Genocide, Genocide, Genocide (Part 2)

Part Two of a Three Part Series, from Dean and Snooper, here.

Genocide, Genocide, Genocide. Part Two of Three.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007 8:51 AM

And the World is Silent...
By Ben Dror Yemini

Part Two (Please first read Part 1)

Afghanistan: This is a web of nonstop mass killing – domestic and external. The Soviet invasion, which began on 24th December 1979 and ended on 2nd February 1989, left about a million dead. Other estimates talk of 1.5 million dead civilians and an additional 90,000 soldiers.

After the withdrawal of the Soviet Forces, Afghanistan went through a series of civil wars and struggles between the Soviet supporters, the Mojahidin and the Taliban. Each group carried out a doctrine of mass extermination of its opponents. The sum of the fatalities in civil war, up to the invasion of the coalition forces under American leadership in 2001, is about one million.

There are those who complain, and rightly so, about the carnage that took place as a result of the coalition offensive to overthrow the Taliban regime and as part of the armed struggle against al Qaida. Well, the invasion into Afghanistan caused a relatively limited number of deaths, less than 10,000. Had it not taken place, we would have seen a continuation of the self-inflicted genocide, with an average of 100,000 fatalities a year.

Afghanistan Summary: One million to one and a half million, as a result of the Soviet invasion; about one million in the civil war.

Somalia: Since 1977 this Muslim state in East Africa has been immersed in an unending civil war. The number of victims is estimated at about 550,000. It is Muslims killing mainly Muslims. UN attempts to intervene, in the interest of peace keeping, ended in the failure, as did later attempts by American Forces.

Most of the victims died not in the battle fields, but as a result of deliberate starvation and slaughter of civilians, in bombardments aimed at the civilian population (massive bombardments of opponent districts, such as the bombardment of Somaliland, that caused the deaths of 50,000 ).

Somalia Summary: 400,000 to 550,000 victims in the civil war.

Bangladesh: This country aspired to gain independence from Pakistan. Pakistan reacted with a military invasion that caused mass destruction. It was not a war, it was a massacre. One to two million people were systematically liquidated in 1971. Some researchers define the events of that year in Bangladesh as one of the three greatest genocides in (history - IJ) (after the Holocaust and the Ruanda genocide).

An inquiry committee appointed by the government of Bangladesh counted 1.247 million fatalities as a result of systematic murder of civilians by Pakistan’s army forces. There are also numerous reports of ‘Death squads’, in which "Muslim soldiers were sent to execute mass killings of Muslim farmers".

The Pakistani army ceased only after the intervention of India, which suffered from waves of refugees - millions – arriving from Bangladesh. At least 150 thousand more were murdered in acts of retaliation after the retreat of the Pakistan army.

Bangladesh summary: 1.4 million to 2 million.

Indonesia: The biggest Muslim state in the world competes with Bangladesh for the dubious title of ‘The biggest massacre since the Holocaust’. The massacre commenced with a communist uprising in 1965. There are different assessments (of the number of fatalities - IJ) in this case as well. The accepted estimate talks of as many as 400 thousand Indonesians killed in the years 1965-1966, although stricter estimates claim the number is higher.

The massacre was perpetrated by the army, led by Hag’i Mohammed Soharto, who seized power in the country for the next 32 years. An investigator of those years points out that the person who was in charge of suppressing the rebellion, General Srv Adei, admitted: "We killed 2 million not 1 million, and we did good work". For this argument, we will stick to the lower, more accepted estimates.

In 1975, after the end of the Portuguese rule, East Timor announced its independence. Within a short time it was invaded by Indonesia, who ruled the area until 1999. During these years about 100,000 to 200,000 people were killed, along with the complete destruction of infrastructure.

Indonesia summary: 400,000 killed, with an additional 100,000 to 200,000 in East Timor.

Iraq: Most of the destruction of the last two decades was the doing of Saddam Hussein. This is another case of a regime that caused the deaths of millions. Nonstop death. One of the highpoints was during the Iran-Iraq war, in the conflict over the Shat El Arab River, the river that is created by the convergence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. This was a conflict that led to nothing but large scale destruction and mass killing. Estimates are between 450,000 and 650,000 Iraqis, and between 450,000 and 970,000 Iranians. Jews, Israelis, and Zionists were not around, as far as is known.

Waves of purges, some politically motivated (opposition), some ethnic ( the Kurdish minority) and some religiously motivated (the ruling Suni minority against the Shiite majority), yielded an astounding number of victims. Estimates vary from one million, according to local sources, to a quarter million, according to Human Rights Watch. Other international organizations quote an estimate of about half a million.

In the years 1991 - 1992 there was a Shiite uprising in Iraq. There are contradictory estimates about the number of victims. The numbers vary from 40,000 to 200,000. In addition to the Iraqis that were slaughtered one must add the Kurds. During Saddam Hussein’s reign, between 200,000 to 300,000 of them were killed in a genocide that continued all through the 1980’s and the 1990’s.

