messages it"d be much easier to read.

Posted by Aqeel on 2009-03-10 12:53:20 GMT


If Aqeel looked in any dictionary he would see that Mohammedan (or Mohametan) is the religion of those who follow the Arabian distortion of the bible. A Moslem or Muslim is one who submits, but says nothing about what the person submits to. Aqeel can call himself whatever he likes, but I do not submit to any Mohammedan. Aqeel"s acquaintance with Islam is questionable if he does not know that Mohammed entered a ten year hudna with the Quraysh and broke it after 22 months. The insincerity of Mohammed is well known and Arafat referred to it on 10/5/94 in Johannesburg when he inferred that the Oslo Accords were not a sell-out, because he, like Mohammed had no intention of keeping them. And he didn"t! As for Ayesha, the sanitised version will not do, the more so as even today is Arabic societies there are still child brides; read Arabic news about marriages and ages of consent. As for stoning the confessed adultress, well, it shows the savagery of the"prophet". As I said previously, Jewish prophets and Christian apostles were into forgiveness. As regards war in Australia if Mohammedans were violent, what do you call the race rapes, the mini-jihad when the people in Crunulla reacted with violence to Mohammedan violence against women, the terrorists jailed or in trial, the drug and car rebirthing gangs, the gun violence, the support for "charities" that are Hamas fronts and the equating of the Gaza conflict with the Holocaust and Israelis (read Jews) with Nazis? During the Algerian religious wars, the Islamists said any woman without a hijab would have her throat cut and the secularists said any woman with a hijab would be similarly killed. A colleague at that time said: if they are Muslims, I am not. Like Tewfik Hamid or Sheikh Palazzo, my colleague was a civilised person, unlike Mohammedan apologists who are into da"wa.

Posted by paul2 on 2009-03-10 11:59:43 GMT


Paul2, First of all.. I"m a Muslim, not a Mohamedden, there is no such thing as you say.. Rather we say Muslim because we are those who submit to G-d through Islam.. You talk a lot of rubbish. Which peace treaties did Muhammad break? Name just one of them.. I assure you that you will not find such an example, unless of course you"d like to fabricate something for the audience. In regards to having war booty, that is called khums.. The Qur"an states in 8:41 "And know that out of all the booty that ye may acquire (in war), a fifth share is assigned to Allah,- and to the Messenger, and to near relatives, orphans, the needy, and the wayfarer,- if ye do believe in Allah and in the revelation We sent down to Our servant on the Day of Testing,- the Day of the meeting of the two forces. For Allah hath power over all things." That booty went didn"t go to create a luxurious lifestyle for the prophet, in fact he lived close to poverty. The only land he left when he died was the lands of Fadak which were not even booty, they were a gift to him. He left only a suit of armour, his sword and some other small things when he died so where did all of his immense wealth you claim he stole go? I believe I"ve already covered the issue on Aisha, regardless what some hadith (which were probably fabricated during the Umayyad rule) might state, the reality of the matter is that she was more likely closer to 16-21 at the time of their consummation of the marriage.. And you speak about the punishment of stoning for those who cheat on their wives/husbands? Yes this is the punishment in Islam for this crime.. However the truth is the person needs four reliable witnesses who saw the same act at the same time to testify against them.. Which means that the crime would have had to have been done in public.. In this woman"s case though, her crime was not in public and being pregnant was not enough to sentence her to death (contrary to what some Nigerian courts might think). Rather the woman came to the prophet peace be upon him and confessed her sin of adultery, and he sent her away and told her to ask forgiveness. Yet she came back again admitting her sin to him, but again he sent her away to ask God for forgiveness and again, a third time she came back to him confessing her sin. To which he stated to her to give birth to her child, wean it and then when the baby was old enough to come back if she wanted to confess again, which she did.. And she was stoned for adultery. When one of the people around the prophet insulted her calling her an adulteress the Prophet peace be upon him reprimanded the man, saying that she died a better Muslim than that man was. Because you see, the Prophet had no desire to see this punishment go ahead, he sent her away four times giving her the option to repent yet she kept coming back because she was devout. So before you presume to educate me about my own religion don"t. You"re really not intelligent or versed enough in Islam to teach me anything, and most certainly everyone is aware that your intentions are full of hate.. You are a bigot and an ignorant one at that. Lastly, if we were indeed populated by a majority of extremists I could assure you that there war on the streets of Australia. The fact is that the extremists in all faiths form a very small minority. If it was a large minority you"d see a much different world.. May G-d keep us from such a thing. Don"t you have a bridge that you should be hiding under Mr Troll?

