Obsession and the "Protocols of Islam"

[gumboot]

This thread is really in regard to the documentary Obsession (http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/), which is about Radical Islam's war on the west.

It was certainly a bit of an eye-opener for me.

But I tried to apply my skeptical brain to it. It's not hard to feel there are parallels between the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and this documentary, at least in general message.

My instinctive response to the documentary is to believe it entirely. I have had strong feelings along a similar line for a while, although I had previously considered the actual threat these people posed to our way of life to be low.

Now I am more inclined to believe that, if we continue as we are in the west, within 50 years (my life time) Radical Islam will challenge the very survival of western civilisation. More importantly, if we continue on our current path, I believe they will do more than threaten us.

I believe they will win.

It has been said that the generation that faced Nazi Germany is the greatest generation in mankind's history. If the threat of Radical Islam is as great as Obsession suggests, I believe, to overcome, my generation and the generation after mine will need to be even greater. I'm not confident that we can do it.

So.

What I'm interested in is any insight into this Islamic conspiracy theory. Is it really as bad as Obsession presents it? Or is Obsession an example of manipulation and fear mongering?

I try to imagine a similar documentary about Nazi Germany released in 1939. I imagine it would have been thoroughly rejected.

I don't want this hindsight to unfairly influence my acceptance of Obsession's message. But neither do I want to be like the masses of the 1930's who ignored the warnings of Churchill and people like him.

-Andrew

[Pardalis]

This thread is really in regard to the documentary Obsession (http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/), which is about Radical Islam's war on the west.

It was certainly a bit of an eye-opener for me.

But I tried to apply my skeptical brain to it. It's not hard to feel there are parallels between the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and this documentary, at least in general message.

My instinctive response to the documentary is to believe it entirely. I have had strong feelings along a similar line for a while, although I had previously considered the actual threat these people posed to our way of life to be low.

snip (for space)

I believe they will win.

snip (for space)

I try to imagine a similar documentary about Nazi Germany released in 1939. I imagine it would have been thoroughly rejected.

I don't want this hindsight to unfairly influence my acceptance of Obsession's message. But neither do I want to be like the masses of the 1930's who ignored the warnings of Churchill and people like him.

-Andrew


Emphasis mine.

The words and expressions I emphasised are exactly the kind of things that makes my skin crawl when I hear conspiracy theorists. It's great that you remain skeptical of your own inclination to "believe", but I also see that you are struggling to remain critical. The allure of feelings and fear is great, I too am stuggling with it, especially when our fears are shown to be true ( when terrorists strike, or when terrorist plots are twarted which makes us see that they do exist). So it's totally understandable. :)

But we have to remember that we hear this exact wording from Cters, don't we? That should trigger an alarm, Gumboot, it certainly did when I read your post. Cters say the same thing about America (they also compare it to Nazi Germany, and believe there is an international plot of world domination). So let's keep our heads cool and look at it critically, without feelings and fear.

[MarkyX]

Just remember the video represents clips in the mainstream arab world and that even moderate muslims and an ex-terrorist are speaking about it.

You can't really get any closer then that about the subject. What makes it insanely power is that they let the Muslim extermists do the talking instead of the narrator.

[blutoski]

But I tried to apply my skeptical brain to it. It's not hard to feel there are parallels between the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and this documentary, at least in general message.

I think you have a good point, and there is a tendency for many skeptics to retreat into cynicism when it comes to politics, because objective information is difficult to obtain. Perhaps even impossible.

A documentary itself should not be sufficient to guide your views on an issue: it was composed as a thesis, if you will, and the evidence is selected to support the thematic claim.

Recall that there are many creationist documentaries that are composed almost entirely of statements by scientists. Dawkins is in one ,and claims he was quoted out of context, obviously. Also, the film What The Bleep appears very legitemate to laypersons, containing as it does, PhDs in quantum physics explaining how physics is incorporating transcendental meditation into its explanatory sphere.

The key problem is that a few clips, even from those in positions of authority, may not be representative of the entire population, and should always be suspicious.

The other problem with media during war time is that it doesn't have to be propaganda to be jingoistic. What advertiser would chip in to have their product boosted during "Islam: The Misunderstood Peace Faith" during this political climate? Even if it were a true representation of the culture, such a program would not get aired for simple commercial reasons.

I remember a few years ago when Reagan was grandstanding Qhadaffi (yes, I'm that old...) and all the tabloids were making fun of him. ie: the National Enquirer had a picture of Qhadaffi on the front page, wearing makeup and drag. The story was that he was a transvestite. You don't have to think that the CIA twisted their arm - they just knew it would sell, so it was a no-brainer to print it.



What a skeptic would want to do is investigate perhaps surveys and polls of opinions in Islamic communities and countries, to see if the Wahabi-ist anti-Western attitude is consistent with the show's claim, prevalent, &c.

Having said that, my exposure to muslims in Vancouver suggests that there is a credible claim for widespread hostility toward Western ideas. Whether this translates into a real threat is a different question.

[Childlike Empress]

What I'm interested in is any insight into this Islamic conspiracy theory. Is it really as bad as Obsession presents it? Or is Obsession an example of manipulation and fear mongering?

I haven't watched it and know nothing about it except what i figured out after a short visit of the website. Big on FOX and Rush Limbaugh? Ok.

If you click on "Filmmakers" it tells you two names - Wayne Kopping and Raphael Shore who did a previous film together. What it doesn't tell you is that they are associated with, both films released by and the website registered to Aish HaTorah.

This seems to be an important information if one wants to judge the objectivity of the film. I wouldn't build my opinion on it, to say the least.

P.S. Look Pardalis, a wikipedia-tag! ;)

[gumboot]

Having said that, my exposure to muslims in Vancouver suggests that there is a credible claim for widespread hostility toward Western ideas. Whether this translates into a real threat is a different question.


I think the most significant part of the documentary for me is the nature of Arab television in some of these countries. Of course this is not something we are regularly exposed to.

The footage they showed, whether it was typical of Arab TV or not, presented a definate culture of hate carried out by the few in powerful positions. Naturally the populations of these countries - if this is all they are exposed to, are going to know no differently (especially the children).

Of course, one could do similar things with western television, however for me the conclusive evidence is the nature of these talks...

Sure, Bush will refer to an "axis of evil" every now and then, but to my way of thinking that's a little different from the leader of Iran saying, on television, that Islam will rule the entire world, and that the United States is Satan.

In the west we do use emotive rhetoric, certainly, but it's fairly mild, IMHO, and allows for more moderate "serious" views. So A leader might refer to an axis of evil in one speech, yet genuinely seek a diplomatic and peaceful solution to a given problem.

In contrast I find it a bit more difficult to believe someone who expresses a desire and intention to rule the entire is capable of seeking a diplomatic and peaceful solution (at least, for any length of time).

But yes... it is always hard to find a balance between cynicism, skepticism, and common sense.

There are a lot of examples in history of simply untrue propaganda, and of grossly distorted facts. But there are also examples in history where the thread was every bit as real as the worst nightmares presented.

In this modern age of mass media it is as difficult as ever to determine what is what.

-Andrew

[Skeptic Ginger]

Talk about Richard Dawkin's meme theory that religions are like a virus or parasite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viruses_of_the_Mind) that once it infects the host, the host works for survival of the meme rather than survival of the host. And just like viruses or parasites that are so virulent they kill the host leading to their own demise, this insanity certainly follows that pattern. So it isn't just some mission to make the world Islamic, it's fundamentalism's growth on many fronts that could culminate in the fantasy Armageddon war.

What a bunch of idiots! They are going to get us all killed for a fantasy belief like the Heaven's Gate cult who thought if they committed suicide they'd end up on a spaceship hidden behind a passing comet.

The Believers who think their actions will bring about Armageddon and Islam's victory:True believers dial messiah hotline in Iran Energized by president's beliefs, end-of-timers redouble their outreach; Christian Science Monitor, 01-04-06 (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0104/p07s02-wome.html)

QOM, IRAN – Have a quick question about when the Mahdi is coming to save mankind, according to Shiite Muslim adherents? Need to know the signs?

Just call the new messiah "hotline." Or log on to Bright Future News Agency to get the latest religious readout - all part of the effort by freshly rejuvenated true believers in Iran to spread their message of the imminent return of the Mahdi, the 12th Imam who is expected to return to impose justice and spread peace.

Paving the way is a renewed commitment to "Mahdaviat" beliefs by the ultraconservative government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,...

They say that return - which they believe will happen soon - will prompt a global battle between good and evil (not unlike biblical "Armageddon" interpretations), and herald an era of justice, peace, and the ultimate triumph of Shiite Islam....

While he waits, Morteza Rabaninejad sits at a new computer with a new telephone and a new headset, answering five calls and 10 letters a day.....

The blend of modern technology and ancient prophecy echoes efforts of US evangelicals who use 45 categories - from liberalism to natural disasters - to predict the "end time," when holy people will experience "rapture" and go to heaven. For them, the "Rapture Index" (www.raptureready.com) is at 151; anything higher than 145 means "Fasten your seatbelts," because of what they deem a high level of prophetic activity.