Over half a million more Iraqis died from diseases because of the shortage of medicine, which was the result of sanctions imposed after the first Gulf War. Today it is clear that this was a continuation of the genocide perpetrated by Saddam on his own people. He could have purchased medicine, he had enough money to buy food and to build hospitals for all the children of Iraq, but Saddam preferred to build palaces and to distribute franchises to many in the west and in Arab states. This issue is being exposed in the corruption of the UN’s ‘Oil for Food’ project.

The Iraqis continue to suffer. The civil war that is raging there now - even if some would rather not give that name to the mutual massacre of Sunis and Shiites – is costing tens of thousands of lives. It is estimated that about 100,000 people have been killed since the coalition forces took control in Iraq.

Iraq Summary: 1.54 million to 2 million victims.

Iran Summary: 450,000 to 970,000 victims.

dm

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Genocide, Genocide, Genocide (Part 1)

Part One of a Three Part series, from Dean and Snooper here.


This information is not just IMPORTANT--it is IMPERATIVE-- and needs to get out as far and wide as possible.


Genocide, Genocide, Genocide. Part One of Three.
Monday, May 14, 2007 12:28 PM


And the World is Silent....


By: Ben Dror Yemini.


Fact No. 1: Since the establishment of the State of Israel a merciless genocide is being perpetrated against Muslims and/or Arabs.


Fact No. 2: The conflict in the Middle East, between Israel and the Arabs as a whole and against the Palestinians in particular, is regarded as the central conflict in the world today.


Fact No. 3: According to polls carried out in the European Union, Israel holds first place as "Danger to World Peace".


In Holland, for instance, 74% of the population holds this view. Not Iran. Not North Korea. Israel.


Connecting between these findings creates one of the biggest deceptions of modern times: Israel is regarded as the country responsible for every calamity, misfortune and hardship. It is a danger to world peace, not just to the Arab or Muslim world.


How the Deception Works


The finger is pointed cleverly. It’s difficult to blame Israel for the genocide in Sudan or for the civil war in Algeria. How is it done? Dozens of publications, articles, books, periodicals and websites are dedicated to one purpose only: Turning Israel into a state that ceaselessly perpetrates war crimes. In Jakarta and in Khartoum they burn the Israeli flag, and in London, in Oslo and in Zurich hate articles are published, supporting the destruction of Israel.
Any request in Internet search engines for the words "genocide" against "Muslims", "Arabs" or "Palestinians", in the context of "Zionists" or "Israel" – will give us endless results. Even after we’ve filtered out the trash, we are left with millions of publications written in deadly seriousness.


This abundance brings results. It works like brainwashing. It is the accepted position, and not just a fringe opinion. Only five years ago we were witness to a international anti-Israeli show in the Durban Convention. Only two years ago we were shocked when a member of our Academia blamed Israel of ‘symbolic genocide’ against the Palestinian people. Much ado about nothing. There are thousands of publications blaming Israel of genocide, and not ‘symbolic’.
Under an academic and/or journalistic umbrella, today’s Israel is compared to the damned Germany of yesteryear. In conclusion, there are those who call to terminate the ‘Zionist project’. And in more simple words: because Israel is a country that perpetrates so many war crimes and engages in ethnic cleansing and genocide – it has no right to exist. This, for instance, is the essence of an article by the Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder (writer of "Sophie’s world"), who wrote, among other things: "We call killers of children by their name"). The conclusion is that Israel has no right to exist.


The tragedy is that in Arab and Muslim countries a massacre is happening. A genocide protected by the silence of the world. A genocide protected by a deception that is perhaps unparalleled in the history of mankind. A genocide that has no connection to Israel, to Zionism or to Jews. A genocide of mainly Arabs and Muslims, by Arabs and Muslims.


This is not a matter of opinion or viewpoint. This is the result of factual examination, as precise as possible, of the numbers of victims of various wars and conflicts that have taken place since the establishment of the State of Israel up till this time, in which the massacre continues. It is, indeed, death on a massive scale. A massacre. It is the wiping out of villages and cities and whole populations. And the world is silent. The Muslims are indeed abandoned. They are murdered and the world is silent. And if it bothers to open its mouth, it doesn’t complain about the murderers. It doesn’t complain about the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity. It complains about Israel.


This great deception, that covers up the real facts, endures and even grows because of one reason only: The Media and Academia in the West participate in it. In endless publications, books, periodicals and websites Israel is portrayed as a state that perpetrates "war crimes", "ethnic cleansing", and "systematic murder". Sometimes it is because this is fashionable, sometimes it is mistakenly, sometimes it is the result of hypocrisy and double standards. Sometimes it is new and old anti-Semitism, from the left and from the right, overt and covert. Most of the classic blood libels were refuted not long after they came into being. The blood libel of modern times, against the state of Israel, continues to grow. Many Israelis and Jews are accessories to the nurturing of the libel.


