Infiltração jihadista (15)

Elogio da autoria de Anwar al-Awlaki, imã da mesquita Dar al Hijrah, situada em Falls Church, Virgina, EUA, ao autor do ataque terrorista de Fort Hood, Major Nidal Hassan, que terá frequentado a dita mesquita e beneficiado da orientação espiritual de Awlaki, assim como dois dos autores dos atentados de 11 de Setembro antes dele. Tomei conhecimento deste elogio via Victor Davis Hanson. Não consegui encontrar a fonte. O texto aparece publicado em vários sites. Num deles encontrei um endereço de um blogue com o nome do imã, blogue que se encontra sem actividade. Mas passemos ao elogio e aprendamos com as palavras do imã, cheias de conhecimento de causa. Temos muito mais a aprender com os islamistas que são francos acerca dos seus propósitos e das suas estratégias do que com os intelectuais ocidentais que procuram encontrar explicações alternativas. Por que razão havemos de duvidar das palavras de al-Awlaki e acreditar nas de um qualquer dhimmi apostado em perpetuar a cegueira do Ocidente face à ameaça que nos assola?

«Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn’t exist. Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a US soldier. The US is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam. Its army is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest through its stooges….[T]he only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal….The fact that fighting against the US army is an Islamic duty today cannot be disputed. No scholar with a grain of Islamic knowledge can defy the clear cut proofs that Muslims today have the right -rather the duty- to fight against American tyranny. Nidal has killed soldiers who were about to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in order to kill Muslims.»

Realmente, muito instrutivo.

Infiltração jihadista (14)

Michelle Malkin, num artigo já aqui referido, elenca casos anteriores de militares muçulmanos norte-americanos que assassinaram concidadãos.

• John Muhammad, the Beltway jihadist put to death Tuesday night, was a member of the Army's 84th Engineering Company. As I've reported previously, Muhammad was suspected of throwing a thermite grenade into a tent housing 16 of his fellow soldiers as they slept before the ground-attack phase of Gulf War I in 1991. Muhammad was admitted to the Army despite being court-martialed while serving in the Louisiana National Guard for willfully disobeying orders, striking another noncommissioned officer, wrongfully taking property and being absent without leave. Although Muhammad was led away in handcuffs and transferred to another company pending charges for the grenade attack, an indictment never materialized. Muhammad was honorably discharged from the Army in 1994. He later brainwashed young Lee Malvo in black nationalism and jihad -- and the two carried out the three-week killing spree that left 10 dead in 2002 in the name of Allah.
• Muslim American soldier Hasan Abujihaad was convicted last year on espionage and material terrorism support charges after serving aboard the USS Benfold and sharing classified information with al-Qaida financiers, including movements of U.S. ships just six months after al-Qaida operatives had killed 17 Americans aboard the USS Cole in the port of Yemen.

• Jeffrey Leon Battle was a former Army reservist, convicted of conspiring to levy war against the United States and "enlisting in the Reserves to receive military training to use against America." He had planned to wage war against American soldiers in Afghanistan.
• Egyptian Ali A. Mohamed joined the U.S. Army while a resident alien despite being on a State Department terrorist watch list before securing his visa. An avowed Islamist, he taught classes on Muslim culture to U.S. Special Forces at Fort Bragg, N.C., and obtained classified military documents. He was granted U.S. citizenship over the objections of the CIA. Honorably discharged from the Army in 1989, Mohamed then hooked up with Osama bin Laden as an escort, trainer, bagman and messenger. Mohamed used his U.S. passport to conduct surveillance at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. He later pleaded guilty to conspiring with bin Laden and admitted his role in the 1998 African embassy bombings that killed more than 200 people, including a dozen Americans.