In Iran, theologians say end-of-times beliefs appeal to one-fifth of Iranians. And Jamkaran mosque east of Qom, 60 miles south of Tehran, is where the link between devotees and the Mahdi is closest....

... the institute's news agency, online at http://www.bfnews.ir/ [I can't find an English version] began churning out reports three months ago.

...Shiite writings describe events surrounding the return in apocalyptic terms, similar to those used in Revelations, which some Christian evangelicals believe predicts a final world war during which Jesus returns to win and reign for 1,000 years.

In one script, forces of evil would come from Syria and Iraq and clash with forces of good from Iran. The battle would commence at Kufa - the Iraqi town near the holy city of Najaf (and home to the anti-US Iraqi cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr).

The evil commander named Sofiani and the anti-Mahdi known as Dajol (comparable to the Christian antichrist), would both be killed. The forces of good would be led by a "man from Khorasan" - a province in northeast Iran.

The Mahdi would return at Mecca, and fight. His victory would bring a government of God for a period of "seven," according to one reading. Seven months, years, or millennia is not clear...Iran: President Says Light Surrounded Him During UN Speech; Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty; 11-29-05 (http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/11/184cb9fb-887c-4696-8f54-0799df747a4a.html)

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad says that when he delivered his speech at the UN General Assembly in September, he felt there was a light around him and that the attention of the world leaders in the audience was unblinkingly focused upon him....

Hossein Bastani, an Iranian journalist based in France, told RFE/RL that Ahmadinejad's comments can be interpreted in two ways.

"One analysis is that this government believes that it came to power with the votes of the so-called lowest class of the Iranian society and these are classes that believe more in such supernatural tales," Bastani said. "Therefore, this government tries, by propagating such rumors, to gain a dogmatic, charismatic, and holy status among those whom they think support them. The second view is that despite the fact that they are trying to fool people, maybe they also believe in these things that are being repeatedly published about them and said by them. This is more dangerous.”...

Since the presidential elections in Iran, many bizarre stories and rumors have circulated about Ahmadinejad. Many of them are related to his devotion to the 12th Imam, also known as Imam Mahdi, who according to Muslims has disappeared and will return at the end of time to lead an era of Islamic justice.

During his September speech at the UN, Ahmadinejad called for the reappearance of the 12th Imam.

In mid-November, during a speech to Friday prayers leaders from across Iran, Ahmadinejad said that the main mission of the revolution is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam.

In recent weeks, the president's aides have denied a rumor that he ordered his cabinet to write a pact of loyalty with the 12th Imam and throw it down a well near the holy city of Qom, where some believe the Imam is hiding.

.... "In recent weeks and months, there has been much news similar to the meeting between Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Amoli. These [reports] include the allocation in at least two cases of heavy budgets for the Jamkaran mosque [at the well where some believe that Imam Mahdi is hiding] or comments by the president that have been quoted by the Iranian media in which he had said in an official meeting that the Hidden Imam will appear in two years."


The believers who believe their actions will bring about Armageddon and Christianity's victory:The Godly Must be Crazy; Grist Magazine; 10-27-04 (http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/)

Forty-five senators and 186 representatives in 2003 earned 80- to 100-percent approval ratings from the nation's three most influential Christian right advocacy groups -- the Christian Coalition, Eagle Forum, and Family Resource Council. Many of those same lawmakers also got flunking grades -- less than 10 percent, on average -- from the League of Conservation Voters last year.

These statistics are puzzling at first.... a scripture-based justification for anti-environmentalism?..

Many Christian fundamentalists feel that concern for the future of our planet is irrelevant, because it has no future. They believe we are living in the End Time, when the son of God will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire. They may also believe, along with millions of other Christian fundamentalists, that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed -- even hastened -- as a sign of the coming Apocalypse.

We are not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. The 231 legislators (all but five of them Republicans) who received an average 80 percent approval rating or higher from the leading religious-right organizations make up more than 40 percent of the U.S. Congress....

These politicians include some of the most powerful figures in the U.S. government, as well as key environmental decision makers: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Republican Conference Chair Rick Santorum (R-Penn.), Senate Republican Policy Chair Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, and quite possibly President Bush. (Earlier this month, a cover story by Ron Suskind in The New York Times Magazine described how Bush's faith-based governance has led to, among other things, a disastrous "crusade" in the Middle East and has laid the groundwork for "a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion.")

...A 2002 Time/CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the Book of Revelation are going to come true. ...

Like it or not, faith in the Apocalypse is a powerful driving force in modern American politics. In the 2000 election, the Christian right cast at least 15 million votes, or about 30 percent of those that propelled Bush into the presidency....Karl Rove hopes to mobilize 20 million fundamentalist voters to help sweep Bush back into office on Nov. 2 and to maintain a Republican majority in Congress, says Joan Bokaer, director of Theocracy Watch, a project of the Center for Religion, Ethics, and Social Policy at Cornell University.

Because of its power as a voting bloc, the Christian right has the ear, if not the souls, of much of the nation's leadership. Some of those leaders are End-Time believers themselves. Others are not. Either way, their votes are heavily swayed by an electoral base that accepts the Bible as literal truth and eagerly awaits the looming Apocalypse....

While there are many divergent End-Time theologies and sects, the most politically influential are the dispensationalists and reconstructionists.

Tune in to any of America's 2,000 Christian radio stations or 250 Christian TV stations and you're likely to get a heady dose of dispensationalism, an End-Time doctrine invented in the 19th century by the Irish-Anglo theologian John Nelson Darby....

Dispensationalists haven't cornered the market on End-Time interpretation. The reconstructionists (also known as dominionists), a smaller but politically influential sect, put the onus for the Lord's return not in the hands of biblical prophesy but in political activism. They believe that Christ will only make his Second Coming when the world has prepared a place for Him, and that the first step in readying His arrival is to Christianize America.


The believers who believe their actions will bring about Armageddon and Judaism's victory*:

*(There are mixed beliefs about the Red Heifer where some Christians buy into the belief but think the messiah is Jesus returning while Jews think it is the Messiah and Jesus was not. These sites are actually Christian sites.Forcing the End (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/readings/forcing.html)

As Lott read the Bible that day, he realized that the Second Coming and the fate of humankind now depended on the red heifer. In order for the Jews to rebuild the Temple and prepare the way for the return of the Messiah they must be purified with the ashes of a red heifer.

A qualified red heifer has not been found in Israel in almost two thousand years. And yet red cattle are not really so unusual in the United States. A breed known as the Red Angus is as red as an Irish setter. It occurred to Lott that God, who he believed had directed the evangelist's own success in the showring, was now guiding his hand in a much larger matter. Where was the red heifer to come from? ...

...Lott went to Jerusalem to meet with the rabbis...

There were many prominent Jews, however, who believed that they were already living in the End Time--the recapture of Jerusalem was evidence enough-- and that Jews must now do their part to prepare the way for the appearance of the Messiah. Soon after the Six-Day War was over, Shlomo Goren, who later became the Chief Rabbi of Israel, led a group of fifty followers onto the Mount, where they fought off Muslim guards and Israeli police and conducted a prayer service. A week later, the Chief Rabbinate ordered that signs be placed in front of the gates saying that no Jews should set foot on the Temple Mount. The reasoning was that, because Jews are ritually impure, they might accidentally step on the place where the Holy of Holies once stood. Such a desecration is punishable by death at the hand of God. This was supposed to put the Temple Mount theologically off limits--at least, until the advent of the red heifer.

Despite this proscription, there have been several serious attempts to blow up the Muslim holy places. Both Israeli and Islamic authorities are so concerned about the intentions of Gershon Salomon and other Temple fanatics that every confrontation has the potential to rage out of control. In 1990, Salomon led a group of his followers to the Mount in order to lay a "cornerstone" for the Third Temple....

Nadav Shragai, a reporter for the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz and the author of a 1995 book, "The Temple Mount Conflict,'' estimates that there are about a thousand active supporters of the most radical Temple Mount movements. No doubt they are heavily infiltrated by Israeli intelligence, which has long worried that a successful strike at the mosques would spark a holy war. These activists are a feature of a larger upheaval in Israeli society, caused by a stunning rise of religious conservatism and a muscular political involvement of religious Jews in Israeli politics. "Jewish fundamentalism of the nationalist branch is mostly the product of the Six Day War," Emmanuel Sivan, a professor of Islamic Studies at Hebrew University, says. "The fact is that until '67 the national religious camp was a very moderate Zionist movement. It has turned extremist because of this apocalyptic vision."...

According to Clyde Lott... "It's very sad, but I would say the interest in the Christian world is to see the Temple rebuilt from the Anti-christ perspective, for the rapture of the Church, and that's a very selfish point of view," Lott says. "The very people that are advocating this are the ones that are very anti-Semitic in their feelings." Although Evangelical theology forecasts the destruction of the Jews in the Last Days, Lott believes that Jews are God's Chosen People and that the Bible clearly states that God favors those who help Israel....