The Arab-Israeli Conflict


The Zionist settling of this country, which began at the end of the 19th century, did indeed create a conflict between Jews and Arabs. The amount of those killed in various clashes up till the establishment of the State of Israel was no more than a few thousands, of both Jews and Arabs. Most of the Arabs killed in those years were killed in armed struggles of Arabs amongst themselves; such as, for example, in the days of the Great Arab Uprising of 1936 – 1939. That was a sign of things to come. Many others were killed as a result of the harsh hand wielded by the British. Israel never did anything comparable.


Israel’s War of Independence, known also as the War of 48’, left between 5,000 to 15,000 dead from among the Palestinians and citizens of Arab countries. In this war, as in any war, there were indeed atrocities. The attackers declared their goal, and if they had won, a mass extermination of Jews would have taken place. On Israel’s side there were also barbarous acts, but they were on the fringe of the fringe. Less, far less, than in any other war in modern times. Far less than what is being perpetrated every day in these very times, by Muslims, mainly against Muslims, in Sudan and in Iraq.


The next event of importance was the Sinai War of 1956. About 1,650 Egyptians were killed, about 1,000 at the hands of the Israelis and about 650 by the French and British forces.
Next came the Six Day War (1967- IJ). The highest estimates talk of 21,000 Arabs killed on all three fronts – Egypt, Syria and Jordan.


The Yom Kippur War (1973 – IJ) resulted in 8,500 Arab dead, this time on only two fronts – Egypt and Syria.


Then there were ‘smaller’ wars: The first Lebanon war, which was initially mainly against the PLO and not against Lebanon. This was a war in a war. These were the years of the bloody civil war in Lebanon, a war we will discuss further later on. And thus also in the second Lebanon war, in which about a thousand Lebanese were killed.


Thousands of Palestinians were killed during the Israeli occupation of the territories, that began at the end of the Six Day War. Most were killed during the two Intifadas, the one that commenced in 1987 and resulted in 1,800 Palestinian deaths, and the one that commenced in 2000 with a Palestinan death toll of 3,700. In between, there were more military actions that caused further Arab fatalities. If we exaggerate, we can say that these were a few hundred more who were killed. Hundreds. Not hundreds of thousands. Not millions.


The total count reaches about 60,000 Arabs killed in the framework of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Among them only several thousand Palestinians, although it is because of them, and only them, that Israel is the target of the world’s anger. Every Arab and Muslim death is regrettable. And it is okay to criticize Israel. But the obsessive and demonic criticism emphasizes a far more amazing fact: The silence of the world, or at least relative silence, in the face of the systematic extermination of millions of others by Muslim and Arab regimes.


The Blood Price of the Muslims


From here on we must ask: How many Arabs and Muslims have been killed in those same years in other countries, for instance, in Russia or in France, and how many Arabs, Muslims and others, were killed in those same years by Arabs and Muslims. The information gathered here is based on various research institutes, academic bodies, international organizations (such as Amnesty and other bodies that follow human rights), the UN, and governmental agents.
In many cases the different organizations present different and contradictory numbers. The differences sometimes reach hundreds of thousands, and sometimes even millions. We will probably never know the precise number. But even the lowest agreed numbers, that are the basis for the tables given here, present a staggering and horrific picture. In addition, time is too short to survey bloody conflicts that are not even covered in these tables, although these conflicts took a higher human toll than the blood price of the whole Arab-Israeli conflict.


Algeria: A few years after the establishment of the State of Israel, there began another war of independence. This time it was Algeria against France, between the years 1954-1962. The number of victims on the Muslim side is a subject for controversy. According to official sources in Algeria it is over a million. There are research institutes in the west that tend to accept that number. French sources have tried in the past to claim that it is only a quarter of a million Muslims, with an additional 100,000 Muslim collaborators with the French. But these estimates are regarded as tendentious and low. Today there is no question that the French killed nearly 600,000 Muslims. And these are the French, who do not stop preaching to Israel, the Israel that in the whole history of its conflict with the Arabs failed to reach even one tenth of that number, and even then, according to the more severe assessments.


The massacre in Algeria continues. In the 1991 elections the Islamic Salvation Front was voted in. The results of the elections were cancelled by the army. Since then a civil war has been raging, between the central government, supported by the army, and Islamic movements. According to various estimates, there have been about 100,000 victims so far. Most of them have been innocent civilians. In most cases it has been horrific massacres of whole villages, women, children and old people. A massacre in the name of Islam.


Algeria summary: 500,000 to 1 million in the war of independence; 100,000 in the civil war in the 90s.


Sudan: A country torn by campaigns of destruction, almost all of them between the Arab-Muslim north, that is control of the country, and the south, populated by blacks. Two civil wars have taken place in this country, and a massacre, under government patronage, has been taking place in recent years in the district of Darfur. The first civil war spanned the years of 1955-1972. Moderate estimates talk of 500,000 victims. In 1983 the second civil war began. But it wasn’t a civil war but a systematic massacre suitably defined as ‘genocide’. The goals were Islamization, Arabization and mass deportation, that occasionally becomes slaughter, also for the need to gain control over giant oil fields. We are talking about an estimated 1.9 million victims.


