Administração Obama incompetente no posicionamento face a acontecimentos no Egipto

Não deixe de seguir o blogue de Barry Rubin se pretende compreender minimamente os acontecimentos no Egipto e avaliar o comportamento da administração Obama no seu posicionamento face a eles:

Amplify’d from rubinreports.blogspot.com

Egypt: Mubarak's Not The One Who Should Resign

By Barry Rubin

This is not a game. This is the fate of the globe. This involves the lives of tens of millions of people. Partisanship and scoring political points is irrelevant. Forget the spin; forget the ignorance about Egypt and the Middle East by instant experts (and sometimes by top intelligence officials). What has happened in the Egypt crisis? The first point—which I’ve been warning about for more than two years—is the incapability of the Obama Administration on several different levels. Following George W. Bush, many people thought, was an easy act to follow. But the quality of the American leadership has grown worse. There has been an attempt to spin President Husni Mubarak’s speech as some type of victory for the Obama Administration. Yet within hours this effort collapsed. The nation’s highest intelligence officials showed they had no idea what the Muslim Brotherhood represents, joked that they didn’t know any more than did CNN, and provided completely inaccurate information on the course of events in Egypt. When the New York Times, which gets a thrill up the leg every time Obama speaks, can write, "American officials said Mr. Panetta was basing his statement not on secret intelligence but on media broadcasts,” you—not Mubarak--should resign. The president of the United States leaped into an issue he didn’t understand, put forward a bad policy, showed he didn’t comprehend the most basic principles of statecraft and diplomacy, publicly celebrated as if he were making a campaign speech projected events in Egypt that didn’t happen, and then admitted that he had no idea what was going on. Even some of his biggest left-wing fans had to admit this was a debacle. "The mystique of America's superpower status has been shattered," said Steve Clemons, of the New America Foundation. Well, who is shattering it? Not the demonstrators; not Mubarak. That catastrophe can only be traced to one man. From the Middle East itself, the reviews are indeed shattering. The Saudis, just about the most cautious and conservative government there is in the world, publicly rebuked President Obama on his strategy. This is not primarily an issue concerning Israel. It’s an issue affecting anyone in the Middle East who opposes revolutionary Islamism and looks to the United States as a protector. Yet what seems to be the administration's immediate response? Not to step back but to push harder on Egypt's government to get rid of Mubarak and turn over power to the opposition faster. "The Egyptian people have been told that there was a transition of authority, but it is not yet clear that this transition is immediate, meaningful or sufficient," Obama said. Meaningful for whom? Sufficient for whom? As for "immediate," that's an American conception. "Immediate" isn't always good. Obama's reaction to the events in Egypt was "immediate," that is based on no good information, study, or planning. Obama has no idea what he is really saying: The Egyptian government better jump to appease the demonstrators or else!  Is there no concept in the White House of regional stability, the battle against revolutionary Islamism, the dangers of anarchy, or the U.S. national interest? Apparently not. That's the message Mubarak was trying to convey in his last great public act: I am an Arab warrior not a community organizer.

And yet the sole apparent goal of U.S. policy today is the overthrow of not just Mubarak but of the entire Egyptian regime. Or, in other words, for the first time the United States and al-Qaida are on the same side. This is true at a time when the same U.S. government is nicely engaging Syria which combines torture with support for terrorism and killing Americans in Iraq.

Among the many fundamental flaws in the U.S. conception another is the idea that if enough people to demonstrate for change--even if they are less than one percent of the population--a government must give them what they want even if it is its own resignation. An elite must hand over its jobs--and possibly homes, weath, and even lives--on demand. This is not how the Middle East works. Those in the American public debate have no idea of how they discredit themselves in the eyes of Middle Eastern people, both those who want to be their friends and those who are their fanatical adversaries. If you've spent decades reading Muslim Brotherhood speeches and seeing intelligence about what they say in private you are not likely to pay attention to those claiming that they are moderate. If you know your own people, you will snicker at those claiming that they are characterized by being or thinking like hip, Facebook-obsessed youth. If you understand anything about politics, you will not engage in the pleasant dream that a totally unorganized, diverse opposition--lacking a single leader with broad appeal--is going to govern. That's especially true when there is only one actually organized and disciplined civilian group in the country and they'd love to get you in a torture chamber. It does not matter what all those well-dressed reporters and articulate "experts" say. They may impress everyone at a Manhattan cocktail party but that doesn't mean anything in an Egyptian village or Cairo slum.

The American political eite has gotten out of touch with the rest of the world. I think that it is reasonable to state that, for the rest of his time in office, nobody in the Middle East (and a lot of other places) is going to take Obama seriously. And here’s the bottom line: If President Barack Obama doesn't learn the right lessons from this crisis and then gets a second term, that may be the last term for U.S. interests in the region. Read more at rubinreports.blogspot.com

 

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RubinReports: How Do We Know What Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Wants? Because It Tells Us!

RubinReports: How Do We Know What Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Wants? Because It Tells Us! By Barry Rubin

By Barry Rubin

In the scores of articles that have appeared about the Muslim Brotherhood, I have not seen scarcely a single one in a newspaper (here's a Los Angeles Times op-ed that does so) that suggests the group might cause some alarm. I have also not seen any mention of the Brotherhood’s political platform. Yet if you are going to analyze the attitudes of the Brotherhood might it not be of some use to consider its main political blueprint for Egypt's future?

The platform, circulated in 2007 and partly translated by MEMRI, genuinely frightened many people in Egypt, especially the reform-minded types (many of whom seem to have forgotten about it) who have played a central role in the pro-democracy demonstrations.

