Middle East Myths and Facts
January 6, 2010 - Joel Gilbert
Myth: America and Islam have “shared hopes” and “common aspirations,” as President Obama has stated many times.
Fact: Islamic religious values and goals are decidedly different from and mostly incompatible with the values and ideals of Western secular society.
Separation of Church and State
Myth: Western democracy and secular government are universal aspirations of all people.
Fact: Secularism and separation of Church and State were solutions to Christianity’s problem of decay from the Dark Ages and internal strife between Protestants and Catholics. Islam succeeded in its first 1,200 years because of reliance on religion, and declined only due to invasion of the West starting in the 1800s. Islamic revival, or “Islamism,” aspires to return to the roots of Islamic success – religious government and law. Therefore, Christianity’s political solutions like “separation of church and state” don’t fit into the Islamic historic experience or Islam’s religious values, where loyalty can only be to God, the sovereign of the world and all mankind.
Future of Iraq and Afghanistan Governments
Myth: Iraqis and Afghans will support their elected, pro-Western secular governments after the U.S. departure.
Fact: In Islam, political authority is derived from religion. While "reform" from the Western point of view means secular democracy, "reform" in the Muslim world means removal of Western influences and return to religious governance. Therefore, secular government has no legitimacy and no basis for loyalty amongst Muslims. Meanwhile, Islamism is the only serious alternative form of government in the Islamic world and meets the aspirations of the vast majority of all Muslims. Islamists are eagerly waiting to fill the balance of power vacuum when the United States withdraws its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S.-sponsored governments will likely collapse within weeks of an American departure.
Two-State Solution for Israel
Myth: A two-state solution in the Middle East that creates a Palestinian Arab state alongside Israel will bring peace between Israel and Muslim states.
Fact: A Jewish state called Israel located upon former Muslim-conquered land in Palestine was opposed by Muslims on religious grounds from the beginning of Zionism in the early 1900s. Muslim states attempted to eradicate Israel for these reasons in 1948 and 1967, even when they held the territories now in question. In Islam, Jews (Dhimmi) must live under Islamic rule in a state of natural inequality. Therefore, a Jewish political state of any size is unacceptable to Muslims. Even if Israel helps create a Palestinian Arab state within its borders, Islamists will continue an unending jihad to eliminate Israel, which is considered to be the number one target and obstacle to Islamic revival.
9/11 Attacks
Myth: On 9/11, America was attacked by “evil” hijackers because they were “against freedom.”
Fact: America was attacked by deeply religious people with the goal of changing U.S. foreign policy to advance the cause of Islamism, the movement for revival of Islamic society from 300 years of decline. Al Qaeda wanted the U.S. to withdraw support from secular autocrats in the Muslim world, in order for Islamists to take power through free elections. The U.S. government, in fact, changed its Middle East strategy from supporting secular Western allied governments to demanding free elections throughout the Muslim world. In the Palestinian territories this resulted in the HAMAS takeover, while the U.S. demand for free elections in Egypt and elsewhere brought Islamist gains. Finally, the Bush administration withdrew support from U.S. ally Pervez Musharaff in Pakistan – putting the country with nuclear arms in jeopardy of an Islamist takeover. This was reminiscent of Jimmy Carter’s pushing aside U.S. ally, the Shah of Iran in 1979, as both Presidents mistakenly believed the removal of these autocrats would result in the break out of Western secular democracy. Thus, the 9/11 attacks were successful only because America played into the hands of the Islamists when the Bush administration adopted Al Qaeda’s policy of “reform” in the Muslim world.
Iran’s Nuclear Program
Myth: Iran wants nuclear energy for “peaceful purposes.”
Fact: President Ahmadinejad has stated that nuclear technology is the key to Iran becoming "an invincible global power." Given Iran's Islamist agenda, this can only mean one thing – Iran will use its nuclear capabilities to shape the world according to the Islamist agenda. In addition, Iran is rich in oil and does not need nuclear energy. Most glaringly, Iran does not have sufficient facilities to convert nuclear fuel into electricity, while the clandestine nature of Iran's underground nuclear facilities at Natanz and Qom speaks volumes.
Myth: Iran can be convinced to give up or limit its nuclear program as a result of economic sanctions or in exchange for economic incentives.
Fact: Iranians of all ages consider the procurement of nuclear technology a national cause and a path to restore historic Islamic scientific and engineering prowess, while attempts by the West to suppress their progress are viewed as colonialism. Therefore, Iran will not give up nor make real compromise in its quest for nuclear capabilities.
Guantanamo Bay Detainment Center
Myth: By closing the detainment center at Guantanamo Bay, America’s image among potential terrorists will improve, making them less likely to want to harm Americans.
Fact:Terrorist acts against America prior to the existence of “Gitmo” is why “Gitmo” was created, and that is what landed terrorists in Gitmo in the first place. The establishment of Gitmo was a defensive response to defeat terrorism by imprisoning terrorists and their leaders, not the root cause of terrorism.
Making America Safe from Terrorism
Myth: By replacing “tyranny” in Iraq (Saddam Hussein) and Afghanistan (the Taliban), with Western-backed secular governments, the United States will be safer because terrorists won’t be able to use those countries as a base for hatching plots.