Posted by Aqeel on 2009-03-09 15:01:53 GMT


I am disappointed that contributers have gone dumb in awe at a Mohammedan making moderate noises. Aqeel is as moderate, based on his commets as Tariq Ali, and as dissembling. In his reply to Malvina, Aqeel writes that the true threat to extremists is a truer interpretation of Qur"an and Sharia. He knows full well that the Qur"an is a dog"s breakfest of contradictory commentaries, depending on whether the profit had a good dream or a bad one. Each extremist picks the verse that suits him and accuses the other of false preaching. In his response to my comments he asserted the superiority of Islam over Jewish law, ignoring that firstly, the laws he derides date for millenia before Mohammed blinked and are no longer enforced. By the time Mohammed started breaking his "peace treaties" - never genuine like present Islamic ones are believed only by fools who choose to forget that jihad is a Mohammedan religious duty - the Talmud had been written and the prescribed barbarities had been by passed. It is these same barbarities that true believers in Islam clamour for. Not once has Aqeel stated that the Qur"an needs to be modernised! Aqeel talks about the saintliness of the Prophet. Yeah, like claiming a quarter of the booty in a war, having four times as many wives as anyone else, marrying Ayesha at 6 and raping her at 8 or 9 and later when she conveyed a complaint about a wife being beaten, giving her a punch up the tit. But the best bit about the Prophet is having the sentence of stoning on a confessed adultress carried out after she had weaned her infant! No Jewish prophet or Christian apostle was so cruel or vindictive as Mohammed. Aqeel really needs to learn about the man who invented his fascist religio-political credo. He needs to cease hiding what Irshad Manji stated: there are extermists in all faiths, but in Islam, they form the overwhelming majority. And yes, the good that is in Islam and Christianity both come from Judaism and that goodness, which forms the basis of any humanitarian society can be equally cherished by believers as by secular people.

Posted by paul2 on 2009-03-09 14:00:20 GMT


Well I agree to a large extent with what you said Malvina, though I don"t think that making the education secular is the solution. You see religion is so ingrained in these societies that even if you shut the madrassas down and create secular schools the children will still be influenced by the teachers of the madrassas who"ll teach in private if they have to. The biggest threat to their ideology is not secularism, simply because secularism will most certainly not take off there. Instead, a truer interpretation of the Qur"an and Sunnah needs to be implemented, a balanced form which was the way of the Prophet peace be upon him. That"s the biggest threat to the extremists, because they know their ideologies are bankrupt, that"s why they fight harder against Muslims who are more balanced than they fight against occupiers. I also think your idea that these people are the majority in the Muslim world is a bit far fetched. We are the largest religious group in the world with 1.6 billion Muslims, (Catholicism is 2nd place). If the majority of us were like this we would have most certainly over run the West by now. Rather the extremists are small in number, but they are backed by the Saudis and other extreme governments with huge sums of money which allows them to run many community projects and schools and the people need those projects and education badly so they put up with the ideas, which in turn influences a minority. The trick is simple, stop supporting Saudi Arabia.. Once they lose Western backing they"ll take them out of power. Most young Saudis hate the religious system they have there and they"ll work for something better.

Posted by Aqeel on 2009-03-07 08:32:03 GMT


Ymr, Thank you for your comment. I appreciate it. Right now I"m in the Middle East doing just that, my next stop may indeed just be Lahore if I get approval. Like I also said, if only the West would stop supporting such despotic regimes like the Saudis or Egyptian government. That would make change a whole lot easier. It wont happen over night but if the West simply just stayed out of it and showed the Muslim world the example of freedoms and liberties the people would rush towards it. Time and time again I hear people here saying they want that type of life. And actually I don"t think it"s adaptive Islam at all, rather I think this is the true nature of Islam. In fact I find the US Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution to be documents that mirror what I believe to be Islamic values in terms of governance and people"s rights. I just think that the Muslims went off of the straight path very soon after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. We need to discard these tribal and cultural practices and return to the message that was delivered.

Posted by Aqeel on 2009-03-06 18:19:44 GMT


You"re a fool to assume that I would agree with such people.. I do not see Israel or the West as the biggest threat to Muslims and Islam, rather I see those exact people who have such a black and white literal interpretation of the Quran and of Shariah without looking at proper context like the Wahabi Saudis and like the Taliban who do treat women and dhimmis like dirt and resort to brutal crimes of beheading unarmed civilians as the biggest threat to Islam and Muslims. That is why I consistently call for the West to stop supporting governments like the Saudi Government that promotes this Wahabi ideology and sends out huge sums of money to promote their sick ideas. And actually, in terms of Shariah law, Islam is certainly nowhere near as harsh as Jewish law and I can assure you that the good things in Islam are not all found in Judaism and were most certainly not taken from Judaism, yes both have the common root of monotheism but your notion that we took the good from Judaism and just left it at that is ridiculous. In Judaism daughters have no right to inheritance unless there are no sons. In Islam daughters have the right to inheritance regardless whether there are sons or not. Yes they get half the share of a son, but that is because they are not expected to support their own parents in their old age or providing for their own family as their husband is required to, nor are they burdened with the cost of a dowry, furnishing a house, paying for a wedding etc. All of those burdens go straight on the sons so they get a full share to be able to pay for all of that, the daughter\"s share is only her own and her husband has no rights to it in Islamic law. She doesnt have to hand over a cent of it. And before you accuse Muhammad peace be upon him of being a pedophile I suggest you actually do some research. Aisha"s age, regardless what some fabricated hadith may say has not been fully determined.. However all evidence points towards her age being at least 16 years old if not in her early twenties based on the time line of certain events.. But of course I\"d hate the facts to get in the way of your bigotry.. Next, you say that he dreamt this religion up out of thin air.. Okay, believe that if you want but it\"s so far fetched that he could just dream up the Quran that modern science has shown to contain many facts which we"ve only found recently.. Again.. RESEARCH. Lastly, before I leave you to your stupidity.. What wealth did Muhammad gain whilst he was a prophet? He helped his wives clean and cook, he mended his own clothing, he slept on an uncomfortable mattress that was not made out of silk or some luxurious material, and the mattress was not even the full length of his body. His legs used to hang off of it.. He was financially burdened by being a prophet.. It was pure prophet my friend, not profit..