Indeed, a number of such people said a little over two years ago that they saw this document as a blueprint for an Islamist state. Actually, there are certain parallels with Iran in the Brotherhood’s thinking that surprised even me.

So why isn’t this being discussed as an important source for understanding the Brotherhood, especially since Egypt may soon be drawing up a new Constitution.

The platform says “Islam is the official state religion and that the Islamic shari'a is the main source for legislation...;The Islamic state is, by its very nature, a civil state, because appointments to [public] office are made on the basis of qualifications, experience, and expertise, while the [holders of] political positions are elected by the people....”

The words “the main source” are extremely important. Historically, the battle has been fought over whether shari’a was “a main source” (permitting the use of European law) and “the main source,” meaning its shari’a all the way down. The difference between “the” and “a” is a fateful one, determining the future course of Egypt.

True the draft platform says:

"The authority of the shari'a will be implemented in a manner that conforms to the [will of the] nation, by means of a parliamentary majority elected in free, clean, and transparent [elections].”

That sounds very democratic. But wait! It continues:

“The legislative branch must consult with the nation's Supreme Council of Clerics,” elected from the clerics and a separate arm of government. The president will also have to consult with it on key issues. This resembles the Iranian system that includes not only president and prime minister but also the Council of Experts and the Council of Guardians.

“In the case of controversial [questions] which are not unambiguously [settled] by shari'a laws based directly on clear and applicable texts [from the Koran or hadith], the final decision will be made by the legislative branch.” 

That sounds good. But remember that the Brotherhood hopes to have a lot of members in parliament also. The Brotherhood doesn’t have to take over the country. Having 30 or 35 percent of the seats in the face of divided rivals and offering its support in order to gain leverage could be sufficient for the Islamists to have their way on key issues.

If Egyptians want to have a more religious state that’s up to them, but that still means it is necessary to analyze the implications.

A great deal of controversy was stirred up by the platform’s position that while everyone in Egypt would have equal rights, that would be interpreted in an Islamic framework:

“An Islamic state must protect non-Muslim [citizens] in all things concerning faith, ritual, etc.; at the same time, it must preserve Islam and all matters related to it, ensuring that no ritual, propaganda, or pilgrimage contradicting Islamic activities are carried out.” Since Islamic law prohibits things like building new churches—something enforced even under Mubarak’s regime—the situation for Christians might not be so great.

The platform specifies that the president and prime minister must be Muslims and male. There are also hints about restrictions on women’s role in society: 

“Islam has [always] treated woman as man's sister. As for the woman's role with regard to employment, [Islam] stipulates that it should be balanced against the woman's lofty mission at home, with her children, so as to strengthen the basic units of society.” Some jobs “contradict her nature and the rest of her social and humanitarian roles."

The platform also calls for “revising” the peace treaty with Israel, which in practice means at a minimum suspending its functioning and at most abrogating it for all practical purposes. 

Again, Egyptians can decide what they want to do. But the rest of the world should know what to expect. To pretend the Brotherhood is some mild-mannered social welfare agency or a group of dunces incapable of political organization does not properly inform those who are going to have to make decisions and set policy on the basis of such information. 

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The GLORIA Center's site is http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.

EUA: jihadista assume culpa

Mais um soldado de Alá de raça caucasiana. Mais uma demonstração de que a luta contra o islão não tem nada de racista; trata-se tão somente de resistir a um complexo político-ideológico totalitário que pretende impor-se, pela pregação e pela jihad - sob formas subreptícias ou explicitamente violentas - a todo o mundo.

Nota: o nome que o cidadão escolheu aquando da sua conversão ao islão dá uma ideia do carácter intrinsecamente violento do islão: Saifullah: espada de Alá!

Amplify’d from creepingsharia.wordpress.com

NEW BERN — The man accused of being the ringleader of a local terrorism ring that threatened jihad overseas pleaded guilty this afternoon in federal court. Daniel Patrick Boyd, 40, who lived in Johnston County, told a judge he was guilty of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism between Nov. 2006 and July 2009. He also plead guilty to conspiracy to “murder, kidnap, maim and injure people in a foreign country.” He is scheduled to be sentenced in May. The other nine charges are to be dismissed at that time, according to a plea arrangement that Boyd struck with prosecutors in a case that drew international attention. Federal agents arrested Boyd, two of his sons and four others on July 27, 2009, and accused them of taking part in a conspiracy to wage “violent jihad” outside the United States. They accused Boyd of recruiting his co-defendants to help him plot attack of government facilities and kill U.S. military personnel. In court documents and court hearings, federal prosecutors contend that FBI agents seized nearly two dozen guns and more than 27,000 rounds of ammunition from Boyd’s home. The indictment accused the defendants of training in military-style tactics and traveling to the Middle East and Kosovo hoping to kill, kidnap and maim as part of holy war. No other defendants appeared at the hearing in the federal courthouse in New Bern. Boyd’s two sons – Zakariya and Dylan – have been indicted for conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists; conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons in a foreign country; and firearms violations. During a 2009 detention hearing, federal authorities played audio tapes of Boyd talking in his home about protecting Muslims at all costs. The tape included long discussions about the struggle of Muslims, the honor of martyrdom and his disgust with the U.S. military.

Daniel “Saifullah” (“Sword of Allah”) Boyd Read more at creepingsharia.wordpress.com

 

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Índia: duas cristãs mortas por lerem a Bíblia em Cachemira

A recordar quando vierem com conversas de respeito pelas «pessoas do livro»!