E conclui, acerca da obstinada persistência em recusar ver as evidentes ligações entre o radicalismo islâmico e o ataque de Fort Hood, motivado, segundo Malkin pelo politicamente correcto:

«(...) Political correctness is a gangrenous infection. My generation has submitted to a toxic diet of multiculturalism, identity politics, anti-Americanism and entitlement. The problem festered under the Bush administration. Despite 9/11, government at all levels refused to screen out jihadi-apologizing influences in our military, at the FBI, in prisons and even fire departments. Despite the bloody consequences of open borders, the Bush Pentagon allowed llegal aliens to enter the military. The grievance lobby has plied the Muslim jihadist-as-victim narrative for nearly a decade now. They prevail. In June, Muslim domestic terror suspect Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad went on another shooting spree at an Arkansas recruiting station that left one serviceman dead. The Obama Justice Department response: to redouble its efforts to use "criminal and civil rights laws to protect Muslim Americans." Next week, Attorney General Eric Holder will speak at a banquet featuring the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an unindicted co-conspirator in the terrorism financing case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. How did Fort Hood happen, obtuse Washington asks. Simple: Blind diversity equals death.»

Exéquias das vítimas de Fort Hood (2)

Outra perspectiva, mais crítica, sobre o discurso de Obama:

«The violence at Fort Hood, President Obama told mourners on Tuesday, was "incomprehensible." The "twisted logic that led to the tragedy," he reiterated, may be "too hard to comprehend." (...) [T]he Obama administration is suffering a willful failure of comprehension. What exactly is so hard to comprehend? Fort Hood jihadist Maj. Nidal Hasan made his means, motives and inspiration all too clear for those willing to see and hear. In his 2007 slide presentation to fellow Army doctors on "The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the Military," Hasan spelled it out: "We love death more then (sic) you love life!" Hasan exposed the deadly tension between his adherence to Islam and his service in the U.S. military. Slide 11 stated: "It's getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims." Slide 12 cited Koranic sanctions for killing fellow believers. And Hasan made clear he wasn't alone among Muslim soldiers who "should not serve in any capacity that renders them at risk to hurting/killing believers unjustly." (...)»

Malkin vê nas palavras de Obama, onde eu vi reconhecimento implícito de uma motivação religiosa, uma tentativa de negar essa possibilidade por ser alegadamente imcompreensível e irreligiosa em si mesma.

Exéquias das vítimas de Fort Hood

Notável discurso do presidente Obama, reconhecendo implicitamente que o ataque de Fort Hood foi um acto de jihad. Pena que não o tenha dito com mais clareza. Eis as passagens nas quais me parece que esse reconhecimento é patente:

«(...) It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy. But this much we do know — no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor. And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice — in this world, and the next. These are trying times for our country. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the same extremists who killed nearly 3,000 Americans continue to endanger America, our allies, and innocent Afghans and Pakistanis. In Iraq, we are working to bring a war to a successful end, as there are still those who would deny the Iraqi people the future that Americans and Iraqis have sacrificed so much for. (...) We are a nation that guarantees the freedom to worship as one chooses. And instead of claiming God for our side, we remember Lincoln's words, and always pray to be on the side of God. (...) Here, at Fort Hood, we pay tribute to thirteen men and women who were not able to escape the horror of war, even in the comfort of home. Later today, at Fort Lewis, one community will gather to remember so many in one Stryker Brigade who have fallen in Afghanistan. (...)»

Nos primeiro parágrafo citado, Obama reconhece as motivações religiosas do ataque, seguindo-se uma referência às guerras em curso que parece enquadrar o ataque; no último parágrafo, Obama equipara as vítimas de Fort Hood às do Afeganistão. Um discurso no qual Obama parece admitir o carácter jihadista do ataque - pondo-se a coberto dos que exigem realismo e firmeza -, sem, no entanto, comprometer o seu estatuto de Nobel e príncipe da paz, não alienando a sua base eleitoral pacifista e apaziguadora do Islão. Infelizmente, sem surpresas, Obama também já disse que tudo pode não ter passado de um acto de loucura individual. Estimulação contraditória? Esperemos que o presidente saiba agir em conformidade com as conclusões que parece tirar, embora, conhecendo a sua forma de fazer política, receie que tudo isto não venha a passar de mais um belo discurso. sem consequências práticas no que diz respeito às políticas da sua administração. Entretanto, sigamos as investigações e as discussões sobre este ataque terrorista, por exemplo via Jihad Watch. Via Hot Air.

