A Fired Up Muslim Speaks

This is one of the better articles I've seen in recent times. I found it on LGF, and I think it should be seen by everyone. Read it, email it, talk about it, read it again.

The Muslim Mind is on Fire

Youssef M. Ibrahim
July 26, 2005

DUBAI -- The world of Islam is on fire. Indeed, the Muslim mind is on fire. Above all, the West is now ready to take both of them on.

The latest reliable report confirms that on average 33 Iraqis die every day, executed by Iraqis and foreign jihadis and suicide bombers, not by US or British soldiers. In fact, fewer than ever US or British soldiers are dying since the invasion more than two years ago. Instead, we now watch on television hundreds of innocent Iraqis lying without limbs, bleeding in the streets dead or wounded for life. If this is jihad someone got his religious education completely upside down.

Palestine is on fire, too, with Palestinian armed groups fighting one another - Hamas against Fatah and all against the Palestinian Authority. All have rendered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas impotent and have diminished the world's respect and sympathy for Palestinian sufferings.

A couple of weeks ago London was on fire as Pakistani and other Muslims with British citizenship blew up tube stations in the name of Islam. Al Qaeda in Europe or one of its franchises proclaimed proudly the killing of 54 and wounding 700 innocent citizens was done to "avenge Islam" and Muslims.

Madrid was on fire, too, last year, when Muslim jihadis blew up train stations killing 160 people and wounding a few thousands.

The excuse in all the above cases was the war in Iraq, but let us not forget that in September 2001, long before Iraq, Osama Bin Laden proudly announced that he ordered the killing of some 3,000 in the United States, in the name of avenging Islam. Let us not forget that the killing began a long time before the invasion of Iraq.

Indeed, jihadis have been killing for a decade in the name of Islam. They killed innocent tourists and natives in Morocco and Egypt, in Africa, in Indonesia and in Yemen, all done in the name of Islam by Muslims who say that they are better than all other Muslims. They killed in India, in Thailand and are now talking of killing in Germany and Denmark and so on. There were attacks with bombs that killed scores inside Shia and Sunni mosques, inside churches and inside synagogues in Turkey and Tunisia, with Muslim preachers saying that it is okay to kill Jews and Christians - the so called infidels.

Above all, it is the Muslim mind that is on fire.

The Muslim fundamentalist who attacked the Dutch film director Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands, stabbed him more than 23 times then cut his throat. He recently proudly proclaimed at his trial: "I did it because my religion - Islam - dictated it and I would do it again if were free." Which preacher told this guy this is Islam? That preacher should be in jail with him.

Do the cowardly jihadis who recruit suicide bombers really think that they will force the US Army and British troops out of Iraq by killing hundreds of innocent Iraqis? US troops now have bases and operate in Iraq but also from Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman.

The only accomplishment of jihadis is that now they have aroused the great "Western Tiger". There was a time when the United States and Europe welcomed Arab and Muslim immigrants, visitors and students, with open arms. London even allowed all dissidents escaping their countries to preach against those countries under the guise of political refugees.

Well, that is all over now. Time has become for the big Western vengeance.

Visas for Arab and Muslim young men will be impossible to get for the United States and Western Europe. Those working there will be expelled if they are illegal, and harassed even if their papers are in order.

Airlines will have to right to refuse boarding to passengers if their names even resemble names on a prohibited list on all flights heading to Europe and the United States.

What is more important to remember is this: When the West did unite after World War II to beat communism, the long Cold War began without pity. They took no prisoners. They all stood together, from the United States to Norway, from Britain to Spain, from Belgium to Switzerland. And they did bring down the biggest empire. Communism collapsed.

I fear those naïve Muslims who think that they are beating the West have now achieved their worst crime of all. The West is now going to war against not only Muslims, but also, sadly, Islam as a religion.

In this new cold and hot war, car bombs and suicide bombers here and there will be no match for the arsenal that those Westerners are putting together - an arsenal of laws, intelligence pooling, surveillance by satellites, armies of special forces and indeed, allies inside the Arab world who are tired of having their lives disrupted by demented so-called jihadis or those bearded preachers who, under the guise of preaching, do little to teach and much to ignite the fire, those who know little about Islam and nothing about humanity.

Youssef M. Ibrahim, a former Middle East correspondent for The New York Times and energy editor of the Wall Street Journal, is managing director of the Dubai-based Strategic Energy Investment Group

To Paradise and Back Again

Thanks for the nice well-wishes and all that. The wedding was fantastic. It happened on July 2nd in NYC- probably the most beautiful day the city will have this year. The honeymoon was beyond spectacular. It kicked off on July 4th with dinner and fireworks on a Maui beach. It only got better from there. My wife is the greatest, and I'm now officially the luckiest man in the world.

Other Important Stuff

I don't think I can say anything about the London bombings that hasn't already been said. What a sad and pathetic culture that breeds such senseless savagery...

Not sure who the next Supreme Court Justice will be, but I'm not in the running- squash the rumors NOW.

The Laughably Lame Valerie Plame Name Game- what an unbelievable joke. If you haven't educated yourself about this media-manufactured non-scandal by now, you must dive into it- it's a great laugh, I assure you. Desperation can be really funny. I think Fox News' John Gibson has the best take on it- I like the way he compared it to the Sandy "Pants" Berger fiasco:

Let's tee up a big screaming match about whether a high official of the White House committed a crime by breaching security in a dust-up over terrorists like Saddam Hussein and Usama bin Laden.

No, I'm not talking about Karl Rove. I'm talking about Sandy Berger stuffing secrets into his socks so the 9/11 Commission wouldn't be able to see what he and Bill Clinton were really thinking and saying and doing about Usama bin Laden.

Let's see now, what happened when Berger got caught with the secrets in his socks?

Hmmm. Did we hear the Democratic senators and congressmen wailing about breaking national security? No, we did not.

Did we hear them harrumphing about how a White House operative was tanking an official investigation, trying to steer the snoopy voters in another direction, away from the officials' own complacency, or moral turpitude?

Nawww, we didn't hear that.

But we're hearing it now.

Even the sainted Amb. Joe Wilson has now admitted his wife was not in a covert status when Karl Rove explained to a Time magazine reporter it wasn't Dick Cheney who sent Wilson off to Niger, but that it was Wilson's wife. She recommended him, telling her bosses he had loads of contacts in Africa.

So Wilson comes back and says no reason to think Saddam wanted to build a nuke bomb out of Nigerian yellow cake — the uranium you need for a bomb.

Evidently, Bush and Cheney didn't believe him. Neither did the Select Committee investigating pre-war intelligence. They said Wilson was wrong and didn't tell the truth — could you say lied — about who sent him to Africa.

But, oh no, sorry Valerie Plame is a CIA agent with covert status. Can't tell the country she was the one who set her husband up to go tank a report on a key question leading up to the war.

No, no no. She's a spook you see. She only acts like a political hack trying to pull strings on national policy from behind a curtain.

The American people aren't allowed to know who she is when she does something like that. She's covert, don't you know. And Sandy Berger, the guy with the secrets in his socks? He just gets a pass.

Why? They're Dems, as in 'Dems' the wrong guys to blame.

That's My Word.

Be sure to check out his rubuttal to his rebuttals as well.