... He will also ship frozen embryos from Dixie and other donor cows, along with select sperm, to be held in safekeeping until after the tribulation. According to Lott, his efforts will ensure that "in the first one or two or three decades of the millennial reign Israel will be able to go into the tanks, pull out those frozen embryos, and place them in cows. And in one generation, whatever they lost in he tribulation, they will have the very best cows on the face of the earth....She will be able to get the rest of the world back on its feet again, agriculturally, from a livestock point of view."...Sorry, the above was a sucky article to wade through and pull quotes from. It reads like a sickly fantasy some end timers seem to relish in.

The Mystery of the Red Heifer: ; Divine Promise of Purity by Rabbi Chaim Richman (http://www.templemount.org/heifer.html)

The Mystery of the Red Heifer provides the answers to these questions and many others. For the first time, all of the background, stories, laws and wisdom relating to this unique Biblical commandment are presented in one authoritative volume. Also included: the exciting, unfolding drama of the red heifer for Israel's coming Third Temple.

Rabbi Chaim Richman, author and translator, is an internationally acclaimed authority on the Holy Temple and the prophecies concerning the future of Israel and the world....


Then there are the non-interventionists:Anti-Israel rabbis vow Hamas support (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/02CF0481-6991-49AD-9F47-9E386EB320A1.htm)

The rabbis from the small ultra-Orthodox movement Neturei Karta...

The group rejects the existence of the state of Israel as contrary to Jewish law and believes the land should be returned to Palestinians.

Neturei Karta believe that no Jewish state should be created before the coming of the messiah....

The anti-Zionist movement once represented a stronger current within ultra-Orthodox Judaism, but its membership has dropped to about 400 families in Israel, with supporters in Britain and the US.There are similar Christian and Muslim non-interventionists but the post is getting too long as it is.


Frontline produced an excellent program on this issue. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/)

List of primary sources from Frontline piece (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/primary/)


If these groups grow larger and any stronger, there could be a very large war coming to a neighborhood near you real soon. It may already be too late. I think it is unlikely many can be persuaded they are bringing about a war and there will be no Messiah. The best approach is to start supporting the idea it's like building the tower of Babylon. It's going to piss God off if they act as if they can control the return of any Imam or Messiah. Try to keep more fundamentalists from joining this cause.

[Skeptic Ginger]

I was trying to not get too far off topic and may have strayed a bit further than I had planned in the above post. I do think there is a huge movement to make the world an Islamic State. There is a similar though maybe less violent but not so small movement to make the world a Christian State. We shouldn't neglect the risk from either side as they see each other as a threat, and feel their faith requires they spread their control.

The majority of people are not in these fundamentalists camps yet, but that could change. And certainly the two extremists camps are over-estimating the size of the extremists in the other group.

[SteveGrenard]

I was trying to not get too far off topic and may have strayed a bit further than I had planned in the above post. I do think there is a huge movement to make the world an Islamic State. There is a similar though maybe less violent but not so small movement to make the world a Christian State. We shouldn't neglect the risk from either side as they see each other as a threat, and feel their faith requires they spread their control.

The majority of people are not in these fundamentalists camps yet, but that could change. And certainly the two extremists camps are over-estimating the size of the extremists in the other group.


http://vikingphoenix.com/blog/antidote/2005/07/map-of-europe-2015.html

[defaultdotxbe]

my great grandparents are from germany, and they lived there during ww2, so i have firsthand accounts of how a small group of extremists can whip an otherwise rational population into a frenzy

on the surface most muslims would probably have no problem with the world beign an islamic state, its the means to that end they would object to, but like germans during the holocaust, most didnt know the means

they were told the jews were the cause the problems, and that they were "getting rid" of the jews, many saw the trains going to poland (auschwitz) and simpy assumed they were being deported

others felt something was wrong but "played along" for fear of reprisal

some fled the country and came to america, but didnt speak on the issue becuase it was "europes problem"

the film makes good use of the quote "the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"


like gumboot i think the main question to ask is how much the islamic media is pushing this antiwestern attitude, if its as much as the film implies then there is certainly a serious problem brewing, although i suspect its not as prevalent as theme as the film shows

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

like gumboot i think the main question to ask is how much the islamic media is pushing this antiwestern attitude, if its as much as the film implies then there is certainly a serious problem brewing, although i suspect its not as prevalent as theme as the film showsWell, as I was trying to find the Arab response to the Iranian President's claim bringing on Armageddon would result in an Islamic victory, I was quite surprised to find this on the Aljazeera web site:Aljazeera allowed back into Iran; Aljazeera English Web site; 06-22-06 (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/444B0FC0-69F9-4182-8D4C-61A5164D7952.htm)

Aljazeera has been permitted to work again in Iran, 14 months after being banned from the Islamic republic.

About 3% of Iran's 67 million people are Arabs, many of whom reside in Khuzestan, home to vast oilfields which account for 80% of the country's oil export profits.

The country's western border is comprised of several ethnic groups including Arabs, Kurds and Azeris, which has led to ethnic tensions in the past.I think a lot of Westerners, myself included, are making all sorts of assumptions about the Arab world that are incorrect. In this case, what assumptions are we making about their news media based on reports from ours?

I'm going to start a thread to see just how people are perceiving the ethnic make up of the Mid East.

[Childlike Empress]

Well, as I was trying to find the Arab response to the Iranian President's claim bringing on Armageddon would result in an Islamic victory, I was quite surprised to find this on the Aljazeera web site
Excellent post #7, skeptigirl. These fundamentalistic belief systems are driving each other into a spiral of insanity. Ironically, without the iraq invasion let by born-again W. we would have a far less extremist iranian president named Rafsanjani today.

As far as i know, the iranian religious hierarchy including the head of state Khamenei are non-interventionist shiites. Ahmadinedjad is the member of an interventionist sect named Hojjatieh, but he is only the president. He has not the last word in Iran.

[Pardalis]

Ironically, without the iraq invasion let by born-again W. we would have a far less extremist iranian president named Rafsanjani today.

I'm not sure I understand. Why is that? Wouldn't there be an exstremist as the president of Iran anyway? Especially with a Sunni dictator like Saddam Hussein (and eventually his sons) next door?

[Childlike Empress]

I'm not sure I understand. Why is that? Wouldn't there be an exstremist as the president of Iran anyway? Especially with a Sunni dictator like Saddam Hussein (and eventually his sons) next door?
The election was in June 2005 and at that time most of the iranians already stopped beeing glad about Saddam Hussein's disempowerment and were very angry about the way the US-Occupation in Iraq went. Without that anger, it had been a sure success for Rafsanjani, who was president from 89 to 97 and was quite moderate in his policies (some called him a reformer).

[AWPrime]

They (the islamic states) will blow up, the question is: will the shrapnel go for us or will they target eachother? Or both?

[Pardalis]

The election was in June 2005 and at that time most of the iranians already stopped beeing glad about Saddam Hussein's disempowerment and were very angry about the way the US-Occupation in Iraq went. Without that anger, it had been a sure success for Rafsanjani, who was president from 89 to 97 and was quite moderate in his policies (some called him a reformer).

Interesting. But are you sure the US occupation of Iraq was the main reason why Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got elected instead of Rafsanjani? Do you have some litterature on that?

I'll check with Wikipedia as well. :D

[defaultdotxbe]

...
I think a lot of Westerners, myself included, are making all sorts of assumptions about the Arab world that are incorrect. In this case, what assumptions are we making about their news media based on reports from ours?

I'm going to start a thread to see just how people are perceiving the ethnic make up of the Mid East.
i agree that far too many assumptions are made, but something to consider is aljazeera is an arab network, but technically iran is not arab, its persian (as noted in the quote, oonly 3% of iranians are arab)

but this indicates that the islamic world is not as "united" against the west as some may assume (much like the 9/11 truth movement have many different flavors of "truth")

[Skeptic Ginger]

Interesting. But are you sure the US occupation of Iraq was the main reason why Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got elected instead of Rafsanjani? Do you have some litterature on that?

I'll check with Wikipedia as well. :DWow, what a mess of information. I'm not sure what is reliable.

This is what I found after a brief search. I await what others turn up for a better picture of events.

June 28, 2005 by CommonDreams.org; The United States and the Iranian Election; by Stephen Zunes (http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0628-25.htm)The election of the hard-line Teheran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over former president Hashemi Rafsanjani as the new president of Iran is undeniably a setback to those hoping to advance the cause of greater social and political freedom in that country.

It should not necessarily be seen as a turn to the right by the Iranian electorate, however. While Rafsanjani was portrayed as a more moderate conservative, the fact that this 70-year old cleric had become a millionaire while in government service and was widely seen as the penultimate wheeler dealer of the political establishment was apparently perceived by many Iranians as of greater importance than his modest reform agenda. By contrast, the victorious campaign of the young Teheran mayor focused upon the plight of the poor and cleaning up corruption.