Infiltração jihadista (13)

«Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, the Army psychiatrist believed to have killed 13 people at Fort Hood, was supposed to discuss a medical topic during a presentation to senior Army doctors in June 2007. Instead, he lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting wars in Muslim countries.»

Bastante instrutivo, como que avisando os seu camaradas de armas para o perigo que ele próprio constituía. Como advertência para um ataque iminente, só falta mesmo exortar a audiência a converter-se.

Dizer a verdade, sem paninhos quentes

Conhece-se o pano de fundo - um debate sobre a ordem de um tribunal da União das Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas da Europa para a remoção dos crucifixos das escolas italianas - mas não fica claro exactamente em que contexto Daniela Santachè disse o que muitos temem dizer sequer em surdina, muito menos directamente a um oponente muçulmano - pelo que consigo perceber, Santachè parece contestar uma tentativa do seu interlocutor de pôr em pé de igualdade o cristianismo e o islamismo, ou Cristo e Mafoma. O que disse então Santachè? Que, segundo a nossa sensibilidade, Mafoma era polígamo e pedófilo, de acordo, acrescento eu, com a informação que nos chega por via das próprias fontes islâmicas, em várias passagens da Sahih al-Bukhari, uma importante hadith, recolha dos ditos e feitos do profeta Mafoma; aqui fica um exemplo:

Sahih al-Bukhari, 5.236: «Narrated Hisham's father: Khadija died three years before the Prophet departed to Medina. He stayed there for two years or so and then he married `Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consumed that marriage when she was nine years old.»

E não vale a pena dizer que a época era outra, que na Arábia do sec. VII casar com crianças de seis anos de idade e consumar a união carnal aos nove era normal: há quem assegure que só passou a ser depois do exemplo de Mafoma. E mesmo que fosse verdade, o problema persistiria, devido à doutrina islâmica segundo a qual Mafoma é o homem perfeito e o seu exemplo deve ser seguido por todos os homens de todos os tempos. (Addendum: Via Gates of Vienna chego a este video mais extenso e com legendas em inglês, que substitui o anteriormente publicado. De lamentar apenas que as interjeições do representante muçulmano não sejam traduzidas.) É claro que os muçulmanos de Itália não gostaram e afirmam estar à procura de uma base legal para processar a ex-parlamentar, que já se tinha envolvido numa polémica anterior com os muçulmanos italianos devido à sua oposição frontal ao uso da burca em Itália. Com ou sem fundamento legal, parece-me que aquilo que deve preocupar Santachè não é, evidentemente, a possibilidade de ser cível ou criminalmente sancionada por um tribunal italiano, mas sim o ser sumariamente condenada por um tribunal islâmico e ser alvo de uma fatwa decretando a sua morte, como se pode ver pela reacção do interlocutor de Santache e do indivíduo do público que se levantou em protesto. Mulher de coragem! Haverá em Itália quem saia em sua defesa? E por cá? Há, na nossa vida pública, homens e mulheres assim? É urgente organizar a resistência! Por Sant'Iago! Via Politically Incorrect e Tundra Tabloids.

Infiltração jihadista (12)

Daniel Pipes elenca um conjunto de crimes cujos fortes indícios de motivações religiosas as autoridades policiais e judiciais norte-americanas preferiram não valorizar:

• [S]laughter of the Armanious family (husband, wife, two young daughters), Copts living in Jersey City, N.J., (...) Christian Egyptian immigrant[s] who dares engage in Internet polemics against Islam and who attempts to convert Muslims to Christianity. (...) Somehow, the prosecutor missed that all four members of this quiet family were savagely executed in the ritualistic Islamist way (multiple knife attacks and near-beheading); that Jersey City has a record of Islamist activism and jihadi violence, and that the www.paltalk.com website carried a threat against Hossam Armanious: "We are going to track you down like a chicken and kill you."

• The 1990 murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane by the Islamist El Sayyid Nosair was initially ascribed by the police to "a prescription drug for or consistent with depression."

• The 1999 crash of EgyptAir 990, killing 217 - by a co-pilot not supposed to be near the aircraft's controls at that time who repeated 11 times "I rely on God" as he wrenched the plane down - went unexplained by the National Transportation Safety Board.