Posted by Aqeel on 2009-03-06 03:50:16 GMT


Aqeel, your attempts at dawa are as commendable as they are laughable. Islam is the problem! The categories of good person and good Mohammedan are mutually exclusive. To put it into context, I am not a "good" Jew - I do not believe in stoning homosexuals or disobedient sons, in lex talionis or taking a wife before the priests and forcing her to drink a poluted brew to see if her "thighs" swell. The world wide jihadism is carried out by people who believe that the most strict interpretation of Q"uran and Sharai will bring about a caliphate and a perfect world under Islam. Their idea of a perfect world is a perfect horror for any civilised person, with its wife beatings, cross amputations and the inferior status of women and dhimmis. There is also the problem that any sheikh can launch a jihad and they regularly do, apart from seeing the world at perpetual war between the caliphate and the rest. What is happening currently is the traditional Islamic retreat into conservatism while power challenging. This is taking place where the corrupt are being accused by those who want to sieze power where they can enjoy the fruits of corruption. Keep this in mind: whatever is good in Islam has been taken from Judaism and the barbarity of that faith comes from the illiterate, thieving, lying, bloodthirsty paedophile who literally dreamed up a "religion" as a way of acquiring wealth and political power. So Aqeeel, before you attempt to change the world by dragging it into the 7th century and lulling to sleep those who are concerned about the fascism that underlies Mohammed"s creed, work with enlightened Muslims to bring your faith into the 21st century.

Posted by paul2 on 2009-03-06 00:41:56 GMT


Miriam, Muslims and Hindus lived together for hundreds of years in peace. There was great respect for each other during this time. But I believe that the Partition of India into India and Pakistan and trying to create an "Islamic State" caused the majority of these problems because once that diversity was lost, and the Wahabi teachings came in to the uneducated and poor it created a huge problem which we see today. Instead of creating an Islamic State they created a state of conflict and conflict has never stopped in Pakistan, whether it"s conflict with other countries or amongst themselves.. I have been invited by the Christian clergy to Lahore on the 21st-22nd of next month for an Interfaith Initiative to try and create proper relationships between the different religious groups, if I get a chance to go it will be good to do, but also very dangerous as we see. Pakistan seriously needs some reformation just like Saudi Arabia does. They are an embarrassment to Islam

Posted by Aqeel on 2009-03-05 14:10:20 GMT


All of the countries you mentioned are not Islamic, they are either monarchies, dictatorships or full of chaos. These terrorists might claim to do it for the cause of Islam, but they most certainly do not. Islam forbids the killing of unarmed civilians. I have said it many times, I"ll say it again.. The West should withdraw all support for Saudi Arabia and other nations like it that promote such disgusting teachings. The people dislike their governments and within a short space of time would remove it.

Posted by Aqeel on 2009-03-05 12:57:46 GMT


Ymr, this outrageous event has nothing to do with Islam, rather it has more to do with a lack of understanding of Islam. Pakistan, like many countries is so poor and the government doesn"t regulate the education system. Then Wahabi Saudi Arabia sends loads of cash to these religious organizations who themselves are Wahabi, those religious organizations build madrassa schools which teach extremism and a black and white ideology.. I spoke to my friend, a German Christian professor with 30 years experience in South Asia who works at a Lahore university and he says that he"s seen much worse there and those problems I mentioned are the root causes of this behaviour, not Islam.

Posted by Aqeel on 2009-03-05 10:46:49 GMT


It"s a truly odd situation.. There"s two things in Pakistan that are considered sacred above all else.. Islam and Cricket.. I think whoever did this act was not a Pakistani unless of course they were from a tribal Taliban area.. It was very disturbing and I hope they are brought to justice.

Posted by Aqeel on 2009-03-05 08:59:44 GMT