The division between Muslim and other victims is unclear. The large district of Noba, populated by many black Muslims, was served its portion of horrors. The Muslims, should they be black, are not granted any favors. Since the rise to power of radical Islam, under the spiritual guidance of Dr. Hassan Thorabi, the situation has worsened. This is probably the worst series of crimes against humanity since WWII. We’re talking about ethnic cleansing, deportations, mass murder, slave trade, forcible enforcement of the laws of Islam, taking children from their parents and more. Millions have become refugees. As far as is known, there are not millions of publications about the Sudanese ‘Right of Return’ and there are no petitions by intellectuals negating Sudan’s right to exist.


Recent years have been all about Darfur. Again Muslims (Arabs) are murdering (black) Muslims and heathens, and the numbers are unclear. Moderate estimates are talking about 200,000 victims, higher estimates say 600,000. No one knows for sure. And the slaughter continues.


Throughout the atrocities of Sudan, the slaughter has been perpetrated mainly by the Arab Muslim regime, and the great majority of victims, if not all, are black, of all religions, including Muslims.


Sudan summary: 2.6 million to 3 million.

dm

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Lieutenant Colonel Chessani: One of Marine’s most Effective Combat Commanders in Iraq Sidelined

From Thomas More Law Center:

ANN ARBOR, MI – His official 2006 Combat Fitness Report from Colonel Davis declared Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Chessani “A superb leader, who knows his men, knows the enemy, knows his business,” and recommended him for promotion. The reviewing Major General Huck added, Lieutenant Colonel Chessani has “unlimited potential and value to the Marine Corps,” and also recommended him for promotion.

Although his superiors considered him one of the most effective combat commanders in Iraq, Lieutenant Colonel Chessani is now facing criminal charges arising out of the so-called “Haditha massacre” of November 19, 2005—even though he was not at the scene. He is the highest ranking officer charged. If convicted, this 19 year Marine veteran and the father of 5 young children, who served in the Panama Invasion, the Persian Gulf War, and three tours in Iraq, could be dismissed (dishonorable discharge) from the Marine Corps, lose all his retirement benefits, and possibly serve 3 years in prison. His preliminary hearing (equivalent of a grand jury hearing) on the charges will begin May 30th in Camp Pendleton, California.

The following are excerpts from Lieutenant Colonel Chessani’s Combat Fitness Report (a required annual evaluation of a Marine officer’s performance) prepared by his superiors for the reporting period of September 2005 to February 2006 (This time period includes the date of the incident for which Lieutenant Colonel Chessani is facing criminal charges):

• “Leads Marines from front in every operation. Demonstrates moral courage everyday. Doesn’t hesitate to report bad news fast or contest unrealistic plans/poor concepts. Despite the complexity and size of his AO (area of operations), he always maintains a calm, cool demeanor.”

• “Always seeks advantage over complex, diverse insurgent enemy. Truly one of the finer thinkers in this COIN {counterinsurgency) environment.”

• “One of the top 3 infantry/Cav Bn cmdrs of 13 who have served with RCT –2 (the regiment) during OIF. A superb leader, who knows his men, knows the enemy, knows his business. Doesn’t attract a lot of fanfare; just gets the job done to an exceedingly high standard.”

• “Long ball hitter; recommend selection for promotion to Colonel and TLS [Top Level School].”

The Reviewing Officer, Major General Huck added his comments: “Top notch officer with outstanding potential. Promote and select for TLS (top level school). Post TLS slate for Regimental command and subsequent joint tour. Unlimited potential and value to the Marine Corps. Capable of the most challenging assignments.”

The charges against Lieutenant Colonel Chessani were incited by an inflammatory Time magazine headline accusing Marine enlisted men of “massacring innocent civilians.” The story was planted by a known terrorist propaganda operative—since discredited. Anti-war Congressman John Murtha, with influence over military appropriations, in an unprecedented action, publicly accused Marine officers of a “cover-up” even before the investigation of the incident was completed. The subsequent investigation specifically found no “cover-up” at any level of command.

Nevertheless, Lieutenant Colonel Chessani was charged with failing to investigate and properly report the incident to his superiors. The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is defending Lieutenant Colonel Chessani against the charges, and believes he is being sacrificed for the sake of placating anti-war critics.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commented, “We are eating our own, and the terrorists are laughing in their caves. Because of them one of the most effective Marine combat commanders in Iraq has been eliminated by his own government. The testimony we will elicit at the Article 32 hearing, which begins on May 30th, will show just how ridiculous and politically motivated these charges are.”

The Thomas More Law Center defends and promotes the religious freedom of Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life through education, litigation, and related activities. It does not charge for its services. The Law Center is supported by contributions from individuals, corporations and foundations, and is recognized by the IRS as a section 501(c)(3) organization. You may reach the Thomas More Law Center at (734) 827-2001 or visit our website at www.thomasmore.org.

WOW!! Did you read those remarks by Lt. Col. Chessani's superiors? Why were charges filed against this outstanding Marine and why were they not dropped when it became apparent the whole story was terrorist propaganda erroneously reported by Time magazine?

Let me repeat this statement one more time to ensure everyone sees it;

"We are eating our own, and the terrorists are laughing in their caves. Because of them one of the most effective Marine combat commanders in Iraq has been eliminated by his own government.