Fact: Even if a Western-backed government did take hold in Afghanistan, terrorists groups could still hatch plots in some parts of those countries, many regions of Pakistan, Somalia, Lebanon, Yemen, or from an apartment or internet chat room anywhere in the world.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Joel Gilbert is an Islamic history scholar and writer/director of two recent documentary feature films on the Middle East. His newest release is Atomic Jihad: Ahmadinejad’s Coming War for Islamic Revival and Obama’s Politics of Defeat.
We need more of these facts.Today after 1400 yrs of islamic killing conversion is misunderstood by free world, they are busy in progress while islam is thriving and promoting 7th century idealogy of ruling by force ,conversion ,keeping women back ward ,uneducation , no creating no science no music no freedom and we create and they distroy will lead us to no where but bankcrupt.
Its time to islolate them ship them back give them no jobs . If want to live our leaders should find quick solutions or we are doomed. They are using our technology to distroy us in a cheaper way. Its war .
posted by : arish sahani
Wednesday, January 6, 2010 at 12:47 AM
Truly its war Arish. Our earliest American ancestors fought the Barbary Coast Pirates for years before first trying bribes, and then finding some success in just killing the SOBs.
posted by : lewis sanborn
Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 01:39 AM
About 9/11
Arab Islamists' attack on NYC WTC aimed at restoration of Mecca as the real World Trade Center. The 19 terrorists corresponded to the 19 Arabic letters of the first, and frequently recurring verse of Koran (Bism Allah Alrahman Alrahim, In the name of God, the beneficent, the merciful). Arab islamists are cubists: the single sacred cube in Mecca is superior to two elongated cubes of NY WTC. Islamists believe that since Prophet Mohammed was a tradesman and merchant by profession, then, the legacy and heritage of globalized trade and commerce belongs to the Arabs, exclusively. Dubai is an Islamists' bazaar.
posted by : Massoud Raji
Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 08:16 AM
In responds to those multiple terrorist attacks on 911. first of all, regardless of why the World Trade Center was leveled as well as the attacks on the Pentagon and that lonely crash of a plane in Pennsylvania doesn't really matter.
No, like Israel's experience in dealing with certain radical elements, our intelligences gathering capabilities are far greater.
(1) FACT We have well paid informers, many in high leadership positions too. These highly trained individuals infiltrated these so-called terrorist training camps decades ago.
(2) FACT we have the CIA,NSA,TWS and a countless number of other secret Government organizations, whose only purpose is to police the entire planet.
Thus, job # 1 is to keep all American citizens foreign and domestic safe from any and all potential threats.
Actually doesn't really matter whether the 911 attacks were the end result of Bill Clinton's clever criminally orchestrated big-money making diplomacy agenda and swindle, all under the traitorous leadership of Albright and Burger. Or that satanically inspired Islamic hatred was solely directed toward a young country populated by millions of infidels.
NO! Doesn't really matter at all. Just as George w Bush after hearing the tragic news of the terrorist attacks just sat there in that classroom, looking as stupid as ever without a care in the world. NO doesn't matter.
we the American people soon realized after-wards that this was obviously a major security failure by a "politically correct" insane government, yes in intelligence failure the likes of which this country hadn't seen since the so-called' "sneak attack" in 1941 on Pearl Harbor Hawaii.
Yes, my point is simple! we got clobbered on 911 and no one in that intelligence gathering sector lost their jobs. No, not one person was fired for doing an incompetent job. FACT, "there was no charge of insubordination"
No charge of "gross negligence on the a part of the CIA", FBI, NAS,TAF,NIG, or Interpol
NO,NO,NO, the murder of 3000 Americans and no one person or agency was held accountable for their deaths.
Today some 8 years later this insanity continues in Washington only now it has become far more radicalized. George W. Bush started the whole thing of trashing this country by trading off our God-given democracy for a false one in the Middle East(Iraq) He started bankrupting this nation long before Obama took office. Now it looks like Obama will finish the job trader bush started.
Therefore I don't see the Islamic threat as nothing more than an minuscule attempt to terrorize a few of our citizens. Logic clearly dictate that when comparing their poor war waging capabilities to ours, it leaves no comparisons of any kind, shape or form...
NOTE:
I'm ashamed of my many brothers and sisters. who have become mindless government slaves & disciples of Obama...
posted by : Paul West
Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 11:17 AM
Is Islam a religion (of peace no less) or a doctrine of war?
posted by : Edmund Onward James
Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 02:09 PM
RE: "Two-State Solution for Israel"...
The way that first sentence is worded causes discomfort, but is not actually factually wrong. A whole string of Muslim groups, ending with the Ottomans, had indeed conquered the area of Palestine over the centuries. And it is the fact that this is considered by Muslims to be "their" land that is a good part of our problem today. What is exceedingly unfortunate -- and leads to misunderstanding-- is that it doesn't mention the Jewish presence in the land prior to these Muslim conquests, and the fact that Jews were returning.
posted by : Arlene Kushner
Friday, January 8, 2010 at 03:15 AM
