Comments on: U.S. Was Helping Bhutto Security Detail

Officials Say Key Intelligence Recommendations Went Unheeded; Elections Commission Stalls

[toolmangler-2009]

Paying Islam for our Western guilt


Christmas came early to the Palestinian Authority when the %u201Cinternational community%u201D decided not only to meet PA President Mahmoud Abbas%u2019 request for $5.6 billion in aid, but to throw in almost $2 billion more. Why? Did the PA end its terrorist ways? Stop state-sanctioned incitement against Israel and the West? Change Fatah%u2019s charter (forget about Hamas) calling for Israel%u2019s destruction?

Alas, no, no and no. We are heaping riches on the PA for other reasons, one of which I discuss below.

But first, a digression: Christmas, obviously, doesn%u2019t come to the PA, even if Western billions do. Despite a tiny (and decreasing) number of Christians, the PA is a land of Islam %u2014 Dar al-Islam. That makes Israel, the object of the PA%u2019s destructive animus, Dar al-Harb, land of war, right?

Right. But not according to the PC script of the %u201Cinternational community.%u201D We never, ever discuss the Islamic context of %u201CArab-Israeli%u201D conflicts. But how else can we hope to understand them?

[toolmangler-2009]

Jihad ideology inspires the Arab struggle against Israel. It also explains it. As the only non-Muslim country amid Middle Eastern Dar-al Islam, as the only %u201Cdhimmi%u201D nation to reclaim its land once conquered by Islam, Israel%u2019s very existence is a religious offense to the %u201Cumma,%u201D or Islamic community. In this same context, what we call %u201Cforeign aid%u201D to the PA may be understood as a form of %u201Cjizya,%u201D the protection money paid to Muslims by non-Muslims.

But the non-Muslim world prefers not to think like that. We avert our collective eye from the goals of jihad, from the history and teachings of Islam. Instead, we see ourselves as villains %u2014 Israel for its existence, and Israel%u2019s supporters for, well, their support for Israel%u2019s existence.

In so doing, we create a sinkhole of Western guilt and responsibility for suffering Muslims, in this case in the PA.

They suffer not as a consequence of their religio-political bloodlust to destroy the Jews in Israel (the nearest infidels), but because there are Jews in Israel. In other words, it%u2019s everyone else%u2019s fault but their own.

Islam %u2014 particularly, jihadist ideology %u2014 is not to blame. Throw more money down the hole.

Of course, this works only until we stop misreading such ideology.

[toolmangler-2009]

And how long will that take? Probably forever %u2014 so long as we continue leaning on the same authorities who got us into this mental mess in the first place.

As it happens, I began the calendar year thinking about this subject %u2014 exonerating Islam %u2014 while discussing a PBS documentary on anti-Semitism in the Islamic world. The show%u2019s conclusion: What isn%u2019t Israel%u2019s fault is that of the West.

Well, you can%u2019t expect much more from (lefty) PBS. What was startling about the message, however, was one of the messenger%u2019s: none other than the eminent historian Bernard Lewis. He declared that anti-Semitism didn%u2019t even exist in the Middle East until European Christian colonizers brought it. You don%u2019t need to be a scholar of Lewis%u2019 stature to know that European colonization of the Middle East didn%u2019t begin until some 1,100 years after Islamic anti-Semitism got going in the Koran, the canonical commentaries on the Koran, and in a long and painful (for Christians also) historical record. Because Lewis is probably the most influential voice on Islam in our time %u2014 particularly for the U.S. foreign policy establishment %u2014 his pronouncements are more than significant.

Right or, in this case, wrong, they become the conventional wisdom, or reinforce it.

This comes to mind because Lewis has done it again %u2014 holding Europe responsible for unpalatable traditions of Islam.

[toolmangler-2009]

Writing at The American Thinker blog, Andrew Bostom, author of %u201CThe Legacy of Jihad%u201D (Prometheus, 2005) and, forthcoming, %u201CThe Legacy of Islamic Anti-Semitism,%u201D quotes a recent speech in which Lewis said: %u201CThe authoritarianism present in the Middle East region is not part of the Arab and Muslim traditions, but it has been imported from Europe.%u201D Bostom goes on to cite copious chapter and verse %u2014 including earlier writings by Lewis himself %u2014 demonstrating that %u201Cthe Arab and Muslim tradition%u201D needed no lessons from Europe on authoritarianism.