Why are we still here and when is someone going to put a stop to this nonsense?

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Tampons in Iraq (Don't Worry, It's Clean and Good)

This came to me in my email from my friend Maria. At first, I thought it was just another joke (Maria is FAMOUS for her groaners). But it's not a joke and I just had to share. Enjoy.

********************

Don't worry, it's a good story - and worth reading - it's even humorous in parts. It's from the mother of a Marine in Iraq.

She writes

"My son told me how wonderful the care packages we had sent them were
and wanted me to tell everyone thank you.

He  said one guy (we'll call Marine X), got a girl care package and everyone
was giving him a hard time. My son said, 'Marine X got some really nice
smelling lotion and everyone really likes it, so every time he goes to sleep
they steal it from him.'

I told my son I was really sorry about the mistake, and if he wanted I
would send Marine X another package.

He told me not to worry about Marine X because every time I send
something to him, Marine X thinks it's for him too.

He said when my husband and I sent the last care package, Marine X
came over to his cot picked up the box, started fishing through it,
and said, 'What'd we get this time?' "

"My son said they had the most fun with Marine X's package.
He said he wasn't sure who we were sending the pack to, but the
panties were size 20, and he said one of the guys got on top of
the Humvee and jumped off with the panties over his head and yelled,
'Look at me, I'm an Airborne Ranger!!!' One of the guys attached
the panties to an antenna and it blew in the wind like a windsock. 
He said it entertained them for quite awhile.

Then of course, they had the tampons."

"When he brought this up my imagination just went running, but he
continued: My son said they had to go on a mission and Marine X wanted
the Chapstick and lotion for the trip. He grabbed a  bunch of the items from
his care package and got in the Humvee. As luck would have it he grabbed
the tampons too, and my son said everyone was teasing him about,
'not forgetting his feminine hygiene products.'

"He said things went well for a while, then the convoy was ambushed and
a Marine was shot. He said the wound was pretty clean, but it was deep.
He said they were administering first aid but couldn't get the bleeding to slow
down, and someone said, 'Hey use Marine X's tampons.' My son said they put
 the tampon in the wound. At this point my son profoundly told me,
'Mom did you know that tampons expand?' "

"Well, yeah!"

"They successfully slowed the bleeding until the guy got better medical attention.
When they went to check on him later the surgeon told them, 'You guys saved his
life. If you hadn't stopped that bleeding he would have bled to death.' My son said,
'Mom, the tampons sent by the Marine Moms by mistake saved a Marine's life.' "

"At this point I asked him, 'Well what did you do with the rest of the tampons?'

He said, 'Oh, we divided them up and we all have them in our
flak jackets, and I kept two for our first aid kit.' "

"I am absolutely amazed by the ingenuity of our Marines, and can't believe that
something that started out as a mistake, then turned into a joke, ended up
saving someone's life.

My sister said she doesn't believe in mistakes. She believes God had a plan all
along. She believes that female care package was sent to Marine X to save our
Marine."

"Either way, our efforts have boosted the morale of many Marines, provided much
needed items for our troops, AND saved the life of a Marine!

God bless every one of you for your efforts and hard work, and

God bless our Marines, Army, Navy, Air Force, and everyone."

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND KEEP IT SAFE!

********************

See? I told you it was clean and good!

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Liberalism vs. Islamism

By: Melanie Philips

Presentation at Neo conference, Stockholm, Sweden, 11 May 2007

First of all, let me define my terms and say what I mean by Islamism and liberalism. Islamism is the politicised version of Islam which mandates jihad, or holy war against the infidel and conquest of the non-Islamic world for Islam. I’m well aware of the argument that there’s no difference between Islamism and Islam: that’s a theological argument for others to have.

By liberalism I mean the commitment to a free society, founded above all on the separation of secular government from religious worship — from which follow the concepts of equal respect for all people, freedom of conscience, tolerance and the rule of law.

These two concepts, Islamism and liberalism, are currently engaged in a fight to the death. My argument is that liberalism is in danger of losing this fight because it has so badly undermined itself and departed from its own core concepts that it is now paralysed by moral and intellectual muddle.

Liberalism is the creed of modernity. The driving force behind the Islamic jihad is the fight against liberalism and modernity. All the iconic conflicts — Iraq, Israel, Kashmir, Chechnya, Sudan —are secondary to the fundamental aim of the jihad to prevent liberalism and modernity from destroying Islam.

The founding ideologue of modern Islamism, Syed Qutb, made clear in his writings that at the core of the salafi interpretation of Islam was opposition to the separation of religion and temporal power that resulted in liberalism and democracy. His governing impulse was the fear that the instinct for liberty was so powerful it would spread to and infiltrate the Muslim mind unless it was checked by the most repressive possible form of Islam.

The Big and Little Satans themselves, America and Israel, are proxies for liberalism and modernity. That’s why Islamism says they must be destroyed. Qutb famously went to America and concluded from seeing men and women dancing at a church hop that America was one giant brothel. And much of the bitter hostility to the Jews who started returning to Palestine in the 1920s was because the women wore shorts and were sexually free.