Global Voices Online monitors blogs and noted these two: (http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/?p=242)In his next post, once the results were finalized Hoder writes:

Even if Rafsanjani goes to the second ruond with Ahmadinejad the Khamanei voting machine will act again and will make Ahmadinejad the new president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The pro-reform youth are so dissapointed and depressed. Nobody knows what will happen next. But Khamenei is the biggest winner of this game. He now has both the big turn-out (plus a middle-finger to Bush), and a quasi-president who is only a cover for his excellency. Compare that to this one from the same page:Mr. Behi points to this article at Commondreams.org. [The above article] The article’s first sentence: “Iran’s most repressive clerics and the USA’s most militaristic neocons share a common interest: They’re very eager to see the failure of Iranian activism for democracy and human rights.” Mr. Behi then writes:

This fantastic article by Norman Solomon is a must read for many Iranians who love Bush to come and rescue them. It is really sensible here in Iran and the last case was yesterday when the national TV was so excited about Bush recent speech against the election (I am not implying that the content of his speech was wrong) but it was the biggest gift Bush could give the conservatives who are always waiting for such speeches to call the United States a number one enemy of the nation by heating up and misusing the sense of patriotism among the people.My guess at this point given the shining example Iraq is making for democracy is that Iran would have shifted towards hard line religious extremism rather than Iraq having had a positive or no influence at all on Iranian elections.

The current bombing of Lebanon is certainly continuing the trend as Iranians rally round their own flag as most people do against an outside threat, regardless of how they feel about their current government. Kind of like the abused spouse sometimes sides with the abuser over the police at the door.

[DanishDynamite]

This thread is really in regard to the documentary Obsession (http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/), which is about Radical Islam's war on the west.

It was certainly a bit of an eye-opener for me.

But I tried to apply my skeptical brain to it. It's not hard to feel there are parallels between the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and this documentary, at least in general message.

My instinctive response to the documentary is to believe it entirely. I have had strong feelings along a similar line for a while, although I had previously considered the actual threat these people posed to our way of life to be low.

Now I am more inclined to believe that, if we continue as we are in the west, within 50 years (my life time) Radical Islam will challenge the very survival of western civilisation. More importantly, if we continue on our current path, I believe they will do more than threaten us.

I believe they will win.

It has been said that the generation that faced Nazi Germany is the greatest generation in mankind's history. If the threat of Radical Islam is as great as Obsession suggests, I believe, to overcome, my generation and the generation after mine will need to be even greater. I'm not confident that we can do it.

So.

What I'm interested in is any insight into this Islamic conspiracy theory. Is it really as bad as Obsession presents it? Or is Obsession an example of manipulation and fear mongering?

I try to imagine a similar documentary about Nazi Germany released in 1939. I imagine it would have been thoroughly rejected.

I don't want this hindsight to unfairly influence my acceptance of Obsession's message. But neither do I want to be like the masses of the 1930's who ignored the warnings of Churchill and people like him.

-Andrew
There is nothing to worry about. Relax.

If Muslim fanatics should ever become a real threat to the West, the nukes will be launched. We may then have an oil crisis for a short period, but that's the price you sometimes need to pay.

[gumboot]

With all due respect...

I think some of you are totally missing the significance of what this documentary shows...

I fail to see how "fundimentalist christians supporting senators" is evidence that the senators themselves have extremist Christian views. That is not comparative to what this documentary shows.

Example:

I am right now looking at a segment of footage shown on Iranian Television in 2005

It depicts Ali Khamenei (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei); the supreme leader of Iran since 1989, and before that President of Iran. In his own words:

Our people say "death to America", and this is like saying "I seek God's refuge from the accursed Satan," which is recited before any chapter of the Koran. Why is this? So he will never forget, even for a moment, that Satan is ready to attack him and to destroy his spiritual shield and his faith_ The saying, "death to America" is for this purpose.

Or, we could look at a video clip, also on Iranian TV, of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadi_Nejad); the current President, speaking in July 2004, before he was elected.

The message of the [Islamic] Revolution is global, and is not restricted to a specific place or time. Have no doubt_ Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the world.

Or perhaps a music video broadcast in Iran in 2004, which depicts war footage, etc, with music and the follow words:

America is lurking for you, and will not give up until it destroys you completely. Rise up soon because the world is not safe from the hunter. "The World Without America" (played to final fanfare with depiction of statue of liberty as a skull)

Or perhaps we should go back earlier, to when things were peaceful...

Dr Ikrime Sabri, Mufti of Palestine, the supreme religious leader in the Palestinian Authority, made the following broadcast on August 24, 2001, two weeks before 9/11:

Oh Allah, destroy America! Oh Allah, destroy Britain and its supports and collaborators!

Or there is Sheikh Dr. Bakr Al-Samarai, the imam at Baghdad's al-Gailani mosque, speaking on Iraqi TV in February, 2003:

The Americans and their president and the British and those that follow them and the Zionists, the spoiled offspring of the entity. Allahu Akhbar! [God is great!] If Allah permits us, Oh Nation of Mohammed, even the stone will say, "Oh Muslim, a jew is hiding behind me, come and cut off his head." And we shall cut off his head! By Allah, we shall cut it off! Oh Jews! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!
(CROWD JOINS IN, CHEERING, RAISING FISTS, PRAYING, ETC)
Jihad for the sake of Allah! Jihad for the sake of Allah! Victory to Allah! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!

Or there's this pearl from Sheik Muhammad Al-Munajid, a disciple of one of Saudi Arabia's most revered religious leaders, Sheik 'Abd Al-'Aziz ibn 'Abdallah ibn Baaz. (Broadcast, August 2004 on Iqra TV, Saudi Arabia)

A British teenager tore out an elderly woman's heart after stabbing her and drank her blood. There are people [in the West] who are enthusiastic about drinking elderly people's blood.

Now bear in mind, this is on a GOVERNMENT television channel in a supposedly WESTERN-FRIENDLY nation...

These are not TV Evangelists on local television ranting stuff that most people don't buy. This is not fanatics who, for whatever reason, approve of the country's leaders.

These ARE the leaders of these nations. These are the presidents and top religious peoples. I honestly cannot understand how anyone can equate this to what we see in the west.

Or there's what they have in their schools. As far back as 1998, what do we find in the text of a Jordanian and Palestinian school book?

"This religion [Islam] will destroy all other religious through the Islamic Jihad fighters"

So what happens when we interview a young girl on Iqraa TV, in Saudi Arabia, in May, 2002?

INTERVIEWER: What's your name?
BASMALLAH: Basmallah.
INTERVIEWER: Basmallah, how old are you?
BASMALLAH: Three and a half.
INTERVIEWER: Are you a Muslim?
BASMALLAH: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Basmallah, are you familiar with the Jews?
BASMALLAH: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Do you like them?
BASMALLAH: No.
INTERVIEWER: Why don't you like them?
BASMALLAH: Because...
INTERVIEWER: Because they are what?
BASMALLAH: They're apes and pigs.
INTERVIEWER: Because they are apes and pigs? Who said they are so?
BASMALLAH: Our God.
INTERVIEWER: Where did he say this?
BASMALLAH: In the Koran.
INTERVIEWER: Right, he said that about them in the Koran.

Now, looking at all this stuff, I believe it is a totally legitimate question to ask; "What is the level of indoctrination of hatred in these countries?" and "If it is as bad as presented here, what do we do about it?"

-Andrew

[gumboot]

There is nothing to worry about. Relax.

If Muslim fanatics should ever become a real threat to the West, the nukes will be launched. We may then have an oil crisis for a short period, but that's the price you sometimes need to pay.


And where will we drop the nukes? On Sunni and Shiite and Persian and Kurdish cities? Will we extermine the millions of non fanatical muslims as well? Will we extermine the people who are victims of their tyrannical leaders?

Or shall we nuke Manchester or Paris or London instead, which have increasingly influencial and out-spoken fantatics?

This is not an issue of nations. There are an estimated180 million fanatic muslims in the world, and they are everywhere. We can't "nuke them". They are infiltrating our own societies and turning our own freedoms against us.

Or the Islamic Thinkers Society, speaking on the streets of New York City in June, 2005:

Just to show where our loyalty belongs to, You see this flay here? [United States flag] It's going to go on the floor. [Flag placed on ground and stood on] And to us, our loyalty does not belong to this flag - our loyalty belongs to Allah [praised and exalted is He]! Allah is the greatest!...

...Don't be afriad to speak out against injustice. In this country, one of the loopholes of this government, is they allow the freedom of expression.

Now, do I think there is some complex overarching plot by some evil council of Islamic elders to infiltrate the west? Of course not. These are independent groups that share only a common purpose. But that does not mean they won't assist each other (consciously or subconsciously). I think we have grossly misunderestimated just how sophisticated they are, and how well they understand and are manipulating our laws and freedom.