• The 2002 purposeful crash of a small plane into a Tampa high-rise by bin Laden-sympathizer Charles Bishara Bishop went unexplained; the family chimed in by blaming the acne drug Accutane.

• The 2003 murder and near-decapitation in Houston of an Israeli by a former Saudi friend who had newly become an Islamist found the police unable to discern "any evidence" that the crime had anything to do with religion.

A decisão de não admitir as motivações religiosas para alguns crimes violentos não ocorre apenas nos EUA:

• The 1993 attack on foreign guests dining at the Semiramis Hotel in Cairo, killing five, accompanied by the Islamist cry "Allahu Akbar," inspired the Egyptian government to dismiss the killer as insane.

• The 2000 attack on a bus of visibly Jewish schoolchildren near Paris by a hammer-wielding North African yelling "You're not in Tel-Aviv!" prompted police to describe the assault as the result of a traffic incident.

• The 2003 fire that gutted the Merkaz HaTorah Jewish secondary school in a Paris suburb, requiring 100 firefighters to douse the flames, was described by the French minister of the interior as being merely of "criminal origin."

• The 2004 murder of a Hasidic Jew with no criminal record as he walked an Antwerp street near a predominantly Muslim area left the Belgian authorities stumped: "There are no signs that racism was involved."

Num outro postal Pipes analisa um conjunto adicional de crimes cuja motivação parece ser religiosa, em número considerável. A persistência na decisão de não ver qualquer indício de jihad nestes crimes pode ser, ela própria, crime de negligência por parte das autoridades. Se as autoridades policiais e de investigação se recusam a aceitar que alguns crimes podem ter motivação religiosa, não é de esperar que os políticos se vejam forçados a tomar medidas que previnam este tipo de ocorrências. Se os media se recusam a aceitar que um indivíduo mate outros por razões religiosas, os cidadãos nunca sentirão necessidade de se organizar para se proteger, nem de exigir protecção das autoridades.

Infiltração jihadista (11)

Mais do Revolution Muslim: http://revolutionmuslim.com/ Um registo audio de um jovem muçulmano americano, frequentador da mesma mesquita que o perpetrador do ataque terrorista de Fort Hood, que não só não condena o acto como ainda afirma que os soldados americanos alvejados eram alvos legítimos, uma vez que se preparavam para matar muçulmanos no Iraque e no Afeganistão: Sob o video, a fotografia de uma das vítimas mortais do atentado terrorista, com uma mofosa consideração sobre as razões que a levaram a alistar-se. http://revolutionmuslim.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=722:duane-is-quite-sane-alhumdulilah&catid=1:yousefalkhattab&Itemid=4 Ralé humana.

Infiltração jihadista (10)

Eis como os muçulmanos do site Revolution Muslim (http://revolutionmuslim.com) reagem ao ataque jihadista de Fort Hood: http://revolutionmuslim.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=519:an-officer-a-a-gentleman&catid=1:yousefalkhattab&Itemid=4 Nota: decidi deixar as hiperligações sem as activar, de modo a evitar ser identificado, através de trackback, por um conjunto de pessoas que actua globalmente e que já deu provas de não ter qualquer escrúpulo em atentar contra os seus opositores, entre os quais me incluo. Acontece que para lhes fazer frente é necessária uma organização e um colectivo, sem os quais qualquer indivíduo é um alvo fácil, e que urge criar em todo o mundo. Com os endereços, os interessados podem verificar por si próprios o que os nossos inimigos (penso ser correcto usar esta expressão, uma vez que eles nos consideram seus inimigos) pensam, como agem e o que pretendem fazer. Por Sant'Iago!