The Islamist goal is to destroy the virus of freedom and modernity before it infects the Islamic world, and to replace it with Islam. That is the core of the profound threat it poses to the west, a threat mounted through the pincer movement of both terrorism and cultural takeover.

This cultural takeover, or the aim to Islamise the west, was explicitly laid out in a programme of subversion for Europe by the Wahabbi Muslim Brotherhood almost 30 years ago. In 1978, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference sponsored a seminar in London which said Muslim communities in western countries must establish autonomous institutions with help from Muslim states, and lobby the host country to grant Muslims recognition as a separate religious community as a step towards eventual political domination.

In Britain in 1980, a book called ‘The Islamic Movement in the West’ by Khuram Murad advocated an ‘organised struggle to change the existing society into an Islamic society…and make Islam…supreme and dominant especially in the socio-political spheres…’ A Muslim Brotherhood document seized in Switzerland in 2001, known as ‘The Project’, outlined a twelve-point strategy to ‘establish an Islamic government on earth’. And the Brotherhood has now set up an intricate network of bodies across Europe to put all this into action.

Many Muslims in Britain and around the world are deeply opposed to this; indeed Muslims are the most numerous victims of the jihad. That’s why I use the term Islamism, to distinguish those who believe in Islamic conquest from those who merely draw upon Islam for spiritual sustenance. But at the same time, it is false to deny that Islamism is the dominant force in the Muslim and Arab world, false to deny that it is radicalising millions of Muslims in the west, and false to deny the huge inroads it has made into western society through this pincer movement of terrorism and cultural pressure.

But many in the west do deny it. They ignore the clear evidence of the goal of Islamising the west. They choose to believe instead that the reason for Islamist terror lies in the wrongs the west has done to the Islamic world —Iraq or Palestine, discrimination or Islamophobia. Indeed, even to speak in this way is to invite the deadly label of Islamophobia — a term invented to shut down legitimate and vital debate about Islamism. Far from defending core liberal values that are thus singled out for destruction, such people thus side with or appease those who attack them. So Europe — bastion of free speech — attacked those newspapers which published and re-published the Mohammed cartoons. And liberals committed to human rights march on the streets of London, behind banners saying Free Iraq and Free Palestine, shoulder to shoulder with Islamists who believe in death to gays.

Why is a liberal society so reluctant to defend its own most cherished values of freedom and tolerance? The answer, I suggest, lies both in the intrinsic nature of liberalism — and also in what I would call our dominant culture of corrupted liberalism, in which true liberal values have actually been turned on their heads.

Corruption of liberal values

Our corrupted liberal culture has torn up the key precepts of liberalism so that it no longer knows what they are, let alone stands ready to defend them to the death. Authentic liberalism was a doctrine of social progress based on maximising the good in people’s behaviour and minimising the bad. It thus depended upon making moral distinctions between good and bad.

But these distinctions have been destroyed by a combination of hyper-individualism —which grew out of liberalism — and a form of cultural Marxism whose agenda is to destroy liberal values. Between them, these trends tore up the concepts of objectivity, authority and the Judeo-Christian moral codes underpinning western values and substituted emotion, subjectivity, and moral and cultural relativism.

All lifestyles were now deemed to have equal status. Social or moral norms were intolerable because by definition they excluded by those who lay outside them. So normative values were replaced by those of groups hitherto deemed to lie outside them. Such self-designated ‘victim’ groups became unchallengeable: they could now do no wrong, while the dominant culture could do no right. And ‘universal’ human rights law became the judicial weapon for minorities to overturn the values of the dominant culture.

Under the banner of liberal values, this actually destroyed the core precept of liberalism — the distinction between right and wrong, good and bad, truth and lies. Instead, feelings and emotion became most important. The particulars of a culture were deemed hurtful and thus illegitimate because by definition they divided one culture from another. The nation, rooted as it is in the particulars of history, religion, law, language and tradition, became seen as the cause of all the ills of the world from prejudice to war. And the culture of a nation had to be replaced by multiculturalism.

Multiculturalism

Many people think multiculturalism just means showing respect and tolerance to other cultures and faiths. If that were so, it should be unarguable. We should all support respect and tolerance. But that’s not what multiculturalism is at all. It holds that all minority values must have equal status to those of the majority. Any attempt to uphold majority values over minorities is a form of prejudice. That turns minorities into a cultural battering ram to destroy the very idea of being a majority culture at all. And so, since no culture can assert itself over any other, liberalism cannot assert itself as a dominant cultural force. Instead society must fragment into a kaleidoscope of equal — and opposing —values, and liberal values must give way to their opposite.

That is what happened over the Mohammed cartoons. Freedom of expression is a key liberal precept. But under multiculturalism, that cannot trump a minority faith which holds that to publish these images is to give offence. So the minority wins over the liberal majority value, and Europeans decry not the violence and intimidation, the kidnappings, riots and murder which followed the publication of the cartoons but the offence to minority religious feelings that was given in publishing them.