-Andrew

[Pardalis]

Now, looking at all this stuff, I believe it is a totally legitimate question to ask; "What is the level of indoctrination of hatred in these countries?" and "If it is as bad as presented here, what do we do about it?"


It is frightening to see children say such things, but I would have to see where these video exerpts are taken from to understand the context in which they were filmed, in order to grasp the full extent of this alledged indocrination.

[gumboot]

It is frightening to see children say such things, but I would have to see where these video exerpts are taken from to understand the context in which they were filmed, in order to grasp the full extent of this alledged indocrination.


Absolutely. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that the particular interview with this young girl was manipulated (for example the leading question "They are what?"). However my main concern is this is being shown on a government operated Saudi television channel. That is the alarming thing...

The documentary also shows a LOT of footage taken in Palestinian schools of children reading Jihad poetry, children in militias with AK-47's, children doing AK-47 weapons drills, Palestinian children being interviewed at a rally saying they want to tell Bush he is a pig and set him on fire and kill Sharon with a sword, etc...

The poetry is quite disturbing, because they are quite emotional, screaming, crying, etc (it could be a "Drama" lesson or otherwise, though). However in the interviews on the street the children clearly don't really appreciate the significance of what they are saying.

One of the interviewees in the documentary grew up in Gaza and went to school there in the 1950's. She indicates similar things were going on in these schools half a century ago.

A couple of good websites (who provided the translations of the Middle East television/radio broadcasts in the documentary) are:
Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) (http://www.memri.org/index.html)

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) explores the Middle East through the region's media. MEMRI bridges the language gap which exists between the West and the Middle East, providing timely translations of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East.

Founded in February 1998 to inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East, MEMRI is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501 (c)3 organization. MEMRI's headquarters is located in Washington, DC with branch offices in Berlin, London, Tokyo and Jerusalem. MEMRI research is translated to English, German, Hebrew, Italian, French, Spanish and Japanese.

And:

Palestinian Media Watch (http://www.pmw.org.il/)

Palestinian Media Watch was established in 1996 to gain an understanding of Palestinian society through the monitoring of the Palestinian Arabic language media and schoolbooks. Palestinian Media Watch analyzes Palestinian Authority culture and society from numerous perspectives, including studies on summer camps, poetry, schoolbooks, religious ideology, crossword puzzles, and more.

Palestinian Media Watch has been playing the critical role of documenting the contradictions between the image the Palestinians present to the world in English and the messages to their own people in Arabic. The world’s view of the Palestinian Authority, to a significant degree, is the result of Palestinian Media Watch research.

Itamar Marcus is director of Palestinian Media Watch.

Mr. Marcus was also the Director of Research for the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace from 1998 - 2000, writing studies on Palestinian, Jordanian, and Syrian school textbooks.

Mr. Marcus was a member of the Israeli delegation to the Tri-lateral [American, Israeli and Palestinian] Committee to Monitor Incitement, established under the Wye Accords.

Palestinian Media Watch prepared the material for the Israeli delegation that was submitted at these negotiations

What is useful is these not only look into a broad range of TV stations, but also cartoons, posters, school teaching, etc...

Most of the west likely get their Muslim POV media from outlets like Al Jazeera. As the documentary "Obsession" shows, Al Jazeera gives a far more moderate representation, and only looking at something like Al Jazeera would not reveal more widespread but more extreme media.

MEMRI, for example, specifically focuses on Government media. (Acknowledging that private media may be incredibly fanatical, yet not popular, whereas government media is "official").

-Andrew

[Pardalis]

BTW, isn't this video available to see on Youtube or Google video? I remember seeing it a few days ago. I think someone posted a link at the Loose Change III thread. I can't remember which page.

ETA: I think it was Marky.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

It got pulled from google due to copyright issues.

I think it's up on bit torrent somewhere though.

[gumboot]

BTW, isn't this video available to see on Youtube or Google video? I remember seeing it a few days ago. I think someone posted a link at the Loose Change III thread. I can't remember which page.

ETA: I think it was Marky.


Yup. Google Video (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2967276362246845611&q=Obsession+Radical+Islam). There's also a lot of extracts from it.

It's also available as a torrent file in higher quality.

-Andrew

[gumboot]

One thing I haven't mentioned...

I was impressed by the documentary's attempts to disassociate radical islam from the rest of islamic culture. This is naturally difficult to do given the subject matter.

The documentary opens by making this distinction, and makes it again throughout. It shows Muslims on Al Jazeera, for example, discussing the exact same problem - "We have taught our children how to die for Allah, but now how to live for Allah". It also shows Iranians chanting "Death to Terrorists" and sermons by clerics saying Terrorists are the enemy. Further more it emphasises that these people speaking out are incredibly couragous, and desperately need the support of the West.

While Militant Islam only threatens to dominate western society, it has ALREADY dominated these people in many Islamic countries. The longer we leave the problem unaddressed, the more innocent people will be dragged into their net of hatred. Every person who is converted to Militant Islam, certainly, is one more person the west has to defeat. But more importantly it is one more decent, moderate person we have lost from our own cause. One more person who can offer and insight into this threat.

-Andrew

[RyanRoberts]

The election was in June 2005 and at that time most of the iranians already stopped beeing glad about Saddam Hussein's disempowerment and were very angry about the way the US-Occupation in Iraq went. Without that anger, it had been a sure success for Rafsanjani, who was president from 89 to 97 and was quite moderate in his policies (some called him a reformer).

Some 'Reformer' (http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2001/dec_2001/rafsanjani_nuke_threats_141201.htm). Jew Murdering has cross bench consensus in Iran.

[AWPrime]

And where will we drop the nukes? On Sunni and Shiite and Persian and Kurdish cities? Will we extermine the millions of non fanatical muslims as well? Will we extermine the people who are victims of their tyrannical leaders?

Or shall we nuke Manchester or Paris or London instead, which have increasingly influencial and out-spoken fantatics?

Depends if it becomes total war.

[RyanRoberts]

While Militant Islam only threatens to dominate western society, it has ALREADY dominated these people in many Islamic countries. The longer we leave the problem unaddressed, the more innocent people will be dragged into their net of hatred. Every person who is converted to Militant Islam, certainly, is one more person the west has to defeat. But more importantly it is one more decent, moderate person we have lost from our own cause. One more person who can offer and insight into this threat.

-Andrew

It is a good point, this new wave of radicalism is regressive even if you look at the Ottoman Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, when it began reforming its legal system and courting the great European powers. Ataturk did not arise from a vacuum and suddenly secularise the place.

Unfortunately, the reasoning used by Islamists, even so called moderates like the MCB is that Islam had its golden period a thousand years ago and all Muslims have a duty work recreating that perfect Islamic state, jettisoning the corrupting influence of the west.

This radicalism claims many Muslims as victims but cannot be considered as a problem that somehow exists outside of Islam. It is the responsibility of Muslims to direct their faith towards sanity, not the Infidel.

[AWPrime]

Unfortunately, the reasoning used by Islamists, even so called moderates like the MCB is that Islam had its golden period a thousand years ago and all Muslims have a duty work recreating that perfect Islamic state, jettisoning the corrupting influence of the west.
The irony is that they themselves were the cause of the downfall of their golden periode.

[RyanRoberts]

Indeed, it was a wave of fanaticism that ended it too - an inquisition in Al Andalus and the imprisonment of Averroes symbolising it. Most of the great intellectual figures of Islam would be regarded as heretics by Salafist types if they were alive today.

[gumboot]

This radicalism claims many Muslims as victims but cannot be considered as a problem that somehow exists outside of Islam. It is the responsibility of Muslims to direct their faith towards sanity, not the Infidel.


That's true. But there's some pertinent words here...

But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

-The United States Declaration of Independence

The problem is, left unchecked, Radical Islam WILL become our problem (as it is already becoming).

In the 1930's Europe considered Hitler to be Germany's problem. They refused to act, despite warnings from people like Churchill. It would be wise to learn from one of mankinds most criminal mistakes.

-Andrew

The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.
-Albert Einstein

[RyanRoberts]

Agreed, but if we do it it will be far worse for Muslims than an internal reform. Given quite how difficult it seems to be for some people to recognise moderate Muslims among the ranks of smooth talking Salafists.

[gumboot]

What it doesn't tell you is that they are associated with, both films released by and the website registered to Aish HaTorah.

If you look into the documentary you'll actually notice it is produced and distributed by a company called Honest Reporting (http://www.honestreporting.com/).

From their website:

"So there were 4 or 5 of us British university students, kicking ideas around, frustrated and wondering what we could do to help Israel...

...In early 2001, those first volunteers turned to the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah to help build a website, develop materials and grow the subscriber base even further. Later that year, the project, having grown to become a major organization in its own right, was established as a US non-profit organization (501c3) with an Independent Board of Directors.

Two years later, HonestReporting Canada (HRC) was founded as an independent, non-profit organization headquartered in Toronto, Canada. In February of 2006, under a fresh management team, HonestReporting was granted independent Charitable Organization status in Israel to compliment its US and Canadian status.