Why is Lewis making statements contradicted by the historical record? If European Christendom truly is the source of Islamic evil %u2014 e.g., anti-Semitism and authoritarianism %u2014 Islam is let off the hook, and blame falls on the West. Whether that is Lewis%u2019 point, it is certainly Lewis%u2019 effect.

And it is certainly the conventional wisdom. Not very wise, though, when it helps feed the kind of guilt assuaged only by giving billions of dollars to murderers and thieves.

Diana West is a columnist for The Washington Times

[toolmangler-2009]

Haven''''t they ever heard about bomb sniffing dogs over there?
Posted by scottyusa at 09:49 AM : Jan 01, 2008


Doesn''t work over there, "Everybody" smells of explosives, poor dogs can''t tell friend from foe.

[prinzowhales]

CYA is the name of the US plan with regard to the Bhutto assassination by elements of the Istanbul regime. She named the suspects in an e-mail...shades of Lady Di recording that Charles was going to murder her in a fake auto accident in her private papers...

Was the ''steady stream of BS...or ''intelligence'' anything like that which claimed Saddam had WMDs and links with al Qaeda and could hit London in 45 minutes and the US with its ''gliders of death''?

Our man in Islamabad--Musharraf--refused Bhutto''s request for outside bodyguards...wouldn''t grant them visas...

His regime won''t allow an autopsy and claims her sunroof killed her--not the man aiming the handgun at her before she collapsed into the auto and the bomb went off...

She said on David Frost that OSAMA BIN LADEN had already been murdered--Frost did not even follow that spectacular (for Western and particularly American ears) revelation with a follow-up question.

Arlen Specter, the magic bullet cover-up attorney who was and accessory after the fact in the murder of JFK was on hand for a meeting with Bhutto at which she was to show evidence that American foreign aid was being used to rig the vote in Pakistan...(Just as American foreign aid to Israel is being used to rig the vote in America).

Bhutto was going to talk to the Islamists.

The US, despite its protestations, is led by a pack of Neo-Con scoundrels who want chaos throughout the region...to, in true New World Order fashion, bring order out of chaos.

When are reporters in the media going to"drop their onions" and stop trying to produce articles that do not show the REAL BUSH-ITE. The Pakistan issue is another "story untold" --Bush cow-tailed huge funds to Musharrf to encourage Musharrf to give approval for the invasion of Iraq. But no one seemed to think it was%u201Dreportable%u201D then --so it wasn''t reported in the U.S. Media. Now the veil of truth is slowing peeking through and still no reporter has the onions to report the truth. What really was the huge sums of money spent for.

Truth - in the media - seems to be a "golden opportunity that no one wants to share with the public" --better to file what the political honchos want for their future bed to "lie" in.

Now, once again, people have to ask "what is the truth". Bhutto was murdered --but who at the State Department wants to come forward and "personally" announce that He/She contacted Bhutto''s security personnel to tell them how to protect themselves. When all the time Bhutto''s request to Musharrf - if true- was to provide the additional protection that could have - should have prevented this horrible event - - went silent.

Please, MEDIA %u2013we%u2019uns - the public - really need you.

William J Clemons
[e-mail]

[yongamerica]

"The intelligence was also shared with the Pakistani government, the officials said."

In essence Musharraf was told what the potential dangers and weak points of her security detail. This enable him to know when and how to exploit a weakness. With his military''s close ties with the Taliban and aql Qaeda, this intelligence most likely ended up directly in the very hands of her assasins.

[ajaxtheleast]

HARK!? Did I hear mention of Bozo''s legacy here?

How about, "Bozos''s legacy will be the expansion of

areas available to the application of ignorance

and stupidity.?

[fornicario]

I find this too hard to swallow. If we knew so much, why did it happen? Oh wait, we don''t interfere with the workings of foreign nations, no sorry, we only interfere with nations that we can sell off to corporate society. This is just another example of the ineffectiveness of our modern nation.