Multiculturalism has produced furthermore two particularly lethal effects. First, it has left all immigrants abandoned, and none more lethally so than young Muslims. For if there is no longer an overarching culture, there is nothing into which minorities can integrate. Many young Muslims in Britain, stranded between the backward Asian village culture of their parents and the drug, alcohol and sex-saturated decadence that passes for western civilisation, are filled with disgust and self-disgust. They are then given, in our multicultural schools and wider culture, absolutely nothing to educate them about or fill them with respect and affection for the western society of which they are citizens.

Indeed, worse than that our schools fail to teach them historical truths. If they were taught the truth about, say, the crusades, slavery or the history of Israel and the Arabs — truths they will never have heard —this might make a huge difference to their attitudes. Instead, their heads are filled with distorted anti-western and anti-British propaganda which only reinforces the lies they are told in the Arab and Muslim world, deepens their feelings of grievance and resentment towards the west and further inflames their hatred of Americans and Jews. They are thus intensely vulnerable to the predatory jihadis recruiting in youth clubs, in prisons and on campus, who promise them self-respect and a purpose to life based on holy war.

Second, and worse still, multiculturalism has reversed the notions of truth and lies, victim and victimiser. Since minorities can do no wrong, they cannot be held responsible for acts such as suicide bombings which must instead be the fault of their victims. This key confusion, which has caused intellectual and moral paralysis in the west, plays directly into the pathological Muslim victim culture which makes dialogue impossible. Because so many Muslims genuinely believe they are under attack by the west, which is a giant conspiracy to destroy Islam. So they perceive their own aggression as legitimate self-defence, and the west’s defence as aggression.

This fundamental untruth has created a dialogue of the demented. Because instead of treating it as the mad discourse that it is and refusing to play along with it, Britain regards it as an extension of its own multicultural, minority rights doctrine which routinely reverses victim and aggressor. So the untruths driving the terror are merely deepened – particularly since the left, which controls British and European culture, demonises America and Israel. So the central Islamist perception of the Big and Little Satan, America and Israel, is echoed in mainstream British discourse where anti-Americanism is rampant and Israel is well on the way to being delegitimised altogether. This acts as an echo chamber for Muslim prejudice, reinforcing it and fuelling the sense of paranoia and victimisation. And it has also released the virus of Judeophobia, with claims of a world Jewish conspiracy that are a re-run of the medieval blood libels leading to rising numbers of physical attacks on Jews. Our debased liberalism thus negates the power of reason, the key characteristic of liberal thinking, promotes murderous prejudice and weakens the west in its defence against Islamism by paving the way for its distortions and twisted thinking to take even deeper root.

What are the limits of tolerance?

People say, however, that the only alternative to multiculturalism is intolerance of minority faiths and cultures. This is completely wrong. It is a false antithesis; and it betrays a profound confusion between multiculturalism, which is fundamentally illiberal, and pluralism, which is the essence of a liberal society. Pluralism allows for many different groupings but, unlike multiculturalism, does not try to impose one uniform status on all of them. It allows a thousand flowers to bloom, with minorities forming communities of faith, ethnicity or culture within a society — but under the overarching umbrella of a national identity to whose core values everyone signs up. It is only by having that overarching set of common values — monogamy, freedom of conscience, equal rights for women, freedom of expression —that a society coheres as a common project. And a liberal society is no exception. If a liberal society doesn’t accept a hierarchy of values, that there are core principles which are non-negotiable and to which everyone must sign up, then by definition it can no longer remain a liberal society but must fragment into a kind of Balkanised tribalism in which the strongest groups win through intimidation or force.

A liberal, tolerant society — which is what Britain once was — welcomes and respects minorities within the overarching framework of British values. These provide a set of cultural norms from which groupings can deviate in their own private space, provided they do not conflict with the core precepts of our society. This is the basis of tolerance — and it has a quid pro quo. Ever since the Enlightenment the deal has been that, while the state makes no demands upon minorities practising their faith and culture in the private sphere, minorities in turn make no demands that the state must either adopt their own practices or turn a blind eye where the conflict is fundamental. Minorities do their own thing, but where their values conflict with the bedrock values of majority culture – freedom of speech, monogamy, women’s rights – they must give way.

Most minorities accept this. Many Muslims accept it, and manage to reconcile their faith with acknowledging that sharia law must give way to English law and values. But a third to a half of British Muslims want to live in Britain under sharia law, even though its precepts —such as polygamy, the subordination of women or the death penalty for apostates or gays —are totally inimical to western society. And multiculturalism gives them the muscle to insist that their practices must become mainstream.