Infiltração jihadista (9)

Estes senhores (http://revolutionmuslim.com/) não têm dúvidas de que o ataque de Fort Hood foi, efectivamente, um ataque terrorista com motivações religiosas. Eles estão entre nós. Aviso: a linguagem deste video, assim como dos textos que li no site, é explícita, a atitude desafiadora. Mais que medo, instila raiva e sede de vingança. Nota: decidi deixar as hiperligações sem as activar, de modo a evitar ser identificado, através de trackback, por um conjunto de pessoas que actua globalmente e que já deu provas de não ter qualquer escrúpulo em atentar contra os seus opositores, entre os quais me incluo. Acontece que para lhes fazer frente é necessária uma organização e um colectivo, sem os quais qualquer indivíduo é um alvo fácil, e que urge criar em todo o mundo. Com os endereços, os interessados podem verificar por si próprios o que os nossos inimigos (penso ser correcto usar esta expressão, uma vez que eles nos consideram seus inimigos) pensam, como agem e o que pretendem fazer. Por Sant'Iago!

Infiltração jihadista (8)

No seguimento das investigações acerca do atentado terrorista/ataque tresloucado de Fort Hood chego a um site que conhecia apenas de nome e que se dedica sobretudo a seguir os avanços do Islão na Escandinávia - o Tundra Tabloids - e a um estudioso dos conflitos no Médio Oriente, Barry Rubin. A acompanhar.

Infiltração jihadista (7)

Acerca das raízes islâmicas da violência contra os infiéis, ler este postal de Andrew Bostom:

«(...) Hasan’s own apparent views on jihad martyrdom are entirely consistent with mainstream, orthodox Islamic dogma on this sacralized killing of the enemies of Islam, which should not be conflated with “suicide” resulting from melancholia, or depression.

Franz Rosenthal, the late (d. 2002) Yale University scholar of Islam, who, 50 years ago, translated Ibn Khaldun’s classic Introduction To History, also wrote a seminal essay entitled “On Suicide in Islam” in 1946. Rosenthal’s research confirmed how Islam extolled “suicidal” martyrdom attacks:

While the Qur’anic attitude toward suicide remains uncertain, the great authorities of the hadith leave no doubt as to the official attitude of Islam. In their opinion suicide is an unlawful act….On the other hand, death as the result of “suicidal” missions and of the desire of martyrdom occurs not infrequently, since death is considered highly commendable according to Muslim religious concepts. (Emphasis added.) However, such cases are no[t] suicides in the proper sense of the term.

These orthodox Islamic views have been reiterated by Yusuf Al Qaradawi—“spiritual” leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, head of the European Fatwa Council, and immensely popular Al-Jazeera television personality, as well as Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University, the most prestigious center of Muslim learning in Sunni Islam. Sheikh Qaradawi openly endorsed murderous Palestinian homicide bomber “martyrdom” operations against innocent Israeli citizens (all of whom are considered “combatants” who obstruct the “call to Islam”) during a fatwa council convened in the heart of Europe (in Stockholm, July, 2003). For the past decade, Sheikh Tantawi, who is the nearest equivalent to a Muslim Pope, has also confirmed the legitimacy of homicide bombing of Jews, characterizing these grisly attacks as

…the highest form of Jihad operations…the young people executing them have sold Allah the most precious thing of all…every martyrdom operation against any Israeli, including children, women, and teenagers, is a legitimate act according to [Islamic] religious law, and an Islamic commandment, until the people of Palestine regain their land.

(...)»

Infiltração jihadista (6)

Mark Steyn comenta, no National Review Online, a grave falha estratégica que mina os esforços americanos - diria antes, do ocidente - para fazer frente ao terrorismo islâmico: a recusa em escrutinar as raízes islâmicas - bem implantadas no Corão, nas ahadith, na Sira, na exegese dos ulema - da violência contra os infiéis: a jihad.