In March 2006, HonestReporting UK was launched under the guidance of the team's two ex-pat Britons; Joe Hyams, Managing Director, and Simon Plosker, Senior Editor. HonestReporting UK expects to achieve UK Registered Charity Status with an Independent Board in due course.

So as you can see, Aish HaTorah provided their funding in the early days. Honest Reporting consists of four independent companies, started by a group of British Jews.

Hardly the Zionist empire...

-Andrew

[Childlike Empress]

If you look into the documentary you'll actually notice it is produced and distributed by a company called Honest Reporting (http://www.honestreporting.com/).

From their website:

So as you can see, Aish HaTorah provided their funding in the early days. Honest Reporting consists of four independent companies, started by a group of British Jews.

Oh, so the Bible Code believing fundamentalists of Aish HaTorah have nothing to do with your movie? That's what they want you to think. Wikipedia describes Honest Reporting as "spin-off" of Aish HaTorah. Do you want to know how i found out about the connection? It's the first thing i do when i want to know who is behind an information on the web: A whois search (http://who.godaddy.com/whoischeck.aspx?se=%2B&app%5Fhdr=&ci=566&domain=obsessionthemovie%2Ecom).

www.obsessionthemovie.com is registered in Jerusalem by Aish HaTorah.

So you rely on a film made by fundamentalists telling you about fundamentalists of an "opposing" faith. Do you know if the translation is correct and the texts are quoted in context? At least MEMRI, founded by an IDF Colonel, was often critizised (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEMRI#Criticism) for beeing biased and translating only the worst of the worst examples of the muslim media.

I did a search on your statement that it was "estimated" that 180 million muslims are "fanatic" (definition?). I found that this number was "estimated" by Daniel Pipes, the rabid anti-islam neocon, quoted in WorldNetDaily.

Hardly the Zionist empire...
This statement is quite low. You should ask yourself why you WANT to belief the biased and exaggerated view on the issue presented by these sources.

edit @Pardalis: From what i have read at that time (mostly newspaper articles) and what an iranian friend told me, i'm quite sure that it was one main reason for Ahmadinedjad beeing successful in playing the populist and religious card.

[RyanRoberts]

MEMRI has never been accused of innacuracy, only selectivity in the media that it translates. To say MEMRI represents all of the Arab media and clerical opinion would be incorrect, but it would be equaly incorrect to dismiss it due to 'bias', those people say what they say.

[gumboot]

Oh, so the Bible Code believing fundamentalists of Aish HaTorah have nothing to do with your movie? That's what they want you to think.

It's not *my* movie. And your paranoid bias is a little sad. Are you saying the Honest Reporting website directly lies about its orgins?



Wikipedia describes Honest Reporting as "spin-off" of Aish HaTorah.

It doesn't (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honest_Reporting), actually.

The organization was founded by Aish HaTorah on the initiative of "4 or 5 of us British university students, kicking ideas around, frustrated and wondering what we could do to help Israel."[2] It originated as a website although it now exists as an independent organization.

The only difference is Wikipedia uses "founded" while their own website uses "funded". Since Wikipedia collaborate's the site's claim that it was initiated independently of Aish HaTorah I think it was fair to say the Jewish organisation did not "found" it.




So you rely on a film made by fundamentalists telling you about fundamentalists of an "opposing" faith. Do you know if the translation is correct and the texts are quoted in context?


Aish HaTorah don't appear to be fundamentalists, as far as I can tell. And they certainly don't appear to be militant extremists, which is what the documentary is about.

So they believe in Bible Code? So what. They also believe in a divine being, which I personally think is AT LEAST as stupid as believing in Bible Codes. At least the Bible is a physical entity that truely does exist.

Shall I condemn everyone whose beliefs differ from mine as a fundamentalist and lump them in with people like Osama bin Laden or Adolf Hitler? What nonsense.

Do I know if the translations are correct? A few, I know, are correct (a friend of mine in highschool taught classes in reading the Koran to fellow Muslim children, and he taught me a few bits and pieces of Arabic). The translations come from reputable sources. Of course you will call them biased. Of course they are biased. Their agenda is to show the world what is broadcast on Arabic, Iranian, and Turkish television. The Arab world are hardly going to be keen to reveal it themselves are they?




I did a search on your statement that it was "estimated" that 180 million muslims are "fanatic" (definition?). I found that this number was "estimated" by Daniel Pipes, the rabid anti-islam neocon, quoted in WorldNetDaily.


Well yay for you. But you're wrong.

The estimates come from two interviewees in Obsession. They are:

Dr. Daniel Pipes (http://www.danielpipes.org/)

Dr. Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum , and a prize-winning columnist for the New York Sun and The Jerusalem Post . His website, DanielPipes.org , is the single most accessed source of specialized information on the Middle East and Islam. Mr. Pipes has served in various capacities in the U.S. government, including two presidentially-appointed positions, vice chairman of the Fulbright Board of Foreign Scholarships and member of the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace. He was director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in 1986-93. Mr. Pipes frequently discusses current issues on television. He has written many books and articles, and his writings have appeared on hundreds of websites and been translated into 24 languages.

and Walid Shoebat (http://www.shoebat.com/)

Walid Shoebat was born in Bethlehem . As a young man, he became a member of the PLO, participated in acts of terror and violence against Israel , and was later imprisoned for incitement and violence. After his release, he continued his life of violence and rioting. After entering the U.S, he worked as a counselor for the Arab Student Organization at Loop College in Chicago and continued his anti-Israel activities. In 1993, he studied the Jewish Bible in a challenge to convert his wife to Islam. Six months later, after intense study, Walid realized that everything he had been taught about Jews was a lie. Convinced he was on the side of evil, he became an advocate for his former enemy. Today, he lectures around the world. Walid is an American citizen and lives in the USA with his wife and children, under this assumed name.

What you STILL fail to understand (obviously you haven't watched the documentary or looked into its claims) is this documentary does not present a message of hate. It is foremost a WARNING. And it is a message of hope. Not for Jews. Not for Christians. For anyone who doesn't want to live a slave under Islamo-Facism.

This is in TOTAL contrast to the messages they show from the other side. I don't care if this is ALL that is broadcast on Muslim television or not. The fact that it is broadcast AT ALL is the message. The message of these broadcasts is unequestionable one of complete and utter blind hatred.



This statement is quite low. You should ask yourself why you WANT to belief the biased and exaggerated view on the issue presented by these sources.


Why on earth would I *want* to believe the total destruction of western civilisation was a possibility in the next 50 years?

I have done my own research, and I think the stuation is at least as bad as the documentary presents. The connections between Nazi Germany and Fascist Islam thicken the further I research. Believe me I well understand what we are dealing with here.

I'm not keen to stick my head in the sand and hope it goes away. I'm not that stupid.

My country TWICE offered a sacrifice grossly out of proportion to confront and defeat the threat of Germany. A threat that lay 10,000 miles from our shores. We were the first nation in the world to declare war against Hitler. Every town bears the scars on stone memorials.

And yet we didn't beat Hitler. Despite it, his sick ideas lived on. And now they're rearing their head again.

-Andrew

[Childlike Empress]

It's not *my* movie. And your paranoid bias is a little sad. Are you saying the Honest Reporting website directly lies about its orgins?
The film says it was made by HR, HR says it has nothing to do with AHT and the website is registered by AHT. What's your explanation for that?

It doesn't (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honest_Reporting), actually.
It does (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aish%20HaTorah) - in the Aish HaTorah article.

Well yay for you. But you're wrong.

The estimates come from two interviewees in Obsession. They are:

Dr. Daniel Pipes (http://www.danielpipes.org/)

and Walid Shoebat (http://www.shoebat.com/)
I'm wrong? I found one of the two sources without watching the movie. That's wrong? If you think Mr. Pipes has an objective view on Islam, i can only say that we disagree.

What you STILL fail to understand (obviously you haven't watched the documentary or looked into its claims) is this documentary does not present a message of hate. It is foremost a WARNING. And it is a message of hope. Not for Jews. Not for Christians. For anyone who doesn't want to live a slave under Islamo-Facism.
Hope? Kill 'em all and carry on? No, seriously, i havn't watched it. Perhaps i will do.

The message of these broadcasts is unequestionable one of complete and utter blind hatred.
I don't doubt that. I don't deny militant islam but i don't think it's a real threat to "the west" - unless we continue bombing defenseless people. I think it is an exaggerated enemy picture.

Why on earth would I *want* to believe the total destruction of western civilisation was a possibility in the next 50 years?

I have done my own research, and I think the stuation is at least as bad as the documentary presents. The connections between Nazi Germany and Fascist Islam thicken the further I research. Believe me I well understand what we are dealing with here.
I did my own research too and came to different conclusions. My main fear are the connections between fascist (also known as corporatist) ideology and the western establishments today.

My country TWICE offered a sacrifice grossly out of proportion to confront and defeat the threat of Germany. A threat that lay 10,000 miles from our shores. We were the first nation in the world to declare war against Hitler. Every town bears the scars on stone memorials.

And yet we didn't beat Hitler. Despite it, his sick ideas lived on. And now they're rearing their head again.
I'll comment on that later.

[Camillus]

One of the things that has always made me suspicious of the "islamists are going to take over the world if we don't do something about it" crowd is that none of them seem to be able to demonstrate how the radicals are going to achieve their aim.

The history of islamist movements has hardly been a rousing tale of success across the muslim world. They failed in Eygpt and Algeria and were still fighting for control of Afghanistan when they were ousted by the US. In Iraq they seem more concerned with killing Shia's than killing coalition forces and the chances are that they are going to lose the civil war in that country.

Certainly they seem to be able to mount the odd "spectacular" (as the IRA used to call it) but none of their attacks on Western targets have affected those countries abilities to function as liberal democracies or sent their populations rushing to convert to islam.

I cannot help but feel that the islamists cannot effectively project force outside the limited sphere of primarily Sunni muslim countries and as a result the only way they really threaten us is because we choose to think of them as a serious threat.

It is almost as if, having disposed of the Soviets, the West needs something to be afraid of. Why I don't know - perhaps because politicians and the media always need to be seen to be fighting against something because that is what sells papers and brings in votes.

[RyanRoberts]

Islamists are going to take over the world

I don't think even the most rabid neocon would actually posit that Islamists are going to 'take over the world' any time in the next couple of decades. They may try and blow certain parts of it up however..

Islamists want to islamize the world, certainly. But are not going to be able to acheive this any time soon.

This doesn't mean we should just ignore what is going on, certainly if you think long term.

[Pardalis]

I have done my own research, and I think the stuation is at least as bad as the documentary presents. The connections between Nazi Germany and Fascist Islam thicken the further I research. Believe me I well understand what we are dealing with here.


My main fear are the connections between fascist (also known as corporatist) ideology and the western establishments today.

With all due respect (for both of you), I think you are both letting your paranoia and fear get in the way of your critical thinking.

[gumboot]

One of the things that has always made me suspicious of the "islamists are going to take over the world if we don't do something about it" crowd is that none of them seem to be able to demonstrate how the radicals are going to achieve their aim.


I don't think it's quite that straight forward. And I think you're mistakenly applying the state formula.

Most of the west still thinks in terms of states. The threat of militant islam is it DOESNT reside in a state.

The 9/11 attack required no geographic territory from which to stage the attack. The players (who were not state players) entered the country they intended to attack. They lived and worked in that country, trained for their mission in that country, and used that country's aircraft to achieve their mission.

This is an incredibly post-modern form of warfare, and it is something the west is ill-equipped to deal with. The London Bombers were British. The bombers in Bali were Indonesians. The mastermind of the Bali attacks (one every year since 2002... between August and October) was given a laughable weak sentence. Why? Because of his high profile status in the country.

A number of European countries have rapidly increasing minorities of extremist muslims, who are increasingly vocal about their rejection of the values of the nation they live in. Even my own country, so remote and removed from the Middle East, is having to deal with the problem.

Look at the radicals in England, or in France, or Denmark, or Sweden.

They don't need to send armies to invade. The power they are already exerting over western nations and western societies is shocking.

A few well placed bombs in Madrid totally reversed the foreign policy of Spain and they literally fled from Iraq.

Italy paid out large sums of money repeatedly to ransom off its nationals.

Arafat sought peace in English to the west, and Jihad in Arabic to the Palestinians, and he managed to sway the entire western world to his side.

Saddam condemned tens of thousands of his nation's children to death, and managed to make the west feel sorry for it.

Muslims fighting in the Bosnian War (many of them Mujahedeen fresh from Afghanistan) committed atrocities by the score, and yet the western media sided with them.



The history of islamist movements has hardly been a rousing tale of success across the muslim world.

That really depends on which part of history you look at. They believe they ruled the world 1000 years ago (it's an exaggeration, but not that much), and they believe they will rule it again.




Certainly they seem to be able to mount the odd "spectacular" (as the IRA used to call it) but none of their attacks on Western targets have affected those countries abilities to function as liberal democracies or sent their populations rushing to convert to islam.

It's not the "spectacles" that are the danger. It's the more subtle infiltration, and the gradual turn towards their way of thinking, veiled in the interest of Political Correctness and everyone "getting along".




It is almost as if, having disposed of the Soviets, the West needs something to be afraid of. Why I don't know - perhaps because politicians and the media always need to be seen to be fighting against something because that is what sells papers and brings in votes.


I totally disagree. I think the problem is the west DOESN'T see them as a threat. I see sympathy and empathy, if not outright support, for Islamists in the western media.

-Andrew

[Pardalis]

edit @Pardalis: From what i have read at that time (mostly newspaper articles) and what an iranian friend told me, i'm quite sure that it was one main reason for Ahmadinedjad beeing successful in playing the populist and religious card.

I read here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4621249.stm) that people are suspicious about this election:

UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said there were "serious deficiencies" in the election, noting that many reformists, and all women candidates, had been barred from standing.

snip

Interior ministry officials monitoring polling stations received some 300 complaints of electoral violations in Tehran alone, the Associated Press news agency reports.

[RyanRoberts]

Its going to be hard not to be suspicious of Iranian elections - the mullahs have veto powers over candidates. This maintains the Islamic character of the goverment while allowing a veneer of representation.

[gumboot]

With all due respect (for both of you), I think you are both letting your paranoia and fear get in the way of your critical thinking.


Thanks for your concern. From a purely historical perspective, the connections between Nazism and Pan-Islamism are very compelling.

I'm not talking about similar (or even virtually identical) ideologies. I am talking about actual historically verified interpersonal relations between key figures of these two movements.

You are right of course, it is easy to let emotions get the better of us. Still, emotion is important. Frankly, life is to short to invest critical thought into thinks that are not important to us.

I consider Militant Islam a very credible potential threat. I wish to understand this threat. :)

-Andrew

[gumboot]

Having looked a bit further specifically into Iranian Broadcasts... I have found nothing to suggest the footage in Obsession might be a misrepresentation.

Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Iranian_Radio_and_Television)

According to Article 175 of the Iranian constitution, private broadcasting is forbidden...

...The constitution further specifies that the director of the organization is chosen directly by the Supreme Leader for 5 years, and two representatives from The Judiciary, The President, and The Parliament, each, are to oversee the organization.

IRIB broadcasts four national channels, one international news channel, three satellite channels for international viewers, and one provincial channel per province. The IRIB provides eight major radio stations as well.

This doesn't bode well.

Who is the current Supreme Leader of Iran?

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei).

In August 2000, he sided with the Guardian Council in rejecting a Majlis (parliament) bill reforming the country's press law. A letter he wrote to parliament, quoted by the state news agency, said the current law had prevented the "enemies of Islam" from taking over the press. "Thus any re-interpretation of the law is not in the interests of the country," the letter argued.


If this guy chooses the director of the company that runs ALL broadcasts in Iran, I think it's safe to say they're more than a little biased.


Ayatollah Khamenei is known for his radical anti-Western policies. He has repeatedly denounced the idea of talks with the United States. During and after the US-led war on Iraq, he was sharply critical of Washington's policies.[12] On the 2000 al-Quds Day Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for the destruction of Israel.


That would explain the Iranian TV music videos that demonise the west...


Khamenei claims that "human rights, are a weapon in the hands of our enemies to fight Islam."


Again, this guy has total control over their media...


In February 2004 Parliament elections, the Council of Guardians banned thousands of candidates, including most of the reformist members of the parliament and all the candidates of the Islamic Iran Participation Front party from running. This led to a win by the conservatives of at least 70% of the seats.

So was it really the US's war in Iraq that turned the Iranian people towards their current pearl of a President? Or was it simply Khamenei and the Council of Guardians insuring Iran went the way they like it?

-Andrew

[chipmunk stew]

Hope? Kill 'em all and carry on? No, seriously, i havn't watched it. Perhaps i will do.
That's not the message of the film. At all. Do watch it, please. I agree with you that it's important to consider the source, but that shouldn't be your primary consideration.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Oh, so the Bible Code believing fundamentalists of Aish HaTorah have nothing to do with your movie?

Definition of "Irony": One of the Loose Change gang criticising a documentary based on the illogical beliefs of those who had a hand in it.

/golfclap

[Darth Rotor]

Some 'Reformer' (http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2001/dec_2001/rafsanjani_nuke_threats_141201.htm). Jew Murdering has cross bench consensus in Iran.
Here's Irony from that piece.
"Jews shall expect to be once again scattered and wandering around the globe the day when this appendix is extracted from the region and the Muslim world", Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani warned, blaming on the United States and Britain the "creation of the fabricated entity" in the heart of Arab and Muslim world.
OK, on that same note, let's overthrow the Islamist plot and get that fabricated entity, Bosnia ala Muslimia, out of the heart of the European Balkan world!

Death to the Saracens! For God, and King Richard!! :rolleyes:

Oh, Uncle Vlad? Where are you when we need you?

DR

[Camillus]

I don't think it's quite that straight forward. And I think you're mistakenly applying the state formula.

Most of the west still thinks in terms of states. The threat of militant islam is it DOESNT reside in a state.

I would beg to differ. The inability of Islamist movements to successfully operate a state is a sign of weakness. It demonstrates that they cannot win either militarily or through "hearts and minds". It exposes the fact that they are disparate groups who, if they are not fighting outsiders are quite happy to fight each other and/or any non-islamist muslims who happen to be nearby.

It is important to remember that militant islam is not a single entity with clear goals: it is myriad political movements tied together by similar ideology.

The 9/11 attack required no geographic territory from which to stage the attack. The players (who were not state players) entered the country they intended to attack. They lived and worked in that country, trained for their mission in that country, and used that country's aircraft to achieve their mission.

This is an incredibly post-modern form of warfare, and it is something the west is ill-equipped to deal with. The London Bombers were British. The bombers in Bali were Indonesians. The mastermind of the Bali attacks (one every year since 2002... between August and October) was given a laughable weak sentence. Why? Because of his high profile status in the country.

I suggest that you read up on the history of terrorism. You make it sound as though these tactics are new: although I suppose you could believe that the "post-modern" period started in the 19th Century ;)

As to political figures receiving derisory punishment for crimes, that is hardly new either. As far as I can see the only way the current mob differ from previous groups is their willingness to die for the cause while killing innocents.

A number of European countries have rapidly increasing minorities of extremist muslims, who are increasingly vocal about their rejection of the values of the nation they live in. Even my own country, so remote and removed from the Middle East, is having to deal with the problem.

Look at the radicals in England, or in France, or Denmark, or Sweden.

The price of freedom is that some people will argue that it should be taken away and they should be put in charge. The only power these people have it to make the majority afraid of them. Their numbers are tiny relative to the rest of the population and they have no chance of enacting what they want.

They don't need to send armies to invade. The power they are already exerting over western nations and western societies is shocking.

A few well placed bombs in Madrid totally reversed the foreign policy of Spain and they literally fled from Iraq.

The Spanish socialists had been quite up front before the election that they would pull out if they won. They got elected and they carried out their campaign promise.

If the sitting government had won the election it seems unlikely they would have pulled their troops out. It may well have been the government's reaction to the bombings (blaming them on ETA) that cost them the election. Perhaps the bombs influenced some of the electorate but I suspect there was probably a deep stream of dissatisfaction with the invasion of Iraq already.

Italy paid out large sums of money repeatedly to ransom off its nationals.

Given the islamists propensity for cutting off heads and posting the video on the internet I would suggest that perhaps the Italians were not acting unreasonably. It's also perfectly feasible that the people doing the kidnapping were criminals rather than terrorists.

Arafat sought peace in English to the west, and Jihad in Arabic to the Palestinians, and he managed to sway the entire western world to his side.

He was a politician playing to different audiences. I certainly knew that he was not adverse to calling for and using violence but I was not aware that he had called for a jihad. Perhaps you could provide a source?

Saddam condemned tens of thousands of his nation's children to death, and managed to make the west feel sorry for it.

I was always under the impression that Saddam was considered secular. Perhaps you could give some sources for when he declared himself an islamist?

Muslims fighting in the Bosnian War (many of them Mujahedeen fresh from Afghanistan) committed atrocities by the score, and yet the western media sided with them.

Possibly because the atrocities committed by the other side were on a much larger scale? I don't think that most of the muslims fighting in that war were militants. These kind of wars always attract supporters of both positions - look at the Spanish Civil War and the International Brigades as an example.

That really depends on which part of history you look at. They believe they ruled the world 1000 years ago (it's an exaggeration, but not that much), and they believe they will rule it again.

Well I would say a claim that they ruled the world a thousand years ago is one big stretch and they are unlikely to be doing any significant ruling any in the future either, regardless of what they might like to think.

It's not the "spectacles" that are the danger. It's the more subtle infiltration, and the gradual turn towards their way of thinking, veiled in the interest of Political Correctness and everyone "getting along".

While there may be problems with being over-sensitive toward particular views I don't think there is any turn toward their way of thinking. The last time I checked I don't think any non-muslim has called for the banning of alcohol and the introduction of sharia law in the UK. The situation might be different in New Zealand.

I totally disagree. I think the problem is the west DOESN'T see them as a threat. I see sympathy and empathy, if not outright support, for Islamists in the western media.

-Andrew

I said it early but I think it bears repeating: the only power that the islamists have over us is the power we give them. We are afraid of them, not because they are a real threat, but because they are useful foils for our politicians and press to play against. As soon as we realise that they are not going to overthrow our liberal democracies we can start thinking clearly about getting rid of them.

[gumboot]

I would beg to differ. The inability of Islamist movements to successfully operate a state is a sign of weakness.

I didn't say they *can't* operate a state. They certainly can. My point is their dispersal makes them harder to deal with.

I believe the mistake the west is making is that *only* states can be a threat.



It is important to remember that militant islam is not a single entity with clear goals: it is myriad political movements tied together by similar ideology.


Yup. As were militant islam and the Nazis. But they seemed to work together rather happily...



I suggest that you read up on the history of terrorism. You make it sound as though these tactics are new: although I suppose you could believe that the "post-modern" period started in the 19th Century ;)

Would you mind citing some examples of significant military action carried out by foreign agents, for which the entire operation occured within the target nation, using resources provided by the target nation?



As to political figures receiving derisory punishment for crimes, that is hardly new either. As far as I can see the only way the current mob differ from previous groups is their willingness to die for the cause while killing innocents.

It was an example of the power these people have. They slaughter hundreds of people, and yet the country in which the killing took place is incapable of punishing the guilty.


The price of freedom is that some people will argue that it should be taken away and they should be put in charge. The only power these people have it to make the majority afraid of them. Their numbers are tiny relative to the rest of the population and they have no chance of enacting what they want.

I don't agree. Muslims are significant minorities in many western countries, especially in Europe (look at France's riots last year). Moreover, no other religion as such a significant direct influence (or even control) over as many nations. Lastly, Islam is the only major religion in the world which is growing as a percentage of global population.

Within two decades it will probably be the largest religion in the world. Not all Muslims are radicals (obviously) but radicals have considerably greater influence over other Muslims than they do non-Muslims, and I believe, in the absense of intervention, their influence will only increase thanks to very powerful propaganda.


He was a politician playing to different audiences. I certainly knew that he was not adverse to calling for and using violence but I was not aware that he had called for a jihad. Perhaps you could provide a source?

The documentary this thread is about presents video footage.



I was always under the impression that Saddam was considered secular. Perhaps you could give some sources for when he declared himself an islamist?

He was, certainly, for most of his rule. He may not ever have actually converted himself. But from the Persian Gulf War on he became more and more islamist (at least on the surface). "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) was added to the Iraq flag in his handwriting. He attempted to get Osama bin Laden's Mujahedeen fighters to assist him in fighting the US.

He consistantly funded Palestinian Islamic terrorists ($25,000 to the family of a suicide bomber), and he gradually began reinstating Sharia laws (which he had initially banned).



Possibly because the atrocities committed by the other side were on a much larger scale? I don't think that most of the muslims fighting in that war were militants.

A good chunk of them were Mujahedeen fresh from Afghanistan. And the atrocities they committed were so brutal that even the regular Muslim forces kept away from them.



Well I would say a claim that they ruled the world a thousand years ago is one big stretch

The Islam empires of the Abbasid, Umayyad and Ottomans are amongst the largest empires in history. They certainly ruled substantial expanses of the "known world".




While there may be problems with being over-sensitive toward particular views I don't think there is any turn toward their way of thinking. The last time I checked I don't think any non-muslim has called for the banning of alcohol and the introduction of sharia law in the UK.

Their influence is growing, however.




I said it early but I think it bears repeating: the only power that the islamists have over us is the power we give them. We are afraid of them, not because they are a real threat, but because they are useful foils for our politicians and press to play against. As soon as we realise that they are not going to overthrow our liberal democracies we can start thinking clearly about getting rid of them.

I don't believe we're afraid of them at all. Where did that come from?

I believe they are a threat, and I believe both the media and "our politicians" have underestimated the level of threat they pose. And I think as long as we feel they pose no threat at all to our way of life, no one will seriously make any effort to "get rid of them".

But I appreciate our difference of view. :) With any luck you're entirely right.

-Andrew

[SteveGrenard]

Camillus wrote:



I would beg to differ. The inability of Islamist movements to successfully operate a state is a sign of weakness. It demonstrates that they cannot win either militarily or through "hearts and minds". It exposes the fact that they are disparate groups who, if they are not fighting outsiders are quite happy to fight each other and/or any non-islamist muslims who happen to be nearby.

truncated ....





I am so relieved by this. I guess the 2 million folks in the Sudan who would neither convert or support the moslem rebels and wound up dead should have been aware of this beforehand.