This confusion over liberalism and its multicultural antithesis is paralysing our ability to defend our way of life — and also defend those Muslims who need our protection from the Islamist threat to their liberty. In Britain, it has surfaced in controversies over the veil. In one legal case, the courts ruled that a 16 year old pupil had a ‘human right’ to wear the full length jilbab to school, even though the head teacher had banned it on the basis that it would cause other girls at the school to be intimidated and coerced into wearing it and signing up to extremism. And indeed the pupil herself was clearly being manipulated by Islamist groups. This ruling was eventually overturned. More recently, a huge debate erupted over whether Muslim women should be entitled to wear the face-concealing niqab veil in public situations such as consulting a member of Parliament, appearing as a witness in court or teaching children in class. Many thought they should not, and were promptly denounced for religious intolerance. It took Muslims themselves to point out to these muddled multiculturalists that wearing such veils was not a religious requirement at all but a wholly political act, designed to keep women servile, to intimidate the public and to recruit yet more to extremism.

What should be done, and isn’t being done

In the fight to defend the west, true liberals should face down the mind-twisting manipulation and say this: that Muslims are welcome and deserve respect for their way of life, but on the same terms as everyone else. There can be no discrimination, after all, as even multiculturalists must agree. And these are the terms laid down for everyone since the Enlightenment: that minorities are welcome to form communities of faith or culture, but they must accept that where there is a conflict with the host culture, the minority gives way. If they do not accept this but insist that the host society must change to accommodate their values, then they are by definition not moderate but extremists; not citizens but colonisers; not Muslims seeking religious freedom but Islamists seeking to destroy freedom.

And for Islamists there is no room in a liberal society. True liberals never thought they had a duty to accommodate fascism. True liberals always fought it. So must we do with religious fascism. Liberalism separates the religious from the secular; so we too must separate Muslim conscience, which we should respect, from Islamist conquest, which we must resist.

In the fight for liberalism, we must not give an inch. We must defend our society in two ways, negative and positive. On the negative side, we must stop Islamists recruiting to extremism and terrorism in our countries. On the positive side, we must staunchly reassert our own values. But we are actually doing neither of these things.

In Britain, despite some welcome success in stopping terror plots, we are doing virtually nothing to stop Islamists recruiting in the mosques, in prisons, in youth clubs and on campus. Last January, an undercover TV documentary revealed that certain prominent ‘moderate’ mosques were advocating the murder of homosexuals, the beating of women and hatred of Christians and Jews. Nothing is being done to address this.

Despite the Prime Minister’s promise to outlaw the radical group Hizb ut Tahrir (which believes that Britain should be an Islamic state), the Government refuses to do so. Yet this group is telling countless British Muslims that it’s their duty to wage holy war, and that Muslims have a duty ‘to be prepared to launch attacks on Britain from within’.

As for our values, far from reasserting them they are going down like ninepins. While our universities refuse to act against Islamists on campus on the grounds of freedom of expression, Leeds university cancelled a proposed lecture on the links between the Nazis and Islamic antisemitism after protests by two Muslim students. And after students at Cambridge university published a magazine satirising religion and which published one of the images from the Mohammed cartoons, they were disciplined by the university, threatened with prosecution by the police and forced to apologise to Muslims, Christians —and Jews, who hadn’t even been mentioned.

Above all, Britain must not allow the encroachment of sharia. Yet it is paving the way for sharia. There are now areas of the country under the informal parallel jurisdiction of sharia law. A blind eye has been turned to honour killings, forced marriage and polygamy – now polygamous men settling in Britain are even receiving welfare benefits for their multiple wives. We have sharia-compliant mortgages; our tax authorities are considering recognising polygamy for inheritance tax purposes; and the government is encouraging London to become the global hub of Islamic banking, despite the fact that such arrangements will force those who make use of them to conform to sharia law.

The problem is that we seem to suffer from the innate weakness of liberalism while failing to benefit from its strengths. Those strengths lie in its claim to universalism, its governing belief that liberty and equality are the inalienable rights of human beings everywhere. But we don’t uphold this because multiculturalism tells us it’s wrong to impose our standards on those who don’t share them.

At the same time, we have the innate weakness of liberalism in spades. We see everything through the prism of the profound liberal delusion that the world is governed by reason and that all people have goodwill. This means that liberals cannot grasp that some of the things that divide people are insuperable barriers and are not susceptible to reason. They cannot acknowledge the transcendent and irreducible nature of religious fanaticism. They think instead that everything is subject to negotiation and compromise. So their instinct is to reach out to Islamists to reason with them, to draw the poison of this extremism by giving it rewards and inducements that will play to the fanatic’s self-interest and turn him into a pillar of western society. That is why liberals do appeasement; and Britain, the cradle of liberalism, does it better than anyone else.

Liberals also think they are superior in intelligence to everyone else. So they don’t understand that the Islamists are actually playing them for suckers, exploiting the intrinsic weakness of a liberal society they correctly assess as decadent: no longer prepared to fight for its values because it no longer even knows what they are.

What we are living through in the west is nothing short of a repudiation of the Enlightenment, a repudiation of reason; and its substitution by irrationality, obscurantism, bigotry and clerical totalitarianism — all facilitated by our so-called ‘liberal’ society, and all in the name of ‘human rights’. Western liberalism now embraces its Islamist mortal enemies and attacks its American and Israeli allies in the fight to defend civilisation.

We are giving the Islamists the message that we are theirs for the taking. This is how liberalism may disappear up its own backside.

Dean

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