Amplify’d from www.bosnewslife.com

Tuesday, February 8, 2011 (1:32 pm)

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife

NEW DELHI, INDIA (BosNewsLife)-- Suspected Islamic militants have killed two Christian teenagers who were reading the Bible in the disputed Kashmir valley, divided between India and Muslim Pakistan, BosNewsLife established Tuesday, February 8. The victims were identified as Arifa, 17, and Akthar, 19, the daughters of Gulam Nabi Dar, said local missionary Mercy Ciniraj, who knew them well. "The [murdered] girls were believers and used to read the Bible through underground ministries." She told BosNewsLife that "the girls were shot dead" last Monday, January 31, in the Baramulla area in Indian-controlled northern Kashmir, bordering Pakistan. They were "brutally murdered" by at least three fighters of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan based Islamic militant "terrorist" group, she explained. Local police reportedly said in statements that they found two bodies near their home and that militants were to blame.

ISLAMIC STATE Lashkar-e-Taiba, or the 'Army of the Righteous', seeks to introduce an Islamic state in South Asia and to "liberate" Muslims in Indian-controlled Kashmir. India has identified the group as the alleged masterminds behind the the 2008 terror attack on the Indian financial capital of Mumbai that killed 166 people. The killings of Arifa and Akthar show that militant attacks also include targetting devoted minority Christians, Ciniraj suggested. The girls' involvement in Bible reading was among several projects of mission group Salem Voice Ministries (SVM), which supports evangelism and aid among Muslims and Hindus in India, including through underground house churches in Muslim-majority Kashmir. Read more at www.bosnewslife.com

 

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Iranium, o filme, só hoje, de borla

Afeganistão: cristão será enforcado por ter apostatado do islão

E já foi torturado e molestado sexualmente por esse crime!

Amplify’d from www.religionenlibertad.com

Trabajador ayudante será ejecutado por ser cristiano

Said Musa es un afgano que trabaja para la Cruz Roja, fue detenido hace ocho meses por el delito de haberse convertido al cristianismo.

Said Musa está encarcelado en la prisión de Kabul, y ha sufrido tortura y abusos sexuales, cometidos por los fieles más celosos del Islam.

Musa perdió una pierna por una mina terrestre en la década de 1990 y ha estado trabajando como fisioterapeuta tratando a compañeros suyos amputados. Recientemente ha sido visitado por un juez que le ha comunicado que será ahorcado a menos que se reconvierta al Islam.

Sin embargo, Musa dijo que se mantendrá en su fe cristiana, incluso si tiene que morir por ella. "Mi cuerpo es de ellos para hacer lo que deseen. Sólo Dios puede decidir si mi espíritu se va al infierno", dijo.

Los abogados defensores se han negado a representarlo, a menos que se convierta al Islam, mientras que otros han dimitido después de haber sido amenazados.

El régimen de Kabul recibe ayuda de numerosos países occidentales en su lucha contra los islamistas talibanes, pero sabe que puede ejecutar a cristianos con la aquiescencia de los occidentales.

La ayuda occidental a las minorías no-musulmanas en Dar al-Islam [el mundo musulmán] es prácticamente nula.

Aún hay algo de esperanza si los cristianos se manifiestan contra el totalitarismo y terrorismo islámico.

Cuando se llegue a la situación en Occidente en que los no-musulmanes sean minoría ya no habrá nadie que les defienda  frente al totalitarismo islámico.

NOTAS http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad/red-cross-worker-to-be-executed-for-being-a-christian/story-fn6s850w-1226001126790 Read more at www.religionenlibertad.com

 

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Repetição do julgamento de Geert Wilders: declarações iniciais

Declarações iniciais de Gert Wilders perante o tribunal que o vai julgar por "insulto a um grupo" religioso, "incitamento ao ódio" e "incitamento à discriminação racial".

Sobre Geert Wilders e este processo, veja http://nadadistoenovo.blogspot.com/search/label/Geert%20Wilders

Amplify’d from gatesofvienna.blogspot.com

Below is the speech given by Geert Wilders on the opening day of his new trial on “hate speech” charges in Amsterdam. Many thanks to Vlaamse Leeuwin for the translation:

The lights are going out all over Europe. All over the continent where our culture flourished and where man created freedom, prosperity and civilization. The foundation of the West is under attack everywhere. All over Europe the elites are acting as the protectors of an ideology that has been bent on destroying us for fourteen centuries. An ideology that has sprung from the desert and that can produce only deserts because it does not give people freedom. The Islamic Mozart, the Islamic Gerard Reve [a Dutch author], the Islamic Bill Gates; they do not exist because without freedom there is no creativity. The ideology of Islam is especially noted for killing and oppression and can only produce societies that are backward and impoverished. Surprisingly, the elites do not want to hear any criticism of this ideology. My trial is not an isolated incident. Only fools believe it is. All over Europe multicultural elites are waging total war against their populations. Their goal is to continue the strategy of mass immigration, which will ultimately result in an Islamic Europe — a Europe without freedom: Eurabia. The lights are going out all over Europe. Anyone who thinks or speaks individually is at risk. Freedom-loving citizens who criticize Islam, or even merely suggest that there is a relationship between Islam and crime or honour killing, must suffer, and are threatened or criminalized. Those who speak the truth are in danger.