«(...) Since 9/11, we have (...) judged people by their actions — flying planes into skyscrapers, blowing themselves up in Bali nightclubs or London Tube trains, planting IEDs by the roadside in Baghdad or Tikrit. And on the whole we’re effective at responding with action of our own — taking out training camps in Afghanistan, rolling up insurgency networks in Fallujah and Ramadi, intercepting terror plots in London and Toronto and Dearborn. But we’re scrupulously non-judgmental about the ideology that drives a man to fly into a building or self-detonate on the subway, and thus we have a hole at the heart of our strategy. We use rhetorical conveniences like “radical Islam” or, if that seems a wee bit Islamophobic, just plain old “radical extremism.” But we never make any effort to delineate the line which separates “radical Islam” from non-radical Islam. Indeed, we go to great lengths to make it even fuzzier. (...) Major Hasan is not a card-carrying member of the Texas branch of al-Qaeda reporting to a control officer in Yemen or Waziristan. If he were, things would be a lot easier. But the pathologies that drive al-Qaeda beat within Major Hasan too, and in the end his Islamic impulses trumped his expensive Western education, his psychiatric training, his military discipline — his entire American identity. (...) The vast majority of Muslims don’t conspire to kill cartoonists or murder their daughters or shoot dozens of their fellow soldiers. But Islam inspires enough of this behavior to make it a legitimate topic of analysis. (...) What happened to those men and women at Fort Hood had a horrible symbolism: Members of the best trained, best equipped fighting force on the planet gunned down by a guy who said a few goofy things no one took seriously. And that’s the problem: America has the best troops and fiercest firepower, but no strategy for throttling the ideology that drives the enemy — in Afghanistan and in Texas.»

Queda do Muro de Berlim: 20 anos (3)

LARRY GREENFIELD

«(...) The year was 1987, the year that Pres. Ronald Reagan, at the Brandenburg Gate, told Mr. Gorbachev to Tear Down This Wall. Reagan early and often promoted liberty, American exceptionalism, and human rights. All those who escaped Communism by hidden secret compartments in cars, or by tunnel, or by hot-air balloon, or in fantastic motorized water packs, and all those who died trying, had a friend in Ronald Reagan and the American people, including, previously, Pres. John F. Kennedy. From the Berlin airlift to spiritual uplift, great American leaders have always resolutely stood up for freedom. Until now. Mr. Obama came to Berlin in 2008, while campaigning, and has continued to preen for foreign approval by apologizing around the globe for the United States. But this year, the celebrations will take place without him. Berlin, 2009. Celebration of liberty and America’s heroic leaders. Mr. Obama, apparently this is not your place. President Reagan, meanwhile, will now have an exhibit dedicated to his leadership at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. »

— Larry Greenfield is fellow in American studies at the Claremont Institute and executive director of the Reagan Legacy Foundation. ALLEN C. GUELZO

«(...) Mr. Obama invites the shrillest voices to conclude that, in his view of the world, the Cold War was nothing more than right-wing paranoia. The United States was much less the champion of freedom, the Soviet Union much less the ogre of oppression, and militant Communism much more harmless, than the Goldwaters and Strangeloves made them out to be. So, not enough was at stake in building and then destroying the wall to justify a presidential presence at the anniversary. (...)»

— Allen C. Guelzo is Henry R. Luce professor of the Civil War era and director of the Civil War Era Studies Program at Gettysburg College. PAUL KENGOR

«(...) First, this is what we ought to expect from a president whose mentor was Frank Marshall Davis and who, in the 1980s, when President Reagan was seeking to breach the Berlin Wall, was being educated by — and chose to “hang with” — what he himself acknowledged were “Marxist professors.” Obama was raised, nurtured, and educated by what Whittaker Chambers — and Ronald Reagan quoting Chambers — dubbed the wrong side of history. By not going to Berlin, Obama is once again choosing the wrong side of history. Second, with all that said, I’m personally not disappointed by Obama. Barack Obama is who he is. I’m disappointed by the American public, which elected a leader who thinks this way. Ronald Reagan went to the Berlin Wall. He went there and demanded it be torn down. It was. And now, today, Ronald Reagan rolls over in his grave.»

— Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. His recent books include The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. DANIEL PIPES

«(...) In one of the first interviews of his fledgling presidency, on Jan. 27, 2009, Obama informed the audience of an Arabic-language television channel that he hoped to restore “the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago.” How interesting that Obama praised 1989 as a time of exemplary U.S.-Muslim relations, and not the year of the Berlin Wall’s collapse. It was an undistinguished year for U.S.-Muslim relations, but it was before the U.S. government sought to democratize the region. It was when Washington still focused on getting along with kings, presidents, emirs, and other autocrats. Obama’s phrasing, Fouad Ajami points out, signals “a return to Realpolitik and business-as-usual” in relations with Muslims. The president’s decision to skip the celebrations in Berlin, thus, fits a larger pattern of nostalgia for the good old days before George W. Bush’s “freedom agenda” and its inconvenient tensions with dictators.»

— Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. DAVID SATTER

«President Obama’s decision to skip the ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall has worrying implications for the war in Afghanistan. Although Obama may not be aware of it, Communism and political Islam are basically the same. One pretends to be a perfect science, the other religious. But each divided the world into the holy and the profane. Each believed itself in possession of absolute truth and, deifying itself, attempted to impose its deranged interpretation of reality on the world by force. The fall of Communism showed that fanatics are defeated by the collapse of their ideology. This lesson is critical to our success in Afghanistan. If we discredit fanatical Islam, we win. If it discredits us, we lose. It was therefore critically important for Obama to use the opportunity of the Berlin Wall commemoration to explain to the world and, in particular, the Muslim world, why we are fighting. The fact that he did not seize this opportunity indicates that he may not know. Clausewitz wrote that in war the first priority of a statesman or commander is to understand what kind of war he is fighting. Obama is involved in an ideological war. If he does not understand that, it will be his tragedy — and ours. »

— David Satter is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. His latest book is Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State.

In National Review Online.

Ver também: Qual muro?, Obama iguala Bush, O príncipe da paz? e O muro e o príncipe.

Queda do Muro de Berlim: 20 anos (2)

«(...) The Heritage Foundation is exhibiting a “new” collection of 50 paintings of the Soviet Gulag, the infamous penal system for political prisoners and slave laborers. They were painted over a 40-year period by Nikolai Getman, a Ukrainian who spent eight years in Soviet concentration camps in Siberia and Kolyma. His only crime was being present at a meeting of artists where one drew a caricature of Stalin on a cigarette box. (...) After Getman was released in 1953, he began secretly to paint a series of pictures about life in the Gulag. He told no one about his paintings — not even his wife — knowing that if they were discovered, he would be imprisoned again or perhaps even killed. The paintings are haunting. They are the only visual counterpart to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s writings, which exposed this terrible system of mass imprisonment that Robert Conquest has rightly called “unexampled coldblooded inhumanity.” We will never know how many innocent people disappeared into the Gulag, but the estimates of those who died in the Gulag and under Soviet Communism range from 15 million to 30 million. The only difference between the Holocaust and the Gulag is that the Soviet Communists never got around to using gas to kill their prisoners — just old-fashioned bullets, beatings, starvation, and literally working them to death. Getman’s stark paintings cover everything from the transportation of prisoners to the camps in unheated trucks and ships, to the horrible and almost unspeakable living conditions in the Gulag. We see the routine brutality with which prisoners were treated. The fragile existence they led is captured in Getman’s paintings, which represent an enormous accomplishment considering that all of the scenes were painted from memory. They represent events that Getman either witnessed himself or heard about firsthand.

"Moving Out" Nikolai Getman Jamestown Foundation, Washington D.C.

One painting shows the despairing faces of a group of men taken from their barracks in the middle of the night and executed by the NKVD (the forerunner of the KGB), the secret-police organization that ran the entire Gulag system. These kinds of executions occurred constantly for no apparent reasons. All of the prisoners knew that if you were taken out of your barracks in the middle of the night, you never came back.

Prisoners awaiting their execution.

Nikolai Getman Jamestown Foundation, Washington D.C.

(...) Nikolai Getman was convinced that it was his duty to leave behind a testimony to the fate of the millions of prisoners who died and should not be forgotten. He survived under such unimaginable circumstances because of his absolute conviction that good would triumph over evil. He concluded that one of the great human virtues is strength of will, which even the terrible Gulag machine couldn’t extinguish. The tragic repression and lawlessness he saw in the camps persuaded him of the value of man and of the dignity of his mind and spirit. Getman realized that “each of us is responsible for the future” — and because of that responsibility, he could not be silent. (...)»

In National Review Online.