The world has been dealt a terrible puzzle: Syndicate Red Brown Green (Shiite) has through “Red” (post-Soviet neo-feudal Russia) a nuclear armed block to its ability to impose its better nature; “Brown Green” — national socialist, Islamist (Sunni side) promotes a program unpalatable most to those whose humanity, sense of justice, and sentiment could motivate intercession despite a nuclear armed Russia and an Iran positioned to acquire a similar capability if given about a year’s lead surreptitiously. Change those politics. I think Putin-Assad-Khamenei cannot get off their track by way of their investment in a medieval world view intended to keep themselves in power to the end of time. Baghdadi is about in the same place, but others might not be.
The God (concept) intended by the Jews was thrown out beyond the universe, made greater than even the universe, and with finality separated from humans, even Moses — and not even Moses parts the waters — and this is why. Somewhere between Assad and ISIS, the middle must pioneer its way, cast off the medieval, reach for something more human, more kind, more modern, more present, more survivable, more evolving, more progressing.
Perhaps when Syrians involved in fighting perceive their jihad as one involving the middle against the extremes, they will be on their way to peace.
For this day, dependence on the medieval concentration of power in one dictator, dynasty, junta, or nobility masks off the potential for a greater future. “Syndicate Red Brown Green” appears to be playing — by having other people die for its privileges –for the feudal mode and the perpetual war needed to keep the criminally powerful and wealthy in business for generations.
I have discussed this issue with two Islamic lawyers. One man is part of an Islamic Tribunal. The second, received his law degree from Damascus. These rulings are applicable in a modern age. There was no backing down, when I pressed hard for a logical explanation. The age of nine years was also given as a legal age for men to have intercourse with little girls.
Two schools of thought exist regarding apostasy. One school of thought is that an apostate Muslim must be killed immediately with the sword. The second school of thought allows the apostate to be secured alone for three days and given a chance to repent. If unrepentant, the individual can be clubbed to death. This clubbing, just might make the person repent before being beaten to a pulp. This ruling comes from a companion of one of the four great Islamic jurists, ash-Shafi’i.
That the religion of Islam lends itself TODAY to such criticism bodes ill yet for Muslims and others. As loud as outrage has become toward Daesh, which purports to represent the Islam presented by Muhammad, not one Muslim army has risen to crush it and crush away its barbarism (this despite some Big Talk from Jordan). Instead, the Kurdish community, which has to defend its own ethnolinguistic culture against Islamic aggressors (Turkey is the other), has proven the most effective army in the field; granted, Iraq’s Shiite militia infused with Iranian Revolutionary Guard have also gone up against their old familiar but transformed Baathist foes (become Daesh generals for the money dispersed by Baghdadi), but that is to sustain Shiite vs Sunni animus to the benefit of the career and legitimacy of Ayatollah Khamenei.
Contemporary Islamic humanists, reformers, rethinkers, revisionists, secularists have certainly emerged on the world’s sociopolitical radar (M. Zuhdi Jasser, Qanta Ahmed, Irshad Manji, Tarek Fatah, Sultan Shahin [New Age Islam]), but their names are yet young in history, and they too are in a kind of intellectual cradle within a universe of exegetical counterpoint to the al-Qaeda Typicals and the Hezbollah Viruses.
Abstract or dimensional variables associated with argument around “Islamism” or “Political Islam” may include conservatism, fascism, inflexibility, liberalism, narcissism, and religiosity, each term begging its own build-out in meaning. High intensity emotion, narcissism, obsessive focus, and rigidity — in one word: “intolerance” — begs disaster every time out as nature appear to prefer across flora, fauna, and human culture and thought abundance, adjustment, and variety.
(CNN)I am an observant Muslim. And because I am a Muslim, I believe in pluralism. I believe in tolerance. These are the beliefs that Islamist totalitarians are determined to extinguish in the world as they oppress and brutalize those they deem to be “the other.”
Guided by a false, supposedly Islamic doctrine, ISIS has enslaved and systematically raped Yazidi women and young girls. These crimes, described last week by The New York Times, are the latest example of how Islamism defiles Islam. This travesty crosses new thresholds of human depravity: holding pens for humans, busy slave markets, the bureaucratic herding, bidding and buying of Yazidi women and girls. ISIS demands that we confront these new horrors.
Update From the Awesome Conversation – June 29, 2015
Obama’s bought time to let education and this web-thingy update a generation of Persian professionals away from the medieval regime; he’s also demonstrated some U.S. – Saudi ability to degrade oil revenues, control the offsets in new revenue, and insult the regime (also Putin’s regime) using U.S. controls. Will the lesson take or has it worked? I guess we’re staying tuned and will find out.
I put up an Allen West post on Back-Channels — https://conflict-backchannels.com/…/the-united-states…/ — there’s the chance that the staunch conservative voice may overplay its hand, which relies here heavily on fear of the first delivery of a nuclear attack (could be dirty bombs delivered by rockets fired by Gaza; could be a one-off delivered by Hezbollah, which has got the full store of rockets already).
Money is funny for Khamenei’s regime. He and his brother are reputed to control a conservatively estimated $57 billion in personal assets. Basically, “state sponsorship” – personal, criminal, or actually from state coffers — of terrorism is not a financial problem — and its comes cheap in any case: what happens if others become more enriched, more dependent on the possession of their assets, more greedy for new business themselves?
So the nuclear deal seems a bad deal on old terms, but Obama’s ship of state and all attached to it left that harbor a while ago, and we’re sailing with these new variables in play. Ultimately, America is indigestible to the forces perceived by conservatives as enemy: we’re not going to be conquered, as much as we obsess about that, but the kind of evil posed, proposed, and sustained by Putin-Khamenei needs to be met by altering their native political demographics to come to more accommodating, more productive global standards. The two mentioned are playing or pushing for a more deeply medieval world steeped in greater chaos and conflict: we’re building a more modern world interlaced and held together by open communications, democratized business and personal relationships, and the embrace of anti-piratical and perhaps humanist overarching shared values.
The “nuclear deal” might be a bad deal — but it also might be a good move.
A rabbi said to me one day with regard to the Islamic Small Wars, “Everyone’s in too much of a hurry to get to the end of the story.”
Well then, as regards global conflict and threat: let’s hasten slowly and be not so much in a hurry to see how it all ends.
Time may work in the favor of our humanity against the ravages brought to it by those “malignant narcissists” we call “presidents for life” and “supreme leaders”, the human containers and projectors of absolute personal (also often infantile and sadistic) power.
Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people, a Hebrew-speaking ethnic cohort. It is also a religion lending itself to both humanist and universalist appeal, which has produced across thousands of years adoption, adaptation, and buy-in by other people.
Generally missing from the conversation: Hillel the Elder and his role in producing a more accessible, legalist, and practical screed. Hillel has been reported as passing away in 10-CE.
The cultural uptake of Judaism and the expansion of distinct retelling, reinterpretation, and additions appear to have been abetted by two generals: Constantine and Muhammad. Each appears to have wanted the final word, and a portion of their followers the annihilation of the Jews, so that history could begin with themselves.
Well: no Moses — no Muhammad.
We’re not done as explorers in time brought closer together by the possession of some metaphysical themes held in common.
That noted, the Jews, well possessed of a distinct beliefs, a calendar, customs, language, rituals, and legal ideas, have had to eject or leave themselves quite a bit of lore across more than 5,000 years of coherent and cohesive existence. No majority will ever go back to animal sacrifice and the keeping of smoking altars, for example.
Let’s go forward with time, not backward.
The inspiration: a simple Venn diagram with “Judaism” circles to the left and within a larger circle to right, separate circles denoting “Judaism”, “Christianity”, and “Muhammad’s Sharia”, and then above those three the statement, “Shalom/Islam”.
Forget supremacism, especially Islamic supremacism, which has been proving itself deadly worldwide through its blood-drenched zealots. And leave alone the Jews, but not consideration of Jewish thought that repeatedly bears the challenges and tests brought to it by the barbaric across time.
According to the Qur’an, Allah is the “best of deceivers” (3:54; 8:30). The phrase is often translated into English as “best of planners,” “best of schemers,” or “best of plotters,” but the root word (makr) means “deception.” Hence, the following Qur’an verses should be rendered as follows:
Qur’an 3:54—And they (the unbelievers) planned to deceive, and Allah planned to deceive (the unbelievers), and Allah is the best of deceivers.
Qur’an 7:99—Are they then safe from Allah’s deception? No one feels safe from Allah’s deception except those that shall perish.
Qur’an 8:30—And (remember) when the unbelievers plotted deception against you (O Muhammad), to imprison you, or kill you, or expel you. They plotted deception, but Allah also plotted deception; and Allah is the best of deceivers.
The historical background for the verse is that the Jews ‘planned’ evil in order to get Jesus arrested and crucified. And Allah in the verse says as they planned evil, so too Allah planned to thwart their wicked plan. Christian missionaries have an issue with the words used for both the Jews and Allah. They prefer to translate this way:
“and [they] deceived and Allah deceived and Allah is the best of deceivers”
The above translation does not exist. It is only made up by crazy deluded missionaries in order to lead people astray. Arabic word(s) makr, Makara can be used negatively and for good. So when the Jews planned to get Jesus arrested and crucified, that was evil, whereas when Allah thwarted their evil plan by saving Jesus, this was good.
True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ;(13) still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.
Verily methinks the woman was deceived, the Jews were libled — the whole lot, and the post-Holocaust Vatican compelled to clarify the truth of its position in relation to the Jewish People.
Ironically related reference on the Soviet framing of WWII’s Pope Pius XII as “Hitler’s Pope”: Pacepa, Ion Mihai and Rychlak, Ronald J. Disinformation. Washington, D.C.: WND Books, 2013. (BackChannels readers will find more of similar in “The Russian Section” of the resident library).
Further related and more conveniently accessed: Akin, Jimmy. “How Pius XII Protected Jews.” Catholic Answers, n.d.: “Hochhuth’s fictional image of a silent (though active) pope has been transformed by the anti-Catholic rumor mill into the image of a silent and inactive pope—and by some even into an actively pro-Nazi monster. If there were any truth to the charge that Pius XII was silent, the silence would not have been out of moral cowardice in the face of the Nazis, but because the Pope was waging a subversive, clandestine war against them in an attempt to save Jews.”
As people lie — engage in deception — either to hide something or to get something, we know, this according to Ms. Lessing, what the ignoble imam was after; and according to Jimmy Akin as well as the breathtaking revelations of Pacepa and Rychlak (2013), we know what the noble Pope Pius XII was hiding for good cause.
The Discover the Truth blog goes on to note the moral ambiguity involved in the term “makr” this way: “The word, makr in Arabic denotes a subtle and secret move or plan. If this is for a good purpose, it is good; and if this is for a bad purpose, it is bad.”
The argument places the determination of good deed or evil beyond the declaration of Surat 3:54: “And (the unbelievers) plotted and planned, and Allah too planned, and the best of planners is Allah” (Yusuf Ali’s translation).
Again: “The word, makr in Arabic denotes a subtle and secret move or plan. If this is for a good purpose, it is good; and if this is for a bad purpose, it is bad.”
It would appear that “being the best of planners” — being the most proficient among the makers of subtle and secret moves or plans — would be a thing separate from being either good or evil, i.e., the statement is about facility in the making of “subtle and secret moves” and neutral about ethical and moral virtue, plain dealing, and straight talk as behaviors civil, desirable, good, and lawful in and of themselves.
Given so much encouragement and license for the making of “subtle and secret moves”, who then — or what — determines the qualities of good cause?
I’ll leave that question rhetorical.
One might suppose that had Lessing’s imam been honest with her, Lessing may yet be wearing her hijab with pride.
The world is the world as found, X., and we’re a wild species in it. The AQ-Typicals and the Hezbollahvirus may be part of a larger mix of lawless souls represented by Russia’s Emperor De Facto and his “New Nobility” and assorted New Nationalists and National Socialists, and that is what has the UN going after Israel and the inheritors in whole and part of the legacy of Moses the Lawgiver.
The more familiar the message, the more distilled and telegraphed it becomes.
In political shorthand, the “West” becomes “Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian”; the arrangement of the most significant and virulent forces opposed: “Syndicate Red Brown Green“.
Elaboration seems no longer needed.
Additional concepts and data may be helpful as regards challenges inherent in the governance of states opposed to the western democracies and their true allies worldwide: Egypt failed in its first foray as a democracy, proving itself unprepared for the aggressive fascism of the Muslim Botherhood — and it chose to advance to the rule of a military pursuing business for itself and the state while promoting for all Egyptians a moderating classical liberalism. For sheer expanse and numbers, China too would seem imprudent were it to rapidly transfer the powers of the ruling elite now invested in the west — and proud to own some mansions in Melbourne and elsewhere — across a democratized but perhaps also disorganized sea of humanity.
For the greater part, possibly, our international competitions may be also naturally adjusting, but there are bloodied fringes too: Russian hybrid warfare in Ukraine has made a dismal space of Crimea, and one that on the Russo-nationalist track has no durable, ennobled, or happy future, so mired has Putin’s revanche neo-feudal Russia become in political crime (a visit to “The Russian Section” may help clarify that assertion).
Today’s “Brown” (for “Brown Shirts”, Nazis, National Socialists, Nationalists of the want of a stripe of ethnic, racial, or religious purity — in that last aspect, everyone, Jews included, may have someone among the “the pure” bearing in common affection for the fascist’s favored color in work shirts) wears camouflage:
In a recent interview with Reuters, Mr Vona claimed: “With time, the [extremist] elements of Jobbik you may see as prevalent will fade because they no longer find their calling here.”
This attempt at detoxification, à la National Front in France, has convinced few observers, however. Political analyst Peter Kreko says: “The hardcore antisemitism, the hardcore anti-Roma sentiments, are still present in Jobbik, they simply display it less prominently.”
“Brown” also shimmers, but since the defeat of nationalist fascism in Europe and even with the development and morphing of similar movements in Russia like Pamyat and Russian National Unity, it has a deeply fragmented and riven aspect to it. There is no unifying “internationalist nationalist” framework for belligerence. Perhaps ironically, BackChannels encouragement of “ethnolinguistic cultural integrity” and responsive geospatial arrangements in troubled regions addresses exactly the kernel that anchors the idea of “The Jewish State” — or that of those who dream of an independent Balochistan or a unified Kurdistan. Nonetheless, when Hungary’s Jobbik Party has associated itself with the regime in Iran, the “Brown-Green” portion of “Red Brown Green” would seem apt.
No Moses?
No Muhammad.
However, with Moses and Muhammad and Jesus between — and so many other personalities of historic note, including the the BC to CE-bridging Hillel the Elder — the world may boast of including about seven billion “Abrahamic” monotheists, however fractious. Faced with the onslaughts of the Islamists and the plain thieving promoted by the Feudalists, most might prefer the “rule of law” to the bloody enslavement and exploitation of the lawless.
With the introduction of the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” and Eve’s predictable transgression, the Torah introduces three aspects of humanity that are to accompany its journey through time: human consciousness, self-consciousness, and conscience.
Ah, to be burdened by conscience!
Says Hillel the Elder to an as yet unconvinced prospective convert: “That which is distasteful to thee, do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study.”
Awareness of others . . . conscience . . . some justice inherent in the phrase that anchors a good portion of the law and empirical legal methods: “Because it could happen to you” — whatever it is.
Rule of law.
As opposed to the rule of men who have made themselves into unbridled, unconscionable, unredeemable monsters.
Anti-Semitic expression involves lying, sometimes grossly so as with the medieval “blood libel“, but often also with subtlety by way of obfuscations and omissions easily overlooked by lazy minds short on curiosity or time and long, perhaps, on culturally transmitted and enforced bad feeling (about someone — could be anyone — outside their own known group).
As hatreds go, one might find the signals of anti-Semitic thought inherently criminal for being plainly disingenuous.
There’s nothing more to it.
What makes anti-Semitic cant more interesting is who embraces it and exploits the same in the interest of developing or furthering their own powers of abuse.
Suicide terrorism has become so commonplace that it is easy to overlook how relatively new and suddenly popular the phenomenon is. Between the end of World War II and the Iranian revolution, there were no suicide attacks in the world. Yet only months after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini solidified power and formed the Pasdaran and Basij, suicide attacks began to appear in conflicts involving Shiites (Lebanon, the Iran-Iraq war) and then took root among Palestinian Sunni groups.[3] It eventually became the preferred tactic of Islamist terror organizations.
Khomeini selected specific passages from the Qur’an and hadith (canonical collections of Muhammad’s alleged sayings and actions) to craft his suicidal version of radical Islam. His two-part rhetorical plan necessitated convincing Muslims that suicide is not suicide and that death is not death.
Condemning the move, a Save the Children official told Reuters that the Pakistan government had been stopping aid shipments entering the country, “blocking aid to millions of children and their families”. It comes after the Pakistani government announced it was tightening the rules for NGOs, revoking several of their licences. An interior ministry official said on Friday it had cancelled agreements with at least 15 foreign charities, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, on the advice of intelligence agencies that said the organisations had been “collecting sensitive data” from Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
Foreign charities have complained that they have been treated with increasing hostility and suspicion in Pakistan, with obstacles to their work becoming ever more difficult especially in the last 6 months.
Others who are like you will have to fight back with you.
Gather around: the outlook is not a perspective: it is a religion, a religious obligation; and constitutionally supported.
The truth is as it is made out — The polio vaccine was fake. ” . . . Interior Minister Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan, said the organisations in question “are operating with support from the United States, Israel and India” (from Wilson Chowdhry’s piece).
That Christian missions and press spoil against their Islamic counterparts holds no surprise, but what presumably educated adults in Pakistan are willing to do to children, their own or others, beneath the cover of paranoid conspiracy theories and socially lauded hate, surpasses cruelty.
The greater story — what may be found as one rises above an animosity that is as medieval as it may be parochial — is that other Pakistanis, including other elements in governance, are again struggling to save children from Poliomyelitis.
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