The lights are going out allover Europe. Everywhere the Orwellian thought police are at work, on the lookout for thought crimes everywhere, casting the populace back within the confines where it is allowed to think. This trial is not about me. It is about something much greater. Freedom of speech is not the property of those who happen to belong to the elites of a country. It is an inalienable right, the birthright of our people. For centuries battles have been fought for it, and now it is being sacrificed to please a totalitarian ideology. Future generations will look back at this trial and wonder who was right. Who defended freedom and who wanted to get rid of it. The lights are going out all over Europe. Our freedom is being restricted everywhere, so I repeat what I said here last year: It is not only the privilege, but also the duty of free people — and hence also my duty as a member of the Dutch Parliament — to speak out against any ideology that threatens freedom. Hence it is a right and a duty to speak the truth about the evil ideology that is called Islam. I hope that freedom of speech will emerge triumphant from this trial. I hope not only that I shall be acquitted, but especially that freedom of speech will continue to exist in the Netherlands and in Europe. Read more at gatesofvienna.blogspot.com

 

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Exército egípcio procede a detenções sumárias

Travão no processo de democratização que poderia levar a Irmandade Muçulmana ao poder ou simplesmente sinais de resistência do actual poder ou ainda instauração de outro regime, mais militar?

Amplify’d from hotair.com

The biggest decision in Egypt has always belonged to the army — not Hosni Mubarak, Mohammed ElBaradei, or the Muslim Brotherhood.  The protests would only continue unimpeded as long as the army allowed them to do so.  McClatchy reports that the army has apparently decided that enough is enough:

The Egyptian military has rounded up scores of human rights activists, protest organizers and journalists in recent days without formal charges, according to watchdog groups and accounts by the detainees. While most arrests have been brief — lasting fewer than 24 hours — experts say they’re a sign that the regime’s notorious tradition of extrajudicial detentions is continuing even as Mubarak appears to be on his way out of power. Arbitrary arrests by police forces are among Egyptians’ bitterest and longest running complaints against their government, which gives security services sweeping powers under a state of emergency that’s been in place almost nonstop since 1967. The perpetrators of the latest arrests, however, are Egyptian army soldiers, deployed on the streets for the first time in more than two decades after the police all but disappeared following clashes with protesters on Jan. 25. The man most likely to lead the transition to a post-Mubarak era, Vice President Omar Suleiman, is Mubarak’s longtime intelligence chief. “If the military is going to continue to arrest activists and arrest journalists, that does point to a pattern of a crackdown,” said Heba Morayef, Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch. “It’s a worrying sign of things to come … because the military is going to play a big role going forward.”

And they want everyone to know it, too.  At the beginning of the protests, the army shielded demonstrators from the police, who are in Mubarak’s pocket.  Now they’re outdoing the police in rounding up dissidents.  That does not bode well for any short-term transition of power.

In the long run, military control might be good news, although perhaps not with the start of rounding up dissidents.  If the highly-respected military replaces Mubarak, they can dictate (pun intended) a slower-paced transition to civilian governance, hopefully allowing for political parties to organize to oppose the Muslim Brotherhood and marginalize the Islamists from the start.  It could also just stagnate into a military dictatorship, or another Mubarak with a different name.  Among a series of bad choices, well, this is certainly … one of them. Read more at hotair.com

 

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«E se o problema não for o líder, mas o próprio povo?»

Mais um excepcional artigo de Daniel Greenfield.

Alguns destaques:

«59 percent of Egyptians want democracy and 95 percent want Islam to play a large part in politics. (...) 84 percent believe apostates should face the death penalty. That is what Egyptian democracy will look like. A unanimous majority that wants an Islamic state and a bare majority that wants democracy. Which one do you think will win out? A democratic majority of the country supports murdering people in the name of Islam. Mubarak's government does not execute apostates or adulterers. But a democratic Egypt will. Why? Because it's the will of the people.» 

«Handing out democracy like candy does not fix existing cultural problems. It does not end bigotry, free women or stop murder in the name of Allah. Open elections are only as good as the people participating in them. And the 84 percent of Egyptians who want to murder apostates have issues that democracy will not solve. The problem with Egypt is not Mubarak-- but the Egyptians.» 

«Let's take another example. In Jordan, the next target on the freedom tour, King Hussein passed a bill to criminalize the honor killings of women. And their democratically elected parliament voted 60 to 25 to strike the bill down. It took them only 3 minutes. That's what democracy would mean for the Jordanian girls murdered by their husbands, brothers and fathers. The right of the people and their duly elected representatives to legalize the murder of women.» 

«Freedom is culturally determined. It is not the same thing as democracy. Nor is democracy as ubiquitous and universal as its advocates would like us to believe. Like all forms of power, it can only be exercised by those who are ready for it. Much of the world is not ready for it, no more than 12th century Europe was ready for the Constitution. Given the power to choose, they will choose tyranny. They will choose the known over the unknown, the stable over the unstable, and order over freedom.

A society with a social hierarchy embedded in its culture will preserve that hierarchy even with democratic elections Such elections will not give women freedom or rights to religious minorities or freedom of expression to unpopular views. These are things which stem from legal guarantees such as the Constitution, they do not arise out of the natural course of open elections.»
«The United States has freedom due primarily to its culture. Those freedoms were an outgrowth of the rights of Englishmen and the Enlightenment. They cannot be exported to another country-- without also exporting the cultural assumptions that produced them.» 

«The Islamists understand this far better than the neo-conservatives. That is why they campaign so ruthlessly against Western culture. They understand that it is cultural assumptions that dictate behavior, more than any law. While we try to export institutions to the Muslim world, they export Muslim culture to us. And they have had far more luck changing us, than we have had changing them. Institutions are shaped by culture, but cultures are not shaped by institutions. Export every aspect of American government to Egypt, and it will run along Egyptian lines, not American ones. And within a year, Egypt's government will run the same way it does today. Only the window dressing will be different.»

Obama, a extrema-esquerda norte-americana e a Irmandade Muçulmana

Excerto. Leia tudo!

Amplify’d from canadafreepress.com

While the news media continue its Egyptian-uprising coverage, most of the denizens of U.S. newsrooms are turning a blind eye to President Barack Obama’s connection to a key player in the Egyptian rebellion: the radical Islamic group known as the Muslim Brotherhood which co-sponsored last year’s disasterous “Gaza Aid Flotilla.”

While the world condemned the actions of the Israeli military, calls for an international body to investigate the Gaza flotilla raid by Israeli forces—in which nine “peace activists” were killed—were clouded by political posturing and vitriolic soundbites, according to some U.S. counterterrorism experts.

Even President Obama proposed an independent inquiry into the incident that triggered worldwide condemnation of Israel especially by members of the elite news media, but his proposal was quickly dropped as information came to light that certain individuals close to him and the Democrat Party were involved in the bloody incident.

Israel maintained a blockade around Gaza for quite sometime with the hope to preventing weapons such as missiles and rockets from being smuggled to the Palestinian terrorists. It was decided by a number of Islamists and radicals to take actions that would ultimately end the blockade.

The organizer of the blockade-busting action was a known radical group called Free Gaza. The “Free Gaza” flotilla was far more than a collection of innocent “peace activists” trying to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, as they were portrayed by most news organizations.

Free Gaza sponsored the flotilla that engaged in deadly clashes with Israeli special forces troops and among its members were Weather Underground founders William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn—who perpetrated a series of terrorist attacks—as well as Jodie Evans, the leader of the radical activist organization Code Pink. Besides the U.S. radicals, Islamic groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood contributed to the flotilla.

As is well-known in the United States, Ayers and Dohrn were close associates of President Obama for years in Chicago. Meanwhile, Jodie Evans was a fundraiser and financial bundler for Obama’s presidential campaign. In fact, one of Obama’s fundraisers was held in the home of Ayers and Dohrn.

Evans later worked on Attorney General Jerry Brown’s successful run for the governorship of California.

“Ayers’ and Dohrn’s continued activities appear to elude the attention of the people responsible for reporting the news without bias. They are terrorists, plain and simple, so why would anyone be surprised to discover their connection to an anti-Semitic organization that supports terror groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brother and even al-Qaeda?” asks former New York Police detective Michael Snopes.

Obama supporters in the midst of discussion regarding the current Egyptian civil unrest are claiming that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a terrorist organization and that its members are not major players in the Egyptian protests and uprising. They also claim there are no connections between the Obama administration and radical Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood, in spite of the activities of Ayers, Dohrn and Evans, who are known associates of the U.S. President.

“If the House Republicans, who are now the majority, wish to investigate the current administration and its abysmal performance on national security incidents, they should start with the President’s relationship with far-left radicals and Islamic fascists,” said Det. Snopes.

Jim Kouri  Bio Jim Kouri Most recent columns Jim Kouri, Vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police. Jim writes for many police and crime magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer, Campus Law Enforcement Journal, and others. Jim can be reached at: jkouri@thenma.org Older articles by Jim Kouri Read more at canadafreepress.com

 

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Julgamento de Wilders prestes a recomeçar

Amplify’d from www.geertwilders.nl

Wilders: same case, different judges

After a break of more than three months, Geert Wilders is scheduled to appear in court again on Monday. The charges are the same: inciting hatred and discrimination and insulting groups of people. But the judges are new. Populist anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders successfully objected to the trial proceedings last year. The judges had made mistakes, he claimed, and had not given him an honest chance to conduct his defence. The review committee agreed with him. So the trial has had to be restarted. All the witnesses may have to appear in court again. And the Public Prosecutor's Office is represented by the same prosecutors. The same team who called for Mr Wilders to be acquitted when the trial started to go awry the first time. Source: RadioNetherlandsWordlwide.nl Read more at www.geertwilders.nl

 

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Liberdade no islão não é o mesmo que no Ocidente (2)

Amplify’d from www.americanthinker.com

Egypt, 'Hurriyya' Vs. Freedom

Andrew G. Bostom

Ominous polling data from the contemporary Egyptian population reflect their deep, longstanding favorable inclination toward the Sharia, in all its totalitarian, brutally anti-freedom "glory." The electorally successful Algerian Sharia supremacists of two decades ago came up with an apt expression of where such sentiments lead, given a one man, one vote (and likely, one time) opportunity: "Islamic State by the Will of the People!"

Despite ebullient appraisals of events in Egypt -- which optimistic observers insist epitomize American hopes and values at their quintessential best -- there is a profound, deeply troubling flaw in such hagiographic analyses which simply ignore the vast gulf between Western and Islamic conceptions of freedom itself. The current polling data indicating that three-fourths of the Egyptian population are still enamored of the totalitarian Sharia confirms that this yawning gap still exists -- strikingly so -- in our era.

Hurriyya (Arabic  for "freedom") and the uniquely Western concept of freedom are completely at odds. Hurriyya 'freedom' is  --  as Ibn Arabi (d. 1240) the  lionized "Greatest Sufi Master", expressed it  --  "being perfect slavery." And this conception is not merely confined to the Sufis' perhaps metaphorical understanding of the relationship between Allah the "master" and his human "slaves."

The late American scholar of Islam, Franz Rosenthal (d. 2003) analyzed the larger context of hurriyya in Muslim society. He notes the historical absence of hurriyya as  "...a fundamental political concept that could have served as a rallying cry for great causes."

An individual Muslim, "...was expected to consider subordination of his own freedom to the beliefs, morality and customs of the group as the only proper course of behavior...".

Thus politically, Rosenthal concludes,

...the individual was not expected to exercise any free choice as to how he wished to be governed...In general, ...governmental authority admitted of no participation of the individual as such, who therefore did not possess any real freedom vis-a-vis it.

Bernard Lewis, in his analysis of hurriyya for the venerable Encyclopedia of Islam, discusses this concept in the latter phases of the Ottoman Empire, through the contemporary era. After highlighting a few "cautious" or "conservative" (Lewis' characterization) reformers and their writings, Lewis maintains,

...there is still no idea that the subjects have any right to share in the formation or conduct of government -- to political freedom, or citizenship, in the sense which underlies the development of political thought in the West. While conservative reformers talked of freedom under law, and some Muslim rulers even experimented with councils and assemblies government was in fact becoming more and not less arbitrary....

Lewis also makes the important point that Western colonialism ameliorated this chronic situation:

During the period of British and French domination, individual freedom was never much of an issue. Though often limited and sometimes suspended, it was on the whole more extensive and better protected than either before or after.' [emphasis added]

And Lewis concludes with a stunning observation, when viewed in light of the present travails in Egypt and throughout the Muslim world, optimistic assessments notwithstanding:

In the final revulsion against the West, Western democracy too was rejected as a fraud and a delusion, of no value to Muslims.

I would like to add these three germane observations. Two are from scholars quite sympathetic to Islamic culture whose opinions are based upon very different scholarly backgrounds -- S.D. Goitein (d. 1985), a specialist in classical Islam, and Muslim-Jewish relations in particular; and P.J. Vatikiotis (d. 1997), a political scientist who focused on the modern era in the Middle East, especially Egypt. Both men also lived for extended periods in the region. The third is from a lecture Bat Ye'or -- who lived her youth in Egypt -- gave in 1998, with Elliot Abrams present.

All three observations serve (or should serve) to remind us of the profound limitations of relying upon what Ibn Warraq has aptly termed "protecting Islam from Enlightenment values," while supporting "dishonest tinkering" with Islamic doctrine (not to mention complete denial of the historical consequences of such doctrine), in lieu of the honest, mea culpa-based, wrenching reforms that are necessary to transform Islamic societies.

Goitein, circa 1964, from p. 185 (Review: [untitled] Author(s): S. D. Goitein Reviewed work(s): Modern Islam: The Search for Cultural Identity by G. E. von Grunebaum Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 84, No. 2, (Apr. - Jun., 1964), pp. 185- 186.)

The military or police dictatorships controlling today almost all Islamic countries now appear not merely as successors or revivals of medieval despotism. They are (credited with) fulfilling a function similar to that of the belief in the God of Islam in the past-namely that of relieving man from the responsibility for his own destiny."

Vatikiotis circa 1981 (from Le Debat, [Paris], no. 14, July-August, 1981), wrote:

What is significant is that after a tolerably less autocratic/authoritarian political experience during their apprenticeship for independent statehood under foreign power tutelage, during the inter-war period, most of these states once completely free or independent of foreign control, very quickly moved towards highly autocratic-authoritarian patterns of rule...One could suggest a hiatus of roughly three years between the departure or removal of European influence and power and overthrow of the rickety plural political systems they left behind in Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and the Sudan by military coups d'etat.

Authoritarianism and autocracy in the Middle East may be unstable in the sense that autocracies follow one another in frequent succession. Yet the ethos of authoritarianism may be lasting, even permanent...One could venture into a more ambitious philosophical etiology by pointing out the absence of a concept of ‘natural law' or ‘law of reason' in the intellectual-cultural heritage of Middle Eastern societies. After all, everything before Islam, before God revealed his message to Muhammad, constitutes jahiliyya, or the dark age of ignorance. Similarly, anything that deviates from the eternal truth or verities of Islamic teaching is equally degenerative, and therefore unacceptable. That is why, by definition, any Islamic movement which seeks to make Islam the basic principle of the polity does not aim at innovation but at the restoration of the ideal that has been abandoned or lost. The missing of an experience similar, or parallel, to the Renaissance, freeing the Muslim individual from external constraints of, say, religious authority in order to engage in a creative course measured and judged by rational and existential human standards, may also be a relevant consideration. The individual in the Middle East has yet to attain his independence from the wider collectivity, or to accept the proposition that he can create a political order. Read more at www.americanthinker.com

 

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Uma revolução orquestrada a partir dos EUA?

Publico apenas a primeira parte deste tremendo artigo. Lede-o todo!

Amplify’d from sultanknish.blogspot.com

The Obama administration is demanding an immediate "transition" in Egypt. By transition they mean that Muslim Brotherhood hand puppet Mohammed ElBaradei should take power immediately without the benefit of winning an election first.

Mubarak has agreed not to run for reelection. ElBaradei said that he won't run for office, but then said that he might run "if the Egyptian people want me." (As if the Egyptian people have anything to do with it.) But the foreign backers of the protests, Soros and the Iran, want ElBaradei to take power without winning an election. They know he can't win an actual election and that the Muslim Brotherhood running directly would upset the West too much. This way ElBaradei gets to play the stalking horse for the Brotherhood. So the calls are not for "open and fair elections", but for an immediate transition. For Mubarak to leave right now.

The fundamental difference between the protests in Iran and those in Egypt, is that Iranians were protesting a stolen election, and in Egypt the protesters want to steal an election before it actually takes place.

Here's the headline and the opening sentence in the Voice of America's reportage

Huge Cairo Rally Renews Calls for Mubarak Ouster Tens of thousands of Egyptians gathered in Cairo, Friday, at another rally calling for the immediate ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

That's tens of thousands in a country of eighty million. A whole 0.01% percent of the country has shown up. Which means that Mubarak must go! Right now! No elections needed.

Every idiotic article billing this as a democratic transition is a pathetic joke. This is not a democratic transition. This is a manufactured revolution. Food riots co-opted by a student protest movement funded and organized by Soros' people and then co-opted again by the Islamists.

The media narrative is that ElBaradei is the head of a non-violent protest movement and Mubarak is a repressive dictator. But there a couple of problems with that narrative. ElBaradei sounds a lot more violent than Mubarak. He keeps screaming about blood. Saying that Mubarak is "A Dead Man Walking" is on the grim side too. Uglier than any public statements Mubarak made. We're told that the Jan 25 protesters are non-violent and the pro-Mubarak protesters are violent. But there has been violence all along. Looting, prison breaks, rapes and violent clashes. But the narrative has been that all the violence was caused by Mubarak and even the looting of the Egyptian Museum was carried out to be secret agents of the regime. The lawlessness was a cunning plan of the regime. To what extent is this the truth, and to what extent does it typify the irresponsible and conspiratorial mindset of the Muslim world is certainly a good question. We know what the media wants us to believe. We know the message being put out in selective interviews, particularly with protest leaders, some of whom have gotten training by American and European leftists and backing from Western government officials, making this look uncomfortably like a coup. A coup piggybacking on food protests is an old trick. One of the oldest tricks in the book.

Even most of the student protesters aren't there for ElBaradei, but his foreign backers have positioned him as the head of the movement. The media keeps photographing him clutching a megaphone. He's the appointed leader, not by Egyptians or even by the protesters, but by the foreign interests behind them. Their greatest fear is that the riots and protests will peter out, everyone will go home and Jan 25 will be over.

It's time to ask some serious questions about the "National Association for Change" aka Kefaya and who is really behind it. It seems to have a bigger presence in the United States than it does in Egypt via the Egyptian Association For Change (EAC) which is headquartered in Washington D.C. We already have connections between Ayers, Code Pink and the Muslim Brotherhood. Kefaya, in its various incarnations, was originally tied to anti-American and anti-Israel protests. Its Declaration to the Nation lambasted the "odious assault" on Iraq, and warned that American designs were a peril to the survival of the Arab peoples. Then there's Kefaya's co-opting by the Islamists

at the end of 2006, a more serious split occurred after an anonymous article was posted on Kefaya’s website apparently supporting an anti-veil stance advocated by Farouk Hosni, the Minister of Culture. Although the article was subsequently removed, seven key figures, all pro-Islamist, announced their intention to quit the movement. One, Magdi Ahmed Hussein, declared that Kefaya had “failed to find the middle ground between the Islamists and liberals…”

The middle ground being surrender to the Islamist agenda.

The movement’s co-ordinator since 2004, George Ishak, stepped down in January 2007 to be replaced by Abdel Wahhab Al-Messiri, a renowned anti-zionist scholar and former member of both the Egyptian Communist Party and Muslim Brotherhood.

Being an Islamist and a Communist is not that much of a contradiction in the Muslim world. Anti-semitism is generally mandatory. Al-Messiri has since died and appears to have been replaced by Ishak again. With his leftist credentials and coptic background, Ishak also makes a better figurehead. Of course Anti-Semitism is a natural part of Muslim, and particularly Egyptian politics. Opponents accuse Mubarak of working for the Jews. Pro-government media accuse ElBaradei of working for the Jews. The whole thing might seem nauseating to observers, but this is commonplace, and not just in the Muslim world. Remember that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is treated as a factual history in Egypt, and in much of the Muslim world. And the accusations being hurled by everyone from George Soros to FP bloggers that Israel is to blame for the situation in Egypt, smacks of a Westernized version of that same kind of thinking Still the real question is how much of this was organized outside of Egypt. The slow and hesitant response by the Obama Administration, going from zero to condemnations over several days (mirroring his reaction in the Iran protests) suggests that he wasn't in on it. But that doesn't mean elements within the American government may not have played a part beyond just training and funding the so-called grass roots opposition.

The army was actually still far away from deploying in Cairo. Because no one had imagined that the situation would totally be out of control, the level of alert of the army was never raised. Officers were not called from their vacations and the whole top command of the Egyptian army was actually thousands of miles away in Washington for strategic prearranged discussions at the Pentagon.

Interesting timing isn't it. If you wanted to pull off something like this, getting the top commanders out of the country would be key to any plan. And it would give key officials a chance to press them to take a side. I don't want to go too far into the realm of speculation, but does anyone remember our good friend Samantha Power? Samantha Power had a special position created for her by her buddy Barack as Senior Director of Multilateral Affairs on the Staff of the National Security Council.

The Office advises and assists the President and the National Security Advisor on all aspects of U.S. foreign policy relating to democracy and human rights promotion, humanitarian affairs (including refugee and migration issues), international broadcasting, United Nations affairs, international peace-keeping and sanctions policy.

And guess who was attending meetings with Egyptian activists a few months ago. Samantha Power. Flash over to right now and...

The concerted and growing U.S. pressure on Mubarak to step down came as the Obama White House told regional experts with whom it has been consulting that it considers Tuesday “pivotal” in Cairo, said Marc Lynch, a Middle East expert at George Washington University who was among a group of Egypt experts who met with the National Security Council's Dan Shapiro and Samantha Power at the White House Monday.

I guess we now know what Samantha Power's real job is. Power was a director of Soros' International Crisis Group. Now she's moved on to the National Security Council. A lot more resources and power to get the job done. But Soros may have lost his bet after all. The protests appear to be fizzling. Mubarak is passing on power to the army. The net effect of the protests has been to neuter economic liberalization for Egypt. Not democracy or freedom, but the resumption of the status quo. Yet who's to say that wasn't Soros' endgame all along. To push out Gamal Mubarak. Soros is a James Bond villain, but he's also an international businessman who's expert at profiting from crisis. Read more at sultanknish.blogspot.com

 

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Irmandade Muçulmana predisposta a anular tratado de paz com Israel

Amplify’d from rubinreports.blogspot.com

We have been repeatedly assured in the media--on the basis of no evidence--that if the Muslim Brotherhood comes to power in a coalition or even directly that the radical Islamist group would keep the peace treaty with Israel.

On Russian television, one Brotherhood leader, Rashad al-Bayoumi,  said that when they came to power they will abolish the treaty altogether.

Another, former spokesman Doctor Kamel Helbaoui, explains one way they might get out of it. It is also a good example of how they avoid embarassing questions, and usually get away with it. Clearly, Brotherhood leaders have been warned to avoid extremist statements as it tries to sell itself to the Western audience and (insert adjective) media as moderate and cuddly.

In an interview on French television, he says (1:40-2:12 on the show):

Interviewer: "And would you revoke the peace treaty with Israel?" Answer: "We respect all protocols and the treaties built on justice. Interviewer: "Sorry, I didn't understand your response." Answer: "We respect every treaty and every protocol for peace, but it should be built on justice. Interviewer: "Does that mean you would keep the peace treaty with Israel? Answer: "You keep it, but you have to review it in [unclear] of the atrocities from either side." Interviewer: "What do you mean by that?" Answer: "I mean that we don't need injustice to reach the people. If the peace treaty does not give the people their rights, it is not a good treaty, is not a good peace accord." Interviewer: "So are you saying that the current peace treaty is not good enough?" Answer: "No, it is not good enough. I must say that." Interviewer: "So you would revoke that peace treaty. Answer: "No, I didn't say that. Interviewer: You would change it? Answer: It could be reviewed in view of respect of human rights. And through the United Nations, through freedom given to the people, respect of every one. Not occupation and the military atrocities against civilians."

So while trying to avoid admitting it, he explains that Egypt would demand changes and not accept the existing treaty. But what you also have to know--and most journalists would miss--is that the Muslim Brotherhood regards Israel's existence as "occupation" and the denial of Muslim rights.

Paradoxically, then, the only way Israel could have a peace treaty with Egypt is not to exist at all.

Other Brotherhood spokesmen have said that if the group comes to power there will be a referendum on the treaty, and of course it will be rejected. This has been said many times in Arabic though the Western media seem completely unaware of it, as with many other things about the Brotherhood. You have to understand the bizarre situation here. Every speech in Arabic of Brotherhood leaders and cadre and articles in their publications are full of anti-Jewish hatred, anti-American hatred, and support for violence. Yet in the Western media all of this simply is never mentioned, in part because reporters take the group's word on its credentials.

In other words, the Brotherhood will end the peace with Israel and return to a state of war.

This would not necessarily mean going to war, since Egypt's army might well be unwilling to do so, considering the consequences and not liking the Brotherhood. In contrast, though, it is easy to make Egypt into a safe haven from which terrorists could attack across the border and any weapons Hamas wanted would come from Egyptian arsenals (or if the army blocked that, just be freely imported into the Gaza Strip. Eventually, this would lead to renewed war between Israel and Hamas, or even Israel and Egypt, in which thousands of people would die. Some would call that speculation. I would prefer that they didn't get to see it proven to be accurate. Read more at rubinreports.blogspot.com

 

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Liberdade no islão não é o mesmo que no Ocidente

Amplify’d from www.familysecuritymatters.org

The entry on freedom, or hurriyya, in the "Encyclopedia of Islam" describes a state of divine enthrallment that bears no resemblance to any Western understanding of freedom as predicated on the workings of the individual conscience. According to the encyclopedia, Islamic freedom is "the recognition of the essential relationship between God the master and His human slaves who are completely dependent on Him." Ibn Arabi, a Sufi scholar of note, is cited for having defined freedom as "being perfect slavery" to Allah. To put it another way, Islamic-style "freedom" is freedom from unbelief.

Writing in the Washington Examiner, Byron York considered some of these same Egyptian data and found an apparent contradiction between the huge popularity of the death penalty for leaving Islam ("apostasy") on the one hand, and "freedom of religion" (90 percent) on the other. This would be a contradiction in the Western context. But we are not looking at a Western context. Which brings me to Concept Two.

Islam does not recognize as valid any religion but Islam. That means that what we in the West hear as "freedom of religion" becomes, in the Islamic context, freedom of Islam. Indeed, as Stephen Coughlin, the brilliant analyst of Shariah, has pointed out to me, citing both the Koran and quoting the classic Sunni law book “Reliance of the Traveler”, Judaism and Christianity "were abrogated by the universal message of Islam." That means overruled. Further, it is "unbelief (kufr)" -- grounds for the capital crime of apostasy -- "to hold that the remnant cults now bearing the names of formerly valid religions, such as "Christianity" or "Judaism," are acceptable to Allah Most High...."

Suddenly, a post-Mubarak Egypt run by the Muslim Brothers is not so difficult to imagine. Read more at www.familysecuritymatters